Whether Alabama senatorial candidate
Roy Moore sexually harassed anybody 40-years ago or not, the bigger issue is –
the end of due process. This media
feeding frenzy on Moore (and others) is serving to undermine the rule of law in
America.
As the mainstream media has reported
for decades: There should be a presumption of guilt … based on any accusation
of sexual misconduct … whether it is a candidate for political office or an unlucky
college kid accused of rape. But mind you:
The media has the prerogative of controlling the narrative… picking and
choosing who’s guilty (i.e., Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose,
etc.).
Trying to discern what is real from
what is fake is a tall order in today’s media world, unless you’ve worked hard
to cultivate a sense of discernment. Navigating
the “news” is like taking a walk through a complex hall of smoke and mirrors.
The question is: Will due process live
or die? Will we be able to revive its true
meaning (i.e., the basic principle that people should be judged fairly on the
basis of evidence)? Or will we succumb
to raw emotion and all of the bias lynching that goes with it?
Some folks would say that the concept
of due process only applies in a court of law, and has nothing to do with the variations
of public opinion. That may have been
the case in the past, but not in our day of a propaganda media. If society loses its comprehension of the idea
of equal treatment under the law, based on a moral code that should apply equally
to all, it really doesn’t matter that we aren’t in a court of law.
Let’s not forget that public opinion
has always been used as a mechanism to change public policy. This is why media corruption, opinion polling,
and political correctness are such big deals. They create illusions of opinion, which in
turn strongly suggest which views will be socially acceptable to adopt. Then,
politicians pass laws based on their perceptions of public opinion; and the
courts soon follow. So due process dies
in the court of public opinion.
When we deceive ourselves into
believing that moral standards are a pick-and-choose proposition, we end up in
an imaginary place where everything is as bad as it possibly can be where soon there
will be no due process or rule of law for anyone.
If perchance the double standard of
morality were to unravel, then our society would actually have a shot at
renewing our understanding of what due process, fairness, and justice really
mean … that they must be built upon a moral code that applies equally to all. But if not, we can expect a continued
narrative that conditions the public to misconstrue and reject the concept of
due process.
Our media and power elites decided
quite some time ago that some folks get the benefit of the doubt and others certainly
do not. MA Democratic Senator Ted
Kennedy, for example, left MaryJo Kopechne to drown while he first called his
lawyer then took a nap after extricating himself from the car he drove off a
bridge, with her in it, at Chappaquiddick. He went on to win numerous reelections, honored
by his colleagues as the “Lion of the Senate.”
Only a free people who understand and
appreciate the meaning of freedom can call out such cynical posturing.
Listen: Either moral standards exist
or they do not exist. If there are no
standards, then there is no way to measure or achieve fairness, justice, or
equality. The concepts of due process
and rule of law absolutely depend upon a society both recognizing and
maintaining moral standards as equally applicable to everybody.
To understand what a moral standard
is, let’s try to understand what any standard is. A standard is just an unchanging basis that we
use for comparison, measurement, and discernment. Moral standards are critical to the functioning
of any society. Without them, there is
no self-regulation, no balance in relationships. The Ten Commandments, for example, provide
moral standards by telling us not to kill, lie, cheat, or steal. Whether or not a person believes such standards
come from God, any sane individual can see how dangerous it is for functioning
societies to reject such standards. So
without a rule of law based upon those principles, everybody becomes vulnerable
to being violated. If we exempt
ourselves — or any hand-picked person who may serve our purposes — we end up in
the chaotic territory expressed in the scripture of Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good and good
evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness.”
There can be no room for even the pretense
of due process if we allow our social discourse to be selective in morality. If we are going to automatically adopt a lynch
mob mentality whenever someone is accused of a crime, then we are paving a path
into darkness where anyone and everyone can be presumed guilty and lynched. Once our public discourse habitually trashes
the concepts of presumption of innocence or due process, then we open the door
for kangaroo courts, and due process enters the death chamber.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
No comments:
Post a Comment