Social Justice or Actual Justice For All?

Social Justice is not actual Justice.  It should not replace actual justice and the media should not take sides in helping it to do so.

What is social justice?  It is a concept that involves fair relations between various classes of society and usually involves the distribution of wealth, opportunity, property, and privileges within that society.  Social justice causes often fall into sociological categories that easily correlate to those involved in identity politics: race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, nationality. 

Justice is that which allows for fair adjudication between competing claims.  Decisions are based on rules such as the law and the Constitution that provide for fair and equal adjudication between parties without regard to a party’s identity categorization.  Hence, the concept of “blind justice”:  justice will treat all individuals equally.

Justice cares about facts; social justice cares about causes.  Here are some examples of social justice warriors bringing their cause to a case where there are facts not supporting their cause:

• The #MeToo Warriors sought to advance their cause using the allegations of sexual misconduct against then nominee and now Justice Kavanaugh.  The facts did not support their cause.  The warriors chose to deny the facts and/or find them not important.
• The anti-Conservative/anti-Trump Warriors sought to attack and silence a group of high-school boys wearing MAGA hats by claiming that the boys had instigated a racist incident on the steps of the Lincoln memorial.  When video tapes and other information did not support their claims, they ignored those facts and continued to fault and attack the boys. 
• The Social Justice Warriors who believe that Trump is the antithesis of all their causes are supportive of any actions against him.  Thus, they support the Mueller investigation in the hopes that it will destroy the President and remove him from office.  Hence, they applaud tactics used by that investigation that at a minimum push the envelope towards denial of 4^th Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure in the repeated use of gestapo-like tactics whenever someone closely related to Trump and his campaign are arrested.
• When a Black child was shot in her car and there was a White man in a pickup known to be nearby, without more the Warriors began demonstrations and claims against the White man whom they claimed was a racist and white supremacist and whom they immediately found guilty of the murder.  When facts proved that the White man was nothing more than a by-stander and that the child had been murdered by a Black man in a case of mistaken identity, the facts were again ignored. 
• The Warriors claim that Donald Trump is not qualified to be president, seemingly making one of the qualifications that the president be someone of whom they approve.  Again, they ignore the facts of our Constitution which clearly sets forth the qualifications: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”  Clearly, President Trump meets these qualifications, yet the Social Justice Warriors continue to claim he does not.

These are just of few of the more recent incidents that demonstrate that not only is social justice not the equivalent of justice, it is actually often its antithesis.  Social Justice will support lying to further its cause.  It accepts bearing false witness and accepts manufacturing facts that support its narrative and its causes.  It accepts and supports violation of our Constitution and our protected rights if those rights stand in the way of furthering the causes of the Social Justice Warriors.

This approach of the Social Justice Warriors goes hand-in-hand with identity politics that try to pit one identifiable group against another for political gain.  Identity politicians often try to pit a group that is less well-off in some way against another group with more of what the less well-off group lacks.  Socialists and Communists have long pitted the “workers” against the “bosses,” promising a better life to the workers if they will support the Socialist/Communist leaders. 

Identity politicians also pit one group against another; they convince one group that all their problems are due to another group and promise the first group that their life will be better if they support the identity politicians in their fight against the second group.   Look again at the list of social justice causes and see how they compare to identity political hatred:  race – fomenting minority anger against alleged White privilege; sexual orientation – fomenting LGBTQ anger against those whose religious beliefs, while demanding tolerance of diverse orientations do not condone such practices among their believers; nationality – fomenting anger of immigrants and especially illegal immigrants against all those who seek to contain illegal immigration regardless of their views on how broadly or narrowly the legal immigration laws should be drawn. 

Identity politics have always been with us to some extent, though I would argue that beginning with the previous administration they became a much more prevalent tactic, especially of the political Left.  But now, we have that Left using those tactics along with their claims of social justice as a way to negate a legitimate election and silence all who do not fully accept their views.  And the real victims in all of this are facts and the rule of law – the two things that are necessary for justice to prevail.

True Justice, true Fairness, requires that all be treated equally and that the rights of all, not just those of this or that favored group, be protected.  For rights to be protected, facts must be heard, verified, and accepted.  Partisans can argue over what the facts mean and what is their significance, but they cannot deny or make up facts to suit their purposes. 

The problem currently is that the partisans, with the help of the 24-hour news cycle and a partisan press, rile up their appropriate identity groups first.  Then, when facts are revealed, those facts no longer matter as the mobs scream for their latest social justice cause.  Worked into a frenzy, rationality is lost.  That is just the state that the Social Justice Warriors need their supporters to be in – a state where feelings can be used and manipulated, a state where specific identity groups can be characterized as enemies not entitled to basic rights, or to fair treatment under law, a state where the chosen identity group will believe the promises that they will have all their wants as well as needs fulfilled if they only support their social justice warriors. 

The problem with social justice and its identity political practices today is that it is by its very nature unfair.  The Social Justice Warriors believe that their chosen groups should have all that they demand while at the same time believing that it is appropriate and acceptable to silence and deny even basic rights to the groups they have designated as enemies and those not in line with their “social justice” positions.  Thus, for example, the Left assert their free speech rights, while seeking to deny free speech to those supporting the opposition – it is acceptable to silence and destroy those wearing MAGA hats, while supporting threats and attacks (both verbal and physical) by those on the Left against those on the Right.

Blacks Law Dictionary, defining law in jurisprudence, states that justice is “The constant and perpetual disposition to render every man his due.”  This is very different from rendering every person, or every person on your side only, their every desire.  Justice is fairness – to all, not just to one favored group over another.  It takes into account the actions of the individual as a person, not as a mere identity caricature.  And, it requires a respect for the facts and the law. 

Social Justice may be based on high ideals; it can be simply a partisan political tactic.  In either event, it is not a synonym for Justice.    And while Justice allows for Social Justice to push its causes, Social Justice as currently practiced does not allow Justice for all.