Our current leadership holds its position of power because a thin majority the United States  seemed willing to override real evidence of crime with “pardons of denial” when it came to voting in the last election.  Perhaps the denial phase in our history is receding as it appears our lower courts cannot actually operate without the defining role of authentic evidence and offering respect for the American jury that decides guilt or innocence. We can only hope the Supreme Court will eventually reconsider its support of the lower courts whose judges and juries live in the line of fire of real life in the United States. The succession of pardons of denial for people who were convicted of real crimes based on legitimate evidence by American juries has been devastating for the faith of US citizens in the future of our own jurisprudence.  The twist of setting aside the evidence of conviction to allow for the prejudice of political support has been the most damaging aspect from this cannon shot at American Justice.

In another dimension of American life the conflation of opinion and scientific evidence that currently is allowing measles and other dangerous diseases to wrestle out of the restraints of vaccination is just another version of what is happening in our courts and public settings.  “Magical Thinking” was lots of fun in the Harry Potter series but was never meant to replace the hard slow discipline of generating legitimate scientific or legal  evidence.  Yet, in some ways magical thinking is replacing even the hard data of economics and other gold standards of evidence that actually once did make this country great. 

A Modest Proposal for Good

The Presidential Pardon was meant as a humanitarian accent mark in the law that allowed a President to pardon persons for whom the justice was clearly blurred by corruption, overt prejudice and or the initial evidence had changed to bring into question the verdict. The Pardon was never meant as a casual tool to release people who might be useful for the political and private ends of the president and his party.  But here we are. The first step back to good could be to do a reset on justice allowing a return to our nation’s commitment to support the generated  evidence in relationship to the laws of the land in courts bound by those laws and undergirded by due process.  The second step will be to place people in responsible cabinet level positions who have at least some authentic legal, science or other relevant background and experience allowing them to accurately interpret the data generated by the science and economics. Magical thinking in these dimensions coupled with power equals corruption.  Returning to the true standards of evidence will be  only the first steps to good, but that said   . . . the reformation would be a very good start.