Here's a poll result to tell you something about America. About 54 percent of White Democrats now think that racial inequality is caused by discrimination, up from about 42 percent in 2006.
So. After half a century of race politics, repeatedly "doing something" about civil rights and racial discrimination, White Democrats think that nothing has changed. Even that things are getting worse. So we need legislation to bend the arc of history towards justice.
What planet do these people live on?
Well, we know. They live on a planet where the stories are written and told by lefty adepts of the Frankfurt School and Herbert "intolerant tolerance" Marcuse. They live in a left-wing culture that believes that the way to get to justice is with political power. They relentlessly blame and divide, because that is how you motivate people to get out and vote.
But I think that this just shows the utter folly of ideological politics. Because it never knows when to stop.
The point about racial discrimination is that it is only a problem when government actively enforces discrimination, as in the Jim Crow South. The Southern Democrats wrote Jim Crow laws because the railroads really didn't want to have segregated railroad cars. Bus companies didn't want to divide up the bus and put their black passengers at the back. So the segregationists had to write a law.
OK. So you write a Civil Rights Law to sweep away all those Jim Crow laws. Then what?
What happens is that the activists that built the political movement that passed the Civil Rights laws aren't satisfied. You can see why. As with any army after you storm the citadel of your enemy, the question is what to do next? Unfortunately, the usual response to victory is to double down and build an empire. It is not enough to defeat the racists: they must be hunted down and the last vestige of their evil spawn eliminated from the world.
And so, in the wake of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s the victorious liberals could not just declare victory and go home. They had to enact Affirmative Action -- a program of flat-out racism -- through their power in the administrative state. The feminists could not rest with equal pay laws; they had to amp up the pressure with the notion of comparable worth. And then they noted all the areas in which women were "underrepresented" as in the executive suite and STEM and demand inclusion and diversity.
Now we have gays that cannot be satisfied with gay marriage. They have to go after bakers that don't want to bake cakes for gay weddings.
Meanwhile, what are the evil corporations and entrepreneurs doing now? They are trying to defeat the new segregation. You see, all nation states have laws against foreigners migrating to and working in the homeland. So the big corporations are busy figuring out how to get around laws limiting the employment of foreigners. The corporate suits get people here to the United States on various visa programs, people that cost them less than Americans born in the USA. And the cool thing is that employees on temporary visas that do not have green cards are in a position similar to the indentured servants of old. They cannot leave their employment without risking their visa, and so are tied to their employers and the lower wages.
It's interesting. What is the difference between the Jim Crow laws of the South and the normal laws of any nation state that limit immigration? They both discriminate against people that have not yet enjoyed the bounty of the Great Enrichment.
Actually, our liberal friends are not shy about criticizing people that want to limit the access of foreigners to the US labor market. Those evil Southerners were racists. The immigration restrictionists are xenophobes. No skin off the liberal noses, of course. They figure that what with their education and their Deep State connections they are in with the in-crowd. Conservatives and deplorables need not apply.
So maybe the next glorious movement is to lower all national barriers and make the workplace open to all. Or maybe, on the notion that immigration is invasion -- ask the Native Americans -- we should keep the nation state and its borders until something better comes up.
The point remains. Once you have struck down the legal discriminatory barriers, then if there exists residual discrimination there exists a market opportunity for any canny entrepreneur. Hey, if minority and female and transgender workers are not getting their fair whack, then an entrepreneur can hire them and make money. Until the day comes when the previously discriminated against are no longer underpaid, and there is not longer an opportunity to make money.
That is the whole point of the market economy. In fact that is what the left complains about. The market doesn't think of people as people. The only thing the market understands is produces and prices and service. And this is supposed to be soulless. Well, so it is. It means that the market doesn't select people because of their gender or their race or their national origin. It only asks: can they get the job done, or, if they can't, can I train them up to get the job done.
Of course, the market does appreciate that beauty in newsreaders on TV is a plus. And in actresses in movies. And this is wrong. Maybe it is time for a a political movement to promote ugly people to the screen.
And what about nerds? How come nerds don't get their fair share of jobs in the executive suite and all the plum jobs go to alpha males and sweet talkers?
Mind you, there is another way to look at this. Nietzsche does it with his analysis of Master and Slave morality. There is, he suggests, a need for hardness.
What if we resolve all our inequalities with a complete and total administrative program that litigates every possible inequality so that everything is fair and just? Nietzsche's argument is that this will lead to a flabby, weakened society that will topple over the day that the next Attila or Genghis Khan appears on the scene.
And maybe this is a flaw in capitalism. Maybe we are all getting too soft in the online smartphone world where everything is at our beck and call and we never have to sweat. Maybe we will all be swept away, to be replaced by --.
Maybe we need the storm and stress of politics and people forever fighting over the political spoils, and arguing about whether discrimination is getting worse. Otherwise we might all go to sleep watching youTube videos, and wake up one morning finding that humans are finished, over, departed.
So. After half a century of race politics, repeatedly "doing something" about civil rights and racial discrimination, White Democrats think that nothing has changed. Even that things are getting worse. So we need legislation to bend the arc of history towards justice.
What planet do these people live on?
Well, we know. They live on a planet where the stories are written and told by lefty adepts of the Frankfurt School and Herbert "intolerant tolerance" Marcuse. They live in a left-wing culture that believes that the way to get to justice is with political power. They relentlessly blame and divide, because that is how you motivate people to get out and vote.
But I think that this just shows the utter folly of ideological politics. Because it never knows when to stop.
The point about racial discrimination is that it is only a problem when government actively enforces discrimination, as in the Jim Crow South. The Southern Democrats wrote Jim Crow laws because the railroads really didn't want to have segregated railroad cars. Bus companies didn't want to divide up the bus and put their black passengers at the back. So the segregationists had to write a law.
OK. So you write a Civil Rights Law to sweep away all those Jim Crow laws. Then what?
What happens is that the activists that built the political movement that passed the Civil Rights laws aren't satisfied. You can see why. As with any army after you storm the citadel of your enemy, the question is what to do next? Unfortunately, the usual response to victory is to double down and build an empire. It is not enough to defeat the racists: they must be hunted down and the last vestige of their evil spawn eliminated from the world.
And so, in the wake of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s the victorious liberals could not just declare victory and go home. They had to enact Affirmative Action -- a program of flat-out racism -- through their power in the administrative state. The feminists could not rest with equal pay laws; they had to amp up the pressure with the notion of comparable worth. And then they noted all the areas in which women were "underrepresented" as in the executive suite and STEM and demand inclusion and diversity.
Now we have gays that cannot be satisfied with gay marriage. They have to go after bakers that don't want to bake cakes for gay weddings.
Meanwhile, what are the evil corporations and entrepreneurs doing now? They are trying to defeat the new segregation. You see, all nation states have laws against foreigners migrating to and working in the homeland. So the big corporations are busy figuring out how to get around laws limiting the employment of foreigners. The corporate suits get people here to the United States on various visa programs, people that cost them less than Americans born in the USA. And the cool thing is that employees on temporary visas that do not have green cards are in a position similar to the indentured servants of old. They cannot leave their employment without risking their visa, and so are tied to their employers and the lower wages.
It's interesting. What is the difference between the Jim Crow laws of the South and the normal laws of any nation state that limit immigration? They both discriminate against people that have not yet enjoyed the bounty of the Great Enrichment.
Actually, our liberal friends are not shy about criticizing people that want to limit the access of foreigners to the US labor market. Those evil Southerners were racists. The immigration restrictionists are xenophobes. No skin off the liberal noses, of course. They figure that what with their education and their Deep State connections they are in with the in-crowd. Conservatives and deplorables need not apply.
So maybe the next glorious movement is to lower all national barriers and make the workplace open to all. Or maybe, on the notion that immigration is invasion -- ask the Native Americans -- we should keep the nation state and its borders until something better comes up.
The point remains. Once you have struck down the legal discriminatory barriers, then if there exists residual discrimination there exists a market opportunity for any canny entrepreneur. Hey, if minority and female and transgender workers are not getting their fair whack, then an entrepreneur can hire them and make money. Until the day comes when the previously discriminated against are no longer underpaid, and there is not longer an opportunity to make money.
That is the whole point of the market economy. In fact that is what the left complains about. The market doesn't think of people as people. The only thing the market understands is produces and prices and service. And this is supposed to be soulless. Well, so it is. It means that the market doesn't select people because of their gender or their race or their national origin. It only asks: can they get the job done, or, if they can't, can I train them up to get the job done.
Of course, the market does appreciate that beauty in newsreaders on TV is a plus. And in actresses in movies. And this is wrong. Maybe it is time for a a political movement to promote ugly people to the screen.
And what about nerds? How come nerds don't get their fair share of jobs in the executive suite and all the plum jobs go to alpha males and sweet talkers?
Mind you, there is another way to look at this. Nietzsche does it with his analysis of Master and Slave morality. There is, he suggests, a need for hardness.
What if we resolve all our inequalities with a complete and total administrative program that litigates every possible inequality so that everything is fair and just? Nietzsche's argument is that this will lead to a flabby, weakened society that will topple over the day that the next Attila or Genghis Khan appears on the scene.
And maybe this is a flaw in capitalism. Maybe we are all getting too soft in the online smartphone world where everything is at our beck and call and we never have to sweat. Maybe we will all be swept away, to be replaced by --.
Maybe we need the storm and stress of politics and people forever fighting over the political spoils, and arguing about whether discrimination is getting worse. Otherwise we might all go to sleep watching youTube videos, and wake up one morning finding that humans are finished, over, departed.
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