Staff Reports
In a world where common sense often seems like a distant memory, a commentator like Elie Mystal emerges from the shadows to provide us with his unique take on the law. Mystal, in his latest grand revelation, claims that any laws before 1965 are irrelevant. He dismisses them as relics from a bygone era, authored by people who, in his colorful view, had no intention of considering his perspectives or those of anyone who resembled him. Yet, one must marvel at the irony of enjoying all the modern comforts built on such foundations while simultaneously rejecting the past in its entirety.
Listen closely, and one detects the echoes of a familiar refrain often heard in certain circles today: If history isn’t perfect, then erase it. This kind of thinking suggests that since no one knocked on Mystal’s ancestors’ doors to ask their opinions back in the 18th or 19th century, those foundational laws hold no value. Setting aside the curious logic at work here, it’s worth pointing out the stunning disregard for the basics of governance and continuity that this perspective implies. After all, if the past doesn’t count, then any progress we’ve made would be meaningless, too.
It’s comical, isn’t it? One seriously doubts Mystal would willingly discard all laws before 1965, given that the very amendments that abolished slavery and granted equal rights are outcomes of that much-maligned era. This well-trodden logic leads to the chimera of removing centuries of legal progress, simply because they dared to arrive before Mystal deemed them acceptable. Perhaps he relishes the exercise of his First Amendment rights as he tours to promote his latest literary masterpiece, oblivious—or maybe not—to the fact that this freedom of expression is a gift from the very documents he dismisses.
One might even wonder what Mystal imagines a world without those old laws would look like. Would he have us discard the Constitution altogether, merely because it was written without his input, or by people who, to his dismay, do not resemble him? The founding fathers, whatever their flaws, set a cornerstone that many of the world’s democracies admire and emulate to this day. Considering that, it seems more productive to refine these laws rather than reject them wholesale. South Africa’s history lesson, which Mystal cavalierly references, worked because they built upon, rather than denied, their complex past.
In the final analysis, Mystal’s narrative underscores a broader societal trend of judging the past through the relentless lens of today’s morality. If one were to follow this line of thinking, it leads not to enlightenment, but to the chaos of erasing all progress and starting from scratch, again and again. For present and future generations, the challenge remains to preserve the wisdom of the past while advancing toward a more inclusive future—something that would be impossible if we simply tossed our legislative heritage into the proverbial trash can.
