How could this have happened? | Eastern North Carolina Now

This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The N. C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation held a public hearing in Raleigh Wednesday, June 22, 2011. Before you stop reading this we urge you to take two and a half hours out of your life to watch the video of this meeting by clicking here.

    There is nothing we can add in terms of commentary on what these people have had to say.

    We understand this is a complex issue. A wrong was done. We may debate by whom. We may also debate appropriate penance. Ultimately, we must face our God and reconcile our individual and collective responsibility. But we would suggest that every person who ever proposes to vote or serve in public office should, at very least, watch this video.

    We suggest that for one simple reason, among so many others, and that reason is that we, each of us individually and collectively, should insure that anything such as this never happens again.

    We would suggest another perspective that was not covered in the video. That perspective is that if there was ever an example of the failure of liberalism we would suggest that this tragedy is that example.

    We could espouse a dissertation about how this kind of tragedy could happen because of an idea that some people (we label them "elites") among us have the prerogative to make decisions for others of us. That idea is operationalized by a vehicle which we call "the state." Not only the State of North Carolina, although most of these victims were victimized by North Carolina, but rather what we mean is the idea that through collective thinking a group of people who fashion themselves as superior can, by law, decide what is best for other individuals simply because the elites believe they are superior to those they victimize. It matters not whether that victim is a yet unborn child, a mentally retarded individual, a patient in a hospital, or an old person unable to take care of themselves independently, one suffering from an incurable disease, a person who wishes to use their private property the way they deem best--including not having their property taken or devalued without being made whole or without just compensation, how many children a person can have, that a school child cannot say a prayer in a public school classroom, what a student can wear to school or even where a child goes to school. And it matters not whether the elitism is operationalized through a legislature, bureaucrats, a planning/zoning board or even a homeowners' association.

    We would further suggest that a major fallacy of liberalism is epitomized by the idea that these liberal elites are just as ready to place themselves in judgment to decide how these victims should be compensated, as those who decided that they had some "right" to decide whether these people should or should not be able to have children. To those elitists we simply say: You cannot buy absolution for yourself because you advocated "doing something" for these victims. It will take much more than that.

    So to the question of: "How could this have happened?" we would suggest the answer is really very simple: The lack of genuine respect for the inalienable rights of individuals. And it is still happening today....wherever real liberty is sacrificed to the elitist idea that one person, or a collection of individuals, can decide things for another.

    Liberty is precious.

    Don't tread on me. And that means don't presume to decide for me as these people had someone decide for them. Perhaps the greatest penence we could pay for what happened to these people is that as a result of their stories being exposed we would, as a people, resolve to make a stronger commitment to inalienable individual liberty.

    "The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice." --Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775.