Under the capitalist system, the winner is the one who winds up with the most money. Laissez faire capitalism is no holds barred capitalism; everything is fair game for exploitation in the name of profit. Wages are driven down to subsistence levels; benefits, such as paid vacations, retirement plans, and health insurance, are eliminated; worker safety is compromised; the environment is trashed; product liability laws are eviscerated, allowing unsafe food, drugs, and products to flood the market.

      Legal traditions based on English common law survived well into the 20th century. Under English common law, "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage..." 1

      Life in the segregated south was characterized by contempt: contempt of God, the Bible, the law, the Constitution, the truth, women, and laboring men as well as for blacks and other minorities. On some psychological level, segregationists must have known that they had very weak claims on morality. One of the few remaining issues on which to claim the moral high ground was sex or rather the repression of sex. (Alas, repressing one's sexuality does not make one moral, it makes one sexually repressed.) No wonder then that racism, sexism, affirmative action for women and minorities, women's reproductive rights, environmentalism, and economic liberalism have become an interlocking series of issues. No wonder too that the most controversial contemporary issues revolve around women's sexuality, reproductive rights, and equality.

      Fundamentalist Christians, creators and guardians of the religious dogma that defended segregation and sexism, declared a take-no-prisoners cultural war. For them the stakes are high; if they loose, they will have no significant issue on which to claim the moral high ground. For us, the stakes are high too; if we loose, they will take all of our rights from us. Do not put yourself in the position of someday saying: " They came for homosexuals and I did not speak up because I was not a homosexual. They came for non-Christians and I did not speak up because I was a Christian. They came for minorities and I did not speak up because I was not a minority. They came for liberals and I did not speak up because I was not a liberal. And then they came for me and there was no one left to speak up." Dangerous times are upon us. Ensure that someone is there to stand up for you by banding together with us NOW to win this unholy cultural war which has been imposed upon us against our will.

1 William Blackstone, ,_Commentaries on the Laws of England 1765_, from _Women in American Law_, edited by Marlene Stein Wortman, vol . 1, p27

This essay was Sunshine's response to The Bell Curve.

To the Essays Menu

e-mail sunshine@pinn.net