Colorado Springs – I got yet another email from a friend who sent me links relating to deafness that I found to be interesting and downright absurdly stupid. If there’s a moral to this article, it’s this: people are stupid.

First, from Scotland comes word that an 82-year-old man – who is blind in one eye and deaf – was clocked speeding on one of Scotland’s most dangerous roads. Maurice Hollyfield told a court he wasn’t paying attention because he had his stereo turned up loud so he could hear the music.

Hollyfield, whose left eye is made of glass, was clocked at 88 MPH by a speed camera on the A9 at Waterloo between Perth and Dunkeld. He should only have been doing 50 MPH. He apparently mistook the RPM gauge for the speedometer itself.

David Holmes, defending Hollyfield, told Perth Sheriff Court yesterday:

“He said the reason for his driving was that he was listening to loud music because of his deafness. It was a new car and the instrument panel was very different. He kept glancing at what he thought was the speedometer, but it wasn’t.”

Hollyfield, a retired engineer from Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, admitted speeding on the notorious road on April 4 and now faces banishment from Scottish roads.

Paotie’s Postscript: No word yet on whether Hollyfield actually utilizes the Braille found on drive-through ATM machines. And, stay the hell away from Scottish roads, too.

Now, for the stupidly stupid: a deaf man in Denver is suing correctional authorities because he stupidly pleaded guilty while in jail – and now blames the lack of an interpreter for his plea. A lawsuit was filed there, claiming discrimination against deaf people in Denver jails due to a lack of interpreters provided.

Paotie’s Postscript: In the first place, if you’re a 55-year-old man, you should know better than to get into a fisticuffs fight at a Greyhound station. A man at that age ought to know at the very least how the criminal justice system works. Apparently, he was in a hurry to get to his place of destination and pleaded guilty anyway.

According to the newspaper, the deaf man claims that because he wasn’t given an interpreter, he was discriminated against. He might have a point; however, because of his stupidity, he wants to blame the lack of interpreters for his own moral ineptitude. If the man really wanted to get home so badly, then he would not have gotten into a fight at the bus station. Instead, he fought, got arrested, and in a moment of sheer stupidity, pleaded guilty. And now he wants his plea removed because he wasn’t given an interpreter.

If a defendant were allowed to escape legal responsibility for his acts, merely by saying “I didn’t know it was wrong/illegal”, the system of using law to regulate human conduct would collapse.

You don’t go to jail and act stupidly ignorant and then plead guilty to a crime you committed if you’re really not guilty. And you especially don’t go to jail and act like a retarded idiot – completely incapable of communicating without ASL or an interpreter. Well, maybe I’m looking at this all wrong: perhaps the man is in the process of his Deafhood.

Stupid. I hope he stays in jail and I hope this serves as a lesson to many Deaf people: simply because you’re Deaf and need an interpreter does not give you free reign to act stupidly. If you don’t know your rights, then it’s your own damn fault – interpreter or no interpreter. You don’t get arrested and plead guilty and then later retract it and blame an interpreter for your inability to understand how the legal system works.

Willful blindness is a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable.

So, next time you’re in Scotland, stay away from them old, blind and deaf drivers. And if you happen to be arrested for fighting when you’re near the senior citizen discount age, then you’re simply an idiot. But if you plead guilty and try to take it back, you’re an even bigger stupid idiot – especially if you claim ignorance.

Stupid.

Be good .. or be good at it.

Paotie