"Justice". It's used a lot by various groups in politics - and used correctly, it's the best word in politics and one to keep in mind for any political issue, is it just.
It's especially popular on the 'populist left' against concentrated powers - and in modern times seems more often mocked by the far right than supported when they do so.
Consider an example from history that involves 'justice': the civil war was fought not primarily over slavery, but over the South feeling that they were being abused by the North in a variety of policies - the idea that in our system, there can be a 'tyranny of the majority' so if the South lost votes, it had zero protection from exploitation by the rest of the country. While it had constitutional rights, it could have all kinds of exploitation, especially in economic policy. It felt a lack of justice as things were.
Ironically, they were practicing a great injustice to slaves. Where was their justice? After centuries, it was soon to come, in part - as it continues to improve now.
But just earlier, the United States had stolen of 2/3 of Mexico, in a war Ulysses Grant called "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." It was the injustice of this war that was the basis for 'Walden Pond', taught in schools about civil disobedience against injustice.
The US was also in the middle of injustice to Native Americans - even if a case could be made for expanding on the land they were on, there was clearly injustice.
The United States itself had formed over feeling a lack of justice at the hands of the rich ruling class of England, who wanted the colonies to be an economic engine whose profits came to them, a ruling class who came to have a massive global empire that killed millions and oppressed millions more in the name of the profits for themselves.
The very system we created was designed to increase justice, by giving 'the people' the power of the vote to use against such an oppressive class.
The best things politically involve increasing justice. There are any number of injustices large and small, that politics done well can reduce.
At one basic level, if one man robs another, that's an injustice, and where the name 'criminal justice' comes from, about addressing that type of wrong.
But it's not the only type of injustice. If a financial company can defraud or oppress, there can be injustice. If an insurance company can drop you whenever you cost them money and not pay, there can be injustice. Racism, for example the allowing of 'racial covenants' to keep a house from being sold to blacks, can have injustice.
The denying to women the right to vote had injustice, the treatment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, seizing their property, had injustice, the denial of marriage rights to groups from blacks to inter-racial couples to gays has injustice, the punishment of some with unpopular political views in McCarthyism had injustice.
Note, many or all of these have had large support at some point.
Saying they were unjust at one time would be attacked.
There continue to be issues raised as 'injustice', and history suggests that there will be some that are opposed now but have a point, unless we fixed them all. Unlikely.
All of these 'could have gone on', as well, as many did for centuries - but it's good we did something to fix them.
At the least, people today should try to consider a claim of injustice before reacting with hostility. Could they be today's person defending injustice?
When you look at the injustices, a common theme is one advantaged group disadvantaging another for reasons of not liking change, or selfish benefit, or bigotry.
The thing is, our political system rewards numbers, it rewards power - it can't tell a vote for justice from one against, whether the majority is voting to give women the vote or voting to oppose desegregation. Votes can be for or against justice. They aren't always for justice - democracy itself is an important tool for justice, but it's no guarantee.
The US has a popular slogan closing the pledge of allegiance, 'with liberty and justice for all', that captures a lot of this desire. Justice against what injustice? Not just the British - but all kinds of injustices that may not have been viewed as such earlier. Social, economic, political and others.
Justice isn't always one-sided and clear - even if it may seem so later, if the arguments of one side seem 'ridiculous'. Privilege and the status quo are blinders on justice.
Even the most unjust often did not think they were - Nazis did not have just the desire to do evil, but the misguided idea they were benefiting the human race, as they 'cleaned it', Darwin's little helpers as they removed what they viewed as inferior elements of the species, the mentally ill and many others, from reproducing. The point isn't how horribly wrong they were, or even the irony most would say they were the members the species needs to be cleansed of, but how they didn't think of it as evil.
It goes to show that if the perpetrators of what is viewed as one of the greatest crimes of history were this deluded, so can be people on smaller injustices - as they have been on the examples listed and many others. How hard it is, even for a people who recite 'justice for all' even while they did not let women vote, who made it the official national pledge even while segregation was legal, to have injustice?
The status quo deserves special mention as a blinder on justice. People 'get used' to how things are - and forget to consider injustice. Things like brutal colonial policies - or any of the examples discussed - could go on without much question because that's how things had always been. People didn't have to ask how they would like to be in the situation of those other people. And even the victims were vulnerable.
Were women across the nation in an uproar every election for over a century? No. While Abigail Adams may have told her husband to consider women's rights, most women did not seem too concerned about 'injustice' that they could not vote, as clear as it may seem today. It took a long time for there to be 'civil rights movements' for issue after issue that was not seen as a problem for centuries but is almost universally accepted as a problem today if it existed.
And there's reason to think today's 'no big deal' status quo can have some problems, too, even as we get better on justice, each improvement making the next easier.
Even the injustice of the British system that led to the creation of the United States, the centuries of the aristocratic class of England who abused their power for more wealth, was not an obvious injustice to many; our same founding fathers who later created the United States earlier had not recognized some big issue with justice, even when they did have issues, they worked to try to resolve them with minor changes while preserving the system as it was.
It took years and things like the writings of Thomas Paine to raise questions of justice that had not really been heard for centuries of injustice. Suddenly, there's an injustice!
One that's so clear and powerful, it justifies people risking their lives over and a world culture shift with noble sayings about 'liberty' needing to oppose it.
Nothing had really changed from the centuries of the colonists being 'loyal British subjects'. It was more the logistics that helped fuel rebellion eventually - and one that came to be widely accepted as an injustice in terms of a society having an aristocratic class that abuses power so much.
How many American lose sleep at night over their being millions of terribly impoverished people who collect the food for them to buy for cheap prices?
That's an 'economic injustice' - one that isn't based on some evil leader, but a system that has come to be where people who are born in the group who picks the food are in a bad situation. There's a big injustice there and we as a society would do well to ask some questions what can be sensibly done to reduce the injustice, but we don't, comfortable with the 'status quo' and the low food prices, unconcerned.
When the same issue was raised about American immigrant farm workers in Edward Murrow's documentary, "The Grapes of Shame", it stirred many Americans to recognize the economic injustice there, and to want to look for how things could be improved, for reforms. Not so much today.
In contrast to the status quo that that blinds to injustice, general rules of justice tend to help put a spotlight and identify injustice.
The 'justice for all' was mentioned as raising questions about injustice in the society that recited it. When Jefferson wrote 'All men were created equal', it had built in the raising of questions of slavery, even of the choice of words eventually of 'men', not 'people' to include women.
The 14th amendment written for one injustice, of race, has been used for reducing all kinds of other injustices the authors wouldn't have begun to intend.
Just saying 'everyone gets due process of law' makes it easier for those who are not to ask 'why aren't they'. Like gays in the military - hardly challenged as unjust earlier.
Indeed, those words written over a century ago could be used to ask, why are gays discriminated against, not getting equal treatment, when it was ruled unconstitutional.
And that court ruling - creating an expected ruling forcing change in the military - helped build the military's support for ending that injustice.
Justice can be controversial - sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly - but it's the most important principle in politics, and the key to why democracy can be beneficial.
The corruption of democracy can threaten it - specifically because it prevents justice, by those who want to prevent it.
And this includes the left's cause of 'economic justice' - just as most Americans now appreciate the justice of workers having reasonable power in contrast to the 'robber baron' era. The right doesn't have to agree with all the specific times it's alleged to happen, or the methods to address it, but they should do better at the larger issue of justice, not ignore it as they are so encouraged to do by the agents of the privileged.
Justice is a word that should be championed by all in the political system - even those who may lose some advantage. Would you own slaves, if you were allowed? The right thing is for you to refuse, even if it would provide you advantage, just as some who are privileged today champion that some of the privilege is unjust and should be reformed.
Justice is the most important word in politics.
Save234
It's especially popular on the 'populist left' against concentrated powers - and in modern times seems more often mocked by the far right than supported when they do so.
Consider an example from history that involves 'justice': the civil war was fought not primarily over slavery, but over the South feeling that they were being abused by the North in a variety of policies - the idea that in our system, there can be a 'tyranny of the majority' so if the South lost votes, it had zero protection from exploitation by the rest of the country. While it had constitutional rights, it could have all kinds of exploitation, especially in economic policy. It felt a lack of justice as things were.
Ironically, they were practicing a great injustice to slaves. Where was their justice? After centuries, it was soon to come, in part - as it continues to improve now.
But just earlier, the United States had stolen of 2/3 of Mexico, in a war Ulysses Grant called "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory." It was the injustice of this war that was the basis for 'Walden Pond', taught in schools about civil disobedience against injustice.
The US was also in the middle of injustice to Native Americans - even if a case could be made for expanding on the land they were on, there was clearly injustice.
The United States itself had formed over feeling a lack of justice at the hands of the rich ruling class of England, who wanted the colonies to be an economic engine whose profits came to them, a ruling class who came to have a massive global empire that killed millions and oppressed millions more in the name of the profits for themselves.
The very system we created was designed to increase justice, by giving 'the people' the power of the vote to use against such an oppressive class.
The best things politically involve increasing justice. There are any number of injustices large and small, that politics done well can reduce.
At one basic level, if one man robs another, that's an injustice, and where the name 'criminal justice' comes from, about addressing that type of wrong.
But it's not the only type of injustice. If a financial company can defraud or oppress, there can be injustice. If an insurance company can drop you whenever you cost them money and not pay, there can be injustice. Racism, for example the allowing of 'racial covenants' to keep a house from being sold to blacks, can have injustice.
The denying to women the right to vote had injustice, the treatment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, seizing their property, had injustice, the denial of marriage rights to groups from blacks to inter-racial couples to gays has injustice, the punishment of some with unpopular political views in McCarthyism had injustice.
Note, many or all of these have had large support at some point.
Saying they were unjust at one time would be attacked.
There continue to be issues raised as 'injustice', and history suggests that there will be some that are opposed now but have a point, unless we fixed them all. Unlikely.
All of these 'could have gone on', as well, as many did for centuries - but it's good we did something to fix them.
At the least, people today should try to consider a claim of injustice before reacting with hostility. Could they be today's person defending injustice?
When you look at the injustices, a common theme is one advantaged group disadvantaging another for reasons of not liking change, or selfish benefit, or bigotry.
The thing is, our political system rewards numbers, it rewards power - it can't tell a vote for justice from one against, whether the majority is voting to give women the vote or voting to oppose desegregation. Votes can be for or against justice. They aren't always for justice - democracy itself is an important tool for justice, but it's no guarantee.
The US has a popular slogan closing the pledge of allegiance, 'with liberty and justice for all', that captures a lot of this desire. Justice against what injustice? Not just the British - but all kinds of injustices that may not have been viewed as such earlier. Social, economic, political and others.
Justice isn't always one-sided and clear - even if it may seem so later, if the arguments of one side seem 'ridiculous'. Privilege and the status quo are blinders on justice.
Even the most unjust often did not think they were - Nazis did not have just the desire to do evil, but the misguided idea they were benefiting the human race, as they 'cleaned it', Darwin's little helpers as they removed what they viewed as inferior elements of the species, the mentally ill and many others, from reproducing. The point isn't how horribly wrong they were, or even the irony most would say they were the members the species needs to be cleansed of, but how they didn't think of it as evil.
It goes to show that if the perpetrators of what is viewed as one of the greatest crimes of history were this deluded, so can be people on smaller injustices - as they have been on the examples listed and many others. How hard it is, even for a people who recite 'justice for all' even while they did not let women vote, who made it the official national pledge even while segregation was legal, to have injustice?
The status quo deserves special mention as a blinder on justice. People 'get used' to how things are - and forget to consider injustice. Things like brutal colonial policies - or any of the examples discussed - could go on without much question because that's how things had always been. People didn't have to ask how they would like to be in the situation of those other people. And even the victims were vulnerable.
Were women across the nation in an uproar every election for over a century? No. While Abigail Adams may have told her husband to consider women's rights, most women did not seem too concerned about 'injustice' that they could not vote, as clear as it may seem today. It took a long time for there to be 'civil rights movements' for issue after issue that was not seen as a problem for centuries but is almost universally accepted as a problem today if it existed.
And there's reason to think today's 'no big deal' status quo can have some problems, too, even as we get better on justice, each improvement making the next easier.
Even the injustice of the British system that led to the creation of the United States, the centuries of the aristocratic class of England who abused their power for more wealth, was not an obvious injustice to many; our same founding fathers who later created the United States earlier had not recognized some big issue with justice, even when they did have issues, they worked to try to resolve them with minor changes while preserving the system as it was.
It took years and things like the writings of Thomas Paine to raise questions of justice that had not really been heard for centuries of injustice. Suddenly, there's an injustice!
One that's so clear and powerful, it justifies people risking their lives over and a world culture shift with noble sayings about 'liberty' needing to oppose it.
Nothing had really changed from the centuries of the colonists being 'loyal British subjects'. It was more the logistics that helped fuel rebellion eventually - and one that came to be widely accepted as an injustice in terms of a society having an aristocratic class that abuses power so much.
How many American lose sleep at night over their being millions of terribly impoverished people who collect the food for them to buy for cheap prices?
That's an 'economic injustice' - one that isn't based on some evil leader, but a system that has come to be where people who are born in the group who picks the food are in a bad situation. There's a big injustice there and we as a society would do well to ask some questions what can be sensibly done to reduce the injustice, but we don't, comfortable with the 'status quo' and the low food prices, unconcerned.
When the same issue was raised about American immigrant farm workers in Edward Murrow's documentary, "The Grapes of Shame", it stirred many Americans to recognize the economic injustice there, and to want to look for how things could be improved, for reforms. Not so much today.
In contrast to the status quo that that blinds to injustice, general rules of justice tend to help put a spotlight and identify injustice.
The 'justice for all' was mentioned as raising questions about injustice in the society that recited it. When Jefferson wrote 'All men were created equal', it had built in the raising of questions of slavery, even of the choice of words eventually of 'men', not 'people' to include women.
The 14th amendment written for one injustice, of race, has been used for reducing all kinds of other injustices the authors wouldn't have begun to intend.
Just saying 'everyone gets due process of law' makes it easier for those who are not to ask 'why aren't they'. Like gays in the military - hardly challenged as unjust earlier.
Indeed, those words written over a century ago could be used to ask, why are gays discriminated against, not getting equal treatment, when it was ruled unconstitutional.
And that court ruling - creating an expected ruling forcing change in the military - helped build the military's support for ending that injustice.
Justice can be controversial - sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly - but it's the most important principle in politics, and the key to why democracy can be beneficial.
The corruption of democracy can threaten it - specifically because it prevents justice, by those who want to prevent it.
And this includes the left's cause of 'economic justice' - just as most Americans now appreciate the justice of workers having reasonable power in contrast to the 'robber baron' era. The right doesn't have to agree with all the specific times it's alleged to happen, or the methods to address it, but they should do better at the larger issue of justice, not ignore it as they are so encouraged to do by the agents of the privileged.
Justice is a word that should be championed by all in the political system - even those who may lose some advantage. Would you own slaves, if you were allowed? The right thing is for you to refuse, even if it would provide you advantage, just as some who are privileged today champion that some of the privilege is unjust and should be reformed.
Justice is the most important word in politics.
Save234
Facebook
Twitter