By Scott

In THE DEBT, three Israeli secret agents embark on a mission to capture a Nazi doctor who performed heinous experiments on Jews in concentration camps during the Holocaust.  The year is 1966 and the Nazi is living peacefully in East Berlin under a different name; he works as an OBGYN.  One of the Israeli secret agents, the woman of the group, must undergo examinations by the Nazi, under the premise that she is trying to become pregnant but is having trouble doing so.  The examination scenes are shot so that the viewer is gripped by the emotions of the female agent: as she lies on her back, her legs in stirrups and the Nazi’s hands feeling the inside of her cervix, the agent struggles to deal with the images of her family members who were lost in the holocaust, possibly at the very same camps at which the Nazi performed his experiments.  The viewer feels the very visceral hatred that this female agent harbors for the Nazi and her lust for his death as retribution for his crimes.  Ultimately, her mission is to trap the Nazi with her legs and inject him with a strong sedative, so that the other two agents can pick him up and then the three agents can transport the Nazi to Israel, where he will stand trial for his crimes.

This basic plot exposes a tension that runs throughout the entire movie: the agents’ desire to kill the Nazi to ease the pain that they feel over the trauma that their race has suffered is in conflict with their desire to see him stand trial, which, they think, might be an even better means of mental recuperation for the agents and for every Jew.

At one point in THE DEBT, when the three agents are under severe pressure and consider simply killing the Nazi, the more pensive of the two male agents shouts: “I want the world to know the truth.”  He shields the Nazi as the other male agent loads and then points his gun at the criminal.  There is a sense, then, that a criminal trial can somehow heal the Holocaust-induced wounds of the Jews.  More specifically, the movie proffers that there is some kind of healing that can be attained through a public trial where the world will see a very powerful truth; the movie suggests that perhaps a simple execution can’t provide that same healing.  Truth is a pervasive theme in THE DEBT.  And the criminal courtroom is the arena where that truth can best be divulged and procured.

This is in stark contrast to Thane Rosenbaum’s THE MYTH OF MORAL JUSTICE, where the author proffers that the American court room, rather than do everything it can to aid healing by exposing truth, worries more about the defendant’s right to obfuscate that very truth. The Israeli courtroom where the Nazi in THE DEBT was to stand trial was certainly not the courtroom of America that Rosenbaum discusses. And yet it is fascinating to compare the two works: one offers the courtroom as an ideal and the other as a failure.

By Chris G.

If you have turned on ESPN within the last few days, I’m sure you have heard, over and over again, the endless discussions concerning the NFL referee issue. For those who are either not big NFL fans, the NFL is currently experiencing a lockout, not of its players, but of its referees. While I won’t go into the specifics of the current referee lockout, the NFL is essentially using individuals who truly should not be involved in influencing the outcome of a high school football game, never mind a professional one. The bottom line is that the men and women (yes that is correct, the NFL is currently seeing its first female referee) who are on the field every weekend simply should not be there, and the media, fans and players alike are all searching for every reason to remove them from the game. While I certainly agree that the officiating thus far has been next to horrible (OK, it’s been terrible), and I too am longing for the reinstatement of the previous NFL referees, a recent scandal and subsequent removal of a current NFL referee caught my eye.

Just over a week ago, a few hours before referee Brian Stropolo was supposed to take the field with his officiating crew in a game between the New Orleans Saints and the Carolina Panthers, he was informed by the NFL that he would in fact not be serving as an on-field game official that Sunday. Mr. Stropolo was stripped of his duties not for a blown call from the previous week, but because he had posted pictures of himself on his Facebook page wearing New Orleans Saints apparel. Upon reading of this situation concerning Mr. Stropolo, I could not help but think of the American legal system, and the unrealistic expectations that many have in the selection of juries.

A NFL game, much like the Court, works under the false presumption that jurors and referees are what John Locke would consider “blank-slate” individuals, entirely void of any subjectivity or preferences. What the NFL and fans want is a referee who has no attachments to any teams involved, much like the Court longs for a juror who has no predispositions or feelings about the essence of the trial. In a manner comparable to an individual who is struck from participating on a jury for possible biases, the NFL removed Mr. Stropolo of his duties citing his “allegiance” to the New Orleans Saints as their reasoning. Although the NFL and the legal system would love to believe that their jurors and referees embody the essence of this “blank-slate” theory, this is simply not the case. Although many fans agreed with the NFL in its removal of Mr. Stropolo from his duties, it’s silly to think that referees do not have any affiliation or preference towards a NFL team; most referees grew up in the United States, many even playing the game of football, and you are going to tell me that none of these referees had a favorite team growing up? If the NFL doesn’t want any semblance of human emotion influencing their beloved game, then maybe robots are the way to go?

By Maria Biaggi

Ethics are defined as “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior.” So legal ethics should presumably be the set of moral principles that govern a lawyer’s behavior or one involved in the legal sector? However, the divergence that exists between the legal and the moral can be disheartening.  As Thane Rosenbaum elucidates in his book “The Myth of Moral Justice”, fundamental distinctions between right and wrong are not always the same as achieving the correct legal result.

There is often a similar juxtaposition between the right moral decision and the right business decision.  It is important to emphasize, however, that doing what is morally right can also be in the best interest of the person acting under the law.  In his article “When Capitalists Cared”,  Hendrick Smith calls on the wisdom of Henry Ford in urging business elite to stop hiding behind the political rhetoric of “job creators” and to understand that business success and it’s worker’s wellbeing work in tandem.  “[Ford] was one of the first business leaders to articulate what economists call ‘the virtuous circle of growth’: well-paid workers generating consumer demand that in turn promotes business expansion and hiring.” Smith contrasts Ford’s business philosophy with the stark change that occurred in the late 1970s.  Productivity increased by 80.1 percent from 1973 to 2011, yet average wages increased by only 4.2 percent, notes Smith.

Smith’s commentary about today’s “prevailing cut-to-the-bone business ethos” led me to think further about Milton Friedman’s article, which I read in my corporations class- “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”.  Friedman’s article appeared in The New York Times Magazine on September 13, 1970, around the time of the fundamental shift in the American business ethos as Smith describes it.   The sum and substance of Friedman’s article is that the only “social responsibility” of business is “to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.” Friedman’s use of the words “as much as possible” and the secondary significance he places on conforming to the “basic” rules of society is notable.  It is also interesting that Friedman distinguishes the basic rules of the law and the basic rules of ethical custom.  However, he neither shows concern with this distinction nor enumerates any of the laws, which businesses must conform to; it wouldn’t be profitable in conveying his message.

By Greg Cage

This week marked the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan that killed nearly 3,000 people. The tradition over the past ten years has been for public officialsto memorialize the tragedy with speeches and photo opportunities.  Butdespite the fact that this year was the first time the ceremony was held on the 9/11 Memorial Plaza, no elected officials spoke.  There were no planned readings, and the families of the victims were not limited to simply stating a name.  For the first time, the focus was solely on the victims and their families.

Some family members told stories, some read poems, others thanked the first responders and the military.  All of this had been done at other ceremonies over the past 11 years, but for the first time this was the sole focus of the event.  Each person was the keynote speaker, and families were able to remember their loved ones on their own terms, not as a prelude to a speech by someone considered more important than they were.

Our society values the input of elected officials.  The families of the victims undoubtedly want to know that the people in charge of their city, state, and country have not forgotten the people lost on that day and the lessons learned from the attacks.  They want to know that their leaders are sensitive to their loss, and will do their best to make sure that others won’t endure the same sort of tragedy.  But at times, the presence of politicians can distract from the true purpose of this type of ceremony.  Politicians surely remember the event, they speak about the thousands of people that lost their lives, and they may even pick out a specific victim and tell their story. This makes them seem connected to their constituents, and convinces people that they truly understand their pain.  But no politician can remember 2,977 people.  They can’t possibly understand the incredibly unique place each person held in the lives of their loved ones.

In any tragedy, especially one of this magnitude, it is important that our society allows the victims to have a voice.  And while that voice can at times be that of an elected official, we also must allow families to remember their loved ones in their own words.  It is refreshing that the National September 11 Memorial and Museum foundation realizes the importance of removing politics from the ceremony, even if it is 11 years later.  It is also refreshing that the elected officials who did attend, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, resisted the urge to get up on the podium. Hopefully, this new tradition of focus on the victims, and not the
politicians, catches on.