It’s Time We Eliminate the “Dark Side” Defense

I am sick and tired of mass-murderers walking free because they claim to have been “seduced by the dark side.” It’s time we eliminated this as a defense for heinous acts in our civilized Republic.

The “Dark Side” defense only benefits the tiny, already overpriviledged minority of Force-sensitives. If you’re a gunner second-class on a Star Destroyer and some Jedi come aboard, they are going to cut you down like a dog, even though you were kidnapped as a child and indoctrinated with Empirial propoganda your whole life, and often threatened or tortured to force your compliance. You had no choice but to be a gunner!

But if those same Jedi come across a Sith Lord, what are they going to do? Well, they might just let the Sith Lord cut them down, for giggles. How is that justice? But more likely they’ll try to negotiate with the Sith Lord to come back to the Light Side. “Please,” the Jedi will whinge, “All will be forgiven, I’m sure that there’s good in you despite you having just murdered an entire literal planet’s worth of people. I can feel it.”

You never see the Jedi going up to the First Mate and saying, “Hey, you were probably seduced by the Dark Side, you want a do-over?” No, that’s reserved for the worst and most powerful criminals.

And, unlike the poor Imperial soldier, the Sith Lord chose the Dark Side. Annakin Skywalker became a Sith because he was afraid his wife might die one day. What? Hey news flash, chief: everyone dies. And Kylo Ren had the two coolest parents in the galaxy, and just rebelled because he was a whiney, emo little b*. Nobody knows why Darth Maul joined the dark side but assumedly he got teased a lot as a kid because he has goddamn horns on his head and looks exactly like Satan. That’s gotta be tough.

“I was seduced by the Dark Side.” What a load of Bantha poodoo! If I get seduced by an attractive woman and she tells me to blow up a planet with an oversized turbolaser, I’m still going to prison forever. But these Force people want to excuse all their bad decisions with the “Dark Side.” What, the Force robs you of your common sense? And we’re supposed to think this is a good thing?

After the Rebellion blew up the second Death Star and killed two million conscripted soldiers who had been forced to work under penalty of death by a Sith Lord, what’d they do? Did they bow their heads for a moment to remember all those poor men and women who were enslaved by the Empire?

No. They had a big party with a bonfire to celebrate the life of Darth Vader, the man who had enslaved them. We’re told he’d seen the error of his ways, see, conveniently just seconds before his death.

It’s time we end this madness. Jedi and Sith have been protecting each other for too long, providing yet another priviledge to a group that already has too much power. Let’s call the Dark Side what it is: being a dick.