Fairness is the soil that liberty grows from.

I watched Elizabeth Warren’s questioning of Treasury Department officials about what standard might apply to bring a financial institution under federal criminal investigation considering HSBC's actions were termed “egregious” by one of those officials and yet no criminal investigation ensued. I shared that article on Facebook and I wrote “This is leadership!” when I did. If you haven’t seen it please watch it here. http://youtu.be/9lh0cMtOHmo 

The reason I pointed to leadership was because I felt that she was asking a pertinent question and she was relentless in that question even in the face of dissembling at a professional level. I don’t blame those officials for their equivocation. They were not from the Justice department so it was not their role to make that statement publicly even if they did have an opinion. Still it was important for a Senator to ask that question. Is it not the role of legislators to say what the law is? To her credit Senator Warren was asking for guidance from this official but it was plain to see that the threshold had been met. If there is any doubt watch this. http://youtu.be/K800WHFqy1g 

 HSBC deserved to be, at least, criminally charged. If that threshold is not specified in law to a sufficient degree that Justice Department officials felt compelled to prosecute then it is contingent on legislators to give them guidance. If the legislators feel they have given sufficient guidance then they must conclude that Justice Department officials are at fault, if not incompetent. Or maybe impotent is a better word.

Why wouldn’t the Justice Department at least criminally prosecute violations of such a vast degree?

As Senator Warren points out, Justice Officials investigate actions on a vastly smaller scale all the time. She concludes her questioning by surmising that this “just isn’t fair”. I know that many in the room with her and many watching the recording or reading the transcript find that a peculiar conclusion. Fairness is a fantasy they would say. There are functional things that take precedence over fairness. They might say that leadership is knowing the difference between fantasy and reality. I say that leadership is knowing what really matters and relentlessly pursuing it even if it is hard to comprehend.

Fairness is our government’s main product. We formed this union in order to establish Justice. It is the soil that liberty grows from. People are not free to prosper in a free market unless they are assured fairness. Tranquility grows from the soil of fairness – “No Justice! No Peace!” Democracy itself is based on, one person, one vote, fairness. Elizabeth Warren was right for asking about the fairness of this situation. She was leading by relentlessly focusing on the real business of governing.

This isn’t the first time that unfairness on a grand scale has been questioned in a legislative body though. I’m certain that people have been pointing it out for thousands of years. Now that Senator Warren has asked the question out loud it remains to be seen if she will get an answer let alone be able to do anything about it. She certainly won’t be able to do anything about it by herself. She will need more than a staff and more than a caucus of like-minded legislators. She will need a majority of people. She may need a super majority! I know there are a lot of folk in our country who share my view of the fundamental nature of fairness in our society. We need to be reminded by our leaders that this is the task at hand.