Comments
THE VIEW FROM HERE - We already have some thought patterns, which if we follow, could dig us out of our morass.
(1) One should critique his own side before criticizing the other side.
Only people deluded enough to think that they have all the answers refuse to recognize that their side gets a lot of it wrong.
(2) We have simple formula to treat people decently. Each person has inalienable right including life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness and government’s function is to provide the context for individuals to make a decent life.
Some people forget that as soon as Jefferson declared inalienable rights, he said that government’s purpose is to help everyone exercise those rights. In other words, the great American experiment is one of cooperative effort of mutual support. Without laws and regulations, society will not function and no one will benefit from inalienable rights. Also, we are a republic, where the rule of law is supreme. We are not a democracy, where the whim of the voters is the supreme law. Thus, Declaration and the US Constitution set some basic guide rails for us.
(3) America has no group rights. Individuals have the right to belong to any non-criminal group they wish in private, but those private associations are irrelevant in public. The government has a duty to leave voluntary groups, e.g., religion, alone as long as they are not criminal and to insist that their private doctrines do supplant the secular government. Until the religion of Wokeism came upon us, we did pretty good at separating religious ideologies from government. Fascism, Communism, and Wokeism all follow a religious pattern and are secular cults which can destroy a nation.
Predatory Nation
The problem with individual inalienable rights is our society makes two errors: (1) it allows the strong to abuse the weak and (2) fails to provide an opportunity structure for all. It should not matter why someone needs some extra help, such as preparing for the SATs, that help should be available. Many people, however, forget that providing extra help takes time. If some high students spent years studying, while other students skipped school and played basketball non-stop, the B-ball players cannot catch up overnight. Nor, may lack of preparedness be ignored so that they are admitted prematurely above their ability level.
While everyone has the same inalienable rights, it is a joint effort between the individual and society to maximize those rights. The first step must come from the individual and lowering standards does not increase one’s ability; it merely deprives one of the opportunity to grow.
In more concrete terms, Conservatives are great at showing the foibles of Wokers who want to dumb down everything, but fail to recognize that our society is a predatory society, where the strong prey upon the weak. The myth that police departments single out Blacks for abuse because the cops are racist is false. Americans believe in force and authority figures from cops to bankers to doctors to DEI instructors abuse the people whom they are supposed to serve and protect. Black cops abuse and murder young Blacks. It has nothing to do with racism, but the predatory mature of our institutions allow racists to abuse according to race lines similar to how Harvard’s Woke DEI allows Harvard to abuse Jewish faculty and students.
On the other hand, the Woke refuses to recognize that America abuses whomever it can – “No dogs or Irishmen allowed.” Hard work and persistence tends to overcome, despite horrible tragedies along the way, e.g., Tulsa’s Black Wall Street. However, over time our ethos that each individual has inalienable rights has been winning and people of all backgrounds can work their way up in society. Almost always, it requires a generation or two. One defeating attitude is “Woe is Me.” Claiming Victimhood only makes one more of a victim. Sad to say, many people are schooled in Victimhood at such young age so that they miss out of vital early life lessons. Some Blacks, who are misled into a ideology of victimization and anger, are sucked into the quicksand of Wokeism. Many youth fall prey to the gang life because others in society allow punk predators to abuse the young into dead end live styles.
Here’s What Each of Us Can do
It is name “The Declaration of Independence” – not only from Great Britain, but also each individual may assert his right to independence of thought. When we each de-register from our political party and re-register as Independents, our perspective changes. We can decide on each issue for ourselves. No one else has the right to tell us how to think. Each political party holds us captive, setting boundaries on what we are allowed to think. Why do we do that? Once one re-registers as Independent (no party), however, no one has a claim on our thoughts.
Let’s face it. Seventy percent of us do not want these two altercockers running for President. Trump and Biden will most likely be the candidates because we stick with “our party,” where the extremists take us for granted and they decide who will be the candidates. When we assert our independence of thought and remain unaffiliated with any party, then the party has to pay attention to us. But, the decision to exercise our independence of thought is an individual inalienable right for each person to make.
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected].)
