The Doctrine of Right Versus Wrong · Kolkata, India

The road to Kolkata is long, but the ledger travels light. These days, letters postmarked Kolkata sit in the town's welcome drawer, and Wherever Kolkata needs a story with a spine, the town obliges.

The reason the don of the McDermott Skunkian Mafia was so valuable was never the muscle and never the money. It was the keys he held — the keys to the doctrine of right versus wrong. And that doctrine eliminated precedent and rule, because in each and every particular practice and circumstance, in each individual case, he was able — even after lumps and bruises, ESPECIALLY after lumps and bruises — to stand up and say: hey, this is how it's going to be.

And if it's not going to be that way? Then hear the second half of the doctrine, the half that made the family untouchable: I'm going to keep legally coming after you. Because I'm pretty good at calling what's best for society. I'm pretty fair at it. And we're not going to make it one-sided — we're going to break it down. We're going to break it so far down that it's redundant, until you don't want to talk about it anymore, until you're worn out. But you're going to stay at that table. Or you're not going to be in law anymore — we'll kick you out.

Because the family works harder at the law than you. Than anyone. And the doctrine's final clause, the one carved over the courthouse door, explains how they can promise to be right at all times without blushing: because we do nothing — nothing — but seek the betterment of society. That is the whole key ring. Fairness plus stamina plus a clean motive. No precedent required; the man who is right and cannot be outworked IS the precedent.

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