Humankind are creatures of community and community is what we are primarily about. Sustaining that community requires that its members perceive the way things are done is fair. Of course, the meaning of fair is subject to dispute, wherein lies our political rancor. However, it seems obvious that one characteristic of fair is that whatever is done, it is done openly. That openness demands that everybody has a chance to challenge the outlines of the outcomes. It is only such openness that has any chance to produce an outcome that everyone (nearly) can accept.

No free and fair society exists when people can be subject to arrest and detention at the arbitrary decision of a single person or group of persons. No free and fair society exists when a person does not have the right to answer charges against themselves in the open (a court of law). No free and fair society exists when even the evidence of alleged crimes cannot be confronted, indeed even known. No free and fair society exists when even the evidence of alleged crimes can be constructed from secret denunciations, inadvertent associations and god only knows what else. Continue Reading »