Saul Alinsky used to say that the morality of an action depended upon the verdict of the people in power. If the people who make the rules say something is legal, good, acceptable, then it was. If they say it was illegal, bad, unacceptable, then it is.
Nothing illustrates that better than the growing wave of legal pot. For decades when the war against drugs was being fought, thousands of poor youth from the ghettos, from the slums, from the fringes of society would be rounded up, taken to court, sent to prison, and end up with a criminal record that would prevent them from getting a good job, maybe prevent them from getting into a college. Lots and lots of people and their families had their lives changed for the worse because of the war on drugs.
Now with nothing more than the vote of a few legislators, the law is changed and a number of capitalist are getting ready to make lots of money selling pot. The morality of selling pot all depended on the verdict of people in power. Now corporations will be farming, packaging, distributing, and selling pot legally. Doing exactly what hundreds of people went to jail for for decades.
If this small reality does nothing else, it ought to remind us that we do not need to be so self-righteous or dogmatic when we talk about the morality of issues. The smoking pot is the same activity it has always been. For decades it was called illegal. Now it is legal and probably a bunch of business people will make lots of money off of it. There are many things that we get all "bent out of shape" and claim that they are horrible, illegal and immoral, and then a law is changed and it is all okay. We do need to be careful with different issues because what is illegal today may be legal tomorrow and what is legal today may be illegal tomorrow and the morality of the action may really still be the same.
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