Recently the news has been showing flash mob attacks.  Many of these groups have been made up of young blacks attacking whites for apparently no reason.  In some of these cases the victims have sustained serious injuries.  Of course the groups think they have reasons, these reasons probably go back to the same false beliefs I highlighted in my previous post.  In their minds they see themselves as dealing out some sort of justice.  This twisted idea of justice has its roots in the same Social Justice concept bandied about by the left for years.  Our president made a career out of it before getting into politics.  Social Justice is often portrayed as just revolving around giving economic assistance to groups considered historically disadvantaged.

The truth is Social Justice is a socialist based idea that seeks to take money (via taxes), opportunity (via jobs and higher education), and even justice (via sympathy based judicial decisions) and give these to others based on their membership in the disadvantaged group.  It judges people not on individual merit but the color of their skin or who their ancestors were.  Under this mentality the son of a wealthy American black doctor who just graduated with a MBA and average grades is considered more worthy of being hired then the son of a poor American white farmer from Appalachia with a MBA who struggled working and going to school full time and graduating with excellent grades. The individual is invisible, only the historical economic achievement of his race or ethnic group counts.

The problem with Social Justice is its premise.  It judges all the members of a group to be equally guilty or equally victims.  Much like vendetta societies will seek vengeance on the family and friends of whoever has wronged them, social justice seeks out the relatives, the posterity, or anyone associated, no matter how remotely, to pay for wrongs committed to the relatives, or ancestors of chosen groups.  This is formed out of the French Revolution based socialistic idea that sees people not as individuals but mere cells in a societal body, meaning the individuals of either group are considered immaterial.

From a Rule of Law perspective there are probably not two words in the English language that are more mutually exclusive then the words ‘social’ ‘justice’.  Justice implies a person is getting what he deserves for acts committed by him as an individual.  Social means resting in a group.  Since no two people are usually equally guilty or equally victims let alone whole groups of individuals whose only commonality is the color of their skin or their ethnicity the very idea of group based justice is inherently evil.  Evil because it punishes the innocent with the guilty and rewards others not on their merit but on their membership in a chosen group.

Additionally Social Justice tends to relieve individuals of responsibility for their own welfare.  It encourages people to look to others instead of relying on themselves and instills in them the ultimate sense of entitlement.  Consequently Social Justice tears down incentives and builds up dependence.  In an odd twist it makes those that are the supposed victims even more reliant on those they are taught victimized them.

Economically Social Justice may be filled with perverse incentives and moral hazards but it is its unjust treatment of people as individuals that makes it worthy to be thrown on the trash heap of history. Social Justice has been a divisive and destructive concept that festers both hatred and guilt.  In this light the flash mobs seen across the country should not be surprising.  Social Justice promoters have been telling black youth in the U.S. that they are all victims and have the right to seek compensation for decades.   Why would it be surprising that they decide to strike out in anger at those they have been taught to see as their tormenters, especially in hard economic times.

(This contains excerpts from a yet unpublished book)