Badfellas

We have been witness to the USA flaunting elemental standards and legal principles in recent years. It has arbitrarily imposed its will and wishes on nations and individuals. The fundamental principles that have existed since the Magna Carta have been perverted. We have entered a very dangerous time and the danger will remain long after the soldiers drag their tired bodies out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tyranny flourishes unbridled in the world of street gangs, organized crime, and in fascistic dictatorships. Those with the most violent means rule. They use fear to impose their will on others. There is no notion of democracy, justice, or fair play. Imagine a world run by the Mafia or the Hell's Angels.

The modern world has developed systems and legal principles to ensure that power cannot be used arbitrarily. The founding fathers in America developed a system where checks and balances prevent any individual or group of individuals from exercising arbitrary and tyrannical power. But, as we have seen in America and in other societies, a determined group of leaders can run roughshod over these legal principles and render them meaningless.

There may be some good that comes out of these dark days. Bitter experience may provide us with wisdom if we examine the causes and take steps to prevent future recurrences. The bitter experience of the Nazi horror of the 30s and 40s have provided us with insight and legal principles to help prevent the same thing from happening again. The arbitrary abuses of monarchs through the ages have provided us with the wisdom to embrace democratic principles. Tyrants have compelled us to covet and embrace freedom.

And now, today, we have yet another horrific series of episodes ongoing. We must find the gold in this cesspool of murder, torture, and oppression.

Resuming the Authority of Law

When authority is abused there must be a means to deal with that. We must develop the means to stand up to the war pigs and the cruel tyrants of the world. We must develop an international body based in strict legal principles and unwavering responses to ensure that no person must endure the pain of helplessness in the face of cruelty. If an assessment indicates that there is a moderate or high risk, the authority of the offender must be curtailed or removed.

Generally, the state and state functionaries have no problem is stripping power that has been granted to people that are otherwise powerless. Parents, for instance, and especially parents with little economic means, may have their authority over their children removed if they abuse that privilege. In cases where the risk of abuse or neglect is assessed to be high, parents may lose all their authority and the children may be removed from the home. While this example may not be ideal, it makes the point. And the point is, those granted with power and authority must be curtailed if they abuse what has been granted to them.

Then there is George W. Bush and the American State. They can do what they want with impunity. They thumb their noses at the law and run amok like the genuine gangsters they are. And the rest of us sit back and watch, hardly able to digest this grotesque display of murder and mayhem. Helpless.

But we are only helpless because we believe it is so.

We only need to return to the most basic notions of universal justice to remedy this situation. To take a step back. The alternative is a future of savagery.

The stripping away of capricious and arbitrary rule for those that abuse it is a principle that must be universalized. No society and no person should be afflicted by the horror of being forced to live under their cruel dictates of an abusive tyrant. If a police force or a police officer tends to abuse Asian or Black people, the force must be altered to the point the risk is either low or non-existent. If an individual officer does it, he should no longer have that power. If a teacher abuses students, his or her power must be removed. And so on.

And if a state deems itself ruler of the planet, we must have the courage to not only remove them, but to install systemic processes that will prevent it from happening in the future.

As it is, the United Nations and the World Court are ineffective and that must be changed. The influence and power that some nations have at the United Nations renders the organization toothless. The status quo is not protecting people from terror and abuse.

The United Nations and World Court must be endowed with a strict set of legal principles regarding governance of nations, waging war, and the abuse of power. It must not be subject to political meddling. It must be endowed with the means to strip away power from the individual or set of individuals that have used their priviliged position to bully societies and individuals. America must be unseated from its assumed throne. And all other tyrannical states must be called to answer for their crimes. We do not have to tolerate this.

We simply cannot accept a future where those with the most firepower, money power, and psychotic minds get to rule the rest of us. It is the stuff of nightmarish futuristic fiction. But it is not fiction. We have entered the nightmare. The line has been crossed.