I never knew just how clever left-wing lawyers and 'scholars' - and their influence on the judicial branch of government in the U.S. - had gotten until I read today of a sophistic rationale that they have been using in various matters, including keeping states from enacting more stringent voter ID laws. And it is just this sort of arrant nonsense that is causing the American ship of state to cruise terribly close to the shoals of civil war.
Some background.
In the mid-'50s the Supreme Court confirmed the constitutionality of an appeal to it to ban States from engaging in de jure school segregation - that is, segregation by state law. (Brown v. Board of Education.) The constitutional rationale used was that such laws ran afoul of the 14th Amendment's 'equal protection' clause ('No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws") - that is, according to this amendment from post-Civil War days, in trying to help amalgamate the former slaves into American civil society, the State laws must be, in effect, color blind; all citizens must be equal before the law; you can't be singled out for special treatment by the law.
A couple of comments to this. First of all, I happen to agree with the decision of the SCOTUS in this matter. The Southern states had gotten around this requirement of the 14th Amendment by arguing that they were providing 'equal' educational facilities and such for black children - the same amount of tax monies as for white children's schools - just 'separate'. The judicial discussion got into the realm of philosophy, and splitting argumentative hairs - the argument, e.g., that being 'separate' was inherently 'unequal', but how did you prove that?? - but the State's argument, for 'separate but equal', came across to the SCOTUS of the day as a bit flimsy, and the majority ruled for major change in America.
Against de jure segregation in schools. Nothing was ever said, or posited, in the decision regarding de facto segregation, i.e., segregation caused merely by living circumstances. No forced busing, or equal numbers of black kids assigned with white kids in schools, or anything of the sort, was ever part of the requirement of living strictly to the law, except as required to help overcome de jure segregation circumstances. All of this sort of social thing that started taking place after that decision - e.g., busing merely for its own sake, to help overcome de facto segregation circumstances - was strictly ad hoc, never had legal requirement behind it. Although liberals subsequently certainly tried to make it look that way; tried to make the law bend over backwards to accommodate fundamental social change in America, in trying to make the 'equal protection clause' mean something more than it did. Make it mean that the law needed NOT to be color blind; needed to get involved in de facto situations as well, in order to make up for past moral disgressions.1
And the Left finally got a lot of this sort of thinking accomplished with the Civil Rights laws passed in the mid-'60s. And though Hubert Humphrey, a main architect of the initiative in the Senate, swore up, down and sideways that the laws had nothing to do with special favors for blacks - that all Americans were to be treated equal in the sight of the law - that was the beginning of a painful period of such as 'reverse discrimination' initiatives by universities, and the sort of thinking that is prevalent in the body politic today: that the law is simply whatever one can make it be, with a silver tongue and a quick wit.
We are not amused, he said, for The People. For the mainstream of the body politic. Which has been sorely put upon by these sorts of shyster shenanigans, on the part of a generation of 'legals' who are applying the 'principle' that the end justifies the means. Or in the words of Saul Alinsky (from his 'Rules for Radicals'): By Any Means Necessary.
A corrupt philosophy if there ever was one. It implies that the only form of ethics that there is is what is called 'situational ethics'. That there is nothing higher than 'the situation'. That there is no Truth. There is only the truth of the moment. In a phrase: Whatever works.
I've gone into all this, to lay the foundation for the sort of thinking that is being used by the Left in fighting off State laws that try to clean up the voter fraud 'business'.2 I had heard a little about this during the lead-up to the elections; how States which wanted to establish more stringent voter ID requirements were being sued by various groups on behalf of 'the poor'. What?? Yes, indeed; on the grounds that they couldn't afford to get such IDs, and so were being discriminated against as a class of persons. 'But there's no such law, regarding discriminating against 'the poor' as a class of persons.' 'Yes there is.' 'What??' 'Because 'the poor' are primarily made up of blacks, and Hispanics, and the aged; and you can't discriminate against them, on those bases.'
I'll cut to the chase here. This thinking is based on something (I have just found out about) called the 'disparate impact theory'; which argues that "certain practices are discriminatory if they adversely impact a minority group regardless of intent" (my emphasis).3 You heard that right (if you haven't heard of that rationale before). "So if a bank" - the article I am quoting from goes on - "has a neutral policy on credit that disproportionately affects minority customers, the liberal world view is the policy is discriminatory per se, even if there is no intended racial bias."
And just so has the Civil Rights Act of 1964 been turned on its head, and made to apply in ways never intended by its architects.
Supposedly.
I'm not going to belabor this. Just to point out where it is all heading - since it is all heading in a preconceived direction, by the leftwing architects behind it all; all this 'judicial activism' going on in our day. To wit: It is beginning to be 'discriminatory' against those with less money than others.
This is going towards 'equality of outcomes'. Aka redistribution of wealth. Going towards everybody having the same level of income; as in communist countries.4 And then nobody will be able to be discriminated against, you see.
And King Obama - our Dear Leader; who is already a law unto himself - will see to it that you don't.
And 'equality' will reign. Trumping 'liberty', as a principle, a quality, of life.
Which was foreshadowed in the liberals' arguments in the Brown v. Board of Education case. Which I accepted in principle. Except how it would be used, as a foot in the door, for more. In the spirit of a comment made in a book by Swedish socialist scholar Gunnar Myrdal - which book was presented to the Court as part of the plaintiff's case. And which said, in part: "In the battle between liberty and equality, equality is slowly winning."
And so this wasn't just about fairness.
It was about ideology.
Whereby the socialists felt, and feel, that they are "slowly winning".
And under Obama, have their great historical opportunity.
To put America under the yoke of statism. Of collectivism. Of a government that knows better for its people what is best for them.
Rather than letting them be free to make their moral choices for themselves.
As their natures - as 'spiritual beings having a human experience' - intended.
So: what's the answer.
Interestingly, it's 'a bit of both', so to speak.
Consider, that there is a Plan involved. In life itself; and in how histories unfold. Without going into great detail here, let me just sketch this picture.
Hegel was right. History unfolds according to fundamental laws of action - reaction. An historical situation develops: a thesis. It generates reactions: an antithesis. Out of the dynamic interaction between them evolves a synthesis; which, because it is is not complete, just becomes the thesis of another stage of development. And we are now at an ending stage to that historical process; a true, complete Synthesis, because the 'contradictions' have become full-blown, and are ready, and ripe, for supercession into total conclusion.
Briefly: the Right stands for the individual/individual rights and for 'tradition,' i.e., roughly, the status quo; including a religious bent of mind. (Not everybody in the camp; this is still on the level of the process, remember, with 'unfinished business' still to attend to.) The Left stands for a reaction to the excesses of the Right's presenting dynamic; so it stands for the collective/group rights, and for 'letting the old' go; including religion, its not being part of the Age of Enlightenment's freeing effects on society; the rise of science, to say, and 'reason' over 'belief', or over just good old superstitious nonsense.
Result: Conflict. But Conflict with a particular movement to it. Since the larger truth about life - i.,e., three-dimensional life - is that it is not the be-all and end-all of existence. Is part of a larger Whole. And our Science has now brought us to the brink of understanding at least a part of that larger Whole; which requires the awareness of a larger consciousness at work. A larger Mind, as it were. Which is holding the whole thing together; or, rather, making it up. And thus, there is not only a Plan involved in life. But a Purpose to it.
All of which I don't need to go into here. Here, I'm just positing the case for a breakthrough, now, of Humanity - humanity as a whole - into a new level of being. Which also involves a literally new level. As we 'evolve' out of limiting, constraining 3D existence, and move up to a higher level of consciousness - called 5D (4D 'just' an astral/emotional level on the way) - where we can inherit the results of our accomplishment, in a realm of abundance, and peace, and joy, and gratitude.
The latter quality the key to the whole thing (along with its partner, Love). For, the key ingredient that is missing in the liberals' take on life is the motive with which we humans will move into the Golden Age now upon us. Secular humanists think that people will be 'nice' without any real reason to be so. Oh, the scientific likes of Richard Dawkins posit a role for cooperation in (Darwinian) evolution, via the natural selection process. But science - true science; i.e., science with an open mind - is discovering that there is, indeed, 'something more than Man'. And it is time to put all the pieces together - the pieces of our discovery about ourselves, and about life in general. The key piece being that life has Purpose, beyond just in and for itself only. Which implies a Creator. And we can come closer to our Creator Source by sharing goods and services with one another - and giving of our best in the process - out of a higher motive than the age-old one associated with interest-bearing money, that being the concept of 'profit', as a carrot for the human animal. Out of the highest motive there could ever be, for created beings: out of gratitude to our Creator Source for life with meaning.
Out of, in a word: Love.
And it's time now to put that quality to work. As we come together, out of the disparate roles that we have been playing, and exchanging, in this drama of our making that we have been engaged in in the 3D realm of duality/polarity - and illusion - for long enough, now.5 And engage in the Great Work at hand:
the landing of the Golden Age, of long promise. As the potential outcome, of our long climb out of limited consciousness, into the light of a New Day.
That.
Or descend back into the matrix, of limited consciousness, and awareness, of what it has been all about. And treat each other as enemies.
As separate entities.
As competitors.
Rather than as parts of our Selves.
As sparks of our One Divine Source.
Willing us - encouraging us; enticing us - Home.
Enticing; as in the fruits of living one's life in alignment with our highest Selves.
Where Love commands the universe to be at our beck and call. As we move beyond the limitations of 3D life. And enter the realms of Unity.
Granted, just on the lower realms. To start with.
As we acclimate ourselves to the new heights of Being opening up to us. As graduates of the lower grades of the life process.
Once we prove ourselves ready to so ascend.
And don't blow the opportunity, by believing that we are our bodies, and minds, and emotions.
When we - We - are, rather, magnificent, multidimensional Beings of Light.
In the process of unfolding our full potential as such.
Please. Wake up to who you really are.
And save the world from a disaster in the making.
In the making of our lower selves.
Bottom feeders. Living in the dark. And thinking that it's heaven.
Get your orientation right.
And then join the exodus Up.
Out of the third-dimension matrix we have been embedded in long enough.
And into the New.
---
footnotes:
1 Whereas when you leave these sorts of social matters up to The People, they sort them out for themselves. They didn't need a federal law to desegregate major league baseball. And so forth.
All that is needed is for good men and women to rise to the occasion of their time and place, and do the right thing. Passing laws to regulate such things is to take away the rights, and responsibilities, of The People to show what they can do on their own. It's called free will, and the proper exercise thereof.
2 I came back to live in the States last year, after many years away, and was appalled to find out about the massive extent of voter fraud going on, and had been going on here. The voter rolls filled with names that were not properly identified as being citizens, only residents - if that; people capable of voting more than once; voting machines that have been proven to be tainted and unaccountable; etc. etc. etc. I refused to vote in the November 2012 elections, given these shoddy circumstances - to be a part of such a farce. It needs to be scrapped totally, or cleaned up totally. No more third world tinpot dictatorship fun and games. Or Stalin's take on the matter; who didn't care who voted, just in who counts the votes.
3 Quotes from an article titled 'JW Sues HUD for Stonewalling Records on Controversial Housing Discrimination Case' in the January 2013 issue of the Judicial Watch's 'Verdict' monthly.
4 I saw for myself the outcome of this sort of philosophy, in the mid-'80s, when I went on an organized trip to the USSR - in the middle of Gorbachev's reforms just starting to be implemented - and saw for myself how the communist system was working. Or to say, wasn't.
Queues for the simplest things. Surly clerks. Shoddy workmanship. Nobody with incentives to do things, because everybody was paid the same, regardless of how much you put into your own individual effort. The list goes on, of life in a worker's paradise.
5 And just so - by the workings of the Laws of Karma - 'liberals' of today could very well have been the 'conservatives' of their previous lives.
And additionally, while in this momentary diversion into the various roles that we have (undoubtedly) played in life: they could well now be picking up the essence of the New Age in their belief in a 'redistribution of wealth' because we are heading towards a moneyless society. (With the moneychangers no longer running the show. And good riddance, for the havoc they have created; recently, and over the years.) And so, they are not wrong, per se, in their attitude towards such a thing. They just don't have the whole picture, of how it is going to come about.
And are running the risk of inciting a civil war, by not understanding how the way you do things is 'equally' as important as what you do. And trying to make The New Age happen by statist fiat - by the philosophy of the end justifying the means, and employing totalitarian control over people - shows how limited, and unacceptable, their thinking is.
That's the sort of thinking that created the monster of the USSR, and its tyrannical leaders. And Mao. And Hitler. And Pol Pot. And......
A little bit of thinking can be a dangerous thing.
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