Reality Check 101

What began 30 years ago as a necessary movement toward a more just American society is now dominated by a philosophically socialist campaign known as “social justice.” The social justice movement has devolved into a push for everything leftist. Its ideology requires government and its agencies at every level from local to federal, to be not only each citizen’s protector, but also his administrator, provider and moral pastor. 

This is the only way for socialism to standardize all citizens economically, civilly and culturally. Just as the environmental movement’s sustainability dream ultimately requires a centrally controlled economy as well as the redistribution of wealth and property rights, other segments of the contemporary social justice movement require the redistribution of civil and human rights.

The problem is that creating a just society has little if anything to do with the contemporary social justice movement. In order to blur the distinction between the two and be accepted in a decidedly center-right nation, the social justice agenda is couched in emotional slogans and images of the “marginalized”” and downtrodden. To thrive, it has helped create a sophisticated victim culture. To understand how reality has become so skewed in a society that was once so proud of individualism and personal responsibility, we need to recognize the difference between justice and injustice.

Genuine justice has many sides. Its foundation is God’s righteousness, vested in individuals and their actions and applied to society and government. A just society is made up of just individuals, not a socialist-style “the people” collective. Justice also recognizes the differences between fact and fiction. Finally, because no man knows another man’s heart — only God has such power and privilege — any human system of justice must be applied only to behavior.

Without these elements and an immovable moral code to guide it, society would degenerate into meaninglessness and almost any social condition or behavior could claim victim status.

How then do we recognize justice? It is all about a tailored harmony of morally pure behavior (love and grace) and accountability (law and responsibility). The principles of accountability and moral behavior demand proof that a right is genuine or a need for intervention exists in the first place. If there is no problem or violation, there is no need for a solution, no matter how loud or passionate voices may be to the contrary. If an injustice or need is verified, the same principles demand a cause and responsibilities for it in order to find a just solution.

Aside from upholding the poor and needy, little in the present-day social justice movement qualifies. The gay rights movement is a perfect example of a cause built on no real world accountability or moral code but its own. Its claims have no verifiable foundation in the sciences and the maladies from the lifestyle are well documented.

Somehow, we have lost the fortitude to do the hard work of distinguishing between the truly just and unjust. Every modern claim of social injustice in our nation should be judged and addressed through this test, but it takes social commitment and tenacity.