Well, not quite. The Founders new that all men could not be created equal, in the sense that no two people are exactly alike when they are born. When they grow, they have different skill sets, emotions, physical strength, social status, among other attributes. What they were referring to is that all men are created equal under the law, with equally protected rights and all under the sight of God.
It is up to society to accept and uphold those rights of equality, even with all of their individual differences.
As noted by the Constitutional writer, Clarence Carson, all people should have their rights equally protected under the law and each person is equally entitled to pursue life, liberty and happiness afforded under the Declaration of Independence. In terms of the law, every person has the right to have his or her case heard regardless of social standing on an equal playing field.
The Founders put our country on a course that provided something that no other country had ever done, in terms of equality to all citizens. The disconnect comes from society itself when some people are not treated equally for one reason or another. And these people that are mistreated are always the minority and are always kept as outsiders, as long as society allows it to happen, minorities will always consider themselves as being unequal. What's bizarre is that America is a country of minorities.
There is no other country on the face of this planet that has the amount of minorities as America does. The Founding Fathers were geniuses, because they created a society of freedom which allowed for opportunity, which in turn, attracted millions of immigrants and a few generations later, millions were considered first class citizens. Even though it was painful, their acceptance into our society was much faster than other countries. In many other countries, a certain group can reside there for hundreds of years and are never accepted into their society.
Growing up twenty five or thirty years ago, I never recalled a time when I was asked to press 1 for English or 2 for Espaniol. Today, it's common place to the point that if you don't have that option, you can put your business at risk because it is considered by many as racist or ethnically biased because it's excluding a minority.
You can disagree all you want, but the national language of America is English and in order to be accepted into it is to cross the culture gap and learn it. If you decided to relocate to Spain, do you honestly believe that they would change their culture to suit you, who is the minority? If you dialed a business on their phone system, would you hear, press 1 for Spanish or 2 for English?
For a minority to be accepted into society and then assimilated takes patience and can take generations to become an asset. Some times minority groups run out of patience and they choose a different path to acceptance and bloodshed occurs, which can result in that cultures destruction and nothing is gained. Recent history has shown that this has very nearly happened, such as the Jews during World War II and the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes in Africa.
Of course the United States has had her problems with accepting minorities as well.
During the boom of the railroad industry in the 19th century, the Chinese were treated brutally. They worked tirelessly on the railroads, as field workers and ran laundries for a pittance, all the while sleeping on boards and sending their children to school and suffering maltreatment. Yet, they endured with patience and by the 1940's were virtually assimilated into our culture. The Japanese, however, never quite made it due to December 7, 1941.
Just weeks after Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were carted off to concentration camps in the Rocky Mountains and it's a national embarrassment to this day. It particularly doesn't help matters much when J. Edgar Hoover knew there weren't any spies or agent provocateurs among them. He also vehemently protested their movement into these internment camps to no avail.
Did the Japanese hold it against our country? Not quite. They did something that rightly gave our country a black eye and that was to send their sons to war in the American armed forces! They did this knowing that their sons would still be distrusted in the ranks and yet, being loyal, they came out the heroes in the end.
And it was done through patience.
One scar on America that will never be fully healed is the slavery of blacks, even though they have been assimilated and have risen to become first class citizens faster than any other, despite their brutal treatment. If you don't think so, consider this: Within three to four generations, thousands of blacks made leaps and bounds to cross the culture gap. Blacks in other countries noticed the higher standard of living of their kinsmen in America and by the 70's, a black student in high school living in the South had a much better opportunity to get a college education than a white student in Europe.
The crux of the problem, when it comes to the manner in which they were treated, comes down to two issues. Politicians were split as to how blacks could be fully assimilated into American culture. Some felt that they could do it through education and job opportunities, while others asserted it could be accomplished with taxpayer subsidies and government assistance. History has shown that the former is the better way to go, while the latter caused them to be dependent on government handouts, much like a drug addict needs a supplier.
Of course some blacks ran out of patience and took the extreme path.
Eldridge Cleaver was a Marxist radical who spent much of his youth in detention centers for petty crimes. In 1957, he was arrested for committing rape and was convicted of assault with intent to murder and subsequently went to prison for 15 years. During this time, he taught himself Marxist philosophy and the tactics of revolutionaries and in 1967, he became the Minister of Information for the Black Panthers.
Cleaver's agenda was to destroy the economy and social structure of America, so that blacks could enjoy the same rights as others under what he called American Communism. By 1968, the violence was getting worse and only the black ghettos were burning, which the lamestream media tends to always ignore.
At any rate, Cleaver jumped bail on an attempted murder charge in late 1968 and fled to Cuba, then to Algeria. After some trouble with Timothy Leary, he fled to France and in 1975 was eventually repatriated to the United States. Disavowing Marxism he stated:
I was wrong and the Black Panthers were wrong. We Black Americans are inside the system and I feel that the number one objective for Black America is to recognize that they have the same equal rights under the Constitution as Ford or Rockefeller, even if we have no blue-chip stocks. But our membership in the United States is the supreme blue-chip stock and the one we have to exercise.
Part of his retribution to society was to serve several hundred hours of community service. He accepted many speaking engagements at schools, universities and churches professing his profound appreciation for the American idea and way of life. He felt betrayed by Communism when he realized that it wasn't all about human rights.
The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were added to the Constitution after its adoption in 1789. Our Founding Fathers new that there was a difference between equal rights and other areas where it was not possible. They realized that it was up to society to pursue it and to provide it. What many Americans don't realize and don't understand, is that the Constitution and The Declaration of Independence guarantees equal rights, but, it does not guarantee an equal outcome or result.
Today a man named Joseph Stack, 53, slammed a small single engine plane into an IRS Building in Austin, Texas. This act, while "
