All’s well that ends well — mostly

Was the author known as William Shakespeare the same person credited with plays and poetry in his name, or was he someone else? After all these centuries, what differences does it make?

What a nuisance it is, tidying up the false attributions of history, so why bother? Injustices must be corrected, even when we've gotten used to them.

According to Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Orson Welles and many other artists and scholars, the literary genius, generally considered the greatest in the history of the world, was not the unlettered yokel from Stratford, but someone else, very possibly Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

Will the Earl finally be at rest if his legacy is acknowledged more than 400 years after his death? Will William Shakespeare's ghost be disturbed and censure betrayers of his reputation? Why not let sleeping truths (and myths and icons) lie, gathering dust as they turn to it?

Because the historical record matters, not merely to stack library shelves with moldy compilations. Otherwise, mankind's performance through the ages is merely a chronicle of legends for Hollywood studios. 

Some claims that have been set in stone need the bunker-busting bombs that are the product of inquiry, discovery and free speech.

That's not limited to literary detective work. It applies very much and too sorely to the present political landscape.

On certain issues, censors on both the right and the left," to nullify their opposers' inviolable freedom of thought. They presume and appoint themselves “masters of the high road," though they act more like bridge-guarding trolls of the Billy Goats Gruff fairy tale.

They treat the First Amendment as though they have exclusive title to it and in its name, suppress the liberties of others. When it's convenient and serves their propaganda purposes, they pull up its anchor of non-partisan protections, and refloat its definition in the murky waters of  their narrow own catechism.

The First Amendment is host to a shindig of paradoxes.

As long as the exercise of free speech means different things to different people and mechanisms of enforcement have been compromised, there can be no equality of tolerance without all restrictions being respected.

But such absolutism is impractical and anarchy tempting.

The new majority of the polarized public never learned, and likely were never taught, how to think, weigh evidence, govern their wayward, self-interested passions, and sacrifice them, when called for, to the greater good. Moral etiquette is in short-supply, especially in debates on hot-button controversies and public demonstrations.

Nobody's fooled or deterred by the porous laws that supposedly rein in our base instincts. Civility and self-regulation do not manifest themselves among ignorant sectarians.

Jimmy Kimmel's remarks in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder were revoltingly impudent, but his sacking was poorly calculated, and his spontaneous rehiring proved that the original disciplinary action was not for the stated reason. His sacrosanct right to express himself stayed intact, even as it was in effect nullified by the prerogatives of his private-sector bosses. 

If his show was losing money and had poor ratings, it should have been nailed then, not as a placating, phony, face-saving ruse of corporate indignation. Labor law and constitutional law often go more knife-in-hand than hand-in-hand. 

Does unshackled free speech inhibit or induce political violence? Is too much liberty more menacing than too little of it? Conflict is guaranteed when there are special allowances and sanctioned breaches.

Is the dream of a united society viable (or visible) anymore? Was it ever?  

The health of free speech in the UK is much sicker than here. Cops grill and arrest people for comments on social media that are more innocuous and less inflammatory than the odious violence exhorted from soap boxes that have long been considered a quaint tourist attraction in London. The equivalent here would be if SWAT teams goaded you because a confidential informant tipped them off  to the rumor that you endorsed Twinkie Cakes when the government is in the Devil Dog business.

We should be unified by our nonpareil diversity, not split by it. Could inclusiveness eventually evolve a monolithic sense of national identity, without forgoing the components of our many singular cultures? Or would it be despised for doing so.

We'd all be better off in an open society, even as targets of antagonists, than in a controlling one whose laws can be used against us when the climate turns. 

Zealous policing of free speech is an enticement to law breaking. But there are times when law enforcement must intervene to ensure we survive another day to shoot off our mouths and perhaps fine tune our ideologies.

Enter NYPD. 

Future Mayor Zohran Mamdani has vowed to dispossess police commissioners of final authority over disciplinary actions against officers and to transfer it to the Civilian Complaint Review Board under the rationale that it would likely be more independent and impartial. Will that indeed be capital punishment for the morale of officers, as the earlier elimination of qualified immunity was seen as a lethal injection against recruitment?

Nearly all 15 members of the CCRB are appointed by the mayor, the City Council and the public advocate. That's a diversity of titles but not of viewpoints. They are a chorus with few urgently needed inharmonious voices.

Could any oath compel them to rule against subjective impulses? 

Qualifications to serve on the CCRB are as stringent as being impaneled on a jury. Background checks are as rigorous as for a stock clerk checking expiration dates on shelved bags of potato chips. Neither are education credentials or psychological fitness tests required.

Who will devise the litmus test for worthiness? Hopefully not someone who equates the NYPD with the Gestapo. 

A long-cherished friend of mine, who had the forbearance of Erika Kirk and the audacity of Greta Thunberg, dropped me over this loony comparison.

Since its inception in 1953, but much more intensely since the Knapp Commission in the 1970s and Mollen Commission around 20 years later, rank-in-file officers have viewed the CCRB with skepticism, believing its findings were at least somewhat pre-ordained and driven by political agendas. 

Of course, targets of investigations sometimes have something to hide, but in recent decades, it's assuredly been generally conceded that the NYPD is not willfully blind to misconduct. Despite anecdotal evidence, there is no reason to believe that a culture of systemic corruption exists, or would be tolerated, in the present NYPD. Bad cops are anomalies.

No reasonable New Yorkers, including police officers, call for the abolition of the CCRB. They just want neutrality when the allegations are lodged. For a reconstituted CCRB to succeed, there must be confidence that its investigations will be performed without fear or favor, and never as a retributive tool.

Will the mere quantity of complaints be assumed to be measures of police integrity? Will the data regarding dispositions of cases meet the highest standard of statistical interpretation?

The Constitution recognizes the legitimacy of police power in safeguarding welfare. What redress is there in the event of accidental or deliberate lapses?

Perhaps the 17th Earl of Oxford will draft a new one for us?