How We Betrayed Ourselves

The civil rights Acts in the 60s with the wrong solution to a real problem, because they led to the practice of believing and behaving as if every act, word or deed, is a political act and subject to interpretation by LAW. The LAW has been used to "adjudicate"...anything! And OPINION, is now treated as a FACT in a court of LAW. This is how we have the "rule of LAW", but then again, we don't!

Prior to the 60s era, the LAW was allowed to be used as a vehicle for racial intolerance. The LAW was unequal. The government is the enforcer of LAW.

It was finally widely recognized that the government is not allowed to make LAW that applies to say, some race (or other such criteria) of people, but applies differently for others, etc. Therefore, the Law cannot have such elements:

• If "white", this rule
• Else if "Asian", this rule and that one
• Else if "black", not allowed
• Else = you do not exist

The law needed to be "clarified" nationally. Perhaps, a civil rights Act (as in a big LAW) would be required in order to accomplish this, and in that time mass communications had improved dramatically, which could aid uniting national LAW, whether Federal, State, etc., in the cause of "LAW without prejudice".

Fine.

Fantastic!

I love it. It fits with the "founders" and the newly-aware-compassionate-type people the "Progressives" think they are. Amazing thing.

Only problem?

The resulting Acts went "too far" (as humans are wont to do), and not only stripped discrimination, preference, and prejudice from the government LAW, but they sought to "cleanse" "the people" of those things as well.

Look. The "rule of LAW" and the requirement for its integrity, are outside the scope of any one person. That is government, and its responsibility is to protect the freedom of ALL people, to serve ALL, not just "some". On the other hand, the people are "free", only if allowed to follow "their heart", "their star", "their God", "their happiness" (sound familiar?).

Rules against discrimination apply to government, as everyone adheres to the sovereignty of the government. Differently,an individual is not subject to the sovereignty of fellow citizens, so inherently, one individual is free to ignore any of their fellows who are not copasetic.

This should not be a crime, and yet the civil rights Acts have criminalized this conduct. The citizens were not to be restrained by LAW, but protected from each other by government when their rights are violated, e.g. theft, violence.

The government is charged with the responsibility of enacting LAW that adheres to truly common principles (as opposed to "principles" that really come down to a matter of OPINION or BELIEF-principles ought to be held to a standard of FACTs, e.g. it is FACT that if I am walking down the street, minding my own business, and someone comes up to me and stabs me with a knife, that my right to pursue happiness had been violated, i.e. I have a right to my body without a knife in it). Unfortunately, many Believers think their OPINIONs/BELIEFs are FACTs...<chagrin>

It's a matter of simplifying things, which is apparently an anathema to the "complicated"/"sophisticated"/"educated"/"brainwashed" or "master manipulator" people, who always argue that "life is not simple, goddamnit!"

The truth is, if we had truly had a wake up call in the 60s, to return to the founding principles of this "experiment in human freedom", we would have a ruled of any racially-based LAWs unconstitutional, led a fight to "repeal before overturned" all such LAWs, and resisted entertaining any future such LAWs. The Act LAW could have mandated such efforts as an expression of the national will that each individual citizen could cite in any petition for their liberty!

Instead, pathetically short-sighted people decided that to eliminate racial and other prejudices, we must employ the means of TYRANNY to achieve the same, by mandating "non-prejudicial" thoughts and acts to prevail in every aspect of human endeavor.

In truth, the will already existed in the populace to eleiminate racism and such, by sheer competition and the true value of all people. Think about racial "holdouts" of those days. They were largely marginalized, although they have been newly invigorated, in response to the heavy-handed-ness of TYRANNY.

Think of those holdouts. They would not have access to the talents of all the "minorities" they despised.  They would lose in a competition of free enterprise!

The holdouts would have to come around as all their prejudices’ foundations are publicly disavowed/disproved and they would be dissuaded (or not - some may never, but we can't ruin the whole society’s LAW for them!) from many social "input"s, e.g. interaction with "other"s that demonstrates and puts the lie to their prejudices, as well as peer...not so much "pressure", but more like..."encouragement"?

You know, sometimes people don't hold a particular view, because they never heard about it, and they did not conjure it in their own mind (which obviously happens to someone :-)). They may agree with something they have not heard yet.

What I have said here to for boils down to:

• We could have talked each other out of it
• We could have used PERSUASION instead of using the FORCE of TYRANNY

Of course, that meant that "we the people" had to trust that "we the people" would carry out the effort without being forced to do it. Cynics of any era can, with power, really human progress back, and that's what happened here.

In current times, the level of animosity between different people based on racism, lack thereof, perception thereof, is high and we are left with TYRANNY to try to "solve" "problems".

In reality, those LAWmakers conducted a great big social experiment entitled, "Let's use the LAW to FORCE everyone (or at least "the ones who deserve it") to be 'the way "we" think they should be’ - in every way, thought or deed."

The results are in! TYRANNY sucks, even if it's goal is your aim! Me personally, I don't want TYRANNY on my side!

After the civil rights Acts mandated how we can "be free", it was a simple jump to drug prohibition. Sixty years earlier, the LAWmakers need a Constitutional Amendment to deny your right to alcohol, but a mere Act was all that was necessary to take away access to "anything the Congress/Administration shall put on a magic (it will save humanity) list of bad things an individual ought not have/produce or do anything else with!"

Again I say, the results are in, and the experiment is a colossal failure. "Racial tension" is palpable, as at no other time in "my life", and although I recognize that my own "era" is not the only one, my perception leads me to blame a resurgence of old tensions as well as newly-created ones on the misguided Acts of the 60s. This is the fruit of those decisions. What do we do now? Is there some way to change direction?

Well, the "genie is out of the bottle" and it's hard to see a way to undo the jurisprudence. You see, the judiciary went along with this charade. And so, the law is very polluted, ironically as it was before, but just with different contaminants. Note: between the lawyers on the bench and in the legislatures, we have a great bunch of debaters, but no passion for truth-telling, just "truth" making

But I digress.

Another evil aspect to all this is the negation of arguments for say, repeal of the Acts, by the prospect of being dragged into debates about the basis for different prejudices and such, instead of discussing the merits of PERSUASION over TYRANNY.

I anticipate the harshest critics of what I say here would be activists who feel that a long time racial disparity had produced circumstances such that a "minority" person was so disadvantaged, they had "freedom" and nothing to do with it.

Shame on those people! People of all sorts have risen from poverty and lack of education, and to deny that that capability exists in "minorities" is racism, and spits in the face of those that these activists suggest they represent.

What those long time disparaged folks needed was help effecting their rights, BUT only when they have been taken away, not just from, frankly, not being popular with "some" people! There are so many different people! Why concentrate on troublemakers all the time? In addition, their fellow citizens, from all walks, could throw in and help in civic and other education on a personal basis...but the "personal basis" has been "outsourced" to government...and not just on this score.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg when he comes to "too much LAW".  Too much LAW exists based on certain citizens' pet peeves, BELIEFs, or OPINIONs, when the LAW ought to be based upon FACTs. And, "freedom" is for people and government is the steward of that freedom via law enforcement, the courts, and the military. That's for ALL the people, not just the "majority", not just "minorities", but everyone.

Things that regard everyone must be unbiased, but private, individual acts must remain the sovereignty of the individual, or our freedom and Republic are lost.

The greatest failure of well intentioned do-gooders here is impatience. Apparently, they will only be satisfied with the pinnacle of human evolution occurring in their lifetime. They expect millennia of human interaction to be overcome and perfected in decades or even hours. A real do-gooder these days would be satisfied to push for the "right direction" for LAW, not requiring reaching the "final destination" for LAW to be achieved to allow to themselves that they have done right by their fellows humans by acting well during their own time, hoping their words and deeds may PERSUADE their fellows to a better unbiased future.

The final object of freedom ought to be peace, and so far in human history, that cannot happen without peace keepers who, respecting ALL, respond to complaints citing LAW. In fact, without those who cannot discriminate, as representatives of the "rule of LAW", we have a formula for endless war. Free people have a higher degree of possessing a desire to live in peace, and frankly, that is half the battle.

P.S. There is a reason police are sometimes referred to as peace officer. While a soldier might be called a war officer, they both serve a common cause. When we are at war, soldiers stop the enemies outside the country of freedom for all, and "arrest" their activities. So too, with those in Blue, on the peaceful home front, the police protect us from our fellow inhabitants, who would act as an enemies of some individuals' freedom here at home.