Abstract: Is Compassion unConstitutional? Ayn Rand answer — “Yes. Next question.” This is the kind of ultra-right libertarian tunnel-vision perspective Compassion must deal with in America. If Compassion was adopted as the ‘moral’ compass and guiding force for American society and its laws — would its leadership and its dictates of conscience be challenged as unconstitutional? For example, Compassion might very well dictate that animals are not mere ‘things,’ personal property, but are beings with certain inalienable fundamental rights not to be harmed by humans. It’s important to understand WHY Compassion and its sanctions would or would not be perceived as unconstitutional. And then there’s the question — What can be deduced about a society that decides that Compassion’s values are inherently unconstitutional? Is that a decrepit social environment that we and our children’s children really want to live in?

For quite some time now in America there has been a dominant unspoken, stealth operating assumption that “if it isn’t illegal — it must be morally and ethically ‘okay’ as well — otherwise it would have been outlawed.” The same rationale is applied to Constitutional prohibitions. The standard vanilla-flavored over-permissive self-indulgent libertarian — militantly obsessed with unfettered rights and bare-bones minimum government intrusion on those rights — will virtually always insist that such an interpretation is valid — as an ironclad certainty. He does this because he believes anything that curtails the freedom to do something is ‘bad’ and anything that expands the scope of permissability is ‘good.’ If you’ve ever raised a 4-year-old you’re familiar with this sentiment. All rules are bad.

So the libertarian, who militantly demands unfettered rights and bare-bones minimum government intrusion, is actually “causing” the avalanche of legislated laws he staunchly opposes — by insisting that all socially unhealthy conduct must be declared unlawful in order to be deemed immoral. The irrational, illogical circularity of this ‘infinite feed-back loop’ reasoning is obvious to everyone but the libertarian.

This is the same libertarian cerebral operation that is at work in the above Ayn Rand answer that Compassion is unconstitutional. Rand’s well-known anthem — “Selfishness is a virtue” — perfectly embodies the libertarian mentality. And make no mistake about it — libertarians mean selfishness is the “supreme” virtue among all virtues. It needs this status in order to trump all other virtues in any future dog-fight. One needn’t be an Oxford scholar to figure-out that Compassion is the antithesis of selfishness. So it shouldn’t be surprising to discover that Compassion is surreptitiously demonized as a mortal threat by the model libertarian, because of its potential to curtail their inalienable right to do as they please.

If you mouse-over the balance scales of justice graphic at the top of the page you’ll see bubble text that reads: “The Scales of Balanced Justice — Symbolizing a reasonable honest balance between Rights and Responsibilities.” America’s Founding Fathers very well understood the grave potential dangers of the “tyranny of the majority” in a democracy. The “tyranny of the majority” expression refers to the potential in a democracy for the majority of the voting population to decide to abolish or trample the rights of the minority. The dilemma presented by that is enormous. If duly registered voters empower duly elected representatives to carry out the “will of the people” by abolishing the rights of the minority, after amending or overturning all contrary existing laws, it would give rise to the only remaining ultimate question — “Is there a constitutional provision that prohibits this action by duly elected representatives?”

The Founding Fathers thoroughly anticipated this danger and they drafted a Constitution that stipulates that there must be a reasonable honest balance between Rights and Responsibilities. Libertarians love to talk about rights and predictably shun responsibilities, which are deemed to be an onerous government intrusion and a curtailment of their inalienable right to do as they please — without onerous consequences. If you’ve ever raised a 4-year-old you’re familiar with this sentiment.

An illustration of the balance between rights and responsibilities looks like this. “Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.” This confers a right and imposes the responsibility not to infringe on the rights of another in the exercise of that right. That’s how the Constitution was written. And as written, it would protect the minority in our example and declare the elected representatives actions unconstitutional. But there’s a problem. A really big problem. The Constitution has been re-written many times over again, without ever being formally “amended” as required. The highly politicized U.S. Supreme Court took the liberty of amending it so many times and in such a hodge-podge patchwork of confusing, obscure, nebulous and contrary rulings that there is conceivably enough wiggle-room to make the outcome less than a certainty. And if that doesn’t scare the daylights out of every American then they must be brain-dead.

So does this mean Compassion and its dictates of conscience would likely be challenged as unconstitution? The answer is probably already obvious. For at least the last one-hundred years the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly rewritten the Constitution in such a way that it now reflects the Ayn Rand sentiment that selfishness is the highest virtue in a capitalistic nation that is largely owned and controlled by Wall Street corporate power brokers. Unfortuately, the Founding Fathers anticipated and defended against the potential tyranny of governments and religions and individuals — but it never adequately foresaw or defended against the potential tyranny of mammoth wealthy corporations.

Everything that corporate interests have monetized instantly becomes their ‘property’ and the Constitution protects property against seizure and against any interference with that property. This was the chief argument in favor of slavery. Slavery had already been monetized heavily in the South — thereby making the slaves their property. In line with this southern reasoning, the southern states argued that the North was interfering with their property rights in violation of the Constitution, which prohibits such property interference. Precisely this same rationale has been applied to non-human animals after they were monetized and the U.S. Supreme Court officially ruled that animals are mere property without any rights whatsoever.

This perversion of the Constitution, as with religion, was made possible when they became rationalized, dogmatized, politicized, monetized and weaponized by utilitarian manipulators with other agendas wholly unrelated to the Constitutional edicts and religious teachings.

It was Compassion and its dictates that informed the conscience of many Americans when the North declared slavery unconstitutional. It has yet to intervene in this way on behalf of animals. So in America — the way to acquire ownership rights over a ‘thing’ or a ‘being’ is to monetize it. Wealthy money-grubbing investors and corporations have learned this lesson well. And today, once a wealthy shopping mall developer heavily monetizes the property your house is sitting on — it can confiscate your property.

But don’t blame the Constitution for this insanely unfair, unjust state of affairs. ALL blame lies squarely at the feet of the hyper-politicized U.S. Supreme Court and its unconstitutional “amendments” to the Constitution without ever adhering to the extremely rigorous and difficult constitutional requirements (Article V of the Constitution). The U.S. Supreme Court has accomplished this by disingenuously claiming that they are not “amending” the Constitution, but merely “interpreting” its provisions. And as with the axiom “To a hammer — everything looks like a nail” — to the hyper-politicized U.S. Supreme Court, a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate empire, everything looks like a supreme Corporate interest to be staunchly protected at all costs (including the cost of YOUR rights).

So where in the Constitution does it say Corporations, a fictional entity (a legal fiction), are ‘persons’ entitled to the same full panoply of Constititional rights as ‘individuals?’ You will NOT find anything in the Constitution that even remotely insinuates such a thing. The unvarnished truth is that the hyper-politicized U.S. Supreme Court has been unlawfully, unconstitutionally AMENDING the Constitution for a very long time. Article V of the Constitution requires a two-thirds (super-majority) vote of members of both the Senate and the House — AND — it requires ratification by three-fourths of the state legislatures (at present 38). That makes constitutional amendments extremely difficult. And as we now know with indisputable certainty, had the hyper-politicized U.S. Supreme Court not unconstitutionally AMENDED the Constitution — its early pro-slavery rulings would have been null and void for being profoundly offensive under the ‘real’ Constitution.

This all goes to explain WHY the answer is “Yes” to the question — “Is Compassion unconstitutional?” — when you realize that this question will be answered exclusively by the hyper-politicized U.S. Supreme Court — for which everything looks like a supreme Corporate interest to be protected at all costs. As a general rule, those who extol Compassion as the supreme virtue are often labeled “socialists” or “Marxists” (and anti-American) . And those who tout Ego (selfishness) as the supreme virtue are typically labeled “capitalists” – “industrialists” and pro-American (or Ayn Rand devotees).

So Compassion, at the broad social level, is fast approaching a point of being declared largely irrelevant as a driving influence in American life. And the most brutal, bitter irony is that while Compassion is close to being dragged out of the chamber strapped-down on a gurney, mainstream dogmatized religion — which is incapable of recognizing Compassion when it sees it — is optimally lined-up to take Compassion’s place as a driving influence on American life and its values.

As we repeatedly stressed in a highly related article entitled “Morality Has No Conscience” — Compassion is not widely revered, cultivated, respected, encouraged and ‘groomed’ at home, in schools or at the workplace. But the Ego is. The intellect is. And so is the pursuit of fame and wealth. Over time these impoverished values will only become more dominant if the current trend continues.

The primary intent here has been simply to raise awareness of the broad, sweeping social implications that can manifest at the social and national level when Compassion is neglected at the grass-roots personal level in the home. And it is important to realize that this has been a broad, sweeping assessment of the various influences on American life and values — only on a collective national scale.

At the personal individual level, Compassion will never, ever become impotent or irrelevant. And no one should ever give-up on it. To the contrary, this should inspire Compassion’s devotees to do more — not less.

As we stated in “Morality Has No Conscience” — Compassion is how we de-weaponize the Ego. If Compassion had been widely revered, cultivated, respected, encouraged and `groomed’ at home, in schools and at the workplace, as Ego has been, it would not sound like such a ludicrous idea — making Compassion the preeminent value in American life. If Compassion had gotten all the kudos, the ad spots, promotions, advancements, bonuses & incentives, tax-breaks and welfare hand-outs that Ego has gotten, Compassion would now be an enduring monolithic guardian and guide for us all right now. And that is the paramount point of both these articles!

The bottom line is that WE created this monster — this perverted inverted value system and we did it at the grass-roots level, in the home, in schools, at work and in the gangs and groups we identify with.
WE did this. WE can change it. And the motivation for change is “dire necessity.” The machinery for change is as grass-roots as it can get — start revering, cultivating, respecting, encouraging and `grooming’ Compassion at home — then take it to school with you. That alone is a sufficient start.

Be a cynic at your own peril. It’s YOUR future. And your children’s children’s future.
Compassion isn’t dead. It’s just sleeping beneath a long, hard Winter snow.

      Highly Related Articles —

“Morality Has No Conscience — Reflecting Pool Discourse”

“Reflecting Pool Discourse — Blog Introduction”

“Spiritual But Not Religious — Reflecting Pool Discourse”

“Why Should I Care if My Own Ox is Not Getting Gored? — Reflecting Pool Discourse”