Wheels Turning

 We are being asked, periodically at least, to put our trust in the courts. We should put faith in a legal system that, for the most part, delivers justice. 

Rather than get stuck on the competing trials of Trumps and Bidens, let's wind back the tape a bit, shall we?

How about the financial crisis of 2008? One person went to jail for the bursting of the housing bubble. U.S. banker  Kareem Serageldin was sentenced to thirty months in prison and agreed to return twenty-six million dollars in compensation to his former employers, Credit Suisse. The rest of the financial world was handed a great big government bailout. Six million Americans lost their homes. Eight million lost their jobs. 

One guy went to jail. 

Fast forward again to the nearly present: Mark Fuhrman, former Los Angeles Police officer, who was one of the initial investigators in the OJ Simpson murder case and later found guilty of lying under oath was barred late last week from being a law enforcement officer in the state of California. The lie which Mister Fuhrman told the court was that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs over the previous ten years, but a recording made by an aspiring screenwriter showed he had done so repeatedly. This, in turn, uncovered an ugly streak of racism that ran through the entire Los Angeles Police Department. For his part, Fuhrman "retired" from the force back in 1995. This most recent hearing just made it official that the now seventy-two year old former officer never could be one again. When reached for comment by the Associated Press, he responded, “That was thirty years ago. You guys are really up to speed.”

Which I suppose is the lesson we are learning. Justice takes time. And we shouldn't confuse it with revenge. That's what bad guys do.