I got into a discussion in comments on the Threedonia blog today. Their open thread featured a picture of the Andy Griffith Show cast.

I expressed my personal dislike for the show, based on my (wholly insecurity-based) allergy to all those 1960s shows set in rural or small town settings. I found them condescending in the extreme, and resented them (the rest of my family, for the record, liked the shows just fine).

Later I discussed the pilot for the show, which I remember clearly, as I saw it on its first broadcast. It was actually an episode of The Danny Thomas Show.

In this episode, Danny passed through the town of Mayberry, on the way to a singing engagement, and was arrested by Sheriff Andy Taylor for running a stop sign. Danny took offense at Andy’s attitude, and decided to fight the ticket. He followed Andy to the court house, to face the justice of the peace—who turned out to also be Andy. Andy named the fine, and Danny pulled out his wallet and, with a sneer, slammed down a bill. At that point, Andy told him that the fine for him would be a higher amount. Danny was incensed by what he saw as an unjust, punitive penalty, and took the money back, saying he’d rather serve the jail time.

Then he used his phone call to contact friends in New York, who alerted news reporters, and soon (because Danny’s character was a famous night club singer) Sheriff Taylor found himself in the middle of a media circus. Danny did an interview from behind bars, claiming that he was being fed bread and water (which was only true because he’d refused to eat the fried chicken dinner Andy had brought over from the diner). Danny made a speech about equal justice, and how this hick town dictator was perverting the law to take advantage of outsiders.

Then Andy got a chance to tell his side, and he simply explained that, once he’d seen how much money Danny was carrying, he’d realized that the usual fine—which meant something to the country folk of Mayberry—was just chump change to this city slicker. So he felt it was only right to levy a fine that Danny would actually miss, so that he’d learn a lesson about obeying the law.

This impressed Danny so much that he apologized on the air, and paid his fine in full. He and Andy parted friends, and later that year (1960) The Andy Griffith Show was spun off as a series of its own.

As I recall, I thought this story a travesty at the time, and I haven’t changed my opinion since then.

Exodus 23:3 says, “Do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.” There are prohibitions elsewhere, of course, against favoring the rich either. The point is that equal justice should be levied, regardless of social standing. The poor man and the rich man stand equal in the eyes of the law. Hence the blindfold on the statues of Justice.

Now the liberal mind, ruled as it is by sentiment, thinks this wrong. “Don’t we treat children differently,” the liberal asks, “depending on their age and capacities? Don’t we expect more of the older child than the younger child? You don’t punish the computer nerd and the athlete the same way—the computer nerd loves to be sent to his room; the athlete hates it. You have to discriminate.”

But that’s just the point, as I see it. You’re talking about children.

Children, by definition, are not fully formed. It falls to their parents and other responsible adults to tailor their treatment of them to their strengths and weaknesses, and their changing capacities.

But the very point of becoming an adult is (or used to be) a determination that “Now I will no longer expect special treatment. Now I will take on the same responsibilities as every other adult. Now I will expect the same rights. Now I will look all other adults in the eye, as a freeman and an equal.”

(This was one of the many injustices of slavery—and you saw it in the slave owners’ own self-justifications—“These people are like children,” they said. “They’re not equipped for full rights and responsibilities.”

Sure, there are cases where you have to cut certain adults some slack. Some adults are below normal intelligence. Some have physical handicaps, which limit what we can expect of them. Some are insane.

But in those cases, as we temper justice for these people, we are at the same time removing some of their dignity. When we say we can’t expect as much from them as from others, we’re stipulating to their inferiority in some regard. The trade-off for an easier treatment is a lower level of respect.

Andy Taylor’s philosophy of justice was essentially Marxist… and the wave of the future in America.

But it was wrong, and it has robbed many Americans of their human dignity.

And they don’t even realize it.