Death Rattles and Diddly-Squat

During the Second World War, German teenagers conscripted to do espionage behind enemy lines while in civilian clothes were, pursuant to international law which does not confer protected prisoner of war status under such conditions, duly executed by firing squad. The punishment was imposed fairly and honorably, as per the universal consent of nations.

Hallowed "international law" can be a bitch.

Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, commander of the Nazi navy, including its lethal fleet of U-boats, who was appointed by Hitler to be his successor, was found not guilty of "crimes against humanity," (even though he gave orders not to rescue enemy soldiers floundering in shark-infested wars), because Americans followed the same practice.

"Precedence" is a companion bitch to international law.

Donitz's subsequent prison sentence on different charges was just one year longer than the stretch behind bars imposed recently on the NYPD sergeant, with a long record of impeccable service, who made a catastrophic split-second decision to throw a water cooler at a fleeing alleged felon on a motorbike who may have been heading directly towards other officers.

Early this past May, a retired public-school teacher died of spinal fractures and brain hemorrhage as a result of being pushing down a flight of subway station stairs in a totally random attack by a stranger whom the police had taken to Bellevue Hospital earlier that day for psychiatric observation. He was released one hour later, and almost immediately committed homicide.

He had been arrested several times recently for violent crimes, including an alleged assault of a law enforcement officer, but was not confined, and remained free to bask in the opportunity afforded by adjournment and freedom from bail.

Discretionary justice can be the most barbarous bitch of all. 

It's wielded by judges, district attorneys, psychiatrists and others who cannot be trusted to subordinate their egos and their private ideologies to the dictation of the law, medical science and the public interest. They'd rather risk sacrificing the blood of innocents.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, driven by unequal measures of empathy, righteous concern and career guardianship, called for an investigation into the abominable fiasco at Bellevue.

That's the standard paradigm for a politician who must stoke the firewood of their public image.

But no accountability lapses will be uncovered.  Everything was done "according to Hoyle," which means that official asses were covered.

Judges and district attorneys will continue to make a mockery of their mission as an oblation to their demagoguery.

Stalin's secret police chief reportedly said, "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." Show me the verdict and I'll find you the judge on any hot-button issue of controversy in our nation. 

Vindication favors the titled person whose authority is powered by bigotry.

What is the solution?  Either there's too much or too little rigidity in discretionary authority.  Both result in miscarriages of justice.

Simply bemoaning it accomplishes nothing.  Much of the arbitrary power of judges, district attorneys and psychiatrists, should be scuttled and replaced with guidelines that strike the balance between restrictive and categorical.

We should have long outgrown the childish fallacious faith in judges as superhumans with intellectual and moral discipline that supposedly inspires them to rise above their emotions.  They are neither repositories of wisdom nor model pursuers of truth.

They are often bound more by personal ideology than dictation of the law. This is reflected not only in their rulings, but in their total orchestration of the trial, with all their charges and directions.

A judge recently apologized to the suspect who allegedly, as captured on video, rushed past security at the White House Corespondents' Dinner, shot a law enforcement officer, who likely would have been killed had he not been wearing body armor, and then headed towards the room where the president and almost his entire cabinet were assembled.

It was a clear attempt to assassinate the core members of the executive branch of the federal government. We should all be horrified by this prospect, no matter how we feel about the incumbent administration.

The judge apologized to the suspect, saying he was sorry that his digs were unfitting and incommodious. He made a ridiculous comparison to the detention facilities of the Jan. 6 participants, some of whom were arguably insurrectionists and others indisputably trespassers. There's no need to humor the "justice-involved" community.

Just conduct the trial without fear or favor, being faithful only to the letter and spirit of discovered truth.

These pontifications befit neither judges, nor district attorneys.  Sometimes they trot out dogmatic justifications for refusal to prosecute offenders for sociological, rather than jurisprudential reasons.  

We used to be able to rely, with fingers crossed, on the judiciary and our elected leaders, to put their individual interpretations aside, and exemplify in their rulings, the enlightened values and lessons from centuries of societal evolution. They should embody the collective conscience of our nominally mature nation.

What has become of our laws and traditions? Death rattles and diddly-squat.

In the runup to the midterm elections, both parties are calling in their chips and counting on judges to pay them back with favorable rulings on numerous issues, such as redistricting. Districts should be determined strictly according to contiguous square mileage or some other rational geographic basis and not drawn to resemble a goofy sketch from a hallucinating storybook illustrator.

The boundaries should be logical and color blind.

Many of society's plagues are spread by people in authority who do not stay in their line.  That includes Mayor Mamdani, who acts as an expert and enforcer of what he deems "international law."

The recent epidemic of antisemitic incidents, including riots outside synagogues during services of worship, should not be blamed on the Mayor, although they correspond with his tenure and did not abate in frequency or intensity consequent to his public statements afterwards.  Although he pledged to protect the Jews from harassment, he has also doubled down on his support of the protesters' targeted rage:  Israeli settlement expansion.

Mayor Mamdani has declared Israeli policy to be a violation of international law, and therefore fair game for forceful mass reproach. 

Whether it is or is not, is neither the point nor the mayor's business.  He views global justice through a narrow angle lens.  

At first blush it would appear that the mayor is particularly galled whenever Jews happen to be caught up in highly sensitive geopolitical issues related to advocacy or defense of Israel, which some regard as their ancestral homeland. 

Perhaps that is coincidental.  He believes it is his duty to confront what he deems violations of international law, and he won't unequivocally condemn the synagogue provocateurs because they share his sense of responsibility. 

There was a lot of noise and symbolism to testify otherwise.

Although the mayor does not have legal standing as an arbiter and enforcer of international law, he has vowed to arrest the Israeli Prime Minister when he visits the city, pursuant to a warrant from the International Criminal Court. The ICC has also issued such a warrant upon the leader of Hamas.

Will the mayor arrest him under the same presumption? 

This pledge would be less controversial, and the mayor's internal ruminations less suspect, if he showed the same activism, or even potential interest in cases when other nations, with different leaders and religions, have been allegedly implicated in crimes under International Criminal Court jurisdiction.

Uganda, where the mayor held his lavish destination wedding, has been implicated in "arbitrary and unlawful killings, disappearances, torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment,"  and other documented human rights violations, including repressive child labor and anti-homosexuality laws, according to numerous sources, including the US. Department of State, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

According to Human Rights Watch, Turkey has targeted civilians with air strikes against the Kurdish minority, forcibly displacing them and seizing their property, land and businesses, persecuting journalists and committing "xenophobic violence." The massive, barbaric and grand range of abuses visited by dozens of additional nations upon their own people and innocents abroad have eluded the mayor's radar screen, and they have not forfeited the city's hospitality.

This commentary is all over the map.  Like existential injustice.