Harbison: "Social Justice"

Jim Harbison

At a recent forum the mayoral candidates were asked to define “social justice” and explain how it would be used in developing city policies. All three candidates said that social justice was about discrimination and they opposed discrimination in any form. As mayor they would focus on policies to insure everyone was treated equally. It is pretty hard to argue with that concept except that social justice is not about discrimination and all of them knew it.

Karl Marx

Social justice is a concept advocated by Karl Marx that has historically meant the redistribution of wealth including private property. According to Wikipedia “social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality and involves a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution. These policies aim to achieve what developmental economists refer to as more equality of opportunity than may currently exist in some societies, and to manufacture equality of outcome in cases where incidental inequalities appear in a procedurally just system. The Constitution of the International Labor Organization affirms that "universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.” And the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action treats social justice as a purpose of the human rights education”.

It is very unsettling to think that each of the mayoral candidates chose to deceive the public about this commonly accepted definition. It is this same deceptive rhetoric that has people across the nation protesting at “occupy Wall Street” rallies. Over the last several decades our children have been taught that there cannot be winners and losers because that would be social injustice. We should all be deeply troubled, when these candidates are unconcerned about redistributing our wealth and our private property.

Elected officials and candidates make promises for the citizen’s vote. We have candidates claiming that social justice is about unfair or illegal discrimination and unjust economic opportunity. Like governments at all level they claim they can create jobs in the community - another blatant distortion. All governments can do is to create an environment that encourages job growth or create public sector jobs that do not create wealth but rather consume it. Governments in a free society cannot manufacture equality of outcome either.

President Obama has been extremely successful in creating class warfare and dividing our nation not only by political ideology but also by economic success. He has convinced people that they are economically disadvantaged by successful people who now need to be punished for their success. Jobless protestors today are shouting that corporate profits are a “social injustice” and that the government should redistribute the wealth to people who had no vested interest in the success of the corporation.

The Las Cruces City Council continues the rhetoric of social justice and climate change. These concepts were mentioned again last week during the visit of our German sister city’s mayor. Like most liberals this Council is not content living their lives but focuses on using social justice to equalize society and mandate how everyone else must live. Their unquenchable lust to control everything overshadows our constitutional property rights and freedoms. Social justice is another liberal attempt to fulfill Obama’s goal of changing America and reducing our freedoms and property rights. Sadly, many people are willing to surrender their freedoms for the false promise of economic equality social justice. Unfortunately, when that happens everyone loses and we will become pawns of a socialist state with little opportunity to work hard and take risks to improve our individual social or economic status. Remember this when you vote.

Harbison: "Social Justice"