Libertarian Commentary #16-21B – by Nathan Barton

When I was growing up, I was taught that justice and society were supposed to be “color-blind.” Now, mind you, I was growing up BEFORE MLKJr and all that, and in that awful, evil place called Texas. But in my first and second grade classes, where I (an Anglo-AmerInd) sat with a black guy over there and a Spanish girl as a best friend (Spanish meant she was “hispanic” (term not used then) and her family spoke Spanish at home, but had been in Texas for a long, long time, probably before the Revolution, as contrasted to the Mexican kids sitting beyond her, whose parents were migrant farm workers still learning English), we were told that people were to be judged by their individual character and actions and not by race or skin color or ethnic or national origin, even though it hadn’t always been that way.

Now, a half-century later, it seems that some people just don’t get it – in more than one way. National Public Radio reports that the Nazgul (SCOTUS) has ordered a new trial for a black death row inmate convicted by all-white jury. “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that a black Georgia man convicted of murder by an all-white jury should have a new trial because the prosecution deliberately excluded African-Americans from the jury based on their race. The court’s decision reversed as ‘clearly erroneous’ an earlier ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court, which had said the defendant had not proved racial discrimination in the selection of his jury. It’s been nearly 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court set new rules to counter race discrimination in the seating of juries. But in some jurisdictions, the propensity to bar non-white jurors has persisted, even in capital cases such as the one against Timothy Foster, a black man accused of killing an elderly white woman.” Now, there are a LOT of things wrong with this; obviously IF they intentionally seated only Anglos or other whites, that IS a problem. But the fact that the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the judge, and even the court clerk ALLOWED this is a good indication that people just don’t get it. And at the same time, the jury system is collapsing because it has been tinkered with so much that it is possible to do something like this: juries should be chosen at random with as few disqualifiers as possible. Are they relatives? Are they especially notably brain-dead? Can they not speak and read English? It should be no more a matter of rejection of a verdict if it is an all-black jury deciding on an Anglo defendant or an all-Asian jury deciding on an AmerInd defendant, if that is what the random selection pulls out. After all, people who have dark skin and ancestors from Africa only make up 15-20% of the population, overall. But no, government has decided that we can’t be color-blind: that color must be the DOMINANT factor in such things. Can a redhead demand that at least one juror be a redhead? Can a Comanche demand that at least one juror be another Comanche, and that no Texans are allowed? Can a Jew demand that they have a Jewish juror, and no Catholics? The stupidity is astonishing.

Much of that stupidity is intentional, due to the indoctrination received in government-ruined, theft-funded “public schools” where they are NOT taught about color-blindness and love thy neighbor, but about being victims, and how might makes right. And they are NOT taught to think for themselves.

As long as we allow government to dictate what “justice” is to us, and the “importance” of race and color, we will have no true justice.