2012 might go down in the history books as a politically turbulent year on the order of 1968. Powerful forces are conspiring to divide people into haves and have nots, the oppressors and the oppressed, and the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Or, put in more modern terms, the 1% and the 99%.

Nevermind that people aren't categorized so simply without overlooking some pertinent details. Mitt Romney is deemed to be in the evil 1%, but Bill Clinton, who made $75 million since leaving office, is somehow not in that category.

The mismatches aren't just with powerful national political leaders. It's happening locally to, on the community organizing level. Oh, I just love community organizers! The Social Justice Fund sponsored a summit on Friday to discuss why eastern Ventura County residents earn more on average than western Ventura County residents.

The average household in Thousand Oaks and Moorpark earns almost twice as much as the average household in Santa Paula, Oxnard, or Fillmore.

That, according to the executive director of the leftist group Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE), is "cause" to demand more sharing from east county residents.

Morales then paraphrased part of Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. "Privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily."

Ooh, do you hear that, T.O. and Moorpark residents? "Sharing" isn't going to be voluntary!

The full MLK quote goes like this:

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The unjust, immoral, and oppressive people that King referred to were often just that.

But for CAUSE's director to imply that Moorpark and Thousand Oaks residents are unjust, immoral and oppressive--well, that's just a little extreme.

To CAUSE and the Social Justice Fund, east county residents are not the statistical 1%, they are the rhetorical 1%--the oppressors, the haves, and the bourgeoisie in Ventura County are the AVERAGE households in Thousand Oaks and Moorpark. According to CAUSE's director, "Our county is really bifurcated" because Moorpark households average $101,962 and Santa Paula households average $51,233.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that CAUSE and the Social Justice Fund can be safely ignored as fringe, radical leftist groups. County supervisors Kathy Long and Linda Parks attended the summit, as well as a Ventura city councilman.  

Political turmoil in 2012 and the years ahead are going to be remembered. A clash of irreconcilable ideologies is coming--the drumbeats of conflict can be heard just over the horizon. We're living in historic times.

I saw the headline in the Star that Cal Lutheran University named its first peace prize recipient, and I thought to myself, "I'm not going to like what I'm about to read about my alma mater."

About 10 paragraphs later, my suspicions were confirmed.

Salvatierra, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is being honored for her work with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.

Economic justice, as every good conservative knows, is liberal slang for wealth redistribution. It's unjust that some people are rich and some people are not, so economic justice advocates call for that wealth to be moved from one person's pockets to another's. It's a sibling of social justice, which just a euphemism for Progressivism, itself a euphemism for socialism.

I continued to read.

Salvatierra, who lives in Los Angeles, serves as executive director of the statewide faith-based movement for social justice that helps low-income workers fight for living wages and fair working conditions.

Eww, there it is, social justice. Alarm bells are going off. Here's a way of putting this succinctly--Social Justice is Just Socialism. What is CLU doing? There are other little lefty code words hidden in that paragraph. "Low-income workers"--really, are they all working? Or are they not working and getting financial assistance from the government? "Living wages"--I think in America the Left think that you don't have a living wage until you can afford an iPad.

The group is also a coordinating agency of the New Sanctuary Movement, which supports immigrant workers and their families facing deportation.

Ah, my favorite Leftist euphemism for illegal aliens. "Immigrants." We were all immigrants at some point, weren't we? Yes, but only some of our immigrants came here illegally. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the ones facing deportation fall into that category.  I'm also going to assume that "sanctuary" means that CLU supports the harboring of illegal immigrants and hiding them from the authorities.

All the warning signs are there. Economic Justice. Social Justice. Sanctuary. CLU is entering the waters of the loony Left, and seems to be trying very hard to be the religious equivalent of Berkeley.

Uh oh, two phrases that are red flags--no pun intended--for any Constitution-loving capitalist are "globalization" and "social justice." And they're both going to be on display at the Conference on Globalization for the Common Good at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

*gasp* how can you be against "social justice" for the common good? Those are such nice sounding words!

Of course they are, it's on purpose. Do you think they'd get any support if they told you it was global governance and Marxism?

Is that going too far? Here's one of the conference themes: "Fundamental Defects of the Free Market System."

Hmm...I don't see any fundamental defects of centrally planned economies anywhere on here. Strange. I wonder if they'll mention that real capitalism hasn't been attempted in a hundred years, and had nothing to do with the current global economic meltdown.

OK, enough sarcasm. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. What is globalization exactly? History follows an inevitable pattern. Some humans of any civilization will strike out into the hinterlands to find a competitive edge, whether it be land, resources, trade, etc. These pioneers settle in outposts or create small villages that eventually turn into lawless bustling boomtowns. Picture the Old West. The pioneers are always expanding commercial horizons, leaving government and society behind.

Eventually, though, government always follows the path the traders trailblazed. It provides protection against bandits and fosters a stable environment more conducive to business and population growth, in exchange for taxes.

Fast forward to the 21^st Century, and we see technology has allowed multinational companies to pioneer overseas trade. Commerce has globalized. History will then tell us that globalized government isn't far behind, in fact, it will soon be discussed at CLU.

You may think that's a great idea. Let's have the IMF or UN create laws to get some regulation to protect us. Fine. Call your UN representative and tell him to do it. Maybe go down to the local IMF office and give them some feedback.

What? You don't have any representation there?

Don't you think that's a problem? Our way of life is based on political representation--we vote on lawmakers and if they don't pass laws we like, we remove them from office. You want to give some distant, gigantic global body the power to make laws for you? We can't even get control of our federal government because it's so large and distant, why on earth would we make an even bigger, less responsive bureaucracy?

Because we want social justice!

Unfortunately for us, social justice is a euphemism for the forced redistribution of wealth. Don't take my word for it--here are the words of a special advisor to the British Prime Minister and a professor at the London School of Economics:

Social justice demands that high incomes and large concentrations of wealth be spread more widely, in order to recognise the contribution made by all sections of the community to building the nation's wealth.

Let's say that sounds good to you for the United States. What happens when you combine social justice with globalization--who are the rich people now, the people whose money needs to be redistributed?

You.

All Americans are in the top income bracket if you compare it to the rest of the world.

Still think it's a great idea?