The Power Hungry Are Never Satisfied

I want to begin by recommending the well written and highly thought-provoking article by Mark T. Mitchell entitled The Death of God and the Death of Higher Education. LINK HERE 

I want to use one paragraph from that article as the jumping off point here.  That paragraph reads:

This quest for power is the characteristic feature of modern “higher” education. Students are taught that the world is divided into various groups whose primary identity is reducible to power differentials. A common pursuit of truth is replaced by overt and covert power struggles. In this new and barren world of power, the pursuit of the good, true, and beautiful is replaced by grievance and accusation. Concerted efforts to locate and correct injustice (a concept derived from a theistic account of the world) have been replaced by sweeping claims of “systemic” injustice, in which the entire civilizational edifice must be destroyed in the name of justice. But justice torn from its theistic grounding is merely a blunt instrument of power disguised in the moral language of a rejected world. Such a notion represents a self-refuting enterprise that will usher in not justice but unrestrained power cloaked in the God-haunted language of equality, social justice, and anti-racism.

I find this to so clearly encapsulate the social culture in which we are living today.  Everywhere one turns it seems to be all about power, with those in charge disguising their hunger for power as some sort of humanitarian and social justice that must be complied with to avoid showing yourself as some sort of anti-humanitarian who must be cancelled from the approved culture.

               Ramping-up Hatred

What are identity groupings about other than to create one group that holds power over another?  Rather than see all humans as one’s brother, identity politics teaches one that they are either a member of a victim group or of an oppressor group.  The oppressors are accused of working to maintain their own power and are encouraged to apologize for and relinquish it, while the victim groups are led to hate and attack their perceived oppressors in an attempt to obtain more power for their own group and then to wield that power over other groups whom they are taught to hate.

The President, who ran on the promise that he would unite us as one, has instead ramped up the identity hatred.  Now we have government programs that specifically exclude one race from their benefits, simply because of that race.  When we did similar things to Blacks a century ago, this country worked in a bipartisan fashion to correct that and treat all people as equals, regardless of race.  But now that those in power can benefit and retain their power by pushing identity hatred, they argue that the same sort of discrimination is OK because they have deemed the White race, against whom these new laws discriminate, to be members of an offensive identity group solely because of their race. That is racism pure and simple, a hatred created to benefit not the oppressed, but those currently in power.

Democrats claim that this discrimination is humanitarian and equitable.  It is anything but.  It is not humanitarian or just, but simply an ugly power grab based on hate.

               Silencing Voices and Facts

Those in power (including government, big tech, and corporate America) can tighten their grip on power if they silence opposing voices.  So we have cancel culture in full force, not based on facts, not based on equity or fairness, not based on humanitarian ideals, but simply on exercising and retaining power.

Consider the Georgia voting law.  It actually increases opportunities to vote, especially for rural and minority voters in that state.  Despite it being the very opposite of Jim Crow, President Biden, most Democrats, most of the mainstream media, many corporations are calling it just that.  Their claims are lies. 

Anyone who does even a cursory reading of the Georgia law will see that, contrary to our President's assertion, the new Georgia voting law does not prohibit giving water to voters waiting in line; rather it requires that poll workers be the ones to distribute it.  It also requires all 159 counties to have at least one vote drop box for mail in ballots.   It expands early voting access for most counties. It does require verification of identity for those requesting and returning mail in ballots which does not deny authorized voters the right to vote but does insure the integrity of their vote.  This is all a far cry from the Jim Crow label that the Democrats including the President and many in the media have placed on it.

But facts do not matter to those who are governed by their own quest for power.  The lies about the Georgia law have been exposed.  Nonetheless, led by the lies of the President and his urging, MLB has pulled the All-Star game from Atlanta.  That of course will hurt the largely Black population there, so the lie-based grab for power is hardly done in the name of standing for minorities or humanitarian efforts in their behalf.  It is simply a show of power and a punishment for passing a law that requires more standards of election integrity than would benefit those seeking to retain and strengthen their power.

The power hungry do not care about facts or about the consistency of their own values.  When it was convenient to attack the Trump administration the Democrats and their cohorts the mainstream media, big tech, big corporations, were all about decrying deplorable conditions at the border.  Now, when the border crisis is over 100% worse than it ever was under Trump (or any other president) these same people don’t even notice.  Trump was bad.  Biden was good.  Only facts supporting that narrative will be acknowledged.

               Powerful Join Forces Against Individual Rights

There is a frightening coalescence of government with private sector as both seek to cement their hold on power.  For example, President Biden cannot Constitutionally require “Vaccine passports” for internal movement of our citizenry.  But rather than stand for the Constitution and its protections for the people, he instead is urging big business to create such requirements, something that they can and likely will do.  They can withstand those who oppose such curtailment of our rights, and the President and the rest of the Democrats can deny responsibility but retain power.

Similarly, corporations make statements, cancel or refuse to sell certain products including books, make hiring decisions, censor, and take other actions based on the pronouncements of the “woke” Left.  Their actions, many of which would be unconstitutional if done by a governmental entity, are allowed because they are not the government.  Yet their actions are supportive of and fully in sync with those holding office and seeking to keep it and the power that goes with it.

               Equity Is Not Equality

Equity and fairness are not equality.  It is the equality, the extent to which it exists in this country as well as this country’s continued aspiration to ever improve its existence for all, that makes this country what it is.  Being equal, having equal opportunity, does not mean that results will be equal.  It does not mean that life will be fair.  But it does mean that everyone will have a fair shot at being the best they can be.

Equality does not divide people into identity groups, some of whom are given more equality than others.  Today this is being done in the name of things like “systemic racism” or similar perceived systemic injustices.  I have yet to be convinced that such systemic injustice exists, but if it does, it will not be cured by creating new systemic injustices.

               It’s Really All About Power, Not Humanitarian Ideals

I also have yet to be convinced that this president and his progressive administration really give a damn about any of the causes they claim to be pursuing for humanitarian or social justice reasons.  This is the party that created a minority underclass in our cities, dependent on, and therefore voters for, Democrat power. 

This is the party that is creating dangerous and inhumane conditions at our southern border while claiming that opening the borders is somehow humane.  Tell that to the trafficked children, to the Americans who are being displaced from jobs and homes and other due to the influx of illegal migrants that cities and towns simply cannot handle. 

Tell that to the taxpayers and to the next generations of taxpayers who cannot pay for these inhumane policies.  Just as they cannot pay for the trillions of dollars in spending that is supposedly for the good of the populace but in actuality simply furthers the power goals of the progressives.

It is not humanitarian to deny human individuality.  That is what cancelling those who disagree does.  That is what perpetuating lies does.  That is what identity politics does.  And that is what we are teaching our children to do:  deny human individuality, indeed make those who do not somehow benefit you and your power into inhuman caricatures and place them in a group that you can then justify as worthy of inhuman treatment. 

Power is a heady thing, and those who hold it right now seem to be willing to do anything to keep it.

 

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.