There’s a lot of talk these days about progressive prosecutors who seem to be acting like defense attorneys in refusing to indict certain criminals in the name of racial equity. They’ve decided to give marginalized racial groups a pass, which I suppose is preferable to indiscriminately arresting and incarcerating Jews, Asians, Indians and white people in order to achieve a prison population more representative of America.

IF a marketplace of ideas truly exists with rational actors serving as discerning consumers, then, as we have been assured by free speech absolutists, good ideas will cancel out bad ones. If that’s true of how this marketplace works in practice, then how can the resurgence of Nazism be explained? These ideas should have been flushed away with the Fuhrer. And yet pernicious attitudes about racial superiority and Jewish sub-humanity are still being peddled in far too many circles.

The Academy Awards is soon upon us. One film that will not be walking away with a large Oscar haul is Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.” (It is nominated for three awards, none in major categories.) That came as a surprise, given the box office and critical success of his last film, “La La Land,” the size of “Babylon’s” budget, and the attractiveness and appeal of its cast, which included Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.