Posted on 07/08/2006 11:13:16 AM PDT by I am CWAS
A myth is being propagated by liberals and leftists, a myth that is telic, mainly due to the behaviors, policies and actions of liberals and leftists in America. This being of course racism. Something that is not a problem except for the liberals and leftists who use it as a political tool.
There was actually a time when racism was real in America, slavery for example, like compulsory taxation slavery was rooted in the use of force to sanction labor. Had it not been for the little capitalism there was in America, and the need to compete wage v. wage instead of wage labor vs. slave labor, slavery would still exist. The only thing problematic about slavery was the use of force to violate the sacrosanct Liberty of the Individual, being his or her consent to all actions taken against them.
Post slavery there was still racism, granted whilst it is fun to pin such things strictly on the backwards south, a large part of it occurred everywhere, this may be hard for to believe but even in the great state of Ohio it occurred, and that is a shameful part of Ohio and American history that doesn’t get an honest treatment from liberals and leftists. The lack of free-market capitalism was solidified with decisions such a Plessy v. Ferguson, for the next few decades it would government engaging in the act of enforcing segregation, the government liberals and leftists love to use as a tool to solidify power.
Labor Unionists, Socialists and the Marxists in the early 20th century couldn’t accept that in a market with too little government intervention, minorities could compete and take jobs, capitalists were too concerned about profit and morality, versus knowing what was best, in their opinion (although this is not to say there were no minority labor unionists or socialists, in most, but not all, cases they were however in separate organizations)
For example, the American association of law schools on the DB act
The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, required that federal construction contractors pay their workers the local “prevailing wage.” The Act was promoted as a way of aiding union labor at the expense of “bootleg” workers, especially African Americans. The vagueness of the prevailing wage requirement inhibited this goal until passage of the 1935 amendments. The amendments, as interpreted by the Department of Labor, dictated that the prevailing wage was the union wage, and that contractors must follow union work categories.
The amendments undercut African American workers’ primary advantage in the construction labor market-their willingness to work at market wages instead of union wages. Once required to pay union wages, employers hired almost exclusively through craft unions, which in turn almost universally either excluded African Americans or relegated them to second class Jim Crow locals. The heavy bias of union work rules in favor of skilled labor and formal apprenticeship programs also operated to African Americans’ detriment, because they were disproportionately unskilled workers, and were excluded from most apprenticeship programs.
This continued on; pre-minimum wage, in a period which even I admit had a serious problem with racism, all races were pretty much equal in terms of employment, which isn’t the case currently thanks to government intervention. Liberals and Leftists got a gift in FDR. A president who refused to support anti-lynching legislation, and a president who interned our fellow Japanese citizens, although I will grant that I admire certain traits of his wartime leadership, but those alone, overall he was most detestable.
According to CATO The flagship of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June 1933. It authorized the president to issue executive orders establishing some 700 industrial cartels, which restricted output and forced wages and prices above market levels. The minimum wage regulations made it illegal for employers to hire people who weren't worth the minimum because they lacked skills. As a result, some 500,000 blacks, particularly in the South, were estimated to have lost their jobs.
Marginal workers, like unskilled blacks, desperately needed an expanding economy to create more jobs. Yet New Deal policies made it harder for employers to hire people. FDR tripled federal taxes between 1933 and 1940. Social Security excise taxes on payrolls discouraged employers from hiring. New Deal securities laws made it harder for employers to raise capital. New Deal antitrust lawsuits harassed some 150 employers and whole industries. Whatever the merits of such policies might have been, it was bizarre to disrupt private sector employment when the median unemployment rate was 17 percent.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933) aimed to help farmers by cutting farm production and forcing up food prices. Less production meant less work for thousands of poor black sharecroppers. In addition, blacks were among the 100 million consumers forced to pay higher food prices because of the AAA.
By giving labor unions the monopoly power to exclusively represent employees in a workplace, the Wagner Act had the effect of excluding blacks, since the dominant unions discriminated against blacks. The Wagner Act had originally been drafted with a provision prohibiting racial discrimination. But the American Federation of Labor successfully lobbied against it, and it was dropped. AFL unions used their new power, granted by the Wagner Act, to exclude blacks on a large scale. Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, and Marcus Garvey were all critical of compulsory unionism.
The Tennessee Valley Authority -- FDR's government-power-generating monopoly funded by the 98 percent of American taxpayers who didn't live in the Tennessee Valley -- was touted as a bold social experiment. But, among other things, the TVA flooded an estimated 730,000 acres of land behind its dams, and 15,654 people were forced out of their homes. Farm owners received cash settlements for their condemned property. But tenant farmers -- a substantial number of whom were black -- got nothing. After chronicling victims of the TVA "population removal program," historians Michael J. McDonald and John Muldowny reported: "TVA's social experiment was a failure."
What about New Deal spending programs? They were channeled away from the poorest people, including millions of blacks, who lived in the South. These people were already on FDR's side, so, from a political standpoint, there wasn't anything for FDR, as an incumbent, to gain by giving them money. The bulk of New Deal spending went to western states and eastern states where previous election returns had been relatively close, because FDR was focused on winning the next election. Moreover, getting congressional funding required giving states the power to administer programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Indiana Democratic county chairman V.G. Coplen told FDR's 1932 and 1936 campaign manager James Farley, "use these Democratic projects to make votes for the Democratic party."
If FDR's New Deal policies weren't conceived with racist intent, they certainly had racist consequences. Hopefully in the future, more people will try to better understand the often startling, unexpected consequences of government interference with the economy.
Then there is of course the issue of illegal immigration. An issue many Liberals and the Left have attached themselves to. It is quite Ironic seeing as government sets high minimum wages, which persuades businesses to hire illegals, instead of American workers, just shows it is about power and ideology for most liberals/leftists.
The name Cesar Chavez is often touted as being someone who would be disgusted and opposing illegal immigration, as he was a unionist. But nope, indeed he was one of America’s foremost opponents of illegal labor.
… Chavez’s essential problem was straight out of Econ 101, the law of supply and demand. He needed to limit the supply of labor in order to drive up wages. Just as American Federation of Labor founder Samuel Gompers, himself a Jewish immigrant, was one of the most influential voices calling for the successful immigration-restriction law of 1924, Chavez, during his effectual years, was a ferocious opponent of illegal immigration.
His success stemmed from the long-term decline in the farm labor supply. According to agricultural economist Philip L. Martin of the University of California, Davis, migrant farm workers in the U.S. numbered 2 million in the 1920s.
Eisenhower cracked down on Mexican illegal immigrants, shipping one million home in 1954 alone. The famous 1960 “Harvest of Shame” documentary by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow inspired liberal Democrats in Congress to abolish the bracero guest-worker program in 1964. The supply of migrant workers dropped to about 200,000, most of them American citizens, making unionization and better contracts feasible—as long as what Marx called “the reserve army of the unemployed” could be bottled up south of the border. The next year, Chavez began his storied organizing campaign. Growers fought back by busing the reserve army up from Mexico.
In 1979, Chavez bitterly testified to Congress: … when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration service has removed strikebreakers. … The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking…
In 1969, Chavez led a march to the Mexican border to protest illegal immigration. Joining him were Sen. Walter Mondale and Martin Luther King’s successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Ralph Abernathy.
The above simply shows what we have come to today, a nation with possibly some 20 million illegal immigrants (According to some estimates), most of whom are poor, but many whom have jobs, unemployment rate for black and Hispanic teens are over 40% and 25%-30% respectively. Why is that important? Because liberals and leftists who play the “race or disadvantaged” card, tend to rely on the poor situations some minorities come from, and argue that it is either the capitalists dividing the workers, or some other fanciful notions, when in fact during times of REAL racism the unemployment rate was much lower, as was the crime rate.
What we have today in America is Liberals and Leftists trying to turn America into Europe, or some sort of Neo-Soviet, Neo-Marxist promised land. And using the problems that result from their polices (minimum wage, affirmative action, et al) to further an agenda.
What if a racist employer doesn’t want to hire someone? What if a racist woman doesn’t want to sleep with someone, can he rape her? Most would answer, possibly, no to the second. But it is the same thing as the first. FREE ASSOCIATION, leftists and liberals can’t accept the fact that in a free-market, they can’t use force to control someone’s thought process and views. They often are in disbelief that one can accept the fact that some people don’t want to associate with others, and some proudly admit this. If an Employer wants to discriminate it is his Liberty.
Since employers aren’t free to do the above, of course it breeds resentment, as they see the favoritism liberals and leftists love to engage in, and then use force to extract tax money and then dictate whom he/she can and will associate with. It is no wonder American Neo-Nazi organizations are growing in strength.
At this point liberals and leftists want to control thoughts. Racism is only a problem if force is being used (something liberals and leftists love) to enact the agenda, or if there is coercion. Other than that the free-association principle takes care of the rest. But the Initiation of Aggression = just that, motivation be it race or simple boredom is all the same.
If America had a Free-Market economy the market framework could work to eliminate racism, but that is a long way off. Liberals and Leftists will still fight for government involvement in the economy, and policies that breed divisions and racial discontent. Whilst an attack on Real and Abstract racism was propounded by Ayn Rand, may she rest in peace, in her treatise ''Racism''
Racism still exists, but thanks to liberals and leftists it is seen as a problem and has affects like problems, whereas it wouldn't otherwise. People are free to feel the way they want to feel, and associate with whom they want to associate with, as long an they are not initiating aggression or coercion, peace unto them.
Some Links:
Influence of New Deal Regulatory Legislation on the Second Reconstruction
Why Did FDR's New Deal Harm Blacks?
Welcome to FR.
FREE ASSOCIATION should imply freedom to disassociate.
"...slavery would still exist. The only thing problematic about slavery was the use of force..."
Bull. Don't accept your premise. Bye.
Which part do you disagree with? Capitalism ending slavery or the use of force being problematic?
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