On the topic of “unalienable rights” as proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence, people question from where those rights come. Our founding fathers stated that they were we were endowed them “by our creator.” I can’t speak for what they considered the endowment process to be or how they imagined “our creator”. All I know is that the principle of unalienable rights makes common sense.
Governments that do not guarantee “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all citizens ultimately fail. Those deprived of rights eventually rise up against the unjust government to claim their dignity. That’s what most revolutions are about: claiming dignity in the face of injustice.
Marx and Lenin played those cards better than just about anyone. They exploited the burgeoning resentment and popular loathing of the ruling class. The people were fed up with the oppressive, capricious brutality and injustice the regimes had practiced for centuries. The Communists didn’t mention that the regime that replaced the tsars would be as equally oppressive, brutal and unjust, but they stirred up a frenzy that ended the Russian empire and led to the creation of the Soviet one.
The second Russian Revolution that began with the destruction of the Berlin wall and the reunification of the two Germanys after decades of partition mirrored the first. It was by and large peaceful, not the bloodbath of the 1917 revolution. But it was driven by the same factors: oppressive, capricious brutality and injustice.
That brings us to the crazy eights: two voter approved propositions, one in Arizona and one in California, that are both destined for a Supreme Court battle. And for anyone that believes God doesn’t have a sense of humor, both of these patently unjust laws were passed by the same name on the respective ballots. But they boil down to the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Marx would be proud.
The Arizona law, in effect, requires that every person carry proof of citizenship at all times. The only real proof of my citizenship is my birth certificate, and the only copies of it are 750 miles away. My passport expired years ago, and I’ve never renewed it because I don’t have plans to travel outside the country any time soon. But in Arizona, if I couldn’t produce documentation of my citizenship, I could be detained (stuck in jail) until I could get a copy of my birth certificate sent to me.
I’m 45 years old, and I’ve never had to prove my citizenship to anyone except employers. I have a valid Social Security number and card, and that’s always been good enough. But, in Arizona, that would not be proof of legal status. I’m not going there any time soon because I don’t want to have to order another copy of my birth certificate from the Gibson County, Tennessee, custodian of records.
A federal judge sanely stayed its implementation pending appeals.
The other crazy 8 was a proposition in California that outlawed gay marriage. After a federal judge struck down the prohibition of same-sex marriage, opponents organized and passed a ballot proposition to amend the state’s constitution to specifically bar it. Another federal court has since found the new law unconstitutional on the federal level.
Both of these cases are about denying “unalienable rights”. Mr. Jefferson was a slave-owner when he wrote those words, but the concept of rights has always been fluid. He might well be proud that his words are being used to defend minorities today, whether those rights are sought based on sexual orientation or ethnic origin.
Historically, times of financial crises have led to the demonization of one particular segment of society or another. In the 30’s it was Jews, Catholics and homosexuals. Hitler rode to power on that message.
Today, it’s Hispanics, Muslims and homosexuals. I suppose fear-mongering by ambitious (and sometimes psycho) politicians will always be there. They will wrap their ethnic, religious and social hatred up in a flag and campaign on that platform. They will continue the tawdry practice of politics as it’s practiced today.
I long for a post-partisan, sane political arena. When politicians get mired in racism and homophobia, they don’t have time to take care of the people’s real business. They spend it on sound bites, in-fighting and attacking their opponents.
I don’t know what divided the country so long ago and why we can’t move to a place of consensus. The civil war was officially over a long time ago. We are now in the middle of an un-civil one fueled by news cycles and instant access to information.
It’s time to go back to unalienable rights. Don’t require that everyone carry citizenship documentation at all times. Let people of legal age marry if they want to. Get back to the business of governing and trying to get us out this hole we all dug.
And the hole is deep.
The government intervention, almost unprecedented though it has been, to prevent the economy from collapsing into a bigger mess than the Great Depression, started with a Republican administration. The Democratic one that followed continued and expanded that economic aid has been blamed for the whole mess and roundly criticized for not fixing things quickly enough.
It took us more than two years to get here, and it’ll take more than two years to get back to better. Ten years would be a more realistic estimate. The market doesn’t lose and then regain 40% of its value overnight.
Don’t blame the whole mess on ethnic and religious minorities or homosexuals, or even the so-called "liberal intelligentsia". Hitler already did that. So did Lenin and Stalin, as well as any number of petty dictators.
It didn’t work out too well for any of them. How's it working for you?
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