Aretha Franklin had a hit in the 60s’ in which she called for her significant other to give her a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T. A community and a country that is bound together in peace and harmony is what we term a “civil society.” However, in order to be civil a society must be driven by R-E-S-P-E-C-T, for when this trait is absent from its citizens, civility breaks down and anarchy reigns. Such is precisely what we are witnessing in our society today, especially within just the last two weeks with the war being waged against police departments across our land.
A civil society is one that is based upon the rule of law. In our society this is not just any law, but laws that comport to the inalienable rights granted us by our Creator and are in made in pursuance to the Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2). However, when there is no respect for laws that meet these two criteria, we reap the lawlessness running rampart in our streets. Such is why we have “loaned” the government the power to police those who, by their lack of respect for law, threaten the inalienable rights of the rest of society. A lack of respect for law reveals itself in a lack of respect for the inalienable rights of others to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. This is precisely what unfolded in Dallas, Texas last week.
The question, then, is what causes this loss of respect for law and the rights of others? Those who are acting so wantonly will point to alleged injustices they feel they have experienced, and in some cases there may be grounds for such allegations. However, in the first amendment to our Constitution it guarantees us the proper avenue to address such injustices. Citizens have the guaranteed right to peacefully assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It is our representatives in Congress whom we elect that are to serve as the conduit for these grievances, and if they fail to respond, to replace them with others who will. Such was the approach of Martin Luther King, Jr in his peaceful approach to securing civil rights for all Americans in the 1960s’.
Going one step further, though, if an individual does not respect himself, then he is incapable of respecting any laws, be they man’s or God’s, nor other fellow members of the society. Over the past fifty years, thanks to LBJ’s so-called “Great Society” initiatives, government put in motion programs that have robbed citizens of their self-respect and today we are reaping their bitter fruit.
Perhaps those who are part of the BLM movement should, instead of filling their minds with the vile garbage of so many of the modern-day rap singers, go back to another hit of the 60s’ by the Staple Singers – “Respect Yourself”:
You disrespect anybody
That you run in to
How in the world do you think
Anybody’s s’posed to respect you
If you don’t give a heck ’bout the man
With the Bible in his hand
Just get out the way
And let the gentle man do his thing
You the kind of gentleman
That want everything your way
Take the sheet off your face, boy
It’s a brand new day
Respect yourself, respect yourself
If you don’t respect yourself
Ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na
Respect yourself, respect yourself
If you’re walking ’round
Think’n that the world
Owes you something
‘Cause you’re here
You goin’ out
The world backwards
Like you did
When you first come here
Keep talkin’ ’bout the president
Won’t stop evolution
Put your hand on your mouth
When you cough, that’ll help the solution
Oh, you cuss around women
And you don’t even know their names
And you dumb enough to think
That’ll make you a big ol man
Respect yourself, respect yourself
If you don’t respect yourself
Ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na
Yep, these lyrics from almost 50 years ago pretty much sums up what’s wrong in society today.
-July 15, 2016