SOMETIMES WRONG…NEVER IN DOUBT

Judges rarely change their minds. They often feel they can’t. When they put on their robes, they wrap themselves in a mythos of authority and certainty. They’re supposed to be distant, neutral and wise. They’re supposed to have all the answers. “Lawyers and litigants project infallibility onto judges,” (NOT THIS LAWYER says Rumpole ) says Jeremy Fogel, a federal judge in Northern California who directs the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, which provides training for every new federal judge that addresses the formidable social expectations that come with the job.

The NY Times article, which is a lengthy and thoughtful examination on judges and judging, sent to us by an alert reader, is here.

A Picture speaks a thousand words: 
These pictures and this tweet went viral over the weekend:

This is how you arrest a black man for selling loose cigarettes.

This is how you arrest a white man accused of killing nine black people in cold blood. 

Sort of makes you think.

South Carolina, where this troubled young man was raised, has the confederate flag, or some iteration thereof, flying about its capital.

Lets put an end to this nonsense right now.
The confederate flag celebrates a time in our country when white people enslaved and sold black people. Pure and simple. That is what the flag stands for. Yes, there were issues of what people call "states rights" (although metaphysically and  epistemologically speaking, States cannot have rights, only people can have rights). And if the South seceded because it didn't want federal (read  "northern") control over how it ran its business, then that's just removing by one step the issue that the South didn't want to give up its slaves.

People can celebrate how brave southern soldiers fought. But they bravely fought for the wrong cause. They fought to preserve slavery, pure and simple. It was the only issue that could not be resolved.

To to celebrate this  

because the south's soldiers fought bravely for the confederacy, we might as well celebrate this

because German soldiers fought bravely for their Fuhrer in the second world war. 
You can remember the soldiers and remember their sacrifice. But it does not require displaying the flag they fought under, for the country that advanced a repugnant idea antithetical to a country that has a bill of rights and celebrates and protects the freedom and and sanctity of the individual.  And you can use the confederate flag or the nazi flag interchangeably in that last sentence. The idea applies equally.

Make no mistake. A defense of displaying the confederate flag is nothing more than a cheap, rank, thinly disguised defense of racism.

Enough is enough. It's 2015. Take down the damned confederate flag from government buildings. If racist yahoos want to fly it from their home, so be it. Nazi sympathizers won the right to march in Illinois in the 1970's. But we are sick and tired of this ridiculous defense of the confederate flag as celebrating some noble effort. The South's effort was not noble. They fought to defend and preserve slavery. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's sophistry and blatant lies.

See Y'all in court.