Twenty-seven years ago, L. Ron Hubbard wrote an article for Freedom which contained a striking analysis of how and why riots and civil unrest occur amongst minorities in the United States.That article, which follows below, is as meaningful today as it was in 1969.
iots are not always caused by economic depravation. The bulk of American riots are caused by injustice.
Only the wealthy can afford justice. It may say there must be justice in the Constitution but it can only be obtained in upper courts.
The little fellow doesn’t have a hundred thousand dollars to fight the unjust actions of those in power.
Until there is justice for the little people, not just for the rich, there will be riots. And these riots can easily swell into complete raw red revolution.
A Black can be innocently standing on a street corner, can be grabbed, beaten, thrown in jail, and worked at hard labor all on some imaginary charge. It may say it can’t be done in the law books, but where’s his $100,000 to take it high enough for action.
I have seen a Filipino university professor hauled in for nothing, his jaw broken, held without bail, all because he was a Filipino in a white US community (Port Orchard, Washington).
I have seen jails full of men who could not even say what the actual charge against them was—but they worked like dogs every day as convict labor.
As a minister, going amongst the people, I have witnessed enough injustice to overturn a state only waiting for a spark to ignite the suppressed wrath into revolution.
Until justice applies to all, until a person is really assumed innocent until proven guilty, until it no longer costs a tenth of a million to get to an upper court, the government is at risk.
They may be very big, their sweat may have no odor, their arrogance may put them above all others, but the leaders of a nation who for one instant tolerate injustice to their poorest citizens today should have heads ready for the basket. Another 1789 is boiling up, only waiting for one big spark to flash across the Western world.
Injustice is not something in which any man with power should ever trade. It is not just a sin. It is suicide.
