In Stop polluters from choking Black lives, The New Jersey Star-Ledger editorialized:
Time to stop polluters from kneeling on the neck of communities
like these. In response to their strong call for environmental justice,
the Legislature is finally acting more courageously, and moving a bill that
could help, rather than simply studying the problem again.
It would require the state to produce a list of “overburdened
communities,” defined as either low income, with a high population of people of
color or non-English speakers. In these places, your permit has to go through a
special process.
Incinerators, gas plants, coal plants, landfills, sewage treatment
plants and the like would need to do an environmental justice impact statement
for the state, share it with the public and hold a hearing. The Department of
Environmental Protection would have the power to deny it or require new safety
conditions.
My emphasis.
There is no justice in treating people unequally
before the law. Whenever you hear “justice” qualified by an adjective--“social”
justice, “environmental” justice, “racial” justice, and the like--you hear the
obliteration of justice. What about people who speak English, are
“non-colored”, or are economically more successful? — (what income or net worth
does one have to achieve to be subjected to less stringent pollution standards?)
There is only one human race. Metaphysically,
human life is exclusively individual. Therefor, justice is individual, not
collective. Given the common fundamental nature of all individuals as beings of
reason and free will, justice is impartial. Justice does not consider factors
like language, wealth, or skin color. Justice does not consider the community a
person lives in. Law applies equally to all individuals, or it is not just and,
in fact, not law at all. Whatever conflict or issue is being considered, the
standards of judgement is applicable to all individuals equally and at all
times, grounded in the universal equality of individual rights.
Justice applies to pollution laws no less than
to all other valid laws. Pollution law should be based on objective criteria.
Anti-pollution law must be based objectively on facts, truth, and proven
science, not the color, language, or income of individuals.
The Star-Ledger implies that pollution standards
are lower in Newark and implies that color, income, and language bigotry is the
reason. I don’t know that that is true, but if so, it is wrong and should be
corrected by applying the standards justly. Bigotry should be eliminated, not
rearranged. Bigotry has no place in the application of the law. But embedding
bigotry explicitly in the law as a fix for unequal enforcement of prior law is
outrageous, especially considering the history of law in America and the
progress in correcting the flaws.
Equal protection of the law is implied in the
Declaration of Independence and in the
Fifth Amendment of the United States
Constitution. But it was made explicit in the 14th Amendment, one of the three
“Civil War Amendments” that corrected the flawed interpretation of the
Founding documents that allowed slavery to persist for nearly 90 years after
the Decaration of Independence established the United States of America as a
nation Founded upon political equality for all men and women. And it took
another 90 years of hard fighting to
fully implement that equality because of the reactionary 1896 Plessy v.
Ferguson ruling and the like.
Yet apparently some NJ legislators haven’t
learned from history. Here we are, in 2020, reinstating unequal protection of
the law.
Related Reading:
NJ
Governor Murphy’s COVID-19 Double Standard Toward the Demonstrators
The
Permission Society: How the Ruling Class Turns Our Freedoms into Privileges and
What We Can Do About It by Timothy Sandefur
Vaccine
Exemption Bill Violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, Fairness
If
We’re to Have Labor Laws, Should They Work Both Ways?
The
Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right
to Liberty – Timothy Sandefur
The
Founders Were Flawed. The Nation Is Imperfect. The Constitution Is Still a
'Glorious Liberty Document.' — Timothy Sandefur
Martin
Luther King Jr. and the Fundamental Principle of America
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