Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Backwards Thinking of Reverse Injustice

Our society is infected with the idea that past injustices or unfairness must be made up for by being unjust in reverse - to the group that was "privileged" before. They apply special treatment to blacks, to women, and even to poor people under the belief that they will somehow right the universe by being discriminatory to all the right groups.

In race relations, the application of this viewpoint is to punish whites and to give special treatment to minorities, but especially blacks since they had it the worst in the past. So bad behavior, including criminal behavior, by blacks is overlooked or excused, whites are assumed guilty until proven innocent (assuming you could ever prove it to everyone's satisfaction), and everyone is encouraged to give preferential treatment to blacks. This is the guiding principle of Affirmative Action. This is why white cop against black criminal is always viewed as bad white cop against innocent black citizen. Regardless of the actual facts of any individual situation, the important thing is to penalize whites and reward blacks to make up for the evils of the past.

Radical feminism is just the application of this principle to gender. Men must be treated as second class and women must be given special advantages and special power to make up for the past. If women in the past were consigned to the home, with little or no choice on the matter, then women must right the world by all leaving the home and working like men in the workforce. If women in the past had very little say over sex and had to give it up to their husbands on command, then women now must always hold control over sex and have it only when they feel like it. Liberation, they call it. If women in the past rarely went to college, then colleges today must actively recruit women and give more degrees to them. If men are graduating from college less and less now and holding fewer and fewer high-paying jobs, it isn't a sign of a problem; it's a sign of progress now that that those awful men are finally getting what they deserve. This is the radical feminist viewpoint and it's all about revenge for the past (or the perceived past).

The no-fault divorce laws came from this idea too. Most women had little or no option to divorce back in the day. So no fault-divorce laws, which are used far more often by women than men, allowed women to throw off unwanted marriages whenever they wanted. It's all about equality, you see. But by "equality" they mean injustice the other way.

This is also the real justification for abortion as well. Since women in the past were sometimes used as breeders, forced to bear the children of their husbands or rapists, then women today must have recourse to avoid bearing children they do not want - even at the price of the unborn child's life. Abortion is thought to be a right - not because there is actually any right to kill unwanted children, but because the idea that pregnancy will "force" women to have to bear a child is unthinkable to them.

Unilateral divorce and abortion are tools of the radical feminist movement because the alternative to these things is that women might be still tied to the roles of the past - roles like "wife" or "mother." In order to make up for the fact that some women were tied to these things against their will, they want to do away with these norms altogether.

The same sort of backwards "justice" happens with respect to socioeconomic status in our society. Much of the wealth redistribution mindset owes to the erroneous idea that economic wealth has been unfairly distributed and thus that the world must be righted by punishing the wealthy and giving special treatment to the poor. They even call it "social justice." It's not about what people earn through their hard work. That's irrelevant, they say. It's all about the inequality of outcome and how unfair it is. They don't really want to do away with poverty. What they really want is for the rich to be in poverty and for the poor to be made wealthy - for the wealthy to work and work and get nothing while the poor sit back and receive all the benefits of the work of others. When that happens, they will finally feel that it is all evened out and the universe is balanced.

This mindset of injustice to the "privileged" to make up for the past really sums up much of the liberal position and its individual stances on different issues. However, people with this faulty mindset would do well to remember that two wrongs don't make a right. More discrimination and unfairness won't undo the past or make up for it and only serve to further the evil. Reverse injustice is still injustice.

What we should be striving for is real equality and justice, not an unbalance back in the opposite direction. The liberal mindset just creates a whole new group of oppressors and furthers the vicious cycle of injustice. Let's not become the evil we decry in the past. Let's advocate true fairness and justice for everyone equally.


Monday, August 10, 2015

For the Trump Supporters

For those defending Trump, I fully realize that the gender card is overplayed and I hate that so many people use the "war on women" nonsense to criticize pro-lifers and republicans. I'm opposed to political correctness. I'm opposed to apologizing every time someone gets offended. I'm opposed to the cowardly and shameful use of slogans and euphemisms instead of articulate, factual arguments that is so prevalent among liberals and even many supposed conservatives. I'm sick of it too. Boy, am I sick of it!

However, there are people who do actually show real disrespect toward others, who run roughshod over everyone who disagrees with them, who are crass and rude and vulgar, who are self-serving and self-absorbed. We used to call people like this boors. It's a useful word. It ought not to be used where it doesn't fit and it ought not to be used against people we merely disagree with. However, there are times when it does actually fit. Donald Trump is a prime example.

In our distaste for political correctness and spin and tiptoeing around the issues, let's not go to the other extreme of accepting and applauding boorish behavior. In our search for truth and honesty, let us not excuse those who "speak their minds" in a hurtful and demeaning way that is simply not necessary or praiseworthy. It is quite possible to speak truth with kindness and tact and boldness too. Let's support people who do that, even if they don't get quite as much of the spotlight for doing it.

Of course, all that assumes that Donald Trump IS speaking truth. That is true in a couple cases. However, more often it is not. Trump has taken just about every position there is at some point in time, so he's bound to have said a couple things that were correct once or twice. Let's not get too excited that someone who changes positions so frequently actually hit on the right answer a couple of times. That's not really such an accomplishment. Guessing will get you a few right answers, but it doesn't mean you'll pass the test. And when it comes to showing consistency, integrity, and an understanding of conservative principles, Trump fails miserably.

So don't fall for the hype and the hair and the showboating. Don't pick a candidate on style over substance, as the Obama voters did. Evaluate candidates on their proven record, their consistency, and their principles, not on their ability to sling insults and not back down. It's better for our country and our children if you pick a candidate with your brain and not your emotions.