Another nail in the coffin of “the rule of law”?

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Vox Day writes

The overwrought response of America’s blacks to the shooting death of one Trayvon Martin has been illuminating, indeed. What it demonstrates is that what passes for black political leadership has absolutely no intention of giving up the race card until the last individual of European descent has disappeared into the multiracial melting pot that is pushed so assiduously upon the American public by the mainstream media. And the media response to their usual histrionics indicates that these intentions are entirely irrelevant. … The alacrity with which the black media class foolishly jumped on the Martin situation reflects both their dim awareness that things have changed and their determination to keep attempting to play by the old rules. … The charge of racism has lost its emotive power, because no one under the age of 50 has any recollection of segregation in the American South. And not even years of multiracial propaganda in the guise of education are sufficient to erase the readily observable distinctions in human behavior; excuses based on the assumption of white bias that might have been convincing 50 years ago are no longer operative when the white student of today sees himself being academically surpassed by Asian and Indian students.

The old prejudices certainly aren’t gone on both sides of the black-white issue in America but a visit to Mississippi around 2000 showed me that things had improved. It bothers me though, that those who want to use Treyvon Martin’s death to fan the flames of hatred once again are still hawking the old victimization mentality that propelled them to prominence in the ’60’s. It had some validity then, but I agree with Vox Day, things have changed. A few years ago I attended a large pastor’s conference where one speaker talked about his experiences and successes in pastoring what he called a “multicultural” church. He meant a church with blacks and whites in the southern US which seemed to be the limit of his “multicultural” horizon. I was amused because the church I worked at near San Francisco seemed a bit more multicultural than he could imagine. We were a congregation of  whites, Filipinos, Chinese, Hispanics, Pacific Islanders with an Irish pastor from Northern California. And we all got along well. The West Coast is flooded with Hispanics and Asians. The East Coast is flooded with people from European, Caribbean, and Middle Eastern countries. In a Miami department store I overheard conversations in five languages as I walked perhaps 50 feet. I could go on. That’s not to say that some blacks in America don’t experience poverty and discrimination. But they aren’t alone and the old tools of torching communities in anger have had time to be replaced by people who demonstrate a better way. But are we seeing it?

Worse, not Better

What’s in the “news” concerning the Trayvon Martin killing warns of a far scarier issue for me, the continuing rejection of the rule of law in our society, and never has it been more clear than during the current US  administration. Without a respect for the rule of law, you have mob rule. People in the media, of all political persuasions, have made it clear for some time that they firmly believe and intend to facilitate the idea that they, and the “mob” they sell to, are above the rule of law. It has  happened in a number of prominent court cases in the last decade that the public, who didn’t hear all the evidence the jury did, decided whether the jury was right. And the media promoted their voice all over the world. Already in the Martin case, instead even waiting for a jury of 12 members of the community to patiently and carefully hear all the evidence that has been carefully gathered then decide on fault, the press has helped promote a mob judgement based upon sketchy and partial facts.  I suspect the media sees the resulting innuendo and incendiary remarks as an opportunity to attract attention so they can make money from their advertisers. There is an important difference between “the truth” and “the whole truth”. Partial truth is not “The Truth” of a situation. The truth is not complete unless we know “all” the facts as far as can be ascertained. The Law God gave us through the Israelites clearly required a legal matter to be determined by two or more reliable witnesses. While we don’t always have even two witnesses, the point is to determine the facts reliably before passing judgement rather than taking action and spewing out inflammatory rhetoric based upon incomplete evidence or mob opinion. That only leads to wars of revenge that characterize unjust societies. Whether Conservative or Liberal, there is a feeling that justice in the US is unreliable and unfair in many ways. The fact that general contempt and distrust for laws and the justice system seems to be growing indicates that the US is regressing toward darker times of human history rather than progressing.

Christ does not Discriminate.

God is impartial. There is absolutely NOTHING about our character, our looks, or our accomplishments that influences God. His love for us is determined by His choice alone. That’s the nature of being God. He is the source of all things. There is NO other. This fact humbles us, provides security and at the same time challenges us to live by the highest standard. People who say they are followers of Jesus have NO place in participating in racial discrimination of any kind, nor in passing around gossip. We follow a standard that is higher than that and must remind ourselves that we represent a being who calls us to exhibit His own character, and He is THE source of all true justice and compassion.

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