I thought, in light of all the bullshit that was spewed at the recent "democratic" debate hosted by Tavis Smiley and geared toward "people of color," that it was necessary to point out that the kind of government segregation/intervention and group identity mind-set endorsed by all the "top tier" candidates is actually perpetuating racism rather than combating it--for all the reasons spelled out in the following articles. Once again, socialist/collectivist ideologies are at the root of the problem--not the solution. Enjoy!
Government and Racism
by Ron Paul
by Ron Paul
The controversy surrounding remarks by talk show host Don Imus shows that the nation remains incredibly sensitive about matters of race, despite the outward progress of the last 40 years. A nation that once prided itself on a sense of rugged individualism has become uncomfortably obsessed with racial group identities.
The young women on the basketball team Mr. Imus insulted are over 18 and can speak for themselves. It’s disconcerting to see third parties become involved and presume to speak collectively for minority groups. It is precisely this collectivist mindset that is at the heart of racism.
It’s also disconcerting to hear the subtle or not-so-subtle threats against free speech. Since the FCC regulates airwaves and grants broadcast licenses, we’re told it’s proper for government to forbid certain kinds of insulting or offensive speech in the name of racial and social tolerance. Never mind the 1st Amendment, which states unequivocally that, “Congress shall make NO law.”
Let’s be perfectly clear: the federal government has no business regulating speech in any way. Furthermore, government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combating bigotry in our society. Bigotry at its essence is a sin of the heart, and we can’t change people’s hearts by passing more laws and regulations.
In fact it is the federal government more than anything else that divides us along race, class, religion, and gender lines. Government, through its taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails in our society. This government "benevolence" crowds out genuine goodwill between men by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot. This leads to resentment and hostility between us.
The political left argues that stringent federal laws are needed to combat racism, even as they advocate incredibly divisive collectivist policies.
Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity" actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.
The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.
More importantly, in a free society every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather than looking to government to correct our sins, we should understand that racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.
| new book for $20. |
April 18, 2007
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
"The individual who can do something that the world wants will,
in the end, make his way regardless of race."
- Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)
Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and Ella Fitzgerald are just three individuals who realized their potential in an America before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and affirmative action.Why did these three people (and countless others) succeed?
During Ella's 50+ year career she recorded over 200 albums and around 2,000 songs. When she recorded Love and Kisses for Decca Records in 1936, did a power-hungry federal bureaucrat force the company founder Edward Lewis to hire Ella because she was black? Or, was it because "The First Lady of Song" was an extremely talented jazz singer who would bring profits to the record label?
Discrimination on the basis of race is extremely costly. CEOs and managers that purposefully exclude a group of individuals in an employment pool are doomed to fail as savvy competing businesses recruit those overlooked qualified applicants. Firms that adhere to a collectivist philosophy will lose efficiency and profits.
Statist Problems
- Victimhood: Rhetoric or Reality
- Walter Williams, June 9, 2005 [Capitalism Magazine] - Discrimination Myths that Everyone Believes
- Thomas E. Woods, Jr., December 6, 2004 [LewRockwell.com] - Multiculturalism's War on Education
- Elan Journo, September 23, 2004 [The Ayn Rand Institute] - Employment at Will
The self-identified champions of civil rights have prided themselves, for almost half of a century, on the violent eradication of 'employment discrimination' and pledge allegiance to affirmative action initiatives and other government imposed programs of the like. - Erich Mattei, April 28, 2004 [Mises] - The Racism of "Diversity"
The notion of "diversity" entails exactly the same premises as racism--that one's ideas are determined by one's race and that the source of an individual's identity is his ethnic heritage. - Peter Schwartz, December 11, 2003 [The Ayn Rand Institute] - How Government Protects Potential Workplace Killers
There is no way that the federal government can spell out the particularities of every employment situation and regulate them with an eye toward economic and managerial good sense. - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., July 16, 2003 [Mises] - Destorying Black Youth
In the name of diversity, college administrators and their campus sycophants support racially discriminatory admissions practices. - Walter Williams, July 2, 2003 [Capitalism Magazine] - Those Michigan Affirmative Action Decisions: Equal Protection For Whites Endangered
- Paul Craig Roberts, June 23, 2003 [VDare] - Affirmative Action Grading
Creating an advantage for one American by creating a disadvantage for another American, based upon race, has become an entrenched feature in our age of racial enlightenment. - Walter Williams, May 28, 2003 [Capitalism Magazine] - The Grand Fraud: Affirmative Action for Blacks
A far higher proportion of blacks in poverty rose out of poverty in the 20 years between 1940 and 1960 -- that is, before any major federal civil rights legislation -- than in the more than 40 years since then. - Thomas Sowell, April 1, 2003 [Capitalism Magazine] - Discrimination Litigation Attacks Freedom
- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., February 21, 2003 [LewRockwell.com] - Bush's Call for Quotas
When the man who unleashed Colin Powell to preach affirmative action to the traditionally opposed Republicans takes a stand ostensibly against race quotas, skepticism is in order. - Ilana Mercer, January 28, 2003 [Mises] - Bush & Bakke: Déjà vu All Over Again
Many on the Naïve Right are exulting over the first paragraphs in President Bush's remarks on Wednesday siding against the University of Michigan for using a racial quota admissions system. - Steve Sailer, January 16, 2003 [VDare] - The Unmentionable Root Of The Quota Problem
- Steve Sailer, January 12, 2003 [VDare] - "Affirmative Action" Quotas on Trial
Affirmative action has a track record of polarization in many countries, including lethal mob violence in India and a decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka. Do we need to continue down the road that these countries have traveled? - Thomas Sowell, January 8, 2003 [Capitalism Magazine] - Affirmative Negation
Critics charge that affirmative action as practiced by most of America's schools today is simply racism with a progressive face. - Cathy Young, December 9, 2002 [REASON] - Courts, Contracts, and the EEOC
- David Dieteman, July 31, 2002 [Mises] - Affirmative action's latest victim: a black judge
- Paul Greenberg, July 26, 2002 [TownHall.com] - American History vs. Affirmative Action Hogwash
When you double your education, your income tends to go up -- with or without Jesse Jackson or other black "leaders." - Thomas Sowell, July 10, 2002 [Capitalism Magazine] - "Affirmative Action" and College Graduation Rates
The critics of affirmative action were right: Racial preferences reduce the prospects of black students graduating. - Thomas Sowell, June 4, 2002 [Capitalism Magazine] - Affirmative Oscars
The guilt trip about talented black actors being denied recognition due to the inextricable racism of mainstreamers (what racism?) is inaccurate, as are all half truths. - Ilana Mercer, March 27, 2002 [WorldNetDaily] - A new racist strategy
In 1996, California's voters passed Proposition 209, which outlawed racial quotas for college admission. That didn't mean the end of the quest for racial quotas and the euphemisms for it: affirmative action, diversity and multiculturalism. - Walter Williams, February 27, 2002 [WorldNetDaily] - Diversity vs. Civil Service Reform: Affirmative Action = Jobs For Democrats
- James Fulford, February 20, 2002 [VDare] - Stifling black students
Black students are simply tools to keep government agencies, black politicians and civil-rights organizations off their backs or to make them feel good. - Walter Williams, February 13, 2002 [WorldNetDaily] - Diversity
Diversity is simply the old racism in a new guise, spiced up with a touch of sexism. - Walter Williams, January 16, 2002 [WorldNetDaily] - The high price of racial preferences
- Cathy Young, June 27, 2001 [REASON] - Affirmative Action Harms Black Colleges
- Emmett Hogan, May 7, 2001 [The Dartmouth Review] - Affirmative action hanging by a thread
How can any black American prove that he would have been accepted at Harvard or Berkeley or even State U. on his own merits? He can't. And that is part of the reason racial preferences must go. - Mona Charen, April 3, 2001 [TownHall.com] - The EEOC's War on Fairness
- James Bovard, May 2000 [The Future of Freedom Foundation] - Storm Trooping to Equality
- James Bovard, July 1999 [FEE] - Affirmative Action Breaks Mr. Bones
This article explores the case of John Goode, the former owner of Mr. Bones BBQ in Austin, Texas. An African-American, Mr. Goode refused to register as a contractor with the city's affirmative action program. Mr. Goode opposes race-based preferential treatment and considers those programs as an invasion of privacy. Find out what happened to him... - Michael W. Lynch, January 27, 1999 [REASON] - Don't Punish Beliefs
- Mark D. Valenti, October 25, 1998 [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] - No Freedom, No Peace
"President Bill Clinton called on nine opponents of affirmative action during his manipulative 'national dialogue on race,' and asked a reasonable question. 'What do you think we should do?' - March 1998 [LewRockwell.com]The right answer is nothing. Do nothing at all." - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., March 1998 [LewRockwell.com]
- Affirmative Action in Higher Education: A Dilemma of Conflicting Principles
- John H. Bunzel, July 1998 [Hoover Institution] - Quotas and the Bottom Line
"Quotas burden all employers, so it is extremely difficult to measure the harm they do. Mired in quotas as we all are, it takes a bit of reflection to realize that without them we'd all be a lot richer. And that is the way egalitarian statists like things, and why they use the law in every way they can to make sure we stay stuck." - Michael Levin, May 1998 [Mises] - Affirmative Action Can't Be Mended
- Walter Williams, December 15, 1997 [CATO] - Even Liberals Admit Affirmative Action Failure
- Steven Hayward, October 9, 1997 [Ashbrook Center] - Affirmative Action: Institutionalized Inequality
- Walter Block and Timothy Mulcahy, October 1997 [FEE] - After Affirmative Action
Life under an executive order suggests the future of afirmative action in a post-CCRI California. - Michael W. Lynch, November 1996 [REASON] - The Wealthy and Well-Connected Benefit Most From Racial Set-Aside Program
- Joel Mowbray, October 1996 [NCPA] - Equal Rights, Not Gay Rights
"Discrimination against people simply because of their sexual orientation exists and is wrong, but it is not the role of the law to correct every wrong. Law is not, and has not been , the solution to sex and racial discrimination and will not be for sexual orientation." - Nigel Ashford, 1995 [Libertarian Alliance] - When quotas replace merit, everybody suffers
President Clinton complained about "quota games" and "bean counters" when people criticized the composition of his Cabinet. Welcome, Mr. President, to a problem that you now share with millions of your fellow Americans. - Peter Brimelow, 1993 [Forbes] - Affirmative Disintegration: India's Most Dangerous Decade
- Shyam J. Kamath, May 1991 [The Freeman] - Affirmative Action: The New Road to Serfdom
- Steven Yates, December 1990 [The Freeman] - Affirmative Action: A Counterproductive Policy
- Emest Pasour, January 1989 [The Freeman] - The Affirmative Action Complex
- Mitchell Bard, February 1988 [The Freeman] - The Age Discrimination In Employment Act: Equal Opportunity or Reverse Discrimination?
- Clint Bolick, February 10, 1987 [CATO] - No Affirmative Action, No Black Jobs?
"Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan recently condemned the California Civil Rights Initiative. The CCRI seeks to ban race and gender based preferences in the areas of college admissions, state hiring and public contracting. On the other hand, he opposes race and gender based preferences. Huh?" - Larry Elder
- Affirmative Action: A Counter-Productive Policy
- Ernest Pasour [The Freeman] - Affirmative Action’s False Legacy
- John McWilliams [The Dartmouth Review] - Career Opportunities - Affirmative Action Analyst
Libertarian Solutions
"There is only one antidote for racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, laissez-faire capitalism."
- Ayn Rand, "Racism," Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution
- Discrimination as Property Rights Policy
- Manuel Lora, December 26, 2005 [LewRockwell.com] - Discriminating In and Out of the Box
- Harry Goslin, March 5, 2005 [LewRockwell.com] - Celebrate Individualism, Not Ethnicity
- Joseph Kellard, March 28, 2004 [Capitalism Magazine] - Associate in Peace
While it is morally reprehensible to hate, in a true free market the freedom of citizens to associate with whom they wish must be upheld and private property rights must be enforced. - Ninos Malek, April 2, 2002 [Mises] - Diversity Requires Freedom
- Christopher Mayer, November 27, 2001 [Mises] - In Praise of Hard Work
- Larry Elder, July 11, 2001 [Capitalism Magazine] - Bridging the Unbridgeable Gap
- Doug Bandow, February 6, 2001 [CATO] - The Destruction of Martin Luther King's Dream of a Colorblind Society
Onkar Ghate, January 15, 2001 [Capitalism Magazine] - High noon for affirmative action
The headline announced the latest disaster: "State Justices Deal New Setback to Affirmative Action." In California, voters passed Proposition 209, a ballot initiative to end race- and gender-based preferences in the areas of government contracting, hiring, and admissions into state colleges and universities. - Larry Elder, December 7, 2000 [TownHall.com] - For Our Children's Future, Replace Affirmative Action
"Affirmative action doesn't work. Mentoring, on the other hand, is proving to be a smashing success. It truly helps minorities in schools and the workplace without creating the hard feeling bred by quotas." - David Almasi, June 1999 [National Center] - Individualism: the only cure for racism
It is time that business leaders find the courage to assert and defend the only true antidote to the problem of racism: individualism. - Edwin A. Locke, Ph.D., 1998 [Ayn Rand Institute] - Race, Culture, and Equality
- Thomas Sowell, September, 1998 [Hoover Institution] - The Key to Race: Depoliticize It
- Sheldon Richman, June 1997 [The Future of Freedom Foundation] - Free-Market Emancipation
- Karol Boudreaux, May 1997 [FEE] - Racism: Public and Private
Given that public-sector discrimination is far more harmful to minorities than private discrimination, those who sympathize with racial and ethnic victims should think twice before entrusting human rights to the state. The market is a far better alternative. - Walter Block, January 1989 [FEE] - Joe DiMaggio and Affirmative Action
"The modern major league shut-out of talented black and Latin ballplayers not only harmed the excluded players. This shut-out hurt everybody—the excluded, the included, and the fans—all of us...When Clinton assumed office, he said he wanted a cabinet that looked like America. Does the physics faculty at MIT look like America? Does the roster of the New York Knicks look like America? Do the leading players in the fashion business look like America? What does that mean? As long as the competition is fair and open, we all lose when we try to control the result." - Larry Elder
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