"Because we are a nation which is so diverse and can only function peacefully as a melting pot, meaning that our differences have to blend rather than form barriers which polarize and divide: We must have a common philosophy..." Black Lives Matter: The Citizenship Ideal.

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"Because we are a nation which is so diverse and can only function peacefully as a melting pot, meaning that our differences have to blend rather than form barriers which polarize and divide: We must have a common philosophy..." Black Lives Matter: The Citizenship Ideal.

PURPOSE AND SIGNIFICANCE

On the subject of purpose, The Tao of Public Service says:

Every person, place or thing has a purpose. In every form of life, for every event, there is an essential idea...The highest and best part of each one of us is an essential idea that must be properly stimulated in order to grow. We are born into this world to do and act in a certain way. We actually have a cosmic and universal right to "be ourselves" and to engage in certain work...

Every person has an inherent purpose. It is a seed. The needs of purpose can only be met by a right to develop it.

FORTY ACRES AND A MULE: THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT

In his article: The Truth Behind 40 Acres and a Mule, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., asserts:

We have been taught in school that the source of the policy of "40 acres and a mule" was Union General William T. Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15, issued on Jan. 16, 1865...But what many accounts leave out is that this idea for massive land redistribution actually was the result of a discussion that Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton held four days before Sherman issued the Order, with 20 leaders of the black community in Savannah, Ga...

With this Order, 400,000 acres of land...would be redistributed to the newly freed slaves...Stanton had suggested to Sherman that they...ask them something no one else had apparently thought to ask: "What do you want for your own people?

Their chosen leader...a Baptist minister named Garrison Frazier, aged 67, who had been born in Granville, N.C., and was a slave until 1857[said] "The way we can best take care of ourselves, is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor...and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare...We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own..." Four days later, Sherman issued Special Field Order No. 15, after President Lincoln approved it...

The right to vote never entered the conversation. It was clear to the newly freed Blacks of the time that their future development depended on the actual possession of property.

In an article entitled, Property Rights the Key to Economic Development, authors Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr. [i] and Lee Hoskins [ii] state:

Prosperity and property rights are inextricably linked. The importance of having well-defined and strongly protected property rights is now widely recognized among economists and policymakers...It is only in the last few decades, however, that economists have accepted the importance of property rights. Throughout much of the history of modern economics, the subject was given short shrift...

At the close of his article Gates states, "Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor and a sympathizer with the South, overturned the Order in the fall of 1865." By so doing, President Andrew Johnson deprived America's newly freed Blacks of their only real opportunity to exercise their rights as Americans. Why? Because today it is generally recognized that all of our rights are dependent on the right to develop. And in our free market economy our development rights are imbedded in the ownership of private property.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)

The "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" (ICESCR) is a United Nations Treaty adopted to facilitate and fully implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The ICESCR is one of a pair. The other is the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" (ICCPR).

The preamble to the ICESCR asserts that..."in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights and freedom..."

The ICESCR's Article 13 leaves no doubt about the importance of "economic, social and cultural rights" for the development of the individual. It specifically recognizes the right of everyone to free education [iii] directed towards "the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity" and to enable all persons to participate effectively in society. Education is seen both as a human right and as "an indispensable means of realizing other human rights." This is one of the most important articles of the Covenant.

The United States signed the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" (ICCPR) on October 5, 1977. The US ratified the ICCPR June 8, 1992. These actions require the US to "ensure" the civil and political rights contained in the covenant.

Unlike the ICCPR, the US signed the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" (ICESCR) on October 5, 1977 but has not yet ratified it. And this despite the fact that it does not require the US to "ensure" the rights it contains, but only creates an obligation of "progressive realization." How can it be that a nation which promotes itself as the "leader of the free world" can fail to adopt this for its own people?

Citizenship, Service and Significance

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "Our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men."

I assert that every single person has a purpose. No one is insignificant. ALL LIVES MATTER. As such, each citizen has the right to expect his society to treat him or her as having inherent purpose and value. No one should be treated as insignificant. No one should be treated as a throwaway.

Authors Website: http://www.ericzlucas.com

Authors Bio:

Eric Z. Lucas is an alumnus of Stanford University (Creative Writing Major: 1972-1975), the University of Washington (1981: BA English Literature and Elementary Education) and Harvard Law School, J.D. 1986. Since law school he has been a public servant: a prosecuting attorney, a city attorney and a trial judge. Born in Spokane, Washington where his military family lived until the age of twelve, he still resides in Washington State. Married to his wife Beth since 1974, they have four adult children and two grandchildren. Further discussions of Eric's work are available on the website: The Path of Public Service. Eric is the author of the following books: a children's book entitled: "The Island Horse," November 2005; "The Tao of Public Service" published February 2013 by Balboa Press, and "All Lives Matter: Essays, On the Need for a New View of Citizenship" published by KindlePublishing e-book July 2015. Eric's books are currently available from: Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Balboa Press and Self Discovery Publications directly or through the website listed below.