FAIRNESS AND JUSTICE—THE AMERICAN WAY

By Edwin Cooney

“Play the cards fair, Ruben,” urged the country gambler, “I know what I dealt ya!”

We all insist upon it: next to freedom, we demand fairness. Children, from the time they are two, are taught by their anxious parents to share with other children. After all, it’s the first step a child takes toward a sense of societal equity.

History is crammed with stories of outrageous unfairness. Let’s see, now:
Was it “fair” to Richard Nixon that the 1960 presidential prize be snatched away from him by Chicago ballot box chicanery? If not, was Richard Nixon therefore justified by reaching into his own bag of political dirty tricks once he became president?
Was the Watergate break-in of June 17th, 1972 justified by the fact that in March 1946, during young Dick Nixon’s first run for Congress, his own campaign headquarters was burglarized and the campaign material which had been paid for by Pat’s inheritance lost? As Pat Nixon would remember it, nobody protested that break-in.

Hence the question, what value is there in our individual expectation of fairness in life? Is there any value at all?

Even today, when Democrats ask Republicans to be “fair” to President Obama, they are reminded almost gleefully of how “unfair” they were to President George W. Bush. Is that fair? Is there a time limitation to fairness? What changes make what’s “fair” essential or valueless?

As for international affairs, everybody these days agrees that Germany was unjustly treated at the close of World War I. Was it then only “fair” that the German people promoted a vicious dictator named Adolph Hitler to exact revenge on the world? Is it the legitimate right of America to save Asian and African women from the ancient practices of Medieval religious culture or is the existence of Medieval culture merely the excuse for attacking modern Islam? If it is the existence of a new radical culture that justifies American aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan, and eventually Iran, are women’s rights under a medieval system the issue?

Finally, if it was “only fair” that the state of Israel should have been established by the victors of World War II as just compensation to Jews who suffered terribly during Hitler’s reign of terror, could Israel have been located elsewhere and the understandable debt to the Jews thusly paid? Or, was location in the homeland of Jews, Moslems and Christians necessary? Was “necessary” the same as “fair”?

Not even Mother Nature guarantees “fairness”. One sister may go to the Olympics while the other spends her life in a wheelchair. Some live to be one hundred while others die in infancy, too weak, even with the assistance of medical science, to overcome the cards dealt by Mother Nature.
Although Americans have sought to promote racial and cultural equity, especially since Lincoln’s day, the goal has too often been blocked by the greed of the powerful and the fear of the suspicious. Catholics, Jews, whites, blacks, Labor, and management have victimized one another out of fear and prejudice. All have suffered from outrageous “unfairness” and have often visited it on one another.

As President Kennedy observed on numerous occasions, “life is often unfair” -- and he was right. After all, his own life would end abruptly and unjustly. In the twinkling of an eye, Americans would become more unsure, insecure, and suspicious — not only of foreign political doctrines but the political doctrines of their fellow citizens. After all, if one group was angry enough to kill the president, another group could be sufficiently angry to kill a civil rights leader, abortion doctor or perhaps a talk show host. As I’ve observed many times, fear is the father of anger and it can be argued that fear of injustice or “unfairness” may well be one of anger’s powerful relatives. The need to be justly treated is one of the legitimate expectations of a free society. Children are invariably incensed when they feel “unfairly” treated.

One day my younger son, then a lad of five, became incensed when his older brother wouldn’t share his auto racing game with him. “Come on,” he insisted, “you’re supposed to be fair and share. Didn’t I share my chicken pox with you?”

In the final analysis, it’s up to you and to me to build our personal foundation for processing and evaluating expected “fairness”. We know, or are taught to know, that others are more likely to treat us with gentility to the exact degree of their own experience of such comfort. Thus, we have the building blocks for that shelter of societal security and gratitude.

As Jack Kennedy ultimately experienced, there are conditions in society sufficiently powerful to visit the most outrageous forms of injustice or “unfairness” upon us. Since these outrageous forces are invariably beyond our control, all we can ultimately do is live our lives so that we may be justly unworthy of that which is “unfair”.

I’ll leave it to you. If the country gambler knew what cards he’d dealt the unfortunate Ruben, what was it important for Ruben to know?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY