What makes this bad is that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution is clear: …nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
There is no wiggle room, “…the equal protection of the laws.” It does not say that United States citizens can be denied equal protection of the laws for a good cause.
There is no wiggle room, “…the equal protection of the laws.” It does not say that United States citizens can be denied equal protection of the laws for a good cause.
The creatures of evil in our society immediately started trying to undo the guarantee of this Amendment to the Constitution. In fact, in 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed the United States nationally and each of the states should have allowed all women of age to vote since they have an equal protection of the laws. Sadly the male citizens of that age did not nor did any court affirm the Equal Protection.
In the 1896 Supreme Court case, Plessy versus Ferguson, petitioner Homer Plessy, a successful Louisiana businessman did not consider himself African-American since he was an octoroon, which means he had one grandparent who was of African-American heritage.
Mr. Plessy was one-eighth African-American but considered himself white. He refused to sit in the segregated area of a train therefore he was arrested and fined. This went through the courts in Louisiana to their Supreme Court and then to the U. S. Supreme Court. In the worst ruling by the Supreme Court of all time the Court said that segregation was legal as long as the segregation was separate but equal.
Further, they did not even rule what percentage of ancestry made someone an African-American which might have been of some use. Finally almost sixty years later a much better Supreme Court undid the harm.
Things were looking up and then something equally harmful happened. Years later the forces of evil made a ruling that to end discrimination it was imperative to discriminate against some Americans. That is like ruling to end murder we must kill some innocent people. This ruling also ignored the “Equal Protection” afforded all citizens. The idea of Affirmative Action has always been tragically flawed by it being a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
No more can there be “Separate but equal” than can there be “Unequal to end discrimination.” However, it was and is quite politically correct to ignore the Constitution and to say that a “Color-blind society” needs some awareness of color and to discriminate on the basis of that color.
Likewise, there is gender along with race as discriminations that needed more discrimination to end. Dare I say it again: not allowed by the Constitution. That is except the Supreme Court seems to not have read that amendment. More so, neither have the politicians who pledge “…will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
There is a serious question if any part of the Constitution is still intact. All have been watered down and fundamentally changed over the years. In 27 cases it was done according to the rules of the Constitution. But in most cases courts and legislatures just quit following the Constitution.
Example: we have freedom of speech unless the government does not like it. We are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law but the media tries and convicts us outside of court and perhaps even shapes what happens in courts.
But the core issue of our country has few defenders: that each and every American is exactly equal and no law nor governmental practice can take that away. We Americans can easily be unequal if we like, but the government cannot make us unequal.
We all have a Constitutional guarantee of equal opportunities. The Constitution does not guarantee equal outcomes. We start the race at the same place as everyone else. How we finish the race is up to us, not the government.
Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
