WHERE LAW ENDS (tyranny begins)

"The final question our investigation pursued was whether the president had obstructed justice before or after our office was up and running. The facts here were no less appalling although we had not indicted the president or, frustratingly, even taken the final leap of putting a label on what the facts added up to (italics added).

Instead, our report set out numerous episodes that provided clear evidence against the president, However,we were forbidden from indicting him for these crimes (italics added), as we were employees of the Department of Justice and bound to follow an internal Department policy that no president could be indicted while in office--whether we agreed with that rule or not.

Given this idiosyncratic circumstance, Mueller had decided it would be unfair to say that we found the president had committed a crime, as Trump would not be able to challenge our conclusion in court, at least until he left office. Thus our report laid out the proof of his criminal conduct in detail (italics added), but did not give our legal assessment of it--we never said outright that he'd committed a crime. Instead, we had left it to Congress to make its own assessment of our evidence, or to another prosecutor in the future, who would be free to indict the president once he'd left office..."

(from the author's introduction to Where Law Ends; Inside the Mueller Investigation by Andrew Weissmann, Random House, NY, 2020)

This is walkingwithwarner,blogspot.com at Warner's World ...

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE COMMON GOOD?

 Michael Sandel gives is the following information in a chapter entitled RECOGNIZING WORK (published 2020). People without a college degree could find good paying jobs from World War Two into the 1970s. They could support a family comfortably and live a good middle-class life."Over the past five decades, the earnings differed between college and high school graduates--what economists call the 'college premium'--has doubled. In 1979, college graduates  made about 40 percent more than high school graduates; by the 2000s they made 80 percent more.'"

From 1979 to 2016, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United 'States fell from 19.5 million to 12 million, but productivity increased and workers reaped a smaller share of what they produced. Simultaneously, executives and shareholders captured a larger share. In the late 1970s, CEOs of major American companies made 30 times more than the average worker and by 2014, they made 300 times more. 

Per capita income increased 85 percent since 1979, yet white men without a college degree make less now than they did then. What this has been saying louder and louder is that the work of the working man is less valued by the culture than that of the man who gets an education and works with his brains. Thus, the idea has begun to say over the past several decades that the market legitimates lavish rewards winners based on the merit of their deserving to be where they are. It also says to the losers that they are responsible for where they are and deserve what they get. We now have a meritocracy based on personal responsibility and we get what we deserve and what this really means is that the winners take all and deserve their reward. Onm the other hand, it also means the losers deserve to be losers and they don't count.

What tis all really means is that we no longer have any value for the common good and we are victims of our own sorting system in which the winners take more and more and the losers receive less and less--we have reverted back to the law of the jungle that is SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST and the eventual destruction of social structure and society.

Darren Walker, President of Ford Corporation, calls Sandel's writing a seminal  work. The Tyranny of Merit detly exposes the flaws and fallacies of meritoratic philosophy and suggests Sandel makes a compelling case for uprooting inequality and building a fairer society shaped by true principles of justice, which I would suggest are found only in the Biblical faith of Christianity.

Preet Bharara, former attorney for the southern district of New York, calls it a must read and describes it as a revelatory assessment of pervasiveness unfairness in our society, driven in part by a naive and myopic reliance on the notion of merit. Over and over, we are confronted with what's become of the common good?

If you  be believe in liberty and justice for all, you will want to read Michael J, Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit, published by Farar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2020.  This is walkingwithwarner,blogspot.com

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"I FORGIVE YOU''

“I kept hoping that she would regain consciousness,” lamented the EMT following the death of the victim.  “I wanted to tell her that she could see her grandson.  I wanted to tell her that I forgave her.” 

Crewmembers scrutinized the face of this former GI, a one-time Golden Glove champion, and a Twin Cities EMT.  He had the reputation of being a no-nonsense kind of guy. While fellow crewmen searched his face for some indication of a joke; they watched in silence, until they saw him stand up, turn away, and quietly mutter “that’s my mother!” 

Gary’s dad and mom divorced long ago. His alcoholic mother had turned her two young sons over to community foster care and Gary had not heard from his mother in twenty-six years.  He only met her now quite by accident, while making an emergency run searching for an accident victim. Any whispering remnants of hidden hope for a family reunion stayed locked and deeply buried in the steel vault of Gary’s hardened heart. 

Feelings festered with infection  were buried deeply and long forgotten. What might have could never be. Yet; “It was strange“ he mused; “She never called me once in the twenty-six years since I’ve been out of the military service, but in her purse she had pictures of me and some stories about me that were written when I was boxing fourteen or fifteen years ago” (Saint Paul Pioneer Press/11-18-1996).

Forgiveness is essential to the recipe of human relationships. Any recipe calling for lasting relationship requires at least  some element of forgiveness. Acts of intentional forgiveness are essential to our recipe simply because relationships by their very nature remain imperfect at best. Seldom can a relationship mature without some kind of meaningful communication  that delivers the three essential words—"I forgive you.” 

No communication will inject more meaning into a relationship than the simple, forthright confession that affirms “I forgive you.” No verbal or written  communication can convey the message in fewer words. “To err is human” concluded Alexander Pope when writing “The Eternal Now” but “to forgive is divine.” Thomas Fuller agreed, it is “the worst of men … who will not forgive.”           

Searing winds of hostility scatter storm clouds of distrust and hatred across the face of our globe. Angry attitudes, resulting from unforgiving spirits, create broken relationships and scatter them like burning embers. Such ongoing experiences forever justify our determined embrace of negative feelings while our tensions escalate and quickly sour, leaving us hostage to our infected feelings that cannot be cured without being confessed. 

No investment we make, can-or-will pay a greater dividend, or create greater peace-making skills, than to reach for a personal reconciliation. If we could but resolve our relational problems of marital discord, racial strife, and social tension, we could eventually resolve our global issues of ethnic cleansing, genocide, poverty, and peace. 

Paul, the Christian Apostle, may have known more than we give him credit for, when he exhorted his readers to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Eph. 4:31 NIV). As the Society of the Saints, we can neither escape nor ignore this existential imperative, without great personal risk. 

Forgiveness remains our most essential ingredient for building healthy relationships in today’s global community. Forgiveness paves the highway into the land of healthy living and builds foundations for healthy living. It mends broken fences; it heals wrecked relationships. It sustains marriages. It builds communities and injects extraordinary infusions of  wholesome living into ordinary congregations, transforming them into happy hearts, loving relationships, and healthy families. 

From  Warner’s World, this is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

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CONSCIENCE

 Conscience is thus the inner man's recognition of what is essential 

for the preservation and development of that for which constitutes 

his real life. (76/Rufus Jones/RUFUS JONES SPEAKS TO OUR 

TIME, Ed by H E Fosdick/McMillan/NY)