Taking Action against Arrogance, Nastiness, and Racism

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Jul 29 2001 - 15:57:15 MDT


Olga wrote

> Except to say, that if any of you so-called
> classical liberals (sometimes this translates
> to libertarian - is this correct? [Yes])
> can give me your scenario of how you would
> have solved the segregation problem in the
> South during the 1950s and 1960s (or earlier,
> dare one hope?), I'll eat my ACLU membership
> card.

You probably have in mind a "solution" in which
one day someone takes strong action and everyone
must agree to this action, or else! Fortunately,
where there is great freedom and liberty, no one
can take such strong action. (The fact that the
American Federal Government sometimes does send
soldiers to achieve any ends it desires within
the boundaries of the United States, despite the
overwhelming wishes of the people living in the
affected area, is a testimony to the fact that the
U.S. does not enjoy great freedom and liberty.)

So, sorry. All I could do would be to suggest
weak, rather wimpish processes involving memes,
education, and evolution so long as the consti-
tution is being strictly adhered to (that is,
without people reading into it things that are
not literally there).

Rafal writes

> #### You hit a sore point here - despite my
> proclivity for free market based actions,
> somehow I can't derive any non-coercive way
> of dealing with organized, localized, entrenched
> pockets of arrogant nastiness - as in racist
> communities, states, or countries.

If people (e.g. black people) are systematically
being denied the right to vote in a discriminatory
way, the disenfranchisement could be or should be
against the Constitution of the United States.
But, for example, if strict literacy requirements
were, shall we say, being used to keep as many
poorly educated blacks as possible from voting,
this should not violate the constition so long
as the tests are administered fairly.

> For almost anything else I think the good way
> is the free market way but here I am stumped.
> Can somebody help?

If you're a strong ally of liberty, and you favor
everyone lawfully obeying the Constitution, then
you should be stumped, as I explained to Olga above.

But if the entrenched nastiness is so severe that
life would be better elsewhere, my advice is to
move. In theory, I can imagine this. For example,
let's suppose that you enjoy tobacco enormously,
and the denial of personal freedom in the U.S.
advances even further than it has. Then you might
consider emigrating to Australia (do they let smokers
in?) or Ireland (do they let immigrants in at all?).

Likewise, a black person suffering under Jim Crow
legislation in the U.S. south has to (a) become a
political activist to try to slowly get the laws
to change, (b) move to another state where discri-
mination is less, or (c) engage in a very risky
armed uprising (thereby becoming a traitor to the
United States), or (d) emigrating. Sensitive black
people in the 1920's or 1950's, I would recommend,
would find (a) or (b) in their own best interest.

Lee

P.S. Now if we just didn't have that pesky "freedom"
thing, the solution would be simple. The government
merely gives an order "It is against the law to treat
anyone differently on account of race (except for
affirmative action)", and then simply arrest all
violators and send them to a labor camp in Alaska.
Simple. Effective. Clean. Appealing. But also
extremely unfortunate, to put it mildly.



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