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The Roman poet Juvenal asked: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

The shoot-’em-up action often involved what a pedantic person might call extrajudicial killings—which, coming a year after “subway vigilante” Bernard Goetz shot four young men on the 2 train, came with several suitcases of quis custodiet ipsos custodes baggage.

Interesting developments in America’s elect-your-id experiment, as the shining city upon a hill runs up against that age-old political question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Independent policing of the news has a natural appeal, but it raises the question posed in Juvenal’s Satires: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

As the ancient Romans used to say, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?