Why do we think it's a terrible idea to reform justice?
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Is it because it's working as intended?
Really?
For whom?
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Is it because no one is qualified to criticize justice except justice's own?
As if, institutions that police their own, (i) by charter, never serve and protect their own, (ii) through oversight, never guarantee their own immunity, (iii) by deed, never ignore their own manifest dishonesty and corruption. Not a single board. Not a single association. Not a single organization or body or authority.
Because amateurs are unfit at best and incompetent at worst, but
professionals are above reproach?
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Is it because it's as it should be?
For "receivers" of justice:
The imprisoned should be dispossessed of liberty, forever? Because the "right" of victims, principal or incidental, is the "right" of vengeance?
The formerly incarcerated should be denied dignified employment, forever? Because the "right" of communities, of the decent and good, is the "right" of retribution?
The adjudicated should be disenfranchised of the right to vote, forever? Because the "right" of the people, (yours or mine or theirs?), is the "right" of reprisal?
As for "functionaries" of justice:
Prosecutors should be bloodthirsty? Because the law exacts retaliation?
Judges should be callous? Because the law promises indifference?
Surrogates should be pitiless? Because the law suffers clemency never?
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Is it because no one is as faultless as justice's own?
As if, (i) there has never existed a surrogate who erred, (ii) there has never existed a judge who abandoned neutrality, (iii) there has never existed a prosecutor who misrepresented. Not a single fact. Not a single truth.
Because sympathetic interests are illiterate at best and delusional at worst, but
functionaries of justice are honorable to a fault?
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What if this isn't about opposition or reform?
What if this is about loyalties?
And self-preservation?
And winning?
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Because, in the end, what if this isn't about justice at all?
What if this is about narratives?
About:
the decency and goodness of the loyal? the constant threat of treachery by the policed? the indispensable courage that wins the war for peace? and
what's right and what's wrong?
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Moreover, what if opposition to reform justice, is therefore, a proxy?
Like so:
(i) an imminent existential danger by reform and its proponents, is publicly pitched as the brave heart of opposition,
(ii) while such heart's shadow campaign executes with purpose, a laundry list of objectives that secure loyalties and indulge narratives
(iii) advantageous to hiring, electing, and appointing its own functionaries of justice
(iv) whose power to decide what's right and what's wrong, every decade past, present, and future,
(v) is what opposition to reform is the proxy for.
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Thus, opposition is a proxy for control.
From narratives to laws.
Such that a message the public believes about winning the war for peace, for example, is nothing more than a tool of tools.
Venal and mercenary.
To pave paths without obstacles.
To be the law.
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Until every functionary who opposes judicial reform, law reform, police reform, prison reform, leniency reform, and so on,
is the law.
From the bench, book, badge, and so on,
every servant of the people.
As if,
after all is said and done, to be hired, elected, or appointed to serve,
is to self-serve.
Because it is so and so it is. And never mind any and every opposing opinion on the matter. Because the deciding opinion
is the law of the land.
More
Because the deciding opinion is the law,
let's acknowledge:
(i) judges are hired, elected, or appointed to be deciding opinions;
(ii) and insofar as supreme courts choose the cases that appear before them, these too are deciding opinions;
(iii) likewise, offices of prosecution choose the cases they present, the charges they file, the cases they drop, the convictions they review, and so on;
(iv) and insofar as sheriffs and police chiefs, whether hired, elected, or appointed, lead their institutions, they also exercise deciding opinions;
(v) and insofar as each and every cog in the justice system, performs a role as a functionary of justice, each and every cog in the justice system, exercises deciding opinions, too;
(vi) including elected officials who pardon wrongdoers of wrongdoing, as a matter of prerogative and opinion, that is, divine right cum partisan conviction.
- M.
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Addendum
When a citizenry falls asleep at the wheel, with respect to civic participation in civic discourse, the course that is championed and reinforced, is, too often, neither "decent" nor "good."
Such that when "a noble cause" or "a just war" sucks all the oxygen from civic discourse, the "conversation" that ensues is a sham.
In other words:
when we're oblivious and we couldn't give less of a shit; or when we're overwhelmed by sufferance and disillusion; or when we're howlers of absurdities, idle and incoherent; or so forth,
what fills the void in the absence of a citizenry's whole and hale engagement, is a discourse calculated to further that which is venal and mercenary.
Such that the "conversation" that follows isn't that of a real cause or a real war, so much as a created fiction.
Because amplifying and echoing calculated discourse is part and parcel to a laundry list of objectives that secure loyalties and indulge narratives advantageous to exercising power without opposition.
For to the asleep at the wheel, go neither what's decent nor what's good.
- M.
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Note
When a whiff of maybe there's room for fairness here, begets death threats, what excites such rage?
Likewise, when a whiff of maybe there's room for scrutiny here too, evokes ireful pique, what excites such performative hostility?
Whether the audience flame-soaking is for, is "in on the joke" or not,
it's not decency or goodness.
Please.
Furthermore, when, for example, originalists for divine right, endlessly campaign for justice to be both aped with a wink and enforced with an unyielding inhumanity,
it's not decency or goodness whose deciding opinion has been, is, and would be the law.
As if, "what's right" and moreover "what's just," is the created fiction that a vote for pique and an act of partisan conviction, has been, is, and would be a vote for "dignity" and an act of "grace."
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Case in point:
The recent use of one phrase to represent another, from an explicit revelry at a sporting event, to a lit representation of a Christmas spirit, to a parting salvo on a Christmas Eve, for example.
Insofar as what's obvious must be decrypted: decency and goodness are not what, say, flame-soaking is for.
When a citizenry asleep at the wheel, roars and applauds
conduct defended as "acts of free speech" that "should not only be condoned, but honored" in a free and fair democracy, such that any criticism of, say, flame-soaking and its concomitant revelation of "unimpeachable heroism," "should not only be shamed, but reviled" as a hypocrisy,
none the wiser that tools make tools of a citizenry,
what's lionized isn't what's right and what's just.
Please.
- M.
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A brief annotation
(i) "Because amateurs are unfit at best and incompetent at worst, but professionals are above reproach?" is not my opinion, per se,
so much as a rationalization, popularly circulated in opposition to reform, that anyone who criticizes is an "amateur," "unfit at best and incompetent at worst."
Likewise, "Because sympathetic interests are illiterate at best and delusional at worst, but functionaries of justice are honorable to a fault?" is not my opinion, per se,
so much as a mockery, popularly circulated in opposition to reform, that to find fault signifies a "sympathetic interest," "illiterate at best and delusional at worst."
(ii) "Because the law exacts retaliation," "Because the law promises indifference," "Because the law suffers clemency never."
are not only meant to convey "it is what it is" and "therefore it is done;"
these are also meant to convey that the law is a person, who is "objectivity personified," instead of a tool, crafted to be "interpreted" by deciding opinions, including, divine right.
(iii) "the decency and goodness of the loyal? the constant threat of treachery by the policed? the indispensable courage that wins the war for peace? and what's right and what's wrong."
Obviously, these are examples of "narratives," as aforementioned by "What if this is about narratives?" and not my opinion, per se.
Likewise, "an imminent existential danger by reform and its proponents, is publicly pitched as the brave heart of opposition" is not my opinion, per se,
so much as an objective of objectives executed with purpose that secures loyalties and indulges narratives.
(iv) "decent," "good," "a noble cause," "a just war," and "conversation" from Addendum (above)
are further examples of aforementioned "narratives," coded with meaning beyond literal, including created fiction, and executed with purpose, including as tools that make tools of a citizenry;
see also Note (above).
(v) "The recent use of one phrase to represent another, from an explicit revelry at a sporting event, to a lit representation of a Christmas spirit, to a parting salvo on a Christmas Eve, for example."
refer to conduct not limited to a backdrop of audible spectators to an interview with an auto race winner, a theme of a lighted boat parade entrant, an amended holiday greeting during a Santa tracking livestream, and so on;
etc.
- M.
