Americans are divided over just about everything, but these divisions have been a part of who we are from the very beginning of the nation.
Half of us view the world of politics and economics, the world of science and systems of belief, and even the way we understand one another through eyes and minds looking in directions diametrically opposed to one another.
Sometimes we find ourselves facing a common enemy, such as after the Japanese bombing of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and we find ourselves united – for a while.
At other times, when our internal differences became too big to contain, we have gone to war with one another. We did so in the middle of the 19th century over the question of slavery. Slavery was an evil, but it also was a symptom of our divisions. The divisions remain with us.
Most often our differences have caused us to take up arms against one another, not with weapons of war, but with laws enacted to try and force others to act in the way we want them to act. Prohibition was one such law, designed to force the will of one group upon another.
Partly, the prohibition on alcohol arose out of concerns over alcohol abuse. A more significant reason was the fear and dislike of the new immigrants to the United States. They came from southern and eastern Europe where alcohol was more culturally acceptable. Xenophobia, the fear and dislike of these new citizens, caused many native-born Americans to take up the sword of the law to show their hostility toward the newcomers.
Today, it is the force of law that continues to be the weapon of choice by those who wish to keep new, so-called undesirables, in check. In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court, in interpreting the state constitution’s equal protection clause, ruled it is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples equal status and protections that are allowed for married, heterosexual couples. The ruling was unanimous.
The forces desirous of maintaining marriage as an exclusive institution for heterosexuals used the law to inflict punishment on those justices when they were up for a retention vote. In November 2010, Chief Justice Marsha Ternus and Associate Justices Michael Streit and David Bakers were voted off the state Supreme Court. Although the justices were removed from office, their ruling legalizing same-sex unions remains intact.
Opponents still hope to trump the court’s ruling in Iowa and in other states by amending state constitutions, and even the U.S. Constitution. Constitutional amendments are the ultimate bomb available to those at war with progressive attitudes regarding same-sex marriage.
Earlier this month, the three former Iowa justices received the John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award for their bravery in doing what was right rather than what was popular.
Another major area of division in America concerns the status of undocumented immigrants. The border between the United States and Mexico has been porous throughout history. Often, depending on economic forces and even on the weather, people move back and forth between the two nations as they pursue both their financial and familial well-being. There has been a relatively healthy symbiotic relationship between the two nations over time.
As the demographics of the United States has changed, becoming more brown and less white, the undocumented workers from south of the border are seen more and more as a threat.
Arizona stands out as a major outpost in this war against the so-called invasion from south of the border. Rather than viewing the immigrants as a social and financial complement to life in the United States, they are seen as alien and illegal. In defining these human beings by their legal status, it becomes easy to use the law to fight them.
Arizona has done so with a vengeance, and in doing so has become the model for other states such as Alabama who wish to wage war on those deemed undesirable. As earlier immigrants were marginalized through the prohibition on alcohol, these new immigrants are now the ones being prohibited.
The United States Supreme Court recently reviewed the Arizona immigration law with Justice Antonin Scalia comparing the undocumented worker to bank robbers.
“There is a federal law against robbing federal banks,” Scalia said during arguments before the court. “Can it be made a state crime to rob those banks? I think it is.” It should be noted that robbing banks is a serious felony while crossing the border without proper documents for the first time is a misdemeanor under federal law.
In 1858, when Abraham Lincoln was campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, he delivered the famous “House Divided” speech. “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.”
Eventually the Civil War was fought and the Union was preserved, but the division between those who would champion liberty and those who desire to keep others outside the mainstream of society remains.
In the grand scheme of things it is a character flaw. It prevents us from being the Union that would make the nation truly good and great rather than big and powerful.
