When The Laws/​rules Are Inherently Immoral

In recent times we have watched aghast, the tear­ing down of norms. On race, tra­di­tion, how we treat oth­ers, and a host of oth­er issues it seem decen­cy and tra­di­tion are things of the past.
In times past,on issue after issue the law of the land upheld and reg­u­larised egre­gious and abore­hent wrongs .
Slavery was the law of the land. Jim Crow was the law of the land. The ban on inter­ra­cial mar­riages was the law of the land. Segregation was the law of the land. The chain gangs was the law. Killing a black per­son with­out con­se­quence was the law of the land and to some degree, still is, if the killing is done by a agent of the gov­ern­ment.
That is the rea­son why the con­tin­ued argu­ments in sup­port of bla­tant inequity and social injus­tice are bull-puckey.

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 ham­mer throw­er Gwen Berry rais­es her fist

That any per­son oper­at­ing in a per­son­al capac­i­ty, or on behalf of any group would use the rules, or the laws to penal­ize any­one who stands up against social injus­tice say much more about that indi­vid­ual than the argu­ments they make about the damn rules.
How you ask, ar they sup­posed to act , when they are mere­ly cary­ing out the dic­tates of the laws/​rules?
To you I say, res­ig­na­tion seems a far bet­ter option than to have one’s name for­ev­er etched in the annals of his­to­ry as the per­son who was on the wrong side of his­to­ry.
It is imma­te­r­i­al whether they actu­al­ly beieved what they were enforc­ing, or mere­ly car­ry­ing out a man­date.
It is against that back­ground that I find the actions of Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, rep­re­hen­si­ble.
Hirshland issued for­mal rep­ri­mands to the U.S. ath­letes, who used their plat­forms to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those speak­ing out on social injus­tice issues, such as gun con­trol, racism, sex­ism and the Trump administration’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies. 
According to Huffpost​.com, Hammer throw­er Gwen Berry and fencer Race Imboden have each been giv­en a 12-month pro­ba­tion for protest­ing against var­i­ous forms of injus­tice in the U.S. at the 2019 Pan American Games ear­li­er this month in Lima, Peru. 

Image result for Imboden kneeled and Berry raised a fist
Fencer Race Imboden takes knee

Imboden kneeled and Berry raised a fist the fol­low­ing day, in silent and peace­ful protests as the U.S. nation­al anthem played over the Pan Am medals stand at the games. 
In let­ters sent to Berry and Imboden on Tuesday, Hirshland wrote that while the ath­letes’ deter­mi­na­tion to be active cit­i­zens is “admirable,” their protests vio­lat­ed Team USA rules that pro­hib­it polit­i­cal protests, accord­ing to copies of the let­ters sent to HuffPost. “The goal of a Games that are free from polit­i­cal speech is to focus our col­lec­tive ener­gy on the ath­letes’ per­for­mances, and the inter­na­tion­al uni­ty and har­mo­ny each Games seek to advance,” the let­ters read. Hirshland warned that Berry and Imboden could “face more seri­ous sanc­tions for any addi­tion­al breach of our code of con­duct than might oth­er­wise be levied for an ath­lete in good stand­ing.”

STORY HERE

https://​www​.huff​post​.com/​e​n​t​r​y​/​r​a​c​e​-​i​m​b​o​d​e​n​-​g​w​e​n​-​b​e​r​r​y​-​p​r​o​b​a​t​i​o​n​s​-​p​r​o​t​e​s​t​s​_​n​_​5​d​5​d​7​7​0​5​e​4​b​0​d​0​4​3​d​d​7​4​3​50f

Hirshland’s com­ments are not much more than horse manure. The Olympic com­mit­tee rules were put in place by men, it takes coura­geous and moral oth­ers to change them.