We should not any of us be surprised or shocked by this news from Louisiana. Nor should we use this incident to tar the image of Louisiana. I know there are many in Louisiana who are not racists and who would never support this kind of behavior on the part of a local public official. This kind of racist sentiment displayed by the JP there can be found all over the US, and not just in southern states. But I am absolutely convinced that it does not represent more than a minority, fringe part of our nation, and I believe that the election of Obama in November 2008 amply demonstrates that the vast majority of our country is moving in a totally different direction. But we must never think that the problem is resolved by the fact that our President is Barack Obama. Intolerance in our public discourse has grown considerably in the last decades, and our political leaders, particularly in the Republican Party have worked hard to exploit our different opinions and beliefs to promote their own political fortunes. The intolerance is not only about racial issues, but about political philosophy, ideas of social justice, and about sexual orientation, among many others.
There has been an appalling failure of moral leadership from our political class in the widespread exploitation of our differences to gain a political foot up on the opponent. It grew to its worst extreme so far with the elections in 2000 and 2004 with the political strategies devised by men such as Karl Rove who long ago lost his moral compass and who hides behind his political philosophy to justify his actions. But I digress. The saddest aspect of this situation has been the silence of the vast majority of our political leaders in both parties before these political tactics that have so severely and dangerously divided our nation. I am referring here not only to our executives (President, governors, mayors) but also to our legislative respresentatives at the federal and state levels. We have always had political fault lines and political differences and we should expect that we always will. But the lack or moral responsability on the part of our political candidates is shocking and disappointing to anyone who has followed the history of our nation.
Since the late 1990's, this corruption of our political morality has extended to our judiciary, especially to the federal courts and our Supreme Court. Disgracefully, our leaders and legislators have since the second Clinton administration in particular politicized the nomination of our judges to the detriment of justice in our country. We can see evidence of the intolerance I bemoan here in the workings of our Supreme Court, as the findings our the justices increasingly are guided by political and social philosophy to the exclusion of legal reasoning, which must be the foundation and bedrock of their decisions if justice is to be served.
The strength of America has always been its diversity, and now our politicians, especially in the Republican Party, have turned that virtue of diversity on its head and have succeeded in turning Americans against one another by exploiting our differences and stoking our fears and insecurities in this insecure world in which we live. We used to agree to disagree and worked within the context of our democratic practices and principles to find ways to live and work together and to tolerate willingly and openly our differences. The quality of our political leadership, not only in the Presidency but even more so in Congress and in the Supreme Court has fallen in recent decades and the result is the current climate of fear and intolerance that our politicians have stoked. We must continue to seek and elect leaders who promote openness, tolerance, and a willingness to work even with those with whom they disagree to resolve the problems and difficulties our country faces.
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