To the editor:
A far-right politician in France by the name of Marine Le Pen has been found guilty of the crime of embezzlement. She will now very likely be disqualified from running for the presidency of France in 2027. (NBC News, 3-31-25)
What a simple, elegant, and historically democratic concept. You do the crime; you do the time. French law says five years. And… you are also no longer qualified to hold public office.
The idea in a democracy is this: there are plenty of other folks around who work hard to stay on the right side of the law and who can get the job done. A real democracy has no problem sharing the governing with all the well-educated, law-abiding, service-minded folks living there.
But what do we do here in the very spiritual, very technological, very powerful United States of America in the 21st century? We let a man convicted of 34 felonies hold the highest office in the land. We let a man who the law says cannot own a gun put his finger on the biggest gun arsenal the world has ever known.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Utah
