During the O. J. Simpson trial I met one of his defense attorneys at a dinner party. I asked if he thought Simpson guilty, and he said positively not. Later, during a general discussion of the case, he said the murders were, finally, a tragedy; perhaps even more so in the case of Ron Goldman, who was an innocent victim. We all nodded.

Why did we nod? As we knew it was true. What did we all — including the lawyer — know to be true? That Nic­­ole Simpson was murdered by her ex-husband; and Ron Goldman was — not more innocent (both were innocent victims), but more luckless, as he was collateral damage. To what? To the murder of Ms. Simpson. That this was the assailant’s motive was never questioned; neither was the lack of questioning remarked.

Some defended Simpson’s innocence as a matter of intellectual superiority, some as racial politics, but no one doubted — though they might assert the contrary — that he was the murderer.

How do we know? No one, private citizen or public figure, celebrity or Just Plain Joe, demanded that the LAPD continue to search for the “actual” killer. No one. He was already in custody. The mountain of evidence inculpating Simpson could not be denied. The defense could only attempt to discredit it. So the world was treated to a yearlong media circus, which, as the absurd elaboration of “the presumption of innocence,” became the mockery of justice.

But the question, hidden in plain sight — as the defense attorney’s comment — was: With such an overabundance of evidence, mightn’t his supporters have pressed for a search for the real killer? That would have been the simplest way to exonerate Simpson; but those on his defense team couldn’t suggest it, as all the evidence indicted him, and no one but him. Why did none, even of his most ardent supporters, press for a continuing investigation? We know why. It would have been absurd.

How far will the public ratify absurdity? Far enough to destroy Mark Fuhrman, a dedicated homicide detective, who had the bad fortune to be on the crime scene; but not far enough to call for a continued search for a murderer already in custody.

I’ve been rereading Joe Wambaugh’s superb police novels. He was a 14-year veteran of the LAPD detectives.

The Blooding (1989) is nonfictional, an account of a series of ghastly rape-murders in Leicestershire, the murderer caught by the first use of DNA “fingerprinting.” His DNA was matched to semen found on the victims.

But if women can “identify” as men, and change their birth certificates and driver’s licenses, will police be obligated to investigate potential perpetrators of rape who are, biologically, women? Might “biological” women, now calling themselves men, object if they, lacking an alibi, are excluded from a list of potential rapists? Is this absurd? It’s not more absurd than, as a means of exonerating a blood-soaked murderer, spending a year determining whether or not Detective Fuhrman once said “n***er.”

Many years ago I heard a fellow interviewed on NPR. He was an advocate for the mentally retarded. He was appalled that they did not enjoy full equality. Well, the interviewer said, let’s agree that in some circumstances they should be treated specially. For instance, a court cannot sentence a person with diminished capacity to death. That’s just my point, the advocate said, “why are they denied that penalty?” I didn’t make it up. Given time and will, you can locate it in the NPR archives.

The Left insists that the mention of “the n-word” is an affront to black Americans equal to murder. Is my assertion absurd? The Simpson case demonstrates it is not. He murdered two human beings, but Mark Fuhrman’s use of “the n-word” (incidentally, in a discussion with a writing partner, about the script for a cop show) convicted Fuhrman and freed Simpson.

To compound the absurdity, the Left’s asseveration that blacks are so fragile that a word can destroy them would seem to be based upon genetics: a black, that is, being one who had a “certain amount” of African DNA (N.B. as do most of us) and was, thus, permitted to allege exemption based upon this disability. But the racial exemption does not extend to those of undoubted African genetics and background should they declare themselves conservative. Thus black American thinkers Candace Owens, Shelby Steele, Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, and Samantha Marika are canceled as “white supremacists.” In what, then, does this fragile black genetic victimhood consist?

How does a virus know that one was sitting down at a restaurant and, so, exempt from the requirement of a mask, while one walking into the restaurant had to wear one, although he was maskless from the parking lot to the restaurant door?

Who, however liberal, could complete this sentence: “The three things I most admire about Joe Biden are . . .”? Even the staunchest Democrat must attempt a response beginning with “Uh . . .”

No one admires anything about him. And yet supposedly rational people will vote for his reelection in spite of the ruin his administration, its handlers and dupes, have made of the country.

How will the police do their job when the most obvious and irrefutable of divisors is deemed taboo: When a suspect cannot be identified as male or female, the search for criminals will have been made exactly twice as hard.

We do not live in an absurd world; the physical world functions along discoverable lines — the search for which is called “science.” But we humans careen through this logical world crazed as June bugs; this is the lesson not only of The Far Side but of the Bible.

But at street level, finally things must approach cause and effect. Someone, however enlightened, who held that no actions are inherently good or bad would find an exception if the response were a punch in the nose.

World War I anti-German sentiment renamed sauerkraut “liberty cabbage.” But no shopper ever would have called it “liberty cabbage,” as he knew it would have branded him a fool. And cops on the street will find a way, however the culture degrades along sexual lines, to communicate to each other the actual sex of a suspect or “person of interest.” As to omit the description would be to double their workload. Would you needlessly double your workload?

You might appear to, in a bureaucracy, which in its most perfect state is all make-work, but the saving grace of make-work is that it need only appear to be done, as its actual shirking (though a professional risk) could have no actual effect upon the product, as there is no product.

The Emperor certainly has no clothes, and the Fat Lady, like Elvis, has left the theater; but what of the world’s most useful phrase, “Wait a minute . . .”?

Compulsion (1956) is a novel by Meyer Levin and a film based on that novel (1959). It is a fictionalized rendition of the Loeb-Leopold murders of 1925. These were two wealthy, deranged thrill-killers, caught for the murder of their 14-year-old schoolmate Bobby Franks. They were defended by Clarence Darrow (“the Patron Saint of Lost Causes and Lost Cases,” but that is a story for another day). Orson Welles portrays Darrow in the film, and E. G. Marshall, the district attorney.

The murderers, Leopold and Loeb, concoct an alibi: that, on the day of the murder, they were out joyriding “with a couple of doxies.” They vow that they will both stick to their story, and so can, effectively, stand as each other’s alibi.

Marshall’s district attorney separates them, and, in time-honored fashion, convinces the Leopold character that his partner has rescinded his alibi account and denounced Leopold as the murderer. Leopold begins to rail against Loeb, saying, “He promised to stick to the story! And, p.s., HE killed the kid!”

The thrill-murderers have found themselves in that classic situation known as “the prisoner’s dilemma.” If both suspects keep mum, they will both go free. However, either can turn, denounce the other, and save himself if he acts first. They are separated, and neither knows what the other has done or is likely to do. But imagine this: What if our two prisoners are innocent but, absent their solidarity, circumstantial evidence will convict them? This, if I may, is the situation with which the Reasonable of today are faced.

We may stand for reason in the face of unjust, loathsome (and, in fact, absurd) accusations; or we may indict our fellows as a prophylactic, and hope for the best.