Outraged or shocked at Casey Anthony verdict? Think again!

Social media is abuzz with condemnations for Casey Anthony. Celebrities are tweeting their outrage while media pundits from Joy Behar to Bill O’Reilly air their displeasure with the Anthony verdict. The court of public opinion had Anthony convicted and all but executed. Anger toward Casey Anthony united this country like nothing since Pearl Harbor. How could the jury disagree with the majority? But disagree they did.

The prosecution couldn’t produce sufficient evidence to erase the jury’s reasonable doubt about how Caylee Anthony died, or at whose hand. So Casey will go free, in complete agreement with America’s judicial system.

We the people empower the State to execute offending citizens, or imprison them for life. To balance that power, the State must bear the burden of establishing guilt. Were accusation, or public opinion, the primary evidence for determining a person's guilt the right to life, our most basic liberty, wouldn't exist. A State-induced, mob mentality would serve America no better than it did Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or Islamic caliphates.

Yet the calls for Casey Anthony’s head are myriad. From Twitter to Facebook the protests rage, virtual vigils are held, and Casey Anthony is strapped into an imaginary electric chair. She knows whether or not she killed her daughter. But the State didn’t prove her guilt to the jury’s satisfaction. So Casey will be freed. There is no appeal, no re-trail. She cannot be “subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”

I didn’t follow the Casey Anthony trial. I think publicly airing criminal proceedings cheapens our courts and transforms them into quasi-reality dog and pony shows. Courts are serious, not a judicial version of American Idol. Their purpose is to try the charged and determine guilt or innocence to the greatest degree possible within an imperfect, human system. Most of the time they work. Sometimes they fail. That’s life; get over it. When courts become public entertainment they’re no longer tools of justice and tranquility, but of tyranny.

Nothing in Casey Anthony’s acquittal indicates she is guiltless. Casey prefers partying to parenting. She’s a maternal nightmare, similar to Susan Smith and Andrea Yates, and exceeds the Octomom for irresponsibility. She’s no matron of motherhood. But for many of Anthony’s detractors, condemning her for considering Caylee an inconvenience is somewhat hypocritical. Why is a child’s death, for the sake of convenience, considered evil only when it offends the public?

More than a million babies die for the sake of their mother’s convenience every year. Had Casey Anthony aborted Caylee she would’ve been a heroine to the pro-abortion activist. The only difference between Casey Anthony’s alleged crime and an aborted pregnancy is the timing. The underlying attitude is the same. At least Caylee’s accused killer stood trial. Where’s the media, celebrity, and public outrage for the unknown babies sacrificed to convenience in abortion clinics every day?

Another interesting twist on the Anthony verdict is the eagerness with which her detractors want her punished. The nation is angry at Casey Anthony. Therefore, she should fry like scrambled eggs. But the condemnations contradict the normal attitudes our social superiors have towards accused, and even convicted, murderers.

Many of Casey’s harshest critics are altogether opposed to capital punishment. When an accused murderer is convicted, activists demand tolerance regardless of either the perpetrator’s brutality or prior record. Social activists excuse duly convicted murderers as products of an unjust society. They piously remind those of us in the great unwashed about the danger of executing an innocent person, even when the condemned has been tried and found as guilty as John Dillinger.

Those voices are quiet in the Casey Anthony aftermath. Or, they have joined the self-righteous calls for Casey’s guilt and execution. And they hold this opinion about someone who was tried and exonerated in criminal court? It's a double standard that defies all reason.

Blatant inconsistencies are evident in the public's reaction to Casey Anthony acquittal. The State didn’t convince a jury of Casey’s guilt, meaning she's innocent. Calling for her head is an affront to our fundamental liberty. Abortion activists believe pregnancies represent an inconvenience to women. Yet they're angry toward Casey Anthony for, allegedly, considering Caylee a drain on her lifestyle. And “open-minded” opponents of executing duly convicted murderers are convinced that an exonerated defendant should bite the dust.

The nation's reaction to Casey Anthony's exoneration confirms that a lack of consistency is the only constant in contemporary public discourse.