Wisdom is more chiaroscuro than prime colors
Truth and justice are characteristically earmarked by matters of degree
Constitutionally illiterate and philosophically stunted John Boehner, former Speaker of the House, maintains the following in his juvenile memoir, “You never get in trouble for something you don’t say.”
Think of the following. You are witnessing a rape. You say nothing. You refrain from reporting the rape to the police. The perpetrator eludes justice, and rapes multiple other women. Only a brute would not regret remaining silent in the face of injustice and crime. That understanding undergirds the federal misprision of felony prohibition in 18 U.S.C. 4. It provides, “Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years or both.”
Speaker Boehner predictably said nothing as the White House usurped from Congress the war power, the treaty power, the oversight power, the legislative power, the power of the purse, the power of confirmation ad infinitum creating a presidency crowned with more unchecked power than King George III exercised over American colonists which provoked the Revolutionary War and Declaration of Independence.
It is terrifying that Boehner was elected House Speaker. It is even more terrifying that his constitutionally illiteracy and moral obtuseness has become the norm for the Speakership, including the incumbent Mike Johnson. As Goethe observed nearly two centuries ago, “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”