LEGALITY MORALITY - DOES ANYONE CARE?

  Implicit- "something suggested or not clearly defined."

Explicit - "something clearly understood."

Such a plethora of blessings for us, with both adjectives alive and well in the discussion of the title. It is a discussion that has been absorbing attention from thinkers of society, skimmed over by those who truly could care less, and thought about by those agonizing over a possible, be it explicit or implicit, conflict and what is upon them to do. How does one mesh the two, with both morality and legality intact and in sync?

The answer far too many times throughout our history has been the fact, the ugly reality, that the two concepts were not in sync Too many evildoers took advantage of that and crashed and crushed all those opposed to their rule and plans, citing twisted laws and broken morality. We thought, barring any outliers, that after the huge disaster of the conflict between legality and morality that was Nazi Germany, or a co-operative conquered nation such as France under Petain, or the quislings of Norway, after all that, it would be an assured fact that it would never return. Fat chance of that.

The past six weeks has sent a shock through the global system. Putin made it legal for his army to invade, to kill, to maim, to rape, to pillage, to kidnap, to inter prisoners in his own renamed concentration camps, now called "infiltration" camps. Similar to the 're-education' schools the Uighurs are subject to by China. The same difference as we say. Will we be subject to the same god-awful pictures akin to the pictures of Jews as walking skeletons of the Nazis? And all legal according to the laws of Nazi Germany. Just ask the judges who stated they were just obeying the law, doing their jobs. Morality? An outmoded trait, gone.

Russia and its leaders, civil and military, are accountable, should be tried as war criminals. Simple. But I will eat my hat if that ever takes place. Apparently, the International Court is only obsessed with Israel and its imagined double standards violation, with no time or energy or interest in enforcing the laws elsewhere. Thus, Russia will walk away free. Even as they continue, massing forces to complete their original goal of many years planning and invasions, of chewing away at Ukraine - to gain a clear land approach to Crimea and the Sea. A goal of any Russian Empire from the first Tzar to the current uncrowned one.

The egregious violations of morality will double and triple in their double down attempt to gain total possession of the two 'independent' States that he, Putin, declared as such. The Donbas region will be subjected to even more bombs and shellings, attacks on civilians, to suffer under the same inhumane, manifestly immoral conditions that the citizens of Mariupol are living at present. With no end in sight. With the entire infrastructure pulverized to match the rest of the country's state of being. And the world? - silent, or impotent, or supportive or any combination thereof.

While the Russian invaders are explicitly and implicitly guilty of crimes against humanity, of war crimes of the highest - or lowest- degrees, the rest of the nations of the world are guilty of implicitly confusing morality and legality. I could care less  about the borders and their one foot over the NATO line laws. There are massive violations, mass murder on a scale rivaling anything since the end of WWII. Try to disguise the truth as much as you wish, but, it is a definite perversion of legality, for immorality, crimes, are never legal, not in a truly legal world.

We, the nations of the world are standing by and allowing this to happen. Implicit? Explicit? Take your choice, but I believe it is both. Why are we standing aside once again? How many more groups of people or nations must be invaded, oppressed? What does it take to move the nations of the world off their dimes? It is manifestly immoral to allow the innocent to be slaughtered without interfering. That is a law of humanity. It is both immoral and illegal to make a new set of laws which allow for murder, rape and pillaging to be legal. Never. Not in civilian life nor in that of the military. Never. Yet - here it is once again.

The blood of our brothers, and sisters, and uncles and aunts and family of mankind, of womankind, of humankind, calls out, pleads to be heard. Will we hear or will we continue to be hard of hearing and hard of heart, weak of will and lacking in morality and courage?

I am not very optimistic here. Not at all. And if those damn shouts of DeSantis keep on reverberating within the nation, well, I never thought there could be a president worse than Trump ever again, but I spoke too soon. He is a disaster of the nth degree, a present damaging governor to Florida, an open bigot and dangerous fool, a danger to this country, one that I fear, added to the previous harm of our supposed leaders, will bring us down to the lowest point, one from which we can never recover nor rise ever again.

As a most appropriate addendum, here is a rabbi's statement as he prepared to take a trip with a group of like-minded rabbis and cantors to the borders of Ukraine, to give aid, mental, moral, physical.

"wants the refugees to know they’re not alone, that someone sees and hears them and someone wants to help.

“To be human is to feel this cry within your gut,” Salkin said. “And I hope that people will do whatever they can. Because everyone’s children will ask them at some point, ‘When did you know? What did you do?’ I want the right answer.”

Morality and legality meshing smoothly. This is what it is all about and must be what it is all about.