Justice is Hard

Justice is hard.

Anger and quick, emotion-based judgment is easy. Trump and his followers don’t want to do the hard work of marshaling evidence and logical arguments, which is what achieving justice requires. It is much easier to label people as “illegals” or as “criminals” and to pass judgment on them. It’s emotionally satisfying to punish the “bad guys” and that is universally what I see when MAGA talks about the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador, or the pro-Palestinian students being snatched off the streets and sent to detention centers to be deported. This emotionality also seems to be why so many people seem happy to ignore the 8th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and seem to relish the fact that this prison in El Salvador is a hellhole.

There are a number of philosophical issues to be considered here, but I’d like to focus on the two I think are most important.

The first is epistemological. How do we know someone is a “bad guy?” For MAGA and OINO (Objectivist in Name Only) folks, the say-so of the government is all they need (ironic, as many of these people used to be skeptical of the government). They act as though the authorities never make mistakes; the reality is that even when due process is followed, mistakes are made all the time. Even in murder cases, where the stakes are life and death, innocent people sometimes get convicted. The Innocence Project (https://innocenceproject.org/about/) has used DNA evidence to exonerate 250 “criminals” who’d been wrongfully convicted by the courts. Imagine the rate of error when due process is not followed! The families of several of those deported credibly maintain their loved ones are not gang members. The administration has already had to admit that it mistakenly deported an innocent family man. It is starting to look like their “method” for deciding who was a gang member was deeply flawed and that many of those deported were not gang members at all. One story in particular struck me: that of a gay asylum seeker (a makeup artist with several tattoos) who has no criminal history or known gang ties. I am no expert on vicious gangs, but last I heard, they weren’t welcoming openly gay makeup artists into their ranks. Doesn’t this man deserve his day in court? I suspect if he’d been brought before a judge and given the chance to explain his tattoos, then this particular mistake might never have been made. Due process, while a political concept, addresses the critical epistemological issue of how we know whether or not a person is guilty.

The other issue falls more into the realm of morality and politics. And here, I admit, I had to chew the issues quite a bit to figure out where I stand. I find the pro-Palestinian position to be repugnant. I think Hamas is pure evil, and I would probably find most of those defending them, or evading how evil they are, to be “bad guys.” But here’s the thing: being a bad person isn’t illegal. Nor should it be. If any of these student protesters have broken the law, then they should be arrested and judged in a court of law. If found guilty, I don’t have a problem with jailing or deporting them. But writing an opinion piece for the school newspaper or helping to organize a lawful protest does not break any laws.

I’ve read posts and articles suggesting that people who are in the country with student visas or green cards should not have the same First Amendment rights as citizens. And I admit I felt an emotional tug towards this argument. I find it offensive for someone to come to this country and then denounce it. “If you don’t like it, then why did you come here?” my inner voice asks. And that emotional part of me feels like maybe it’s okay to silence these people, so long as the rights of citizens are respected. But then my rational, analytic mind kicks in. Do I really want the government deciding what speech is acceptable? What method or process would it use to decide these cases? Can anyone make an accusation against non-citizens and have them deported without a trial?

Whenever I’m dealing with any kind of legal or political issue, I try to go back to first principles. What is the proper role of government? In my opinion, it is the protection of individual rights. If non-citizens are not breaking the law, no words that they say or write, however repugnant, are violating my rights. So the government has no business going after them. IF they have broken the law, then they need to be charged and tried like anyone else. Simply grabbing them and detaining them without formal charges is un-American and unacceptable. If we start denying free speech rights to non-citizens, how long before the authorities go after citizens as well? This might seem alarmist — except that Trump has already made threats against the “liberal” media, arguing that they shouldn’t be allowed to criticize him or Musk as they do. If we are truly to be free-speech absolutists (which Musk and MAGA clearly are not), then we need to fight for free speech rights for everyone, regardless of citizenship.

At the end of the day, I don’t want the government in the business of deciding what ideas are acceptable. That is not its proper role. Once you grant it that power, you have distorted the marketplace of ideas, just as government interference in the economy distorts the free market for goods and services. This is not just a slippery slope into authoritarianism — it is a cliff that our country is on the verge of jumping off.

It’s fine to feel our emotions about anti-American or pro-Palestinian protestors. It’s fine to feel angry at criminals and at “bad people” in general. But a free nation must be guided by reason, not by emotion. What I see coming from MAGA and OINO folks is all emotion. Don’t get swept up in it. I am reminded of a line from one of my favorite poems, “If” by Rudyard Kipling, and I urge you to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.”