Must Women of Color Endure Destruction to Succeed?

In the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel, society develops and history unfolds in a difficult and inconsistent manner. Specifically: an event occurs; the event encounters a negative reaction; and in the end progress results from the combination of the two. This is termed the Hegelian dialectic. We ask with respect to the world history of women of color whether and why their gradual social progress has endured such a step forward, step backward process to development?

Access to training and education in all occupations and professions is necessary to permit women of color to support themselves and their families. This training and education has become more available historically yet not without hardships such as inadequate preparation, inadequate funding and inadequate networking post-graduation. The negative reaction to the positive step of access to training and education is cyclical. Without adequate education, participation in society and government is not possible to an extent that equality may be pursued legally, socially and economically. Any subsequent advancement through legal reform is minor in comparison to that accorded the pyramidal strata above women of color who inhabit the bottom stratum, socioeconomically and emotionally.

In America, it has been legally affirmed that racially segregated institutions are improper. They instill a cultural distance, an inability to participate and a sense of inferiority. Yet, social segregation remains in schools, the workplace and social organizations. In religious organizations and social clubs, more appear segregated than not, ostensibly voluntarily. The stigma of racial segregation is upon women of color most of all.

Worldwide, overtime, reforms in laws, customs, and social institutions have occurred and as a result socioeconomic strata blend, academic achievement improves and women of color have achieved a greater sense of participation in society. However, with these positive developments, in the thought of Hegel, negative reactions occur before the positive are again experienced.

True reform should be unilateral with no reverses. Solutions abound as to how the Hegelian negative reaction may be avoided. For instance, America should look beyond the disparateness of its two political parties, a duopoly of two political parties which together dominate elected offices. It is the fact that women of color are elected to government offices more than in the past. And, this is a beginning.

However, in the social sphere segregation remains and the two major American political parties have not addressed this dilemma. For example, the topic of the American Black church is longstanding. Churches should become racially integrated. Integration in religion is a subject the two political parties should discuss as one of cultural and social importance. Party members should express their belief in the significance of integration in religious organizations by both welcoming those of another race into their church and by expressing interest in churches with congregations of another race. Members of integrated churches should be recruited to run for office.

Individually, worldwide, we should expand our own frontiers and explore religious organizations of races other than our own. Religious entities of one race my merge with one of another. In the words of Hegel: “Reason governs the world” through “religious truth” well- known to us. Religion through reason can guide us in social development without corresponding hardship.

Humanity relies upon religious entities and various additional nongovernmental organizations to remedy injustice and lead in suggesting reforms. Many religions guide society in improving its customs, laws and morality. On the subject of the lives of women of color, religion should provide support for social advances and improvements and assist to mitigate Hegelian reverses. For none of us should life be akin to the rise of Jim Crow in response to newfound freedom.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Does Catholicism Support Fascism in America?

As a representative democracy, the United States relies upon a sovereign citizenry of self-governing individuals who place government and country first and foremost. Before the world is debate on the subject of how society and government should be structured. Should religious thought be a source of law and government? Should education be free and fairly available? How should labor be organized and employed and what should be its source: a bountiful citizenry and a boundless immigration?

At this the time of the celebration of America’s Declaration of Independence, the Fourth of July, one looks to the origin of the government in the Protestant religion. Yet, from its beginning the nation prided itself upon the legal right of all to practice the religion of choice upon its soil. However, the question arises of whether America depends upon the tenets of the Protestant faith, one of which is the belief in self-governing congregations.

Catholicism in America is of a longstanding tradition. Its practitioners have faced discrimination and hardship. They defer to a worldwide authority. Does the Catholic faith contradict the democratic principles of a representative government, an individual’s right to self-govern and the existence of a unilaterally sovereign populace? Is it proper for working Americans to be anesthetized by a worldwide church that stands in contradiction to individual nations? Should all individuals live under a government similar to America’s, one that provides both democracy and a safe and sound work environment with an opportunity to practice a faith of choice?

Forcing a public to look to religion instead of to law for employment security is to deny law to all. In the guise of religion, some Americans defer to the Vatican as a means of surviving under the American government. For some, the American government becomes like a fascist society where the leader of their faith is their sole authority. They are then living under a combination of religious principles, American law enforcement and a central worldwide authority. This is the beginning of fascism in America.

In solving this dilemma, Americans might individually look to their government, from top to bottom and bottom to top. Ensure that America abides the rule of law and that laws are duly reformed and enforced. Fairness and justice in America permit a capitalist society of honest competition and safety and soundness. Free and adequate education from private and public funding of tuition rather than from student debt is possible. The United States was founded upon the principle and theory of a natural aristocracy. Let’s found one.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Science and the Right to Abortion

Judicial review in the United States serves a fundamental purpose in American government, it permits the courts to ensure that the acts of the other two branches of government, the legislative and executive, abide the Constitution. In doing so it enables the sovereign citizenry to create a legitimate representative government. As American society develops it changes its views of the nation and the world and, as a result, the laws by which it lives. Over time, the views of its judges as seen in their legal opinions also change.

One must remark that political opinions in the United States have been modified extensively to the extent that the public has completely changed its mind on many important life defining issues. As a result, certain laws and legal opinions contradict preexisting ones. For example, the legality of racial segregation became the right to racial, integration. The illegality of contraception became the right to birth control. The illegality of racial miscegenation became the right to interracial marriage. The illegality of abortion became a legal right to private abortion. The illegality of sodomy became the right to homosexual relationships. The illegality of homosexual marriage became the right to same-sex marriage.These changes in American law occur concurrently with noteworthy developments in social customs, science and technology that render the population able to envision present society in a new manner. Some regard these legal developments as not occurring with sufficiency to be adequate or just.

With respect to the legal recognition of a right to abortion by the judiciary in 1973, many social and scientific developments have taken place prompting judicial restrictions upon this right in 2022. In example, in vitro fertilization is a very common practice. As a result, issues before society are when a right to life begins and whether one’s power to create this life is accompanied by a power to destroy it. Contemporary opinions also include those arising from whether there is a governmental power of capital punishment or a private right to assisted suicide for the terminally ill.

American society must address the legal question of what constitutes life and what are its attributes. Could the concept of in vitro fertilization include a right to property? In discussing abortion, America must reconcile its power to begin and end life with newfound scientific developments.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Natural Aristocracy In A Time Of Digital Technology

Transitions in history often occur when scientific and technological development create social change. Our 21^st century of the postmodern era portends such social change. The digital technology before us and continually advancing, whether it be mobile phones, social media, websites, virtual reality, cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, or the myriad not mentioned and not yet invented, are a social conundrum. In implementing this new technology, a safeguard is required to provide government by society’s intellectual elite.

The objective of every democratic republic is a society of individuals treated equally by governing law. Equality is not economic; it is in the right to participate equally and to be accorded due and just reward for one’s ability. In the wisdom of a British philosopher and politician of old, Edmund Burke, this was, and should ideally be, government by a natural aristocracy. It arises from the population of the republic, from the citizens academically cultivated who defer their social doctrines and privileges to those of their country.

The American democratic republic, as well as those around the globe, rely upon an effective self-governing citizenry. This citizenry arises from a society of individuals whose ability to self-govern is cultivated from their early years. Self-government and participation in society depend upon academic institutions and cultural attributes that are both inclusive of all and supported by a national government that is derived from the country’s natural aristocracy.

Today, we look to our social melting pot, as popularized in the theater of the early 1900s. We use our governing democratic institutions to cultivate children into adults, both as citizens and immigrants, to place the role individual in society first and foremost before all other affiliations. Each individual must learn to self-govern and participate in the various strata of society and the governing institutions as a self-governing individual. Cultural and social duties and privileges are subordinate to the obligatory patriotic devotion to one’s country cultivated in children and adults.

In enjoying the advancements of our increasingly more computerized society, we should ensure that social and governmental advancements parallel all scientific and technological advancements. We must guarantee that no harm results. In benefiting from new technology, we need not experience the historical dialectic of: advancement – destruction – development.

Democratic republics are not founded upon tyranny, irregardless of whether an autocrat or the public majority. The invention and application of digital technology must be accompanied by education for all and government by the republic’s best and brightest representing the people. Only when a natural aristocracy governs is a democracy a country of equals.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

Should Political Parties Give Rise To Government By Natural Aristocracy?

Government in the United States is currently experiencing great ideological polarization. It is government by duopoly, two extremely divergent political parties. These political parties emphasize electability in selecting candidates and popular appeal in deciding policy issues. In fact, contrary to government by populism, this system of duopoly has abandoned large segments of the population. Third parties are emerging, voter turnout fluctuates, and the January 6th insurrectionists indicate that many are without representation.

The American dream is that of a land of opportunity for all, a meritocracy where talent leads and governs. It is the duty of a political party to guide citizen participation. And, political parties should defer to the founding principles of the country. The dilemma of duopoly and ideological extremism now before America’s political parties must give way to instructing their members that the party’s best and brightest must lead the party and be nominated as candidates. In the alternative, a goal of cult of personality populism gives rise to chaos and an absence of government.

Our current era is one of an ample access to information. The public can learn and discuss topics before them and make wise decisions. Citizens want representation. Failure to participate indicates the absence of adequate choice.

The design of America is global democracy. To bring democracy to the world, the United States must first place its natural aristocracy in government. The governing institutions and political parties must assist the academic community in effectuating a transition.

Political parties which divide and do not discuss risk implosion. For, without learned opposition, a political party devolves into ineffectual faction, sheer disintegration. A picture of our possible future is found in Simone Weil’s On The Abolition Of All Political Parties (1943):

“Nearly everywhere – often even when dealing with purely technical problems – instead of thinking, one merely takes sides: for or against. Such a choice replaces the activity of the mind. This is an intellectual leprosy; it originated in the political world and then spread through the land, contaminating all forms of thinking.”

A Right and Obligation to Participate

We all deserve representation. The current distress ending in violent unrest indicates a lack of adequate political representation. This is evident in a growing increase in the divide between the haves and the have nots in an increasing number of personal attributes. Many are without an access and understanding of emerging technologies, funding and access to higher education and health care. This is most evident in America’s rural and inner-city communities.

The rights we all possess go back to the early days of the Magna Carta, 1215. These fundamental rights of the individual are now deemed possessed by all within our global community, only after periods of time in which evolving and developing societies came to realize that these rights did not belong to a limited few.

In order to avail oneself of the various rights we possess as individuals, we must be able to self-govern and reach informed decision making about our place in society and our choice of governing leaders and government structure. Identifying our public responsibilities and obligations requires that we imagine that we are behind the John Rawls “veil of ignorance.” This is a circumstance in which we do not know our own place in society. And, we must determine the threshold socio-economic level we require for subsistence and survival.

In the thoughts of Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the greatest threats to democracy is pauperism. We must admit that pauperism exists on a global scale. Tocqueville believed that pauperism is best overcome by the guidance provided to the public by the productivity and efficiency of a capitalist economy.

In Tocqueville’s day this guidance was provided by local financial institutions. Small financial institutions located in individual, political subdivisions, close to the public, instill values required to adequately participate in society and a representative democracy. Currently in America, local branches of financial institutions impart capitalist ideals of self-sufficiency and money management through financial counseling. And these institutions guide small account holders in their use of emerging technologies and personal accounts, from making deposits to money transfers and investment. According to Tocqueville, these activities encourage principles of self-sufficiency and upward mobility. For Tocqueville, this was more feasible in rural communities where small farmers needed guidance with harvest management to avoid the force majeure, boom to bust circumstance of inclement weather. Cities for Tocqueville were more difficult. Industrial economies of the 1830s resulted in cycles of unemployment with periods of low product demand and an ever-increasing urban population that could not support itself. Modern financial institutions, now, provide an economic didactic to entrepreneurial development, emerging technologies and failing, outmoded industry.

Fear of an inability to provide for oneself and participate as an equal member of society generates protest, and rebellion, both at home in America and abroad. As an initial step, perhaps we should look to the sources of this insecurity and ask how would we respond if we were sitting in the place of the insecure and what the public response should be. What would I, as an individual and participating member, require to engage in informed voting? Perhaps Tocqueville and Rawls offer a beginning. And, in the thoughts of J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur: from soil values grow.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

On Voting, What Did The Founders Say?

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Paper No. 59, acknowledged in Article I, Section IV of the U.S. Constitution that the authority to determine the times, places and manner of elections resided with the state legislatures, yet Congress also possessed the power to alter state election law. According to Hamilton, this ultimate authority over state election law could be exercised by the federal government “whenever extraordinary circumstances might render that interposition necessary to its safety.” The reason for placing the initial power in the states was not the traditional rational of promoting valid experimentation to encourage developments in both state and federal law. Rather, as noted by constitutional law scholar Joseph Story in 1833 in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, there was a concern that Congress, or a few Congresspersons from dominant states, might use the ultimate power of the federal government to enact unreasonable federal election laws favoring certain persons.

According to Hamilton and Story, the theory underlying the division of power is the necessity that every government possess its own mode of preservation. State and local governments are diverse, diffuse and can result in experimental, regulatable and accountable methods of election. However, Article I, Section IV of the U.S. Constitution expressly grants the power of preservation of the Union to the federal government. Story called this a “superintending power” over state election law.

We must ask if the incident of January 6^th in the United States with the storming of the U.S. Capitol Building indicates such an extraordinary circumstance. Is a return to Jim Crow such a circumstance? In Hamilton’s opinion, elections are left to “local administrations … in the ordinary cases, and when no improper views prevail ….” The United States has recently experienced uprisings and protests by persons of all races, colors, creeds, nationalities, religions and sexual orientations. Is there a need for election laws that would guarantee equality of representation with uniform voter qualifications throughout the Union?

The balance of power between the states and federal government need not be wholly undone by a constitutional amendment. Rather, we should place first the principle of the preservation of fair, equitable, just and honest government. Discretionary power over elections may be abused wherever it resides. And, historically, it has been abused at both the state and federal levels. Once, rivalry and ambition among the states justified the power of state election law. Now, national and international commerce support national standards of elections and the inclusion of all eligible voters in the election process.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

A New Melting Pot

The present dissension in our ever so diverse society should not allow individual affiliations of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, and or sexual orientation, etc., transcend our fidelity to citizenship and equality under the rule of law. Individuals will always possess unique group identities that separate them one from another. But as stated in The Melting Pot, written by playwright Israel Zangwill and first performed to rave reviews by President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D.C. in 1908, individuals can amalgamate into a melting pot of citizens who maintain and express their pluralistic selves. Yet, each citizen would respect the culture of all under one government.

Our modern democracy should provide that all cultures are neither preempted by government nor society so long as respectful of democracy. The continuum of political affiliations from left to right should also freely express their opinions in this manner. Civil discussion and debate are the requirements of a democratic society.

Neither we nor our leaders should allow our pluralistic identities determine our decisions and opinions. Rather, in a democratic society we participate in our political community and do so in a way that places the principles governing our republic above all else. The doctrines incumbent within our group identities must defer to these founding principles.

Citizen participation should be facilitated by reasonable means. Many do not participate for want of knowledge. They do not know how a vote may be cast. Similarly, private and public leadership should consider public opinion regarding life’s issues and concerns. Civil and respectful public expression should be encouraged and not ignored. Most importantly, it must be included in private and governmental decision making.

Within the melting pot of the twenty-first century, we seek a social contract of a just society under our democratic government by imagining that we, ourselves, do not know our respective future condition, our position in society, or our own self-interest. We then seek laws and governing institutions that safeguard the position of the least well-off in society as that becomes our point of self-interest. For, social unrest occurs when our social contract is disregarded, and there appears to be no other means of effective popular expression.

The melting pot requires that public and private leaders guide citizens in their ability to place citizenship above personal identities. Policies and decisions should reflect the myriad of identities in society.

The Economic Question

How do we reform the American economy and governmental structure to provide equality as to personhood at birth and a social arrangement based upon merit? Economic and political equality look to liberty, fairness and justice within a democratic republic. Neither a fascist autocracy nor a collective state will achieve an environment for self-governing individuals. Political expressions of both the far left and the far right arise when they perceive a threat to norms they deem permanently determinative of their existence. These norms are within the innate human personality and may be only mitigated and not undone by the structures and powers of government.

Leftist and rightist autocracies seek dominating leadership that is self-serving rather than self-governing. Both are dominated by norms that look beyond the individual to the state.

Republican democrats in America assert a belief in the normative values of freedom, justice, equality and rule of law, supported by a belief in American patriotism. A belief in republican democracy is a midpoint within the spectrum. Our new economy will accord value to merit and provide for employee self-sufficiency within our republican democracy.

Lori Gayle Nuckolls

The Modern Democracy and The American Common Law

How do we reconcile traditional English common law principles of certainty and predictability in the law with American principles of fair and just judicial review at law and equity? Our American system of three branches of separate powers accords with the adversarial legal system of seeking impartial and objective judicial opinions. Neither the President nor the legislature imparts undue influence over the judiciary.

May we continue to ensure this unique type of good government in light of the size of the American population in current times resulting from, among many causes: modern technology and an increase in residential land ownership? With greater access to education and information throughout the states and territories, the informal and unintended influence of the majority upon government is much greater than at the time of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.

This debate requires a renewed inquiry into the dual purposes of American law in both resolving adversarial conflicts and in guaranteeing that the law achieves agreed upon social ends. Our community incrementally overtime determines our “ideas” and our “truths.”

In this way, our Judge-made law fills the niches left by statute and executive policy (or one might say agency regulation). The common law in America is derived from the public. From this our judges glean.