Posted by
Andrews on Friday, July 17, 2009 2:42:54 PM
The most misunderstood principle of the law may be the statute of limitations Almost every police drama has had the episode where a criminal will get away with his crime unless he is arrested in X days. And every vigilante drama has the criminal who got away with his crime due to the statute of limitations. However, what those shows neglect is the reason for the statute of limitations, especially in civil law. The simple concept that, after some period of time, we have to simply let things go.
The statute of limitations is a simple principle. The idea is very just when you consider it. The idea is this. After a certain amount of time, we have to let things drop. You cannot be expected to account for your every action forever. It is fair to come and ask what you did last year, or maybe the year before, and expect you to be able to account for it, but to charge you in ten or fifteen or twenty years is too much, Even if there was a crime, it is simply wrong to charge someone after so many years, as it is difficult, if not impossible, to present a reasonable defense after so much time. And in civil law it makes even more sense, as an act ten years ago has long done its damage, everyone has adjusted to it as a reality, to dredge it back up is more likely to result in more injustices, not fewer. Trying to prove why you did what you did a decade ago or more is very difficult, meaning any trial is likely to result in an unfair judgment.
In short, after some time, we have to just let things go, accept that there may be injustices, but that so much time having passed, those injustices have to simply be accepted and we must move on.
And this principle is why I am so disturbed by affirmative action laws. Yes, some people who enacted Jim Crow are still alive, as are people who suffered from it. And the lingering effects of slavery and legal segregation may still trouble their descendants, but if one looks for it, you can find "lingering traces" of anything, indentured servitude, discrimination against the Irish, the Norman conquest, enslavement by the Romans, anything. Traces will exist forever. And yes, slavery and discrimination is more recent, but that argument still remains. there will always be lingering traces of the effects of slavery, so will we always have affirmative action?
The counter argument is that whites benefited from slavery and discrimination, so to make things "fair" we must now provide a leg up for blacks. However, for how long? And, if at the end, we find that whites feel they have suffered too much, will we need to discriminate in favor of whites again? Or if some blacks continue to feel they are lagging behind, will we need to continue affirmative action some more? At what point do we say enough is enough?
We need the principle of the statute of limitations, of letting go of wrongs too old to prosecute as crimes. Yes, it will leave some injustices unsettled, it will leave some crimes unpunished, some wrong unrighted. But in the larger interest of laying the issue of race to rest, we need to say we will no longer consider race. If racism is a wrong, then it is a wrong in any form, be it racism for or against blacks or for or against whites. Keeping alive racism to cure past racism still keeps racism alive. Until we say enough, and allow that we will never find perfect justice in this world, we will just perpetuate racism.
The way to end racism is to stop thinking about race. What is truly disturbing is that that is a controversial position.
POSTSCRIPT
A similar argument appeared in my older posts "
Some Logical Problems With Reparations" and "
Mainstreaming hate".