I've never heard of Leonard Pitts. He wrote a column in the Miami Herald today claiming that those who say "All Lives Matter" are engaging in "moral cowardice." That's right, by affirming the value of all lives, people are (according to Pitts) hiding from the real issues.
I have news for the appropriately named Mr. Pitts:
ALL LIVES MATTER!
It is not up to us to decide who counts more than other people. I think that Thomas Jefferson said it best 240 years ago: "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal." I assume that if Mr. Pitts read that sentence, he would chastise me for quoting a slave owner. The strange thing, however, is that those on the left, like Mr. Pitts, never seem to understand the evolution of thought, particularly political thought. In 1776, slavery as an institution was part of life essentially everywhere, and it had been so for thousands of years. Further, the idea that each person had a position in life and was relegated to that place for eternity was also the commonly accepted wisdom of the day in every part of the globe. Untouchables in India could not rise to rule the nation or even to run a business; they were "untouchable". A commoner in England could not gain entrance into the upper levels of British society absent the action of the British monarch, something that almost never happened. In Russia, serfs were serfs and would be serfs for their entire lives. In Japan and China, these conditions were the same. So, when the USA announced its existence and independence from the British crown with the words "all men are created equal" and that this equality was part of their creation by God rather than some ruler, this was revolutionary in ways that are hard now to comprehend.
The idea of equality has spread through the world in ways that no one probably expected all those years ago on that hot July afternoon in Philadelphia. Slavery, while not totally abolished, is now a rarity in most of the world. The idea that some people are entitled to better treatment by the law has also receded in many countries. The truth is that this enormous step forward has come because of the enduring American commitment that ALL LIVES MATTER. To call that commitment "moral cowardice" is to betray an ignorance that is astonishing in it scope.
We all know that America is not perfect. Only the most jingoistic would claim the contrary to be true. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill's remarks about democracy, "America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others."
If Mr. Pitts wants to call for better treatment of African Americans, that is fine. Indeed, because all lives matter, Mr. Pitts has the right to say just that. He had better be careful of denigrating those who support and proclaim the concept that all lives matter. They do! And Pitts ought to remember that when Jefferson announced to the world that in America all lives matter, he and his fellow signers of the Declaration of Independence were putting their lives and even the lives of their families on the line. Moral cowardice? No, extreme courage!
I have news for the appropriately named Mr. Pitts:
ALL LIVES MATTER!
It is not up to us to decide who counts more than other people. I think that Thomas Jefferson said it best 240 years ago: "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal." I assume that if Mr. Pitts read that sentence, he would chastise me for quoting a slave owner. The strange thing, however, is that those on the left, like Mr. Pitts, never seem to understand the evolution of thought, particularly political thought. In 1776, slavery as an institution was part of life essentially everywhere, and it had been so for thousands of years. Further, the idea that each person had a position in life and was relegated to that place for eternity was also the commonly accepted wisdom of the day in every part of the globe. Untouchables in India could not rise to rule the nation or even to run a business; they were "untouchable". A commoner in England could not gain entrance into the upper levels of British society absent the action of the British monarch, something that almost never happened. In Russia, serfs were serfs and would be serfs for their entire lives. In Japan and China, these conditions were the same. So, when the USA announced its existence and independence from the British crown with the words "all men are created equal" and that this equality was part of their creation by God rather than some ruler, this was revolutionary in ways that are hard now to comprehend.
The idea of equality has spread through the world in ways that no one probably expected all those years ago on that hot July afternoon in Philadelphia. Slavery, while not totally abolished, is now a rarity in most of the world. The idea that some people are entitled to better treatment by the law has also receded in many countries. The truth is that this enormous step forward has come because of the enduring American commitment that ALL LIVES MATTER. To call that commitment "moral cowardice" is to betray an ignorance that is astonishing in it scope.
We all know that America is not perfect. Only the most jingoistic would claim the contrary to be true. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill's remarks about democracy, "America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others."
If Mr. Pitts wants to call for better treatment of African Americans, that is fine. Indeed, because all lives matter, Mr. Pitts has the right to say just that. He had better be careful of denigrating those who support and proclaim the concept that all lives matter. They do! And Pitts ought to remember that when Jefferson announced to the world that in America all lives matter, he and his fellow signers of the Declaration of Independence were putting their lives and even the lives of their families on the line. Moral cowardice? No, extreme courage!
No comments:
Post a Comment