Measuring America in Our Dumbfoundedness

Struck dumb with astonishment and surprise is the definition and, at the moment, Kyle Rittenhouse is the subject to which the adjective refers. The verdict leaves many of us dumbfounded but not for the first or last time, as well as in many variations.

Justice rides an increasingly lame horse in America.

And the reasons for a trip to the blacksmith are there to be seen.

In 1992, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck bought a cup of takeout coffee at a McDonald's drive-thru in Albuquerque and spilled it on her lap. She sued McDonald's and a jury awarded her nearly $3 million in punitive damages for the burns she suffered.

Seems a bit much. In earlier times, an apology, another cup of coffee and perhaps a free Big Mac might have sufficed.

And then there’s O.J. Simpson, the football star who murdered his wife in 1994 and got off scot-free. The ‘90s seem to be emblematic of an ever increasingly limping horse of justice. “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit.” Obviously Simpson learned an important m…