Demanding Equality of Justice

Last Friday, the lawyers representing fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe stated that despite the reference by the Justice Department's inspector general that charges be brought, they believe that their client won't have to answer in court for his actions. Some see this as simply a preliminary statement to influence the case if it ever made its way to trial. Others believe that McCabe's attorneys were confirming what we've all known for some time: that there's one set of laws for them and a different set for the rest of us. If McCabe and the other violators in the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation manage to avoid prosecution, it suggests a problem much worse than a double standard. It will be a warning that we have a class of individuals who are above the law. Ask anyone on the left if we have a class system in this country. He'll go on for hours explaining how some are lifted up at the expense of all others. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) gives whole speeches on income inequality and the need for a "moral economy" to make things fair for everyone. Feminists will tell you about the patriarchy and their never-ending fight for income equality for women. Consult the various racial and LBGT groups, and they'll talk of their ongoing struggles for civil rights equality. What all share is a common belief in a ruling class (made up of the affluent, male, white, and straight) that disadvantages non-members.

They may be on to something. There might just be a segment of society that has set privileges aside for itself, but this class isn't based on wealth, gender, race, or sexual orientation. It is politics and control of our federal enforcement agencies that have exempted these people from the law. From the Andrew McCabes of the world to those associated with the Clinton Foundation, one would be hard pressed in recent years to explain that we don't have a protected class. If a protected class existed, it would be the creation of and populated by those on the left. In their obsession with inequality of wealth, gender, race, and sexual orientation, the left has become narrow in its thinking. Like a world-class athlete too lazy to get out of bed and work out regularly in his sport, those who reside on the left have allowed their mental abilities to atrophy to Marxist thinking about all things. They've trapped themselves in a world that can be understood only in terms of class struggle between the haves and have-nots. To them, the solution isn't equality, but how to use the system to their own advantage. Admittance to the protected class is reserved for those who are particularly skilled at ginning up animosity about unfairness. It also includes those public servants willing to overlook the misdeeds of or break the law on behalf of those who are particularly good at playing the grievance game. The true masters know how to stoke the engine of the victimhood industrial complex to maximize the output of resentment against economic, sex, racial, or sexual orientation differences. Like some glider pilot, they ride the thermals of discontent they sow to the heights of political power. The occasional burning of a lowly cake-decorator or the loss of some local law-enforcer's life is the sacrifice made by others so those seeking inclusion among the protected can gain their foothold. Once granted membership, the protected set about taking care of their own. They're personally rewarded by favor-seekers and the extorted who wish to avoid legislative or regulatory disaster. Like any dynastic rule, the protected class enroll family members in the best schools, network them into lucrative careers, and otherwise shield themselves from the rest of us deplorables. If the masses grow disillusioned and appear ready to cast them from their lofty positions, the protected simply open the border and invite a more pliable demographic to take their place at the polls. Having never been exposed to or having wished to ever learn of an alternative system (say, one that rewards merit, drive, and ability) the protected know only class, envy, and inequality. They cannot surrender the mechanism that lifted them to their high station, nor are they really interested in taking meaningful action that would alleviate the misery they claim as their own particular crusade. I could be wrong about all this. There might not be a protected class. Perhaps we really are a nation of laws, where justice is blind to a person's wealth, sex, race, orientation, or station. Maybe we do all play on the same level field by the same rules, giving each the same chance. Such a system has to be based on equality of justice. Without it, the fight to right all the other wrongs would be meaningless. Justice inequality would subject us all to an arbitrary legal system that could be used at any time against the noncompliant. Isn't it time we set aside our concerns about all the other inequalities until we've been shown that there is equality of justice that applies fairly to everyone, including the McCabes of this world? Dr. Tar is the pseudonym of Barry Foltos, Ph.D. Dr. Tar is a regular contributor to iOTW Report and author of the speculative thriller FairPoint.