We Are A Nation Of Laws — That Need To Be Equally Applicable To All

Most Americans willingly obey traffic signals, pay our income taxes, do as the law instructs us to do.

And well we should. We are subject to an elaborate system of law enforcement and criminal justice that both warns and simultaneously assures the accused that they will have their day in court. The same promise is made to those who use the courts to seek redress of civil disputes.

The credibility of the entire system, if not it’s actual authority, rests on its impartiality and fairness. The wish of the participants in this project is that the laws of the land should be enforced and adjudicated equally.

That, most of them contend, is an aspiration not a fact. The concern, expressed especially by participants from minority communities but agreed to by many of their white counterparts, is that the law is over-applied to minorities and the poor, and under-applied to the rich and powerful.

Introduction to this project

Use of uncommon methods

Based on four very different locales

“We Are A Nation Of Laws — That Need To Be Equally Applicable To All” is the fifth of “10 principles to unite America” that look both to the past and to the future, reminding us of what we hold dear as Americans and at the same time challenging us to do better. They stand out as common purpose for our nation.

Jackie in Edgefield: We have a lot of laws that should be equal straight across the board.  Not for certain people. 

Carmin, a lawyer who believes on the whole we’re a law-abiding people, in Concord: I think it’s richer, white people who are less law-abiding because we are more willing to press the edge of the envelope. White-collar crime is so real and so unpunished.

Many got caught, and punished, in the recent college admissions scandal. Carmin contends though that there have been many bigger fish who didn’t get fried. One chapter that particularly sticks in her craw is the subprime mortgage scandal that blew apart the housing market in 2008. In her mind, rich investment bankers and others skimmed off millions of dollars without so much as a slap on the hand.

Equal treatment under the law came into question again in 2020 with the pardons of presidential adviser Michael Flynn and friend-of-the-president Roger Stone.  Legal critics and political opponents claimed the actions screamed of beneficial treatment. Then Atty. Gen. William Barr contended otherwise, saying he saw the two men as victims of harsher treatment.

This disparity in viewpoints undermines Founding Father John Adams’ argument way back in 1790 that we are a government of laws, not a government of men.

Tom in Edgefield:  It should be, but human nature sometimes gets in the way and the law doesn’t cover everybody the same way. 

Minorities feel it is they who are the true victims of harsher treatment.

Paul and Josie – both of them Hispanic — watch every day as vans carrying Border Patrolmen from their homes in Phoenix to work in Ajo whiz by them at very high speeds. Meanwhile, Paul is still trying to figure out why a state trooper going in the opposite direction on an isolated stretch of an interstate highway did an abrupt U-turn and moments later pulled him over. Paul’s supposed offense? The best the officer could do was claim Paul’s license plate – which, on the rear of the vehicle, was not visible to the officer when he was headed in the opposite direction – was hard to read.

Paul is careful not to call this racial profiling. He doesn’t even call it harassment. But why it happened troubles him deeply.

Josie reports similar incidents, as does Lorraine, another well-respected resident of Ajo who is a Native American. Lorraine’s people, the Tohono O’odham, have a sprawling Nation to the east of Ajo.

Jack, like Carmin a Concord lawyer: I’m sure you’ve heard about the alleged crime of “driving while black.” In Arizona and perhaps elsewhere, the equivalent offenses might be driving while Hispanic and driving while Native American.

This though is just one category of what blacks assert is the more general problem of being targeted for “living while black.” The nationwide debate about police tactics that erupted in the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd drew large numbers of protesters of all colors to Black Lives Matter marches and demonstrations across the country.

Unfortunately some protesters undermined the cause by resorting to looting and destruction of property, giving critics an opening to justify their opposition and later to even excuse the acts of the insurrectionists who assaulted the U.S. Capitol in January.

But there too blacks declare a double standard. They claim had it been black men, not white men, storming the Capitol, the authorities would have responded much more harshly than issuing polite requests to the invaders to please leave the chamber.

The laws of the land are now much closer to being blind to gender, blind to color. If only all those who enforce those laws were color-blind as well.