The Equality Principle

In recent days, I've watched as Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream gets dashed to pieces on the rocks of political correctness. I've watched as the media that covered the historic events he took place in and inspired, bravely turned a blind eye towards the destruction of that dream. While it's true that I was very young at the time the civil rights struggle was finally seeing it's goal of equality being met, I've spent the years reading about it and trying to come to grips with why it took so long to happen. Why so many deaths, threats and so much hate could stop the inevitable and the just ends to the struggle. King's death in 1968 was merely the tipping point at which the country could take no more. People of all races and nationalities could see what we could not. I will forgo my urge to point out that most of the detractors to the Civil Rights Act were Democrats like Robert Byrd, former Kleagle for the Ku Klux Klan, and Albert Gore Sr. and simply say that despite the hardships it was a mighty victory for all mankind. No other country had ever fought itself to make all men free and equal.

Fast forward to 2010 and it seems that all that Dr. King and his brave followers fought and died for has been subverted. Hijacked by a political party to justify fear-mongering and spread discontent amongst Americans. The struggle of the 60's has been morphed by Progressive ideology into meaning something vastly different. Equal rights has changed to equal results in modern times. Equal justice has become social justice, a darkly vague term that seeks to sound good but has unsavory connotations when expounded upon.

No government can guarantee equal results except through totalitarianism. Socialism is a fine idea on paper but when administered by men, weak and flawed as they are wont to be, it becomes the nightmare that was Stalinist Russia. It's often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The same is true of the concept of equal results.

This is where the Progressives have led the civil rights movement to. A fictional utopia where everyone of all races can live together free of hatred and injustice. Sadly, this simply is not possible due in large part to the ultimate failings of the human condition.

Let me stray back to my point and provide a little background.

During the 2008 election, two men, King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, stood outside a Philadelphia polling place hurling racial epithets at white passersby. Both are members of the New Black Panther Party and Shabazz was clearly seen on video brandishing a nightstick while proclaiming, "You're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."

Charges were filed with the civil rights commission and it seemed a slam dunk case on the surface. The video was clear and the charges justified. In 2009 however, the justice department abruptly dismissed the case much to the dismay of J. Christian Adams, lawyer for the DOJ.
He later claimed publicly that there was a clear mandate that the DOJ would not pursue black defendants in matters of civil rights violations.

If true it casts a cloud of doubt over the justice system that could have enormous repercussions throughout the entire Federal Government. Imagine it, the civil rights commission dismissing a clear violation based solely on skin color. The very antithesis of what it stands for. Civil rights are for all people, not just black people.

Some of Shabazz' previous comments on issues of race are widely available online, in his own words, he "hates white people" and thinks that blacks should "kill you some crackers" and they should "kill some of their babies". Hateful words from a hateful man, predisposed to violent confrontation and revolution, as opposed to King's message of peace and love for all mankind. Opposite ends of an ideological spectrum that spans a scant 50 years.

History has taken King's message of hope and turned it into a commodity, to be sold and traded like so much chattel. King's belief that one day his children would be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin has been perverted into a system of thinly veiled "payback" for so many years of abuse and injustice.

If the equality that King sought meant only to pay for an egregious sin with another sin, then that does more to set back the dream of civil rights for all than any stupid sign carried by some great fool at a Tea Party Rally. The perceived racism of the Tea Party and its recent denigration by the NAACP says less about the Tea Party than it does about their vocal and often, virulent, detractors.

I suppose in the end, equal rights truly means everyone acting like brutes who see hatred as a sport and use fear and intimidation as tools of the trade.