Thu 22 Nov 2007
In response to my comment here, concerning support for Ron Paul by white supremacists, one responded with a post exclaiming “Make no mistake, racism is VERY libertarian!“. Ugh…
Eh, I’m bored & this seems amusing, so I’ll bite. Taking it point by point.:
Racism was opposed by socialists and communists because it was what they hated along with the discrimination based on wealth. Those who have no respect for property have no respect for how it is distributed, thus they find racial preferences the same as capitalistic greed.
He stumbles from the jump, since there’ve been examples of self-described socialists & communists being racist themselves, from mere expressions of hate to (in the case of communist heads of state) actually attempting purges. Hell, Marx himself was a raving bigot!
As for respect for property, opinions differ even among libertarians, as the closer one agrees with Locke on what makes property legitimate the more of current holdings that come into question. Murray Rothbard at one time took this to a conclusion that, though based on the strictest defense of property rights, sounds like an anarcho-Left revolutionary platform; Kevin Carson proposes using it as just that. Just because statists criticize the advantage of some doesn’t mean that advantage was earned.
The government should defend the rights of every human being from being hurt, harmed, but it should not protect people from being laughed at, rejected from buying goods or obtaining housing.
Of course, as an anarchist I’d argue the government can’t do this because it inherently violates those rights anyway, but going with the immediate term I don’t see the conflict here. The only reason it currently does those things is because enough people saw a power imbalance and really didn’t know what else to do about it. My own feeling is that we sacrificed long-term liberty & handicapped the drive for self-sufficiency for a desire of immediate results, and while our lives HAVE improved since then the damage is still there.
Why is it ok for black people to sing about killing police and white people, but not ok to have white power bands sing about stomping Jews and lynching blacks?
It’s actually not OK in either case, if by OK he means “socially acceptable”. The amount that do this is minuscule, despite the fuss whenever one comes out. That said, the 1st example happens more often because of the power imbalance mentioned above: whites have had plenty of opportunities to act out these fantasies over the years, whereas the lack of restraint on the part of blacks is relatively recent. If the tables had been turned, and blacks went to Europe & enslaved whites, then followed that up by systematically holding them at 2nd class status, who knows what white musicians would’ve been saying by now? Every action has a reaction, whether we like it or not.
This is not to say it’s justified, only why it is the way it is.
It is ridiculous how today “You’re a racist” is the code word for “You’re a criminal worse than murderers and child molesters” (Am I alone?).
Condemnation of racism in public is not — NOT!! — equivalent to desire to criminalize it. Anyone saying they would approve of making it a crime is just fanning the flames they think they’re trying to put out.
Remind yourself, it was not racists who got us into the war, it was not racists who introduced the USA PATRIOT Act, it was not racists who want to tax us more by the day, it was not racists who want to do away with the Constitution this country was founded on, it certainly was not racists who want NSA wiretapping or the National ID card.
Admitted racists? No. Yet it’s not hard to read between the lines when it comes to the constant fear-mongering these days. The foundation of it all is that there’s an alien “other” so devious they can destroy our society on a whim, and this “other” is overwhelmingly made up of people darker than the majority of the US. The political elite don’t have to spell it out, there’s enough among us that fill in the blanks themselves.
It was racists who killed the British tyrants to give us this country
Point being?
it was racists who killed Indians to roll the red carpet we step on today.
That much is obvious, considering they, um, killed the natives for their land. They shouldn’t have, I am not going to praise armed robbery, no matter how long ago it was.
Can you honestly love this country’s traditions, values, and selfish individualism and oppose racism as form of thought and speech completely?
Yup. If not, then what’s that say about “tradition”?
To reverse the old (pseudo-)quote, I will defend to the death your right to say whatever the hell you want, but that doesn’t mean I agree with it.
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:27 am
Ok, I’ll leave it at that.
Thanks, so long as you can allow my idea to be shown, I don’t care whether you agree. Thanks for reading and responding. We need more people like you.
I wanted you to respond to this part though if you can
“The same way a government should defend a black person from being robbed, a government should not assist in robbing a black person if he hates white people and doesn’t want to rent his house to white people.”
As for the fact our founding fathers were racists who killed the British, my point is that racism can be part of any country’s tradition or history, and today, racism has not been the player in major crimes against Americans. Racism in contrast has been looking out for crimes and personal liberties.
I welcome you to disagree, but I must thank you again for at least reading and responding, much better than all others who are more bigoted than racists.
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:38 am
I would say the same thing on that, actually. My view on equality is that it’s not achieved when we get a seat at the table, but when we have the clout to be able to reject it when offered if we feel like it. While I’m not personally a separatist, if others feel that way then to each his own.
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:40 am
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt In response to my comment here, concerning support for Ron Paul by white supremacists, one responded with a post exclaiming “Make no mistake, racism is VERY libertarian!“. Ugh… Eh, I’m bored & this seems amusing, so I’ll bite. Taking it point by point.: Racism was opposed by socialists and communists because it was what they hated along with the discrimination based on wealth. Those who have no respect for property have no respect for how it is distributed, thus they find racial preferences […]
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:43 am
[…] Psychopolitik placed an interesting blog post on An unexpected discussionâ
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Ok, so we agree, that person is free to discriminate for his own property (reverse the black and white roles and the answer should be the same), this separatism is acceptable so long as it’s voluntary. This is actually all I’m willing to allow racism myself, or maybe this is not what you call racism, but it’s the essence of my whole post.
November 23rd, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Thanks for the link.
It’s only a matter of time until some racist with a particularly well-developed victim mentality appropriates the “last minority group that it’s socially acceptable to persecute,” or some such, for himself.
Incidentally, I thought the talking point on most of the free market right was methodological individualism–that race was an illegitimate concept because it assigned people to categories. By that standard, wouldn’t it more consistent to lump racism in as another form of collectivism?
November 23rd, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Yes Kevin, racism IS a kind of collectivism. But my point was, that we allow socialism, communism, religion and many other forms of stupidity as forms acceptable of speech (and a competing idea), why can’t racism be one of them?
Yes, libertarians don’t like to associate with socialists, or racists, or sexists, but we shouldn’t denounce it as if it’s so sort of thought crime or taboo. Why not combat bad ideas with good ideas?
November 27th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Racism, like nationalism, is a dangerous virus. There is nothing particularly “libertarian” about it, although a libertarian would probably avoid forcing a racist to associate with the object of his revuslion against his will. On the other hand, a libertarian might denounce racism and take voluntary action to discriminate against racists.