STARE DECISIS

 "Stand by things decided." That is the meaning and the import of that term. In actuality it is the use of precedent to make a legal decision, meant to stabilize a justice system, to build a lasting foundation beneath a society. It is there to fight corruption and wild claims in the courts, with precedent used to hew to a recognizable and orderly system of justice.

That is all to the good - if used to keep that society on a level keel wherein legality and morality match, sync smoothly. However, when legality and precedent are used to regress, maintain, or introduce manifestly morally wrong states of status quo, then stare decisis must be bypassed. It is not meant to immure society in a decidedly immoral bent, but rather to keep the legal morality and societal morality together. 

There are many examples where stare decisis was used improperly, blatantly immoral, and yet, based on that recognized and accepted principle of "let it stand". Nazi Germany. The USA and the Dred Scott decision. Russia under all its ruling governments for the most part and especially now, under that twisted Putin. Precedent must not be used to regress a society, to justify injustice, to separate the legally correct from the morally correct. A society that hews the wrong way is a society meant to collapse, to be denied, to be a pariah among the societies of the world.

What happens when the principle of stare decisis goes wrong? We then have a growing accumulation of openly declared fascists sitting in the highest seats of the land. We have Senators and Representatives who collude with rebels in an attempted coup d'état. We have a Party which backs a most demented, immoral President ever, cowering in fear before him, no different than any Russian doing the same re Putin. None at all. Their goal is clear, their biases revealed to all who would know the truth rather than ignore it. Extremists. Taylor Greene and Boebert. Tlaib and Omar. Jonson and Cruz. Gosar and Cotton. Blatant opportunists. McConnell, Graham and Manchin, so highly impressed by the man in his mirror. 

We have so gone wrong, this country of ours, this society of ours. We have neglected our responsibilities as individuals, for it is the people who must rule society, not the power seekers. When society goes off the path, it must be brought back. When that does not happen, well, simply look around. 

America lost its role in the world precisely at a time when it is so necessary. We have had to come from behind in the latest world crisis and there is serious doubt as to whether we can make up the difference. In fact, it is already lost in the deaths, the targeting of civilians, the carpet bombings of cities, with emphasis on hospitals, shelters, children's location. It is brutal. It is wrong. It is challenging to a world which refuses to openly face off with a bully, call his bluff, in actuality empowering him, giving him the fuel he needs, to gain the power he craves.

The tears of all should be pouring down the cheeks of all humanity. We have left a nation alone to fight off a giant led by a man with no moral brakes, a man who is now facing a growing unease in his own country: a flood of people voting with their feet as they run, rush, from Russia before they are again locked in. This is the time to strike, to lend support to those who need it. This is the time. NOW. If we miss the moment, we lose it all. 

Close your eyes and imagine being woken up tomorrow morning with the thunder of planes, with the shriek of missiles and shells, with the screams of your mortally wounded children, with the groans and open terror of your aged parents. Think! That is what took place between Feb.23 and Feb. 24 in Ukraine, a sovereign nation, invaded by a madman and all his dupes, human pawns in a deadly game of chess. An existential 'game' to determine life and death.

A brave opponent of Putin, as he is sentenced to yet nine more years for daring to stand up to Putin, says, "I want to say: the best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind words, but actions.

"Any activity against the deceitful and thievish Putin's regime. Any opposition to these war criminals."

A Jewish community official from New Jersey went to Warsaw to help refugees, says, "There's this whole sequence of being a refugee, that if you don't see it, you wouldn't believe it. I've never seen something like that in my life,"

Even as a survivor of four brutal concentration  camps is killed, murdered by Putin, fallen victim to another madman. Even as the official spoke of his own mother who also had been a refugee.

"She ran for her life. In 1939, she left a family of 12 or 13 behind in the middle of the night never saw them again. [She] had nothing really positive to say and now, here I am back in, in sort of her hometown, and I'm witnessing the ingathering and the opposite of sort of what happened in 1939 and 1940, and I think we as Americans have a responsibility to support, encourage that and try and end this conflict as soon as possible,"

When will we realize this? When will we finally understand that stare decisis here works in our favor if used properly. We need to deny one precedent of the empowering of a mad bully and six years of war. Another precedent, when the nations of the world united and took on the job that needed to be done, well, was, is, the correct precedent. It is a just and moral precedent. War crimes and war criminals, blatant, for all the world to see, and where the hell are we? We have ceded our moral right, our courage, our 'Americaness', if such a word exists. We must eschew the oh so wrong, dangerous, inimical to survival precedent of appeasement.

 Hitler/Putin. Same difference. 

 Death and havoc. 

 Blatant large scale on purpose war crimes.

 Crimes against humanity.

 The pulverization of a sovereign nation.

 In every which way one can imagine.

February 23 - February 24 - is that waiting for us? 

 Action/inaction - ???????????????