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by P. Andrew Sandlin

Whether the issue is tax reform, apartheid, abortion, or homosexual rights, whenever you hear the expression "social justice," you are almost certainly listening to a liberal. What does "social justice" mean? Well, to liberals it means a fairness in society enforced by the state--as liberals, of course, define fairness. Unfortunately, this liberal idea of fairness has very little to do with actual justice. It often proposes injustice. Liberals oppose actual social justice, while loudly advocating it.

All justice is social. After all, as Thomas Sowell once observed, could there be any justice on an island inhabited by a single individual? It takes at least two people to assure justice, because justice involves how people treat each other. Justice, in fact, means giving people their due. If I promise a grocery store two dollars for a gallon of milk, I treat the owners justly if I pay it. The owners deserve to get the price for their property that I have consented to pay. If I take the milk and do not pay the price, I have not only stolen. I have treated the store unjustly. I have not treated the owner as he deserves to be treated. Giving one what he deserves is justice. Or "social justice," if you prefer.

A big part of justice is that everybody must play by the same rules. This is the sort of justice the Bible teaches. We read in Leviticus 24:22: "Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God." There can't be different laws for different kinds of people. If we say, "The law should allow housewives to buy bananas at five cents a pound cheaper than fathers may buy them," we are advocating injustice. More malevolently, if a nation establishes laws tyrannizing certain of its citizens, as Hitler and Stalin did Jews and Christians, it is practicing a horrifying injustice.

In the United States, the Constitution guarantees certain legal protections. They are called The Bill of Rights. If the state permits the right of free speech and assembly to journalists and newscasters but not to preachers and physicians, it acts unjustly. Laws that treat some classifications differently from others, especially laws that help certain people at the expense of others, are unjust laws. Laws that are not enforced fairly for all kinds of people are not fair laws. They constitute social injustice. This is just what is happening in the United States today. Let me give three examples.

In this country, if you don't have much money, you may not be permitted to protect yourself against criminals. The liberals who tend to greatly influence gun control legislation want to take guns away from everybody except those few that get special licenses for them. This includes security guards that patrol gated communities in which wealthier people live. The laws prohibiting gun ownership don't jeopardize these people, since they have enough money to pay other people to own and use guns to protect them. The state allows these security guards to own guns. They may not allow poorer people in the inner city to own guns. Thus, certain gun control laws make poorer inner city people an easy target for people there who want to commit crimes with guns. Liberals discriminate against poor people. Poor inner-city people are not given their due. They should be as free as wealthy people to protect themselves and their property by guns. If they are not, they are treated unjustly.

Likewise, if you are wealthy in this country, you are a target of liberal injustice. A greater percentage of your income is subject to taxation. Income tax means appropriation of a portion of your income by the state at, if necessary, the end of a gun barrel. (If you don't believe this, try not paying your taxes for a while.) Most liberals believe, like Karl Marx, in a graduated income tax--you pay a higher percentage of tax if you make more money. Why is this? To destroy large concentrations of wealth, for one thing, since liberals consider large concentrations of wealth by business people to be dangerous. (For some reason, they do not consider large concentrations of power by politicians to be dangerous.) For another thing, liberal politicians can buy votes this way. If a politician stood outside the polling station and offered $100 to every poor person who voted for him, he'd go to jail. If, however, he promises that if they vote for him and he gets elected, he'll use the gun barrel of the state to steal rich people's money and give to the poor, he'll get off scot free--and he usually gets elected. Frankly, it would be much better just to let him buy off votes right at the polling station because there, at least, he's using his own money. But using the liberal way, he's stealing other people's money. Graduated income tax, the staple of Soviet Marxism and American liberalism, treats the rich unjustly. They are penalized for their wealth. This is just the opposite of social justice. It is bending the law to help some by hurting others.

Finally, if you are a certain color or sex in this country, you may not be able to get into certain universities or companies. This is because liberal laws governing admissions are tilted to discriminate against some and support others. "Minorities" are said to be "under represented," and the way the liberal state deals with this is to require "quotas": a certain portion of the student body or company job force must be a certain sex or race. (This is strange in the case of women, since they are the majority of the American populace.) If you are a Latin or Black or Indian American, you may be able to get in, even if you qualify less than a European or Asian American. Yes, this is discrimination; but it is worse. It is social injustice. It is not giving qualified people their due.

The problem is not that liberals hate poor Americans when it comes to gun control, rich Americans when it comes to income tax, or European or Asian Americans when it comes to employment and university admissions. The problem is that liberals have no sense of social justice.

Liberals, who blather about social justice, are usually the enemies of social justice. They want to bend the rules to help some people and hurt others. This is not justice. It is injustice.

For this reason, liberalism is an attack on the just society.

P. Andrew Sandlin is executive vice president of Chalcedon and editor of the Chalcedon Report and Chalcedon's other publications. He is also a member of the board of directors of the National Reform Association and its former president. He can be contacted at Chalcedon, P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, California 95251.

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