“Soft Law” and Social Justice

Enlightened, twenty-first century thought compels folks to rethink the nature of social relationships and interactions. What’s not to like about “a sustainable, equitable future for all world citizens”? The world community couldn’t agree more that, for the sake of the common good, it behooves us, as affluent Americans, to abandon any fanciful notion of our nation’s exceptionality and, as President Obama famously suggested, to “spread the wealth around.”

World Summit for Social Development

In December 1992, the United Nations General Assembly set the process in motion for tackling world poverty, unemployment, and social integration. Following Copenhagen 1995, the UN General Assembly Special Session (Copenhagen+5) conducted the World Summit for Social Development and Beyond: Achieving Social Development for All in a Globalized World (Geneva, June 2000). Its issue of focus was globalization; its closing address underscored today’s unjust world economic order in need of “mechanisms to monitor the flow of global capital.” (Listen up, America.)

In the context of addressing short-term capital flows, its final document offered an historic first reference to a temporary debt standstill. Considerable attention was given to secure a World Solidarity Fund – i.e., international version of the Marshall Plan. Barack Obama concedes, “We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.”

ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization (10 June 2008)

In 2008 the International Labour Organization unanimously adopted the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization. This landmark declaration is the outcome of tripartite consultations among representatives from 182 member states of governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations. Its purpose: To achieve social justice in the context of globalization.

The selected approach for making the best use of “human resources” is “holistic,” “integrated” consensus-building “social dialogue.” When public opinion is solicited, the process is crafted for “participants” to affirm one of several pre-determined alternatives. “Group think” directs the process and defines the product.

International “Soft” Law

In 1948, a preliminary draft of a World Constitution included the right of a Federal Republic of the World to seize and use property in sustainable society. Keep in mind that Point One of the Communist Manifesto likewise calls for outright abolition of private property; and sustainable development (wealth redistribution) is described, not in any of our nation’s founding documents, but rather in the 1997 USSR Constitution (Chapter #2; Article 18).

At the global level, soft law represents unenforceable agreements between nations. By appearing to represent global consensus, these have a way of evolving slowly into enforceable international law in the form of agreements, conventions, declarations, executive orders, pacts, summits, and treaties. UN resolutions represent a kind of international common law to which national courts have already begun to refer.

Human Rights Council for Social Justice

Charged with strengthening and protecting human rights worldwide, an inter-governmental body within the United Nations (the Human Rights Council) consists of forty-seven member states elected by the UN General Assembly. One might reasonably expect those charged with reviewing, advising, and addressing human rights violation complaints themselves embrace the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But composition of officials at the Council’s twenty-first session in Geneva (September 2012) suggests otherwise. Predominantly Muslim states ruled the roost. Israel was strangely missing though, unlike the Muslim mindset, Israel’s biblical ethic uniquely features human dignity and equality before God.

World Day of Social Justice

Each year, on February 20th, the United Nations’ World Day of Social Justice gives special attention to the International Criminal Court that adjudicates alleged crimes against humanity. Only a fair outcome for all will signal universal social justice toward achieving constitutional objectives within the framework of the United Nations system. In other words, forget the US Constitution and abandon the American Dream. Because there’s no guarantee that the ICC will implement American notions of justice, and many UN treaties erode US sovereignty, American patriots oppose it.

Equal Opportunities, Not Equal Outcomes

To improve income opportunities for all is noble; however, to achieve equitable outcomes for all is not. Imagine yourself to be a middle school student who has studied diligently for a midterm exam. Afforded equal opportunity to succeed, your classmate has chosen instead to face examination day thoroughly unprepared. The principle of “fair outcomes for all” demands that both students get a “pass.” To reward the diligent with an earned “A+” would create an atmosphere of comparison, competition, and jealousy – all deemed “ills of society.” This prompts the telling question: Why strive to be a good teacher, or good student, if in the end neither much matters?

The socialist principle of government-managed development, sustainable development calls for revamping the very infrastructure of our nation away from private ownership and control of property to nothing short of a national zoning system through which producers are expected to provide for non-producers. At the global level, egalitarianism may sound good for its supposed advocacy of political, economic, and legal equality for all when, in truth, it is no more than a specious buzzword for supplanting America’s hegemony. The eventual goal of the global brain trust is to incite planetary class conflict, resulting in paradigm shift to democratic transnationalism, which weds free-market capitalism with communism.

Gross Distortions

Undermining the divinely inspired grand experiment we call America, social justice globalists employ dodgy distortions and deceitful doublespeak. John Locke’s view of the social contract profoundly influenced our founding fathers. Deemed equal before God, all are bound by the Law of Nature, which forbids harming others. The natural condition of mankind is to remain free from interference. God provides families (“conjugal society”) with subsistence from nature, and each one is allowed his own fair share of property.

Because the state of nature is subject to carnal self-interest, folks contract together to form civil government. Doing so subjects offenders to the public power of government (“one body politic under one government”), consisting of laws, judges, and executive power of enforcement. Should any one violate the social compact – e.g., by introducing tyranny – folks are bound to resist that authority, dissolve the violating government, and begin the process anew. In contrast, Rousseau’s social contract serves an agenda that invites heavy-handed tyranny.

Doublespeak

Purportedly driven by compassion, social justice gives overriding priority to the world’s poor on behalf of the common good,. Yet at the heart of its argument is belief that mankind is “the real enemy,” a “tumor,” and a “cancer” in need of being “cut out.” In fact, proponents finger mankind as “the most dangerous, destructive, selfish, and unethical animal on the earth.” Therefore, “extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable, but a good thing.” If reincarnated, a UNESCO Courier, the late Jacques Cousteau, wished “to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” Human dignity? Common good? Fairness? I think not.

Bible Truth

The Bible is clear that refusal to work precludes any expectation to be fed. The affluent are by no means owing to the sluggard. That Jesus had nowhere to lay His head speaks to his homelessness. Although Jesus became poor for our sakes, God dearly loves the well-to-do – e.g., Nicodemus, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha – as He loves those less fortunate.

God is not partial, but He provides for the needy – promising special blessing to all who give to the poor and judgment to those who oppress, rob, or cheat them. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus taught that all in need are neighbors worthy of our compassion. His law affords special protection for those especially vulnerable, as widows and orphans. Though Paul gave instructions on master-slave relations, his underlying belief was that slaves should be freed.

Cheerful, voluntary giving is God’s take on “social justice.” Unfairly characterized as “wealthy, powerful, greedy obstructionists,” capitalists (often identified as “the religious right”) donate to non-church related charities four times what liberals do. Although conservative-headed families earn a tad less income than liberal counterparts, they give about thirty percent more.

Conclusion

A shining star of the religious left, Dr. Tony Campolo proclaims, “The future is yours to create.” Problem is, the new social contract employs an old, collectivist strategy. Wallis suggests evaluating values in light of what he calls “seven generations out.” Since the future’s “his to create,” and his magazine was called The Post-American, it’s likely that Wallis visualizes an utopian “Open Society” in which America no longer exists.

Should America vanish, the world would be sadly bereft of “the sacred fire of liberty.” Samuel Adams was right in affirming “he therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue.” To the contrary, “social justice” engineers propose a deceptive new, but recycled social contract that, in the end, benefits a global plutocracy to the detriment of masses it purports to serve.