Social Justice vs. American Justice

I was talking yesterday to a fellow conservative and Republican about the election. I can not get over it. Some have blamed the moronic, idiot voters for this tragedy, and in my darkest moments I think about that. But then I realize that somehow it is up to us, the people who see what is going on, who have failed to inform enough of them so that they would have a better understanding of what they are doing. Oh, you can't tell the ObamaPhone woman anything, true enough. But others can learn, and desire that their children live in freedom and liberty. My Republican friend assured me that a new crop of truly conservative Republican candidates for office is bubbling up. He anticipates that we may eventually have a Hillsdale graduate for President!

Well, it made me feel better anyway.

Linda Chavez, writing at Townhall.com had an interesting article up entitled How Conservatives Can Defeat Liberalism yesterday that makes just this point, though it hasn't been for lack of trying. Reading it, I was reminded of something that I have said in the past, but that bears repeating often. Its that going after what Thomas Sowell calls "cosmic justice" is a fools errand.  So called social justice is a term that has no real meaning, and into which one can pour every injustice in the universe; thus "cosmic justice."  Had an abusive father? Social justice means that society must even that out and allow you now to prey on those who had loving fathers. Didn't do as well on the economic front as your neighbor? Social justice means the government will take from your neighbor and give to you to even things out.  "You didn't build that" is a form of social justice that implies that if you didn't build it, someone else would have, so society can take the fruits of your labor and redistribute them.  Wonder why Eric Holder dismissed a sure case against the Black Panthers for voter intimidation at that Philadelphia voting place? Social justice is the reason. Blacks, they reason, have been kept down by white racism, so turn about is fair play.

Social justice is a fundamentally socialist term. I will get to why it fails momentarily, but let us look now at traditional American political justice. I will allow Ms. Chavez to explain it to you:

The Founders believed that man's nature had two parts and that a just government accords with both: that part of man's nature he shares with all men (his natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) and that part that is uniquely and unequally his (talents, brains, motivation and so on). It follows that just government should be limited to preserving a man's natural rights while leaving him alone to do with his unique abilities as he sees fit.

So, what is wrong with social justice? If we can even out the odds, what's wrong with that? The answer lies in the limitations of man, and the limits of mankind's understanding not only of himself, but the universe.  Socialists treat people as if those who look like each other or have common characteristics are monolithic in their needs, their desires, their intelligence and talents, and thus how they vote.  It is called identity politics, and when conservatives get caught up in it, we make the same mistake that the Leftists make.  It may be true that one person who had an abusive father becomes a serial killer, but thousand of others do not.  Why?  It may be that some rich person's kid is even more talented than his father, but it also happens that many rich kids waste the inheritance left to them.  The Left explains these so called aberrations in their theory of identity politics as "false consciousness," which requires "consciousness raising."  Consciousness raising is a popular pastime with Leftists as a way to grow the number of victims, and little "two minute hates" are useful for bringing anyone who gets off the reservation and thinks for themselves back on it.

The so called rich, of course, are seen as a monolithic class as well, and in this case are the enemy of the other 99% of the population in socialist theory.  But in fact there are probably as many of more Leftists in the 1% as Republicans.  The Koch brothers on the right are matched by George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, the late Steve Jobs, as well as lesser known characters on the Left.  While Conservative millionaires are funding hospital wings and food pantries, Leftists fund Leftist think tanks and campaigns. 

As an example of identity politics, you may have noticed that when Clarence Thomas, Allen West, or other black Republicans are mentioned that the Left routinely dismisses them with something like "Yeah, but they are not authentically black."  Being "authentically black" is code for someone who thinks, and presumably votes, according to his own lights rather than following the supposed tribal interests.

On the other hand, in American political justice, everyone is treated equally before the law, but in other respects, everyone is given latitude to be him or her self.  I was reminiscing as I watched some of the great Western television shows of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the Virginian and the High Chaparral. These people were out on the frontier, where the law was barely enforced, and they had only their wits to keep them alive. Out where they could give full reign to their individualism, they used to build great ranches that fed a growing America.  What they don't show, is how many cowboys were blacks, or Asians, or Latinos, because Leftist Hollywood plays identity politics too.  What they also don't show is how many ranches owned and built by Mexicans and immigrants.  America was the place where a person could become anything.  That is the miracle of American political justice.

In her piece at the American Thinker, entitled Nightmare on Election Street, Cindy Simpson notes:

Following the election, Mark Judge wrote: "America has been fundamentally transformed. God has not." God is still watching, and the principles outlined in our founding documents remain true even though the majority of today's population fails to understand or rejects them. We realize now that our strategy must be adjusted to meet the new reality of voting demographics, but we still believe that the conservative moral and economic platform holds the key to survival and prosperity.

Obama won not because conservatism is wrong or archaic. He won because he managed to organize motley crews having vastly different motivations and backgrounds into a Frankenstein-ish voting majority. Obama's script, written by Saul Alinsky, was dedicated not to a hero of community service, but rather to the master of community organizing -- the king of bogeymen, Lucifer himself. Obama's lines, like "you didn't build that," animate his creature, inspired by "revenge," fed with freebies and led "forward" by Orwellian chains of sexual freedom.

The American Dream of becoming who you are meant to be is dead for now, as the Leftists take their "revenge" on all who they think kept them down. Of course, the only people keeping them down was themselves. Everyone struggles, and there is no sense of inevitability for anybody.  It may be true that some have a better start than others, but life itself has a way of evening things out.  No matter, it is up to us to fight this battle, while others teach a new generation the truth of the American Constitution. Maybe then America will rise again. Update: Meanwhile, J. D. Garth takes a look at secession fever that is sweeping the country, and wonders if people are serious, or are expressing extreme frustration. But the most interesting thing he wrote is:

So now it is a surprise that people are discussing secession? Hardly. When people believe that their country is being taken from them, when they think that our founding principles are being ignored, and when they think that the United States, a country they love, is being fundamentally transformed into something foreign to them, well, they may start to act a bit rashly. You'll have to forgive them for their passion.

I'm sure that liberals will claim that they love their country too. Which begs the question: if you love your country so much, why are you in such a terrible hurry to change it into something else?

I shall not hold my breath while waiting for an answer.