The Land of Opportunity

Ever wonder why we get such distorted, inconsistent rulings from the judicial branch these days?

Dennis Prager offers some insight:

I learned a major part of the answer years ago in Idaho where I was the moderator of a panel of judges – including a past California Supreme Court justice – and lawyers connected to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I asked the panel members to give their view of the role of judges. The response of the liberal former California Supreme Court justice opened my eyes to the left's view of virtually everything in society.

He said that the purpose of a California Supreme Court justice, and for that matter, every judge, is to fight economic inequality and racism in society.

Sounds right out of the Marxist textbook; envy is at the heart of pure Marxist philosophy.

But the Bible, the center of the Judeo-Christian worldview that built this nation, sees poverty and justice differently.

Consider Leviticus 19:15 which says

Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly

And Exodus 23:2-3 says

Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.

The Bible is rich in examples that God is a friend of the poor...but not at the expense of what's fair and true and just.

You don't erase an injustice (or poverty itself) by taking something from one innocent person and giving it to another (innocent or not); you just create or multiply injustice.

We are to seek the truth, aim for what is right, not indulge our own sense of self-guilt or become confused by the politics of greed. God is more concerned with the truth of a matter, than with changing economic "inequalities."

But this example from Prager serves to illustrate what is wrong with so many judges and our judicial system as a whole: it is too concerned with setting rules for society and too unconcerned with adjudicating the laws we do have.

In an imperfect world, the United States has the most fair system on the planet, and provides more opportunity for the individual to succeed and excel. Our system of government was intended to provide maximum opportunity, not maximum outcome. The best a human government can do is ensure that maximum opportunity exists...and leave the results up to the individual and to God.