Evaluate the status of minorities in American legal and political history
Discuss the key policy debates related to civil rights, equality, and criminal justice
Synthesize the above with a Biblical model of government and statesmanship.
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
HELMS SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT
Discussion Board: Race in Public Policy
Submitted to Dr. Eric Root,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements and the completion of
PLCY 700 - B02
Foundations of Statesmanship and Public Policy
by
Tracy Nix
June 8, 2021
Political Historic and Status of Minorities in the American Legal System
The American legal system has been established in a world where slavery was prevalent and an understood right to property was the monetary norm. If you read the very founding Father’ writings, you can see that slavery was not something that they wished to institute as they were establishing a new nation but didn’t quite know how to accomplish the dovetail from the world monetary system. While evil men and atrocities were present in society during the 17th and 18th centuries, just as they were in all the preceding generations; the continuing theme of how to deal with minorities in the legal system has plagued generations. To be clear: the enslaving of another person against their will on the sole basis of their ethnicity is evil and is the antithesis that is the basis for constructing a civilized society. The 3/5 compromise was the first judicial act that the founding fathers of the United States of America enacted: though at its core it was really the United States debating out the logic of the southern states supposed right to own property while at the same time wanting to the vote value of their people. Slaves were either property or people, you couldn’t have it both ways. Thankfully the United States did eventually become one of the first in world history to abolish slavery. Since the foundation of the world, most nations have enslaved minorities and while America was not perfect in this regarding its track record: it is not the most inherently evil nation in the existence of the world. In fact, David Barton: America’s premier historian and owner of the largest private collection of founding documents of the United States has declared that, while sifting through the well documented historic transactions of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade: America had the 3rd fewest slaves imported compared to the massive import and export market of the entire world. The founding people of the U.S. (as a whole) clearly did not have an appetite to enslave people, but they did value property rights over people's rights and for that, we ought to blush. Financial dilemmas may have prevented in the most zealous anti slaver person from just emancipating his slaves. Slave laws had been in place that required a bond to be paid if an owner that inherited slaves were to emancipate his slaves. As was in the case of Thomas Jefferson that he was not financially able to legally emancipate his slaves.
The Slave code was a complicated legal gridwork pertaining to the subject of slavery – much like the three-million-word IRS code has become today. Particularly relevant to Jefferson’s case was a law requiring the economic bonding of certain emancipated slaves. Jefferson, who suffered severe economic difficulties throughout his lifetime, was unable to meet the added financial requirements of that emancipation law. Another Virginia law applicable to him stipulated that “all slaves so emancipated shall be liable to be taken … to satisfy any debt contracted by the person emancipating them.”116 Thus, emancipated slaves could be seized by creditors to pay off any debt owed by the owner, thus legally negating their emancipation. (Barton & David, 2012)
Historical Negativism is a steady flow of belittling and demeaning portrayals of Western heroes, beliefs, values, and institutions. An accurate presentation of history depends on telling the good, the bad, and the ugly about any event, person, or period, but Negativists stress the bad and the ugly while routinely ignoring the good. They can identify every blemish that has appeared on the face of the country over the past four centuries but not what has made America the envy of almost every people in the world – every people, that is, except many modern Americans, now recite more of what’s wrong with America than what’s right. (Barton & David, 2012)
This writing shall be framed from the lens of a country that has been consumed with the struggle of the treatment of minorities in the legal system but will flow out of a respect for a country that was brave enough to go against the grain and flow of the entire world histories’ economic system and from its roots has not ceased to tackle the struggle of forming a more perfect union: The United States of America.
Amongst others: Jim Crow law repeals, Affirmative Action, Dred Scott SCOTUS case, Emancipation Proclamation are all just some of the legal challenges involving positive and negative rights that have been taken on and come forth positively for minorities during the short history of the United States of America.
Policy Debate: Civil Rights, Equality and Criminal Justice
The issue of Civil Rights has been an elongated process to the promotion of human rights, without regard for the basis of race, or inalienable rights as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, the 14th Amendment all the way to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The ongoing policy debate in the United States had momentarily been seemingly satisfied during an age where affirmative action was the law and even a social norm. This time period has largely been disquieted by legal challenges and even political challenges to the ethicalness of the unequalness under the law. A new term has broadened the horizon and taken over the debate and that is Equity. Equity is really just the Proportional Equality just repackaged. (Cochran et al., 2016) A firestorm was started in November of 2020 with a Tweet by then-Vice President Candidate Kamila Harris when she sent out a tweet trying to establish the difference between equity and equality. Equity has to do with equalness of outcome and equality has to do with equalness of opportunity. The debate has led to a full circle policy shift with the new Biden Administration when he signed into law just weeks ago in 2021 the American Rescue Plan Act outlining income forgiveness to loans issued to most ethnic groups except white people. (Department of Treasury, 2021)The United States has dipped back into legalizing systemic racism back into the institutional system. There have already been a number of legal challenges to this recent bill that was passed.
Criminal Justice is an issue that has been debated with idea that the system is rigged against minorities especially Black American Men. Michelle Alexander calls the mass incarceration movement that took place in the last 30 years, the New Jim Crow Laws. (Alexander, 2011) She likens the mass incarceration to being poignantly directed at systemically enslaving black American men under the guise of blind justice and in a period of seeming quieted race relations. Alexander likens mass incarceration to slavery and once released, the term Felon can legally disenfranchise these minorities as second-class citizens likened to Jim Crow laws. (Alexander, 2011) This position gives no merit to individualized responsibility and does not take into account an actual fact pattern per individual case. As noted in the American Public Policy textbook “It is important to keep in mind that a “crime” is an activity that some legislative body has chosen to make illegal.” (Cochran et al., 2016) A potential problem holding up true justice in a just justice system is the lack of a coherent sustainable philosophy of Justice. We currently govern using a social contract type of agreement that is tied to subjective truth based upon the whims and shifting morals of the governed and not principles of natural law and nature’s God. One example of this is the seeming settled idea of civil rights debate based on natural God-given rights that all men are created equal and deserve to be treated equally: when the tides turn of the social contract, then all of sudden it is ok that a President and Congress sign into law an inherently evil and systemically racist law that would discriminate based on the race of white people: namely the American Rescue Plan Act.
Biblical Covenantal Statesmanship: Racial Rights and Equal Access
As biblical covenantal statesman will realize that he lives in the land of laws that are governed by equals but that all governments are ordained by and given authority by God and are thereby responsible to Him. Racial Rights and Equal Access need to be based on objective truths that God himself has revealed to mankind either by natural moral law and or by Revelation (The Bible). The shared responsibility of the government is demonstrated in the voting process and the checks and balances of branches of government of the United States of America. Racial Rights and equal access should be based on the natural law and spelled out in the divine law. God made a covenant will all of humanity and gave instruction after the flood. Gen 9:6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made the man. (King James, 1905)The implication of God’s communication is that all men are equally made after God’s image and deserve equal treatment. Equal access is not the same as equal outcomes. The outcome is based on the natural law of sowing and reaping and should be justly distributed by God’s revelatory system of private property distributional precepts. Galatian 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. God is willing to distribute ultimate justice, but also proportional distributions based upon actions as he sees fit. A biblical statesman will do everything in his power to participate as a citizen in education and advocacy to direct the laws of the land both in inception, application, and interpretation, while privately participating in God’s ultimate plan for the redemption of the world through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
References
Alexander, M. (2011). The New Jim Crow . Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 9(Fall 2011), 7-26. https://heinonline-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/osjcl9&id=12&men_tab=srchresults#
Barton, & David. (2012). Jefferson Lies . WND Books.
Cochran, C., Mayer, L., Carr, T. R., Cayer, J., McKenzie, M., & Peck, L. (2016). American Public Policy: An Introduction (11th Edition ed.). Cengage Learning.
Department of Treasury. (2021). FACT SHEET: The American Rescue Plan Will Deliver Immediate Economic Relief to Families U.S. Department of Treasury. https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/fact-sheet-the-american-rescue-plan-will-deliver-immediate-economic-relief-to-families
King James. (1905). Bible . No Copyright.
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