Posted on 06/16/2003 4:54:46 PM PDT by Movemout
It is more than interesting to me as I get older that the journey to get where I am going holds more fascination than the end result. For example, I can see with some clarity that Jim Robinson's goal of achieving a constitutionally based government is not likely to be achieved in my lifetime. The incremental erosion has been slowed but not refuted convincingly to the satisfaction of our fellow citizens. Abatement does not equal mitigation.
We crow that we have made amazing progress, and we have. I will repeat that a reduction of slope does not equal victory.
However, a hundred and fifty years worth of trending has been called into question. This is a good thing in my opinion. Now we ask better, not good, questions about where this path leads us. We witness the dumbing down of our high school and college graduates and ask ourselves, is that a good thing? We know it is not not but we get caught up in the questions of fairness and PC issues which divert our attention from the issues that matter most to our future, i.e. the competent weighing of alternatives for proceeding forward, the spirited kind of debate that will help determine correct solutions for allocation of resources, and the able execution of the programs and projects that we, the people, have decided we desire.
Jim is correct in saying that we cannot have all of these things in the face of a 17th Amendment or an actively interpretative liberal judiciary who can make laws at all levels of government. However, I think we can add in some other factors that will influence the outcome.
There are many who advanced the notion in our lifetimes that civil rights were guaranteed under the law and were being seriously abrogated. In truth they were. The nature of the corrosion worked in both directions, and that is less well understood. I know that there has been a lot of debate about the fallout of the Civil War but I don't think that many would argue against the fact that Jim Crow laws erected as a barrier against "negro" rights didn't have a corrosive effect in the opposite direction. As an example, the rights for county sheriffs to grant carry permits for firearms have been around since the end of that war. The notion was that no sheriff in his right mind would grant a black man the right to carry but would not have the same concern about his caucasian neighbors. Can anyone out there see how that has worked against an unfetterd second amendment right?
A Supreme Court decision that segregation was a bad thing ended up in lots of knots. Were they wrong? No, they were not. Original segregation issues centered around the allocation of resources in white vs. black communities. The disparities were clearly in favor of whites. But in a series of subsequent legal and poicy decisions we have managed not to make things much better. The courts themselves recognise it as a failed experiment based on the fact that forced busing has largely gone by the wayside. We have replaced with a policy of PC. We have expanded the "minority" base and allowed them to criticize any definition of the "majority" with little repercussion. I guess it's a kind of "reparations by verbs and adjectives" policy. It is, of course, totally worthless.
Policies of "Zero Tolerance" have taken schools over with a vengeance. Policies of "No ask, No Tell," have impacted our defense. You can't call a fat person fat, a short person short, or a blind man blind.
If the Boy Scouts believe that God doesn't tolerate a homosexual then that is of no consequence. If the Rainbow Coalition wants espouse hatred of heteralsexuals then that is worthy of notice.
As you can see, there are many different interpretations of the law. It does not seem to apply equally. And that is true, and has always been true, because it is the application of policy in the public arena and the private sector that has always determined the outcome in allof these battles. Of late, our voracious lawyerly friends have caused the private sector to mirror our governmental counterparts but that doesn't so much imply the strength of government as it might imply the weakness of the private sector. I have a certain fondness for the dedication of our government employees in some areas. But I also have a certain disregard for their appreciation of what it takes to comply with their notions of what is fair and resonable in terms of regulation. These are basically people who have no notion of how to implement full cost accounting. They cannot adjudicate their own problems but are willing to impose arbitrariness on the general population, not realizing what they do.
The private sector needs to grow a spine. They need to quit automatically mimicing federal, state, and local policies just because the government implemented "It." They need to think their way through the implications of any specific new law, particularly one that has far reaching regulatory implications. A lot of these laws are in "Human Resources". I don't know about you but most of the HR Divisions I have been exposed to are short on resources to hire killer business types but have plenty of touchy feely social do-gooders (sorry to all of the HR people that I think have some talent).
It's time to fight back. You don't get changes to Constitutional Amendments, or improve the system of checks and balances until you can can convince the policy makers that it is worth their while to try.
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