I have been anxious and unsettled as I have watched the events surrounding the former president and his friends as they have come to the realization that they will have to answer for what they have allegedly done wrong.
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I have been in the process of trying to understand what “the law” is, what “law and order” really means, and in light of that, the definition of justice. I honestly do not understand how this nation or any nation, for example, can have a law or a constitution that allows a person who has been indicted for a number of offenses to run for any public office, especially the president of the United States. I am offended that he is being allowed …that “the law” is permitting him to run.
Every time I hear that the former president is leading in the polls to become the Republican nominee for president, I literally shudder.
When I compare the situation with the former president to situations involving other people who have done (or been indicted for) far less egregious offenses, my puzzlement – and perhaps a good amount of resentment – kicks in. I’ve been trying to understand what it is I want to say.
And I finally got it. I heard a quote by a man named Frank Wilhoit, who said, “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Although the statement is apparently attributed to the wrong Frank Wilhoit (there was an elder Wilhoit, a politician, to whom the statement is frequently attributed but it was actually spoken by a younger man, a musician, whose name is also Frank Wilhoit. (https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html) its power is the same. Justice under the law is not a given, notwithstanding this country’s claim to being “exceptional.”
When I heard those words, it was like the lights went on in my mind. I realized I had been trying to unpack what seems to be the norm in this country and perhaps globally. “The law,” is selectively obeyed and respected. The code of behavior and expectations set in place by the government is not intended to apply in the same way to “the least of these” as it applies to the wealthy or the privileged. Those who are not in high places or who have friends in high places operate under an entirely different legal system. There is no such thing as “equal protection under the law.”
We hear “law and order” when violence erupts after groups of people get fed up with being marginalized and ignored and oppressed by the government. What governments want those who are being oppressed or discriminated against is to be quiet and accept what it doles out.
During the Nixon administration, we heard the demand for “law and order” from the president and from his vice president, Spiro Agnew. Agnew, and many Americans, resented the anger expressed through violence in the streets of major cities in this country by Black people after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
Agnew responded with a caustic statement, “Why don’t impoverished white Americans riot? Could it be that they know they will not meet with sympathy, that collective white lawlessness will not be tolerated?”
He went on, “It is not the centuries of racism and deprivation that have built to an explosive crescendo but the fact that lawbreaking has become a socially acceptable and occasionally stylish form of dissent.” (“Spiro Agnew, the Forgotten Americans and the Rise of the New Right”. The Historian.)
What he did not say was that white-collar crime – the types of crimes he committed that eventually forced him out of office – was considered by those of his ilk to be a “stylish form of dissent.”
Agnew was stoking the embers of racism and white fear; that remark was directed toward angry Blacks who had converged on the streets and thus assuage the anxiety of white people, but the pushback against anyone who resorted to violence in order to be heard was met with the same insistence that there would be law and order. Anti-war demonstrators bore the brunt of police brutality and were arrested in large numbers because they dared challenge the legality of the participation of the United States in the Viet Nam War, and so did anyone that was fed up with systemic injustice.
Segregation laws were enforced. Lawless, extra-judicial acts of violence were permitted. Anti -LGBTQIA laws will be enforced. Book bans put in place by law will be enforced. The prohibition of AP African American history courses will be enforced. Gerrymandering will be allowed. Voting laws will be ignored. Anti-abortion laws will be enforced, which will undoubtedly result in suffering by women and, anxiety on the part of healthcare workers who will be afraid to perform necessary procedures o save the lives of women who are having problem pregnancies. Making those groups of people obey “the law” will be a primary concern of law enforcement, but wealthy white people who can purchase the freedom of accountability will be able to ignore the laws that will put others in jail.
Police can commit murder – i.e., they can shoot unarmed people and get away with it as long as they say “I was in fear for my life.” For them, only a very few are ever held accountable to the civic and moral law that says, “Thou shall not murder.”
Perhaps the pinnacle of the wrongness of a universal, equitable practice of law and order can be seen in our local, state, and federal governments. Powerful people are openly flouting “the law.” From the former president to members of his inner circle, “the law” has been ignored, and while there apparently are no laws requiring certain ethical behavior on the part of US Supreme Court justices, the fact that the powers that be seem willing to ignore the flagrant violations that have been reported on the part of some justices is appalling.
We, the people, are held to a standard of behavior that the wealthy and powerful feel free to ignore.
It is somewhat comforting that those who worked to overthrow this country have been held accountable. When people see people breaking laws, or when evidence keeps coming up that reveals lawbreaking, it causes real anger when those involved are given a pass and their actions are dismissed. It is good that some of those who participated in the coup attempt on January 6, 2021, have been arrested and sentenced. One needs only recall the anger that erupted in the streets of Los Angeles when the four white officers who were caught on tape beating Rodney King were acquitted, and the uprising that happened after the white officer who shot and killed Michael Brown was acquitted brought about the same kind of anger. It is one thing to think and believe that there is unequal treatment under “the law;” it is quite another thing to see it. The human psyche can only take so much before it breaks under the pressure of injustice.
It is troubling. Where does one find justice in this country and in this world if one does not have enough money to purchase it?
This is not a nation of laws. “Law and order” is a catchphrase that says to this culture, “We will stop those people ( Black, Brown, women, LGBTQIA,) who dare challenge the government through violence.
There is something very wrong with our government and the way “the law” is used, understood, and applied.
A candid observation
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