It was me who brought up “Cafeteria Constitutionalism. Perhaps you have never heard it in the form of “Cafeteria Catholics” or “Cafeteria Christians”.
It has to do with the concept of picking and choosing what parts of something in Catholicism or Christianity you choose to pay attention to, and which ones you don’t.
I was making the analogy to Constitutional Principles, and was describing people who are “Cafeteria Constitutionalists” where they pick and choose what parts of the Constitution they wish to observe and which ones they wish to ignore or discard, if that wasn’t clear.
I am of the opinion that when it comes to the Constitution of the United States, we cannot pick and choose lest the document becomes meaningless.
We either abide and support abiding by it, or we do not. If we don’t, we are not a Constitutional Republic and there is no way around that.
This is where we disagree, I think. There are many conservatives (including myself) who know that law and order is broken in this country and that laws are enforced unequally, but they will not capitulate to lawlessness and instead hold onto the hope that can be remedied. But as you correctly state, knowing it is unequal is the first step to addressing it, and there are plenty of us who DO recognize it.
If you and I disagree on this because you feel that the disparity in law enforcement (among other things) cannot be remedied, then we have to agree to disagree because I don’t see that as a lost cause yet.
By the way-I discount completely the issue that the money that CEOs make in comparison to their workers. Primarily I don’t see that as having any bearing on the cold-blooded murder of someone who makes more than they do.
It is wrong enough in my eyes to justify the murder of someone because that person is a rich CEO that people want to make responsible for the deaths of of people (for whatever justification they have) without compounding that issue by conflating the issue of class with the issue of culpability in the deaths of others, because you are making that linkage (with your opening comment about CEOs making too much money) and I think one has nothing to do with the other.
This has always been the case that people who run companies have, and always will make in salary many multiples more than those they employ, and although it is a fertile field for those inclined to class warfare (where plenty of people will always be found who will sign on) if we are going to start talking about corporate greed and CEO salaries should be limited, we are leaving the domain of conservatism and entering a domain where we begin to allow a government to decide the worth of a person’s work, and as Frederick Hayek eloquently describes in his book by the same name, that is “The Road To Serfdom”.
We can disagree, but I see no reason we have to be crosswise with each other about it.
I wouldn’t say I think the disparity can’t be fixed. I say it WON’T be fixed. Because the people in charge of fixing it are the ones that benefit from it being broken. And they know that. The only fix is to shake the etch-a-sketch, get the benefiting from the system no longer in charge of the system.
You can’t discount the pay disparity. Because that’s part of the situation. What’s going on here is basically the beginnings of a revolution. And revolutions always start from the same thing: the masses see the people in charge as working against them, keeping them from even leading a quiet normal life.
I mentioned my recently fired CEO up thread. A few years ago he put in our corporate goals getting the average salaries of engineers in the company below $40,000 a year. 20 years before then I got HIRED here for more than that in raw non-inflation adjusted dollars. So basically he wanted to roll back our salaries 25 to 30 years. Meanwhile he gets paid millions. See, actively working against us.
And we’ve seen this chart over and over again. How real wages are declining in America vs inflation. While CEO salaries far outstrip inflation. They have made an us and them situation. They have created the ground for a revolution. With them being first against the wall.
I straight up said I don’t want the government declaring what CEO salaries should be. But the CEO’s should be aware enough of the world around them to recognize that saying they want to reduce the average salaries of their worker while getting raises that’s not right. They need to govern themselves. Once upon a time in this country CEOs used to boast about how well they treated their employees. Now they boast about how cheaply they run the company, while of course boosting their pay. Government control of peoples salaries is ONE road to serfdom. But CEOs that just don’t care about their employees is another.
And any serfdom eventually leads to a revolution.