If all Americans are equal, why must folks rise when a judge or other official enters the room? Tradition? I wouldn't rise for the 't' word.

Good point...but they earned my respect...and they all respected me. That is equality.

'It' is that male semi-human that resides in a big white house.

Of course I would go to the court house. I respect that rule.

  Thank you, good points. Let’s not, however, forget the parts that the “founding fathers” most likely would have us all forget or ignore about the declaration. As a document that espouses independence, it has a dubious reality attached to it that bears scrutiny. 
  It’s a document that was written by and for the rich white male landowners with some of them also being slaveowners, a document that helped its authors obscure the ideology of determining which human beings were fully human based on color of skin and which humans could own them, a document that assisted its writers in perpetuating the genocide of the Natives from whom they had already stolen the land that they “discovered”.

:|

In his draft presented to the Continental Congress, Jefferson included language addressing slavery, but it was removed when representatives of the southern colonies threatened to vote against the motion to declare independence. Franklin advised him to agree because he knew that if they didn't achieve independence, the rest of it wouldn't matter.

Perhaps the philosophy of the drafters of such documents was better than their intent---and what survived is a principle, an acknowledgement that all men are created equal even if the current milieu does not embrace the implementation of that concept.

The following is just to note that the US is capable of becoming more enlightened and appropriately situational over time when it deals with the implementation of such principles.

In the pivotal case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially separate facilities, if equal, did not violate the Constitution. Segregation, the Court said, was not discrimination.

In Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, Earl Warren wrote the decision for the Court. He agreed with the civil rights attorneys that it was not clear whether the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to permit segregated public education. The doctrine of separate but equal did not appear until 1896, he noted, and it pertained to transportation, not education.

More importantly, he said, the present was at issue, not the past. Education was perhaps the most vital function of state and local governments, and racial segregation of any kind deprived African Americans of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and due process under the Fifth Amendment.


“ Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group...Any language in contrary to this finding is rejected. We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. ”
—Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Edit---added an article, an, and underlined 3 more words.  This post was edited by tom jackson at December 2, 2019 7:05 AM MST

I guess if a judge doesn't rise for me, he/she has no respect for me as a citizen.

  False premise. When you were a teacher, based on traditions, did you A) always and in every situation interact with your students in the exact same way you expected them to interact with you, and B) did your students have to interact with you and other educators, other adults in ways that they may not have liked, yet had little choice otherwise. 

One small example: I believe that from the first day of preschool, kindergarten, elementary school in general, all students should refer to their teachers by Mr., Miss, Ms., or Miss and then their surnames. I see no valid exception to this. Additionally, I believe that it’s appropriate for those same teachers to refer to the students by their first names, not using a title beforehand. There is no disrespect In expecting children to refer to adults one way and those same adults being allowed to refer to the children a different way, nor do I see it as overbearing or demeaning. Young children may not have the level of understanding to question the tradition, and it’s true that some educators, some adults in general believe that there is nothing wrong with children addressing them by their first names. Other adults in those settings address even very young children with the title Mr., Ms., or Miss. I am of neither of those two camps. 

I know you are playing devil's advocate to bring out points, but I think the concept of the "stroke economy" is applicable here---otherwise we have After you; No, after you; Please, I insist; On the contrary, I insist---you go first.......ad infinitum.

Yes.

Then why do you? (Joke)