Herbert London

Herbert London is Senior Fellow of the Manhattan Institute, and author of the book The Transformational Decade (University Press of America).

President Obama and Trayvon Martin

According to President Obama "Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago." Initially my reaction to his remark is he is playing to his constituents. After all, why not take advantage of the rabble rousing as he has done before. But my acquiescence quickly turned to anger.

This pot-smoking kid from Hawaii accorded every advantage the American society can confer is saying in effect he faced "racial discrimination." He made this claim with a straight face after he received scholarships at an elite private school in Hawaii, a full scholarship at Occidental, and then one at Columbia. Without the slightest demonstration of scholarly achievement, he obtained acceptance to Harvard Law School and yet another scholarship. He was elected to Law Review, but did not publish one article as its editor.

He became U.S. Senator in large part because his Republican rival was caught in a scandal. And without sponsoring one major piece of legislation, he was catapulted into a presidential race. If ever the path to stardom was synchronized with green lights, it is the case of Barack Obama.

Yet he has the audacity to play the race card, even indicating that he used to hear "the locks click on the doors of cars" when he passed. According to Obama young black males are "painted with a broad brush" nearly all of whom have been profiled, "himself included." As he noted:

There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator with a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had the chance to get off.

Let's get beyond the stereotype to a few facts the president overlooked. The majority of criminal behavior in the United States is found in the African American community despite the fact it is only 13 percent of the population. Black on black murder accounts for 93 percent of the murders in the Afro-American communities. It is 11 times more likely a black person will harm a white person than the reverse. If a woman holds on to a purse in the presence of young black males, there is empirical evidence for doing so. In fact, she would be foolish not to do so. Admittedly there are many innocents caught in the web of racial profiling. Surely the president is referring to those individuals, but safety on our streets is related more to black criminality, than to racial profiling.

The extortion artists of the Al Sharpton variety derive a handsome living from playing the race card and the guilt syndrome among liberals. As Sharpton himself noted, his many suits, tuition for his children at private schools, his automobiles are "merely granted as "access." Most Americans may wonder why similar "access" isn't granted to them. Without the racial cause, Sharpton would be seen as just another hustler eager to make a fast buck from an unwary public. But the shameless advertisement of racial prejudice gives him credibility and celebrity status.

What hasn't been said, of course, is the extraordinary growth of a black middle class since the 1960s. What isn't mentioned by Sharpton, or even President Obama, is that college graduates who happen to be black earn the same starting salaries as whites. Moreover, among municipal employees, required to take tests for entry, a lower score from blacks is treated as a higher score among whites in order to ensure black representation in the workforce. Supreme Court decisions allow for race as an admissions factor in universities as if there is a justifiable reason for "diversity."

Despite Sharpton's pointed analysis, the U.S. is not the land of Jim Crow. The Trayvon Martin case tells us very little about racial attitudes, as the designation of George Zimmerman as an "Hispanic White" clearly suggests, and the president has invented a past to satisfy the ambitious constituents in his midst and to reinforce rabble rousers eager to use race as a platform for political reform.

The Lack of Seriousness

Have we reached a stage in our national development where seriousness on almost any subject is impossible? Examples abound.

Edward Snowden, who leaked National Security Agency surveillance projects to the British Guardian, said:

I can't in good conscience allow the U.S. government to destroy privacy, Internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building.

And he noted, "The public should decide, not the government."

Here is a remarkable claim of a bureaucrat who has arrogated to himself the role of spokesman for the public. Moreover, he seems to ignore the responsibility the National Security Agency has in lawfully gathering intelligence that assists in targeting prospective terror activity. In fact, the public does make a decision about these surveillance procedures in the form of elections; but no one ever attributed seriousness to Snowden's arguments.

Reading a catalogue at a major university is also an exercise in frivolousness. From rock climbing to queer studies, from film noir to Lady Gaga, universities demonstrate a loss of purpose. There is an emergent orthodoxy that deals with environmentalism and homosexual marriage, but inquiry of a serious nature is in decline. The Socratic Method has been replaced by Star Chamber psychology of acceptance or banishment.

Popular film has remained popular by appealing to the sensibility of a 14-year-old-boy. Films such as "Man of Steel," "Iron Man," "Fast and Furious" have scripts that could be composed by monkeys; what they offer are remarkable computer driven special effects, simply breathtaking technology that is riveting yet mindless.

In New York City a man found culpable of lascivious texting to teenage girls and consistently lied about it, (Anthony Weiner) wants to be regarded as a serious mayoral candidate. Remarkably, his Democratic adherents think this is a good idea. Where is the shame? Whatever happened to taste and modesty? Once again, here is an issue put through the cauldron of media cleansing without the slightest regard for serious criticism.

The Obama administration invested millions of taxpayer dollars in a manufacturer of solar panels, Solyndra, which was bound to fail from the outset, yet the public response has been ho-hum, another day in Washington. But that money squandered to sustain a marginal company belongs to the taxpayers, John and Mary Public.

Obama's State Department officials cannot address, with any clarity, the order to "back down" in the Benghazi affair in which four men in service of the country were murdered; nor is there anyone assuming responsibility for the sexual imbroglios among ambassadorial appointees. Does anyone care? Former Secretary Hillary Clinton referring to Benghazi brazenly said, "What difference does it make?!" Alas, she is busy setting the stage for a presidential run. Are there adults in the State Department, or is it a playground for teenagers?

Similarly, the lack of focus in foreign policy is astounding. In the haste to withdraw American focus from around the globe and convert the U.S. into a "normal nation" without so many international obligations, the administration is unable to define American interests abroad. This vacuum has left deep and continuing dangers, but blithely the administration continues on its merry way far more concerned about the terrorists housed in Gitmo than violence and confusion from the Suez to the Hindu Kush. Denying the reality of radical Islam doesn't make it go away. Because we choose to leave the battlefield, doesn't mean the war is over.

Yet from culture to foreign policy everything is a joke. It is as if Howard Stern and Jay Leno were responsible for public policy. As silly as it sounds, that may be the case since the nation appears to be unable to think seriously about any subject.

How can the nation pursue its future when seriousness itself is in retreat along with its companion belief in determination? You cannot be determined if you do not know what you cherish. Calvin Coolidge once argued:

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press On" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

But how do you "press on" when seriousness of any kind is missing? This is a dilemma without an obvious answer.

The Supreme Court and Voter Registration Law

Recently the Supreme Court delivered a rebuke to Governor Jan Brewer and the citizens of Arizona arguing in a 7 to 2 majority that the state violated federal law when it added a proof of citizenship requirement to a federal voter registration form almost a decade ago.

According to the majority decision the high court ruled that in areas where Washington holds constitutional authority - as is the case with immigration and the rules for federal elections - states may not override Congressional judgment.

In 2004 voters in Arizona approved a state initiative that required proof of citizenship when residents sought to vote. That proof could be a passport or a birth certificate. Under federal law, registrants only need to sign a form attesting to voter eligibility under penalty of perjury.

According to Arizona's attorney general, Tom Horne, in the last year more than 200 people were caught having registered to vote without holding citizenship. Nonetheless, Justice Antonin Scalia, in his majority decision, held that Arizona state law interfered with Congress's prerogatives. As he noted, federal law "forbids states to demand that an applicant submit additional information beyond that required by the federal form."

Presumably anyone in Arizona who wants to vote illegally will ask for the federal form. Arizona officials remain free to crosscheck information that registrants supply on the federal form to ensure accuracy, but considering actual voting practice this is unlikely.

In his dissenting opinion Judge Alito wrote: "The Court reads an ambiguous federal statute in a way that brushes aside the constitutional authority of the States and produces truly strange results." The strange result to which he refers is opening the gate for illegal voting. There is no doubt the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the motor voter law of 1993, sustains federal authority over voting provisions, but the argument that proof of citizenship is a burden that discriminates against certain groups is absurd on its face. The only group it discriminates against is illegal voters, those specifically mentioned in the Constitution as ineligible to vote.

Moreover, this court decision invites the cynical conclusion that elections are rigged, that the very integrity of elections can be called into question. As the last presidential election indicated, places like Colorado had voting districts with 140 percent participation and Philadelphia had districts in the inner city that voted 100 percent for President Obama. You mean, there wasn't one error, one misplaced vote? One might add, what happened in those instances where voter fraud was unambiguous? Who was penalized and how many of these cases were merely dismissed?

The Arizona law wasn't foolproof, but it at least provided another appropriate hurdle through which the illegal voter must jump. That is now gone. Attorney General Holder applauded the decision and as one might expect wrote an amicus brief challenging the Arizona law.

Needless to say - although I will - every American who has a right to vote should be encouraged to do so. No one, regardless of race or ethnicity, should be denied access to the polls. But that does not mean we should allow, through foolish interpretation of federal law, an opening for fraud in the form of illegal voting.

I am sure Justice Scalia didn't have that in mind with his majority decision. Sometimes, however, a narrow interpretation of the law can lead to unanticipated baneful results.

Equality and the Court

The word "equality" is woven into the fabric of the nation. Despite the clause in the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's continual efforts to preserve it, most people assume we are born with different endowments, have different temperaments, behave in different ways and, most assuredly, are unequal. In fact, the more we as a nation emphasize individuality, the more likely inequality will result.

Nonetheless, we are all endowed by our creator with inalienable rights and we are equal in the eyes of the law. But lately equality has been submerged in an aquatic swamp overwhelmed by politics and ideology.

For the proponents of same sex marriage for example, equality rears its head as Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights based on the supposition homosexuals should not be treated differently from heterosexuals. In this case, equality before the law is the essence of the defense.

By the same token and very often by the same proponents, affirmative action in university admissions is an exercise in inequality since the target population of blacks, Hispanics and others are designated as "special" and treated differently from their white counterparts. In this case, the Fourteenth Amendment is trumped by a university claim of "diversity," as essential goal of the Academy; it can only be achieved by the establishment of various and different admission standards.

Presumably what is good for the goose may not be good for the gander. One could argue, as Justice Kennedy did, that the principle of equal protection admits to no argument for a "two class theory" in which there is recognition of special wards entitled to "a degree of protection greater than that accorded others."

In a recent 7 to 1 decision the Court avoided a direct answer about the constitutionality of affirmative action, but ordered an appeals court to consider the case under demanding standards for its justification. When an appeals court reviews the matter, the issue of equality before the law will be tested yet again.

Ultimately, determining the benefit of "diversity" is a dicey business since minority representation on campus doesn't automatically manifest itself as integration. In other words, a university may not use any means it desires to achieve the stated goal of diversity. It will increasingly be a goal limited by "strict scrutiny" from the courts. Will the recent Texas Case Court decision lead inevitably to the elimination of race based preferences? That isn't clear, albeit that direction seems compelling.

What the seemingly compromise decision in the Texas Case foreshadows is a position somewhere between retention and elimination, a position that partially explains why "equality" is in the cauldron of political judgment. We want it when it suits our cause and dismiss it when it doesn't.

The Equal Protection Clause was once sacrosanct, but an attempt to redress the wrongs of the past and engineer the conditions of the future has created an impasse. America is in an odd place. Equality doesn't always mean equal protection and freedom doesn't always mean "free from" government intrusion. History has a strange way of changing perspectives.

That there are fundamental beliefs is less true today than it once was. And for that we pay a price in legal acrobatics and language obfuscation. Reading a Supreme Court decision is comparable to plying through a document in a foreign tongue. The justices are caught in a vise between a "living and continually adjusted Constitution" and "an originalist document" that stands as a bulwark of our civilization. As I see it, the court is split and so are the American people. *