THE ETHICAL STANDARD OF CONDEMNATION

Condemnation has ethical force only when the standard survives a change of identity. Moral judgment becomes unreliable when outrage rises or falls according to religion, political party, nationality, race, ideology, profession, or personal allegiance. Facts properly change conclusions. Evidence properly changes conclusions. Circumstances properly change conclusions. The rule used to evaluate those facts must remain recognizable from one case to the next. Once affiliation begins determining the permissible level of cruelty, corruption, prejudice, violence, dishonesty, or government abuse, ethical judgment has been replaced by selective permission.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia expose that failure with particular clarity. They describe different forms of prejudice with different histories, targets, and manifestations. Their distinction remains important. The ethical rule governing their condemnation remains equally important. Collective blame directed at Jews is indefensible. Collective blame directed at Muslims deserves the same judgment. Dehumanizing religious stereotypes retain their character when the religion changes. Suspicion based on ancestry or worship remains prejudice when the targeted community becomes politically unpopular. Federal civil-rights enforcement recognizes religion as a protected category without assigning different legal value to different faiths, and the FBI separately records anti-Jewish and anti-Islamic bias within the same broader system for identifying religiously motivated hate crimes. (FBI)

The same ethical breakdown dominates partisan politics. Conduct that produces fury when committed by an opposing administration frequently receives explanation, minimization, procedural excuses, or silence when committed by an allied one. Corruption becomes intolerable according to the party affiliation of the official. Government retaliation acquires defenders when the target is sufficiently disliked. Executive power becomes frightening when controlled by an opponent and useful when controlled by an ally. Political violence receives language calibrated to the identity of its victim. Even documented dishonesty can be treated as either disqualifying or strategically necessary depending on whose interests the lie serves. None of those adjustments changes the underlying conduct. They reveal the evaluator.

American constitutional law contains a principle far cleaner than this partisan sorting. The Fourteenth Amendment protects “any person” from deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process and guarantees “any person” equal protection of the laws. The Fifth Amendment binds the federal government through its own Due Process Clause. Those words were written to constrain government precisely when officials, majorities, or institutions possessed reasons to treat someone differently. Due process carries meaning when the accused is despised. Equal protection carries meaning when equality is inconvenient. Constitutional guarantees lose their function when popularity becomes an unofficial eligibility requirement. (Constitution.gov)

Consistency does not require pretending that every controversy contains equal wrongdoing. Evidence can establish that one actor committed a crime while another did not. History can establish that one institution inflicted greater harm. Law can distinguish protected speech from criminal conduct. Ethical consistency requires the same evidentiary burden, the same legal rule, and the same measure of human worth before those distinctions are made. False equivalence distorts reality. Selective standards distort it too.

New York’s current dispute over the 25th anniversary of September 11 provides a severe example. Zohran Mamdani was a child when the towers fell. He later became New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Rudy Giuliani, whose public identity remains inseparable from his leadership during the attacks, has urged Mamdani to stay away from the anniversary ceremony and compared him in public remarks to the September 11 hijackers. Mamdani has said he will attend to honor the victims, their families, survivors, and first responders. (The New York Times)

The record of Mamdani’s own conduct toward September 11 deserves examination beside that rhetoric. On September 4, 2026, he signed Executive Order 21 formally designating September 11 each year as New York City’s Citywide Day of Remembrance and Service. The order directs remembrance of those killed, first responders, recovery workers, surviving families, people who later died from exposure-related illnesses, and communities still affected by the attacks. His administration stated that this was the first such mayoral action in New York City, despite comparable state and federal observances existing for years. (New York City Government)

Four days later, Mamdani’s administration released more than 170,000 pages of city records concerning the government response to September 11, including air-quality and health records that had been the subject of years of litigation. The release included the Harding Memo and other material concerning what city officials knew about environmental hazards and potential liability after the attacks. Those records have renewed scrutiny of decisions made during Giuliani’s administration. Mamdani declined an invitation from a reporter to declare that Giuliani had lied, instead saying New Yorkers should be able to examine the documents and reach judgments from the record. (New York City Government)

That sequence makes identity an especially poor substitute for ethical judgment. A Muslim mayor established the city’s first permanent Day of Remembrance and Service for September 11 and opened a vast archive concerning the health consequences suffered by responders, workers, residents, and survivors. A former mayor now facing renewed scrutiny of his administration’s conduct has argued that the Muslim mayor’s presence at the memorial itself is offensive. The relevant standard should evaluate conduct, evidence, stewardship, truthfulness, and treatment of the people harmed. Religious identity supplies no legitimate shortcut.

The same principle reaches far beyond New York. Political assassination remains political violence when the victim changes parties. An attack on a synagogue remains religious hatred when another perpetrator later attacks a mosque. Sexual abuse does not acquire a partisan exemption. Censorship does not become benign because the silenced speaker is disliked. Government surveillance does not become harmless because its target has few defenders. Civilian death does not become less grave because the dead lived under another flag. Protesters retain rights when their message causes anger. Police officers retain legal protections when public sentiment turns against them, and people accused by police retain due process when public fear demands immediate punishment.

International conflict produces the same temptation. Jewish civilians cannot be treated as embodiments of every decision made by the Israeli government. Palestinian civilians cannot be treated as embodiments of Hamas. Muslims around the world cannot inherit responsibility for al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iran, or any other government or armed organization merely through religion. Jewish communities cannot inherit responsibility for military actions undertaken by a foreign state merely through religion or ancestry. Collective guilt converts millions of individual human beings into political symbols and then punishes them for acts they never committed.

Free speech requires the same discipline. A commitment to expression that survives only agreeable speech provides little protection. Religious liberty tested only on familiar religions provides little liberty. Opposition to authoritarian government tested only when the opposing party holds power provides little resistance to authoritarianism. Standards reveal themselves under pressure, particularly when applying them costs political advantage or requires defending someone deeply unpopular.

The ethical standard of condemnation begins with conduct and follows evidence. It measures harm without consulting a party registration. It recognizes prejudice without first checking the victim’s religion. It applies constitutional protections without demanding ideological compatibility. It condemns violence without calculating whether the dead belonged to the preferred side. It examines corruption without assigning exemptions for useful officials.

A society cannot sustain justice through rotating permissions for wrongdoing. Every faction eventually loses power. Every majority eventually encounters a case in which a principle it weakened would have offered protection. Every permission created for an ally becomes available to an adversary. Ethical consistency therefore reaches beyond personal virtue. It is part of the infrastructure of a pluralistic society.

Moral condemnation carries authority when the standard can survive the identities of everyone involved. Once identity controls the judgment, condemnation becomes another instrument of faction. The ethical standard demands something harder: facts strong enough to withstand loyalty, principles durable enough to survive anger, and human worth that remains intact when affiliation changes.