Mandating a Perfect World
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Posted: 10/21/08
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Mandating a Perfect World
By Thomas E. Brewton
Liberal-progressives' conception of social justice always requires
the political state forcibly to impose some form of equality.
Social justice, in the catechism of the socialist religion, is no
more than an exertion of raw power to force people to conform to what
liberal-progressives believe conditions ought to be.
Forced equality was the mode in the world's first socialist political
state, Revolutionary France. After the 1789 Revolution, France was
reeling under wild swings from monarchy, to attempts at
constitutional government, to the rule of street mobs. Matters came
to a head with the execution of King Louis XVI in January, 1793. The
Assembly's Revolutionary Tribunal and the Committee of Public Safety
announced, "It is wholly necessary to establish briefly the despotism
of freedom in order to crush the despotisms of Kings." (quoted in
André Maurois, "A History of France").
What "the despotism of freedom" meant was the bloody Reign of
Terror. The Revolutionary Tribunal, during fourteen months of
continuous sessions, condemned thousands of people to the guillotine
as purported enemies of the Revolution. Altogether, more than 70,000
French citizens – men, women, children of all ages – were murdered in
the name of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood.
Today's most common expression of social justice, espoused by Senator
Obama and his socialistic minions, is redistribution of income to
force a society in which, regardless of effort or merit, everyone has
as nearly the same income as possible.
Senator Obama's route to that version of social justice is higher
taxes on the upper end of income producers (who already pay almost
70% of all Federal income taxes), and "lower taxes" on the poor. To
say the least, this is a blatant subterfuge, because the bottom half
of all tax payers pay less than 5% of all income taxes (the bottom
third pay no income taxes at all), making it difficult to lower their
taxes. In fact, Senator Obama proposes simply to give unearned
welfare handouts to lower-income citizens, calling it tax reductions.
This sort of social justice collides head-on with the reality of
human nature, and it is directly antithetical to the Constitution.
As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 10:
"…As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at
liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as
the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his
opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each
other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach
themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the
rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to
a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the
first object of government. From the protection of different and
unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different
degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the
influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective
proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different
interests and parties."
Another aspect of Senator Obama's social justice is affirmative
action. People of favored social, economic, sexual, or racial
classes are to be given preferences over people who are better
qualified. Affirmative action can be imposed by legislative act,
bureaucratic regulation, or judicial activism.
Even though it will mean fewer jobs and a lowered standard of living
for all Americans, Senator Obama will support labor union efforts to
crimp or rescind NAFTA, stop the trade agreement with Colombia (one
of our strongest allies in latin America), and to impose higher
restrictive tariffs and workplace regulations to protect over-paid
jobs for the small minority of Americans who belong to unions.
Democrat/Socialists are unconcerned with the destructive impact of
supporting union extortion. After all, unions (especially the
teachers' unions) are one of their two biggest sources of campaign
contributions and campaign workers.
To see a reprise of liberal-progressive "hopes" for an Obama regime
that will impose radical feminist definitions of equality, read
Catherine A. Mackinnon's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455083611552585.html
For those in today's younger generation, Ms. Mackinnon's name is
likely to be unfamiliar. She burst upon the public stage in the
1970s, as another disturbing manifestation of the top-to-bottom
reorientation of society demanded by left-wing radicals of the Baby
Boomer era (among whom were Senator Obama's friends, councilors, and
political backers, Weatherman terrorist founders Bill Ayers and
Bernadine Dohrn).
According to the Legal Encyclopedia,
"Between 1979 and 1989, MacKinnon was a visiting professor at a
number of prominent law schools, including her alma mater, Yale.
Though she was a prolific writer and a popular teacher, her views and
her actions concerning pornography made her a controversial public
figure. Her radical feminist theories challenged the legitimacy of
the legal system and mainstream liberal thought. She argued that men,
as a class, have dominated women, creating gender inequality. This
inequality is the consequence of a systematic subordination rather
than a product of irrational discrimination. Thus, heterosexuality is
a social arrangement with men dominant and women submissive. Gender,
for radical feminists, is a question of power.
"In MacKinnon's view, pornography is a powerful tool of the dominant
male class, subordinating women and exposing them to rape and other
abusive behavior. In 1982 she and feminist author AndreaDworkin
convinced the Indianapolis city council to enact a pornography
ordinance that expressed their theory of sexual subordination. The
ordinance described pornography as "a discriminatory practice based
on sex which denies women equal opportunity in society," and defined
it as "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women, whether
in pictures or words," especially in a violent or degrading context.
The ordinance made unlawful the production, sale, exhibition, and
distribution of pornography and gave anyone injured by a person who
has seen or read pornography the right to bring a civil suit against
the maker or seller.
"Supporters of the ordinance argued that the legislation was a civil
rights measure meant to fight sex discrimination. In their view the
ordinance regulated conduct rather than free speech and thus did not
violate the FirstAmendment.
"The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in American Booksellers Ass'n,
Inc. v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (1985), overturned the ordinance. The
court agreed that pornography affected how people view the world and
their social relations but observed that the same could be said of
other protected speech, including expressions of racial bigotry. To
permit the MacKinnon-Dworkin approach would give the government
control of "all institutions of culture" and allow it to be the
"great censor and director of which thoughts are good for us."
Mackinnon is anxious to see a socialist majority in the Supreme Court
that will overturn the American Booksellers Ass'n, Inc. v. Hudnut
ruling and will "discover" unsuspected feminist rights that
heretofore were hidden somewhere in the deep shadows of the
Constitution.
What better route to social justice than simply to order businesses
to pay the wages liberal-progressives believe ought to be paid? to
order that women be given more than half of all executive positions?
to impose her earlier idea that all sexual intercourse, within the
bonds of marriage or not, is statutory rape subjecting males to
criminal prosecution?
Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc.
The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of
writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.
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