FLORES HAS A PERVERTED, HYPOCRITICAL VIEW OF JUSTICE

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

In absurd and scurrilous television commercials, the Republican Party and the handlers of Mayra Flores, candidate for reelection to U.S. House of Representatives District 34, castigate her opponent, attorney Vincent Gonzalez for following the orders of the courts which at times appointed him to defend the accused in criminals cases. 

Some of the defendants were charged with human smuggling and drug running for the cartels, sexual crimes, gang membership, and other heinous crimes. As an officer of the court, his obligation is to defend them to the best of his ability. 

Flores says that by exercising his profession to guarantee the accused a defense against the state charges, he has become a "traitor" of the people and that he worked for "them" and not for "us." 

Yet, it t's interesting that Flores, who has been one of the leading election deniers and believes that Donald Trump was cheated on his election loss and that he had actually won against Joe Biden, calls a proven liar, attorney 
Sidney Powell – who tried to help Trump overthrow U.S. democracy with his nonsensical "Spot the Steal" attempt -- a "hero."

Does she think that by overthrowing democracy Powell is for "us?" 

Here are but two examples of attorneys who took on unpopular causes and established a level of professionalism that is still admired and held in reverence not only by their colleagues in the legal profession, but by the people of the United States who benefited from the rights established and guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. Are they "traitors" to Flores, too?  

Founding Father John Adams:

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

On the evening of March 5, 1770 British Private Hugh White was under assault by a crowd of boys throwing snowballs, oysters in their shells, stones and clubs. Moments later, Captain Thomas Preston arrived on the scene along with grenadiers from the 29th Regiment. 

The soldiers formed a half circle around White, with Captain Preston standing in front of his men to keep the peace. According to witnesses, a club flew through the air striking one soldier in the head, which caused him to lose his balance, and discharge his musket. Thinking they had been given the order to fire, the other soldiers also discharged their weapons into the crowd, leaving five civilians on the ground, mortally wounded. This was the Boston Massacre.

The very next day, Founding Father John Adams received a loud knock on his door. He was asked to defend the soldiers and Captain Preston, as nobody else would take the case. Without hesitation Adams agreed to defend the soldiers and their captain.

Above all, John Adams believed in upholding the law, and defending the innocent. Adams was convinced that the soldiers were wrongly accused, and had fired into the crowd in self-defense. He convinced a jury and they were acquitted.

Clarence Darrow: "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."

The state of Tennessee passed a law making it a crime to teach Darwin's theory of evolution in public schools. 

To many, the teaching of evolution was a blasphemy against God. In 1925, when he volunteered to defend John Scopes' right to teach evolution, Clarence Darrow had already reached the top of his profession. 

The year before, in a sensational trial in Chicago, he saved the child-killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb from the death penalty. The Scopes trial would bring him even greater notoriety.

Clarence Darrow grew up in an unconventional household. His father was a carpenter and part-time undertaker in the little town of Kinsman, Ohio. He was also an atheist. "The fact that my father was a heretic always put him on the defensive," Darrow later wrote. "We children thought it was only right and loyal that we should defend his cause."

He was general attorney for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. He was making lots of money representing the powerful railroad, but he yearned to do something important with his life. When the workers of the Pullman Railway Company went on strike in 1894, Darrow resigned his job to defend them against the railroad. Over the next few years, he defended strikers, labor leaders and anarchists.

Darrow had supported the populist candidate William Jennings Bryan in his first presidential campaign. But he opposed Bryan's religious beliefs. For years Darrow had been trying to engage Bryan in a public debate over science and religion. He believed the Scopes trial would be the perfect platform for that debate.

But although Darrow's logic carried the day, the Tennessee jury found Scopes guilty and levied a small fine 

In 1927 Darrow and the American Civil Liberties Union appealed the case before the Tennessee Supreme Court. John Scopes' conviction was overturned on a technicality – but the anti-evolution law remained on the books for many more years.

Would Flores have Gonzalez throw defendants under the bus because she disagrees with the clients he defends? Would she disagree with Founding Father John Adams and Darrow for performing their jobs to the best of their ability? What's a worse crime than Trump trying to overthrow democracy? That shows the crass hypocrisy of these Republicans and of this candidate in particular.