A disease, as defined by dictionary.com is “a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic/developmental errors, infection, poison, nutritional deficiency/imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors.” A cancer is similarly defined as “a malignant and invasive growth or tumor, especially one originating in epithelium, tending to recur after excision and to metastasize to other sites.” We can therefore break down these definitions to several key traits. The traits of a disease are an incorrectly functioning system resulting from errors, invasion, or environmental factors, while the traits of a cancer are being malignant, recurring, invasive and tending to metastasize. America has long suffered in the grips of a cancer. It is an invasive concept that inhibits the natural and healthy growth of Americans as people by encouraging conformity rather than individual thought. Instead of processing deep important ideological and ethical questions that foster maturity and understanding, there exists environmental, recurring entities that bypass these questions in favor of a self-serving, exponentially growing, false dichotomy that reduces the common man’s agency through an ascription of tenants assumed, often without understanding, upon an individual so that they may persist in lazy, blissful, ignorance. This cancer was not only avoided by many of the founding fathers, but actively warned against by them due to this very same loss of agency that they observed and experienced under British rule. Despite this, the British cancer metastasized to America and has been a constant and recurrent growth affecting American thinking for hundreds of years. Let us discuss the British/American cancer: the political party.
In a singular population, the production of entities large and powerful inevitably consume the public good. Paradoxically, the trend of multiple entities of power both eat away at the will of the population at a greater rate with greater numbers, but likewise diminish in ultimate power with the same. Two sources of corruption metastasize faster than one, accelerating collapse rather than balancing it. Yet humanity, by its nature, seeks to divide and conquer. The group with greater numbers is inherently of greater power, so the tendency to combine is natural and understandable, as well as I think unavoidable. Yet, the willingness of the individual to compromise in their beliefs leads ultimately to dissatisfaction and misery. In the culmination of his revolutionary pamphlet “Common Sense”, forefather Thomas Paine boldly declares, “Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct”, and they are, but he follows with “and let none other be heard among us, than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the RIGHTS OF MANKIND and of the FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA” (as written and capitalized in “Common Sense”). Similarly, our first President rejected a two-party system. The only solution to the ongoing political corruption is to cease compromising. If the party is not perfect, it must be abandoned. Perhaps political parties should form from specific causes, rather than whole platforms. With simpler beliefs may come a purity of purpose that is currently lacking. When a cause is strong enough, it will naturally produce a candidate, but let us identify them by their strongest beliefs, not by participation in a large group who have all compromised and are thus in misery together. This two-cancer system must end to even have a chance at offering a truly good and effective legislature.
Yet there is more than a single disease at the center of American society. There can be no justice without equal justice; and there can be no fairness of law if the interpretation of the law and the judgement of following a law are enacted by the same party. The application of law must be black and white, even where moral questions are not. Objectivity is essential, subjectivity detrimental. Where there appears “maybe”, there should be brought clarity. Where the execution of law ceases to be objective, the ethical citizen recuses, but the unethical remains. The 6th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to an impartial jury. The process of this selection is a very necessary procedure called voir dire. The idea of voir dire is for both defense and prosecution to identify pre-existing bias and forcibly recuse it. This proper and essential process occurs before the opening or proceedings in every trial of the land, except one. An impeachment trial removes no bias, for or against the defendant, prior to its initiation. Consequently, it revels in bias. How odd a system must be to insist on impartiality of every kind of trial, except within the single most important arena.
Can there be justice without fairness? Can there be fairness without objectivity? Can there be objectivity without impartiality? Lest my critiques be thought biased, I propose a simple test: how many U.S. senators cast an impeachment vote in 2020 without listening to arguments from both sides? Better yet, how many intentionally read newspapers, magazines, books or even slept through any portion of the presentation of the evidence? Why aren’t the majority of the Senate being held in contempt? Lady Justice wears a blindfold but who could have suspected it was silk instead of canvas? Shame on you, Lady Justice, you peeked.
When justice upon any portion of a population becomes subjective, and that portion is outnumbered sufficiently as to lose their agency, they are left with a single alternative. The social contract states implicitly that by living on a land, one is agreeing to be bound, not only by the laws of that land, but also by its judgments. Thus, the only legal recourse that remains to them, is to sever their social contract; in other words, leave because compliance with an unjust system does not obligate self-destruction. Those in the majority must place careful consideration upon any part of the population before seeing them disenfranchised. Recall most carefully that Nikola Tesla was taken advantage of by the French government, while Oppenheimer and Einstein were both Jews who fled Nazi Germany. Thus, the majority must reflect with care upon an essential question before taking repressive action: Does the value of the few outweigh the comfort, security, or profit provided to the many by their oppression? When a society decides that fairness is optional for some, it should not be surprised when those people withdraw their allegiance entirely. This is not radicalism; it is arithmetic.
Every time a majority trades objectivity for convenience, it narrows the circle of belonging. And every time that circle shrinks, the nation becomes poorer, not morally, but functionally. The question is not whether the excluded deserve justice. The question is whether the majority believes it can afford to lose them. History suggests the answer is always no, and always discovered only after the damage is done.