Pat’s Polemics

As long as we are divided along line of sex, income, citizenship, ethnicity, religion, status, and so many others, and as long as there are boards of judges deciding our fate, we will want representation. The colonists in the future U.S. did not mind being British citizens; in fact, they reveled in it. The problem was that when it came to deciding “taxation” aka tariffs on goods, the judges deciding that had no colonists among them.
Throughout the history of the country, until 1920, men judges decided how the law should apply to women. There were no women among the judges. A teacher up for judgment of some kind; an evaluation, a reprimand, an investigation, a promotion, would like to see another teacher as judge along with the administrators. A union man, as I understand it, does get a fellow worker and union man ………. (person, since probably more women belong to unions now than men) on the board of judges he comes before.
Some of us have had the unpleasant experience of finding ourselves before a panel or board of persons sitting in judgment on us. Usually we have a right to speak for ourselves but it adds heft to the procedure when there is someone “like” yourself among the judges.
Police officers have rigged the situation so that either only other police officers, subject to the harassment of their peers if their decision goes against a fellow officer, or civilians subject to pressure from police unions, get to sit on boards examining police conduct.
This is why a minority, be it ethnic, national, religious, and so forth, clamor for representation. It is not a perfect solution since that representative of their group might be under pressure to conform to the other board members’ decision, but there is some hope for relief from the judgment of people who do not walk in our shoes.