Injustice Finally Can Be Overcome Over Time, But Only If Pursued In A Democracy

By Donald A. Collins | 24 July 2023
Church and State

(Image credit: Alisdare Hickson / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Those political efforts to prohibit various rights in a democracy are now as always pushing against a highly contentious history, which has dogged our great experiment since its inception in 1791.

Slavery ranks as the nation’s greatest crime, but while proper compensation and justice can never be achieved, the tide has turned and political attempts to reverse will be strongly resisted.

The acceleration of cultural equity for the growing number of women, minorities and younger people bespeaks unstoppable change.

The disaster of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision coupled with the disgraceful instances of conflict of interest by its Justices will be ultimately regretted by the GOP as it pays what will be an increasingly steep political price for this blatant attack on women’s health and rights.

That a federal judge calls for strong SC reform speaks also to the Congressional repair needed and likely coming although the timing of all these reforms I cite as now uncertain. His article is well worth reading; its title, “Does the Supreme Court Realize How Bad It Smells?”.

Solution? Remember Justice Abe Fortas?

Read here:

My main contention here, if reforms I see as coming, are reforms that can ONLY be achieved in an enlightened democracy!!

Other obviously needed solutions to existing inequities?

How about book banning in schools and libraries?

Remember book burning?

Read here.

How about book banning in the USA? It’s a growing movement.

An article in the 5/23/23 LA Times says,

As attempts to ban or restrict books nearly doubled in 2022 over the previous year, reaching a record high in the U.S., public libraries and school districts have become new battlegrounds for the nation’s ever-present culture wars.

The increasing censorship by activists, religious groups, politicians and even parents has largely affected people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals, PEN America recently found. Here are some of our stories about the issue.

How about voting rights to be protected by eliminating the Electoral College which shields the bigotry of the few over the wishes of the many?

How about making our need for new immigrants a legal process instead of a political football which puts so many aspirants to citizenship in constant inhumane danger?

How about gun control measures that outlaw young men from buying guns until age 25 or banning possession of MR-15s without an owner being licensed?

How about instituting a national health program which denies no one health care, particularly women without access to control of their bodies?

Failure of our flawed democracy to recognize the need for national laws—such as the long unenacted Equal Rights Amendment—that protect rights and avoid the vicious attacks by far-right wing state governments on basic human freedoms leads too many to under value the democracy they enjoy!

The repeal of Glass Steagall (1933) and Citizens United enacted in 2010 gave power levers to the rich and influential to manipulate safe separation of financial institutions and to buy votes which now control our governments at every level.

Losing faith in our democracy risks a death blow to the above reforms despite the fact that so many are showing real signs of progress. Our changing demography will be a major factor, as the Christian nationalists and those white voters afraid of replacement are simply outnumbered by those who realize that racism denigrates any one who practices it.

Justice, so far underachieved in many cases, offers none of us excuses to take no actions or make no efforts. But only under democracies can improved justice be accomplished.

This 2024 election looms as the most important since the Civil War and vital continuation of pathways to solving and or improving the effects of the Trump MAGA cult and the GOP which allowed Trump the license to defraud and defame that party.

As climate conditions worsen and the world’s human population expands to unsustainable levels, only democracies worldwide offer the best chance for avoiding the well underway 6th Extinction.

Final thought: If we can spend untold amounts on getting to an uninhabitable rock like Mars, why can’t our governments around the world subsidize wind, water, and energy in adequate amounts sufficient to save life on Earth?

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us” and “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”.

Astonishing Corruption at The Supreme Court?

Lawrence: Clarence Thomas should follow Abe Fortas’ example and resign from the Supreme Court

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