NJ Should Pass on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Definition of Anti-Semitism

 New Jersey Spotlight News reports that there is Strong support in Assembly for adopting IHRA definition of antisemitism, but adds that “Aspects of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition are controversial.” Indeed. NJSN reports:

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition underlines widely accepted aspects of antisemitism, including statements that the Holocaust was a lie or exaggerated, or claiming that Jewish people control the media. What has proved controversial is the part of the definition that specifies certain criticisms of Israel — that Israel is a racist state, and that Israelis should be held to a different standard than other democracies — as antisemitic.

“This has nothing to do with Jews. This is about protecting Israel,” said Raz Segal, an associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University. “It silences Palestinians who, for example, will say that Israel is a racist state, which is a very legitimate critique against any other state in the world, including the United States.”

The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition includes this example:

"Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

Of course, identifying "the Jewish People" as a collective is racist, by definition. A group of Jews has no right to a state that legally prioritizes Jews over non-Jews. A legitimate state recognizes individual rights equally for all. If the above IHRA example is taken literally, then the state of Israel is a racist endeavor. All individuals have a right to their own personal self-determination, whether acting individually or in voluntary agreement with others as a group. But none should be favored or disfavored under the law.

So, is the State of Israel designed to guarantee only the Jewish people their collective right to self-determination?] If so, Israel is racist. But Israel's Declaration of Independence states: 

THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be the Jewish people their right to self-determination and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Despite the opening nod to  "the Jewish people [and] their right to self-determination," that paragraph doesn't sound racist to me. In fact, Israel, while majority Jewish, includes 20% Palestinian, ranging from Arab descent to Christian orientation, as well as Muslim. There are atheists and the non-Jews also, all of whom live in equality under the law. But the point is that accusing Israel of being a racist state, or of having racist policies or laws, does not necessarily make that person anti-Semitic. The IHRA definition of antisemitism seems to shield racists who happen to be Jewish from criticism. But a racist who happens to be Jewish is still racist, and people should be free to call that person out without being accused of being an anti-Semite. 

The IHRA definition of antisemitism includes some uncontroversial manifestations. For example:

Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

Yes, this is anti-Semitic. But such views are racist across the board. Substitute “Jews” with black and “Jewish” with black (or any other ethnic group), and you still get racism. Racism is the idea that a person's beliefs, character, choices, and moral standing are inherited through body chemistry—such as skin color, genes, or blood—and thus should be judged by the actions of ancestors of his ethnic group. That definition already describes anti-Semitism. It doesn’t need a special exception. 

The IHRA’s definition of antisemitism is a bad, biased definition. It seems more designed to shield Jews from criticism than to present an objective definition of anti-Semitism.

I should clarify that NJ’s adoption of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism would not have legal teeth, as there are no hate speech laws in the state, which would be anti-free speech and unConstitutional under the First Amendment. NJSN reports:

A bill that would have New Jersey adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism has overwhelming support in the state Assembly, with three primary sponsors and 56 co-sponsors out of 80 possible representatives.

Supporters say a clear definition of antisemitism would protect Jewish people and make hate speech easier to spot and stamp out.

But it is clearly a step toward censorship, especially given the prevalence of DEI initiatives in NJ. The government should never be in the business of “stamping out” any speech, either explicitly through laws or implicitly through biased legal language.

Related Reading:

Racism—Ayn Rand

Fighting Racism With Collectivism is No Way to Exterminate Racism

Facebook Backtracks on Free Speech Policy; Political Extortion?

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Cohen: Hate-Crime Laws are "Totalitarian Nonsense"

Free Speech, not Self-Censorship, is the Answer to 'Offensive' Free Speech [UPDATED]

HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Inalienable Rights)--Nadine Strossen

‘Banned Books Week’ vs. Real Book Banning

Did you know we just had “Banned Books Week?” Yes, there is such a thing. In America, of all places—as absurd as that sounds. It ran from October 1 - 7.

This silliness is a reaction, of course, to the controversies surrounding the appropriateness of certain books being carried in school libraries. A Washington Post article by Alyssa Rosenberg and Greg Sargent, It’s Banned Books Week. Here’s how to fight for libraries, covered the issue from the perspective of the side opposing the so-called book banners—i.e., the parents who object to their children being exposed to certain material they believe is inappropriate for their children. 

I will not wade into the controversy here. I’ve already done that here and here. My aim here is to push back against what I consider to be a gross misuse of wording and thus a gross misrepresentation of the issue. I posted this comment:

Can anyone cite one single instance of someone being fined, jailed, hung, burned at the stake, or forced into exile for owning any book in America? I ask because those outrages have been what has been inflicted throughout history on those who dared to violate ACTUAL book bans—books banned by government edict or laws. If you’ve ever read Jacob Mchangama’s excellent “Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media,” you’ll see what ACTUAL book banning looks like. 

Today, no books are banned in America. The powerful First Amendment won’t allow it. In classic Orwellian style, the Left has mischaracterized the controversy over what books are appropriate for school libraries as a battle over book banning. In fact, the issue is educational and involves age appropriateness of material available to children. There are no books that can’t be legally published and purchased by adults in America. Unfortunately, a tiny cabal of activists has managed to highlack the debate for it’s own narrow political ends, abetted by an uncritically compliant media. So-called “Banned Books Week'' is a fraud, and only serves to white-wash the legitimate competing issues and concerns surrounding school libraries and education, and demonize one side of the debate.

Related Reading:

NJ Proposed ‘Book Ban’ Law Seeks to Silence Parents, Debate and Dissent.

Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media by Jacob Mchangama 

Book-Banning vs. Age-Appropriate Educational Material

Real vs. Pseudo-Censorship

What the Parents’ Rights Movement is Really Really About

NJ Proposed ‘Book Ban’ Law Seeks to Silence Parents, Debate and Dissent.

Under the Orwellian title New Zwicker Bill Seeks To Protect NJ Libraries, School From Book Bans, Sarah Salvadore reports for Patch that two NJ state legislators have taken a page from Florida Governor Ron DeSantos’s book: They want to get the state involved in dictating local public school educational policy.

Ok, Salvadore doesn’t actually mention DeSantos. But she might as well. Salvadore reports

South Brunswick resident and Senator from NJ-16, Andrew Zwicker, introduced legislation that seeks to protect public libraries and schools from book bans.

The legislation was introduced along with Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Ruiz.

The bill, S-3907, would authorize the State Librarian to direct State Treasury officials to withhold funding from any public school or library that fails to comply, and would deter school boards from banning or restricting access to books or other resource materials in their libraries.

Couched in propaganda terms like “book ban” and “censorship,” the bill would essentially circumvent the current debates over age-appropriate material for school age children in public schools. Censorship and book bans are political terms that apply to governments. No one is advocating the legal banning of books or of government censorship. 

At least, not until S-3907.

This bill would essentially get the state in the position of dictating education policy. Let’s examine.

[The bill] would deter school boards from banning or restricting access to books or other resource materials in their libraries.

The word “deter” is vague. It means libraries and school boards will not have a clear idea of what is permissible, and what is not. The result--fear. As we will see, the language of the bill supports this conclusion.

The bill aims to prevent censorship of any book for “partisan or doctrinal” reasons . . .

Who defines “partisan” and “doctrinal?” This puts the state squarely in the business of deciding what viewpoints are acceptable and which aren’t. This, in a bill that purports to be against censorship!

“This is about preventing censorship and keeping intolerance and hatred from being infused into public libraries in New Jersey,” Zwicker said in a statement.

This bill has intolerance at its core. If anyone challenges material that she believes children are not cognitively or experientially equipped to handle, they are opposing the material for doctrinal reasons. After all, education is guided by philosophical doctrine. Any parent or school board that advocates elimination of any book or material from the curriculum would by definition be violating the law, if this bill passes.

And hate? What can be more subjective than that. The word is very often hurled around mindlessly to demonize others for differing opinions. Imagine the power of censorship the stature would wield if it can silence people based on “hate.”

Furthermore, the bill is targeted not just at “banning” but at “restricting access to books or other resource materials” as well. This is an attack on flexibility. One compromise regarding sexually explicit material that some have proposed is to allow the books in school libraries, but to require parental consent for children below a certain grade level to take out the book. Such a reasonable compromise would obviously be a “restriction,” and thus banned by this bill. And then the Swicker/Luiz bill purports to be against intolerance! Give me a break. Tellingly, a Republican-sponsored bill to require parental approval for sexually explicit, child pornagraphic material in school libraries was rejected by the Democrat majority on a state senate committee. Yet, the Swicker/Ruiz bill purports to ban “partisan reasons” in the school battles! Give me another break.

“The fact that we are in 2023 and debating whether or not we should be banning books and ideas is just outrageous. Ideas and information are meant to be discussed and debated in a society that respects the right of free expression and values the pursuit of knowledge.”

This is also very telling. The local government public school battles over educational materials happening at school board meetings is all about free expression and values in pursuit of knowledge. Yet this bill would ban and restrict certain viewpoint expressions and values to only those the state approves of. 

I oppose government-run or -administered schools. They are inherently political. All schools should be privatized, with education tax dollars following the student, at the very least. But as long as we have them, the state should stay out of curriculum decision-making. Public schools are local and heavily restricted, by definition and design. Generally, only those children living in the district are eligible to attend the district school. These local monopolies are bad enough. But leaving education decision-making at the local level will at least mitigate the damage. Parents can directly confront school boards and other parents to debate, inform, and, yes, argue continuously over books and other educational issues. 

To take that power away from local residents and shift that authority to the rigid dictates of the far-away state government—or worse, the federal government—would be to further entrench partisan and doctrinal viewpoints and factions. Parental rights to control the course of their children’s education, already violated by the government school near-monopoly, would be further violated by increasing state involvement. It would effectively silence parents, and stifle dissent and debate. In the current system and environment, the most civil, equitable, tolerant, and moral course of action to take is to abandon this bill and others like it, and leave the debates and authority to local school districts, residents, and school boards to sort out.

And stop using the term “book banning.” This controversy is about something common to all libraries—content curation. Librarians do that all the time. It’s especially important in school libraries, given their very limited space. According to the loose and irresponsible way that “book ban” is thrown around, any book not carried or subject to restricted access due to age in a school library is to be considered banned. By that definition, every school librarian is guilty of book banning on a massive scale.

Related Reading:

Book-Banning vs. Age-Appropriate Educational Material

What the Parents’ Rights Movement is Really Really About

In NJ, Wind Energy Requires ‘Political Commitment’. That’s Precisely the Problem.

In a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column, Offshore wind is a jobs magnet for New Jersey, and labor is ready to lead, legislator says NJ state assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo enthusiastically promotes a massive offshore wind project. The key point DeAngelo makes is this telling statement, buried near the end of the article:

“Wind power can fuel New Jersey, and what fuels wind power is political commitment.”

So true, and precisely why it shouldn’t be built. “Political commitment” means force; that is, special interests using the machinery of government to force on all of us it’s pet technology, by direct subsidy and/or hampering alternatives—in this case an unreliable, costly energy source that no one would willingly invest in, build, or pay for without ratepayer/taxpayer subsidies and other government favors. No industry should be fueled by government coercion. Wind energy should succeed only by voluntary market acceptance, or fail. 

As to jobs, there is no doubt government-driven wind projects create jobs. But the jobs not created, or destroyed, must also be considered. Money spent on fossil fuel and nuclear power projects also create jobs. I understand DeAngelo is an electrician, and represents the electricians union which would get a jobs bonanza from giant wind farms. But the plumbing/pipefitters union, of which I am a member (ret), goes to bat for pipelines, which are being restricted by political commitment. So he can’t speak for all building trades unions. The same interests who push wind often want to stop fossil fuel projects, costing a lot of plumbing/pipefitting jobs. And the extra money consumers spend on the inflated electricity prices that “fuel” subsidized “renewable” energy spending can not be spent in other areas, reducing growth and thus jobs there. Worse, energy fuels every other industry. Raise the overall price of energy, which history shows happens when renewable energy is forced on us, and you take away growth and jobs across the board. Basic economics teaches you’ll end up with fewer jobs.

I’m not against wind farms. I’m against wind power fueled by political commitment. Government should streamline the permitting process for all energy projects, but otherwise leave all energy producers free to compete on a level legal playing field—that is, a market free of political coercion. Only voluntary consumer choice should determine energy choice, not political coercion. Put another way, market commitment, not political commitment, is what we should strive for. 

Wind champions will whine that the dominance of fossil fuels leaves no chance for wind to compete without government help. So they push for a government coercion-fueled “energy transition,” often camouflaged behind “justice” or “democracy” labels. But that’s nonsense. In a free market, better products generally spell doom for the dominant but inferior products, if consumers so choose. That’s how genuine transitions come about: Think of the transistions from kerosene lighting to electric lighting; from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles; from silent movies to “talkies''; from film photography to digital photography; from analogue television to cable and now to streaming. These are a few examples of market transitions, the only legitimate kinds. It just so happens that wind cannot compete in the market because it is inferior in cost and reliability. Even today, in 2022, even after decades of subsidies and government favoritism, fossil fuels are the dominant market choice, which is why they’re still growing like gangbusters despite the utopian dreams and massive political favoritism of wind’s political champions. 

If “Wind power is the future [and] can fuel New Jersey,” why hasn’t it happened already? Why is it a perpetual future fuel? Despite a decades-long massive political push, including $trillions in subsidies worldwide and other government favoritism, no place on Earth does wind generation, and renewable energy more broadly, exist without the life support of reliable energy from fossil, nuclear, or hydro—and for good reason. Renewables simply cannot carry the primary load for well-known reasons, the intractable twin drawbacks of dilutedness and intermittency. 

Perhaps as-of-now unforeseen dramatic technological advances will someday make that possible. But then, it wouldn’t need subsidies, would it? Or for that matter fear-mongering “climate crisis” nonsense. But in a competitive, largely free energy market, solar and wind tech innovations would have to compete against tech progress on other energy sources, including not only fossil fuels but non-carbon energies like nuclear, hydro, and possibly even fusion. That’s as it should be. It’s a matter of justice.

We need political commitment, alright. But that commitment should be directed toward liberating the NJ market for all energy sources, rather than politically favoring some, like wind, while hampering others, like natural gas, which along with petroleum is facing a War on Pipelines. Why are renewables champions so afraid of competition? The answer is obvious for anyone willing to be informed. 

Related Reading;

Hyping the Energy Transition by Robert Bryce

The ‘Jihad on Pipelines,’ New Jersey Front

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey

End preferences for unreliable electricity by Alex Epstein

Opposing NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban is about Protecting Free Speech, Not Merely the Progressive Agenda

In Overriding dark money bill will cripple progressive groups, grassroots organization says,New Jersey Star-Ledger guest columnists Phyllis Salowe-Kaye and Marcia Marley rightly argued against a “dark money” bill that would force disclosure of private donors to political advocacy organizations. They make the valid point that such forced disclosure would amplify the power of the political class to dominate political discourse.

Unfortunately, they don’t argue from principle, only from partisan ideological motives.They call for favoring advocates of their Progressive liberal agenda, while stifling opponents’ ability to dissent.

Opposing NJ’s ‘dark money’ ban is about protecting free speech--everyone’s free speech, including “trade associations” and “powerful corporate interests.” 

So it’s a shame that Phyllis Salowe-Kaye and Marcia Marley have narrowed the issue down to merely protecting the Progressive agenda. 

But that’s exactly the point of freedom of speech, and thus the protection of donors’ privacy. Nobody’s political agenda should be exempt or “protected” from public scrutiny, dissent, opposing opinions, or accountability. Nobody’s political ideology or agenda should ever be the government’s job to protect. The government should protect everyone’s freedom to express their views equally and at all times.

By advocating forced disclosure on political donors of differing political views, Salowe-Kaye and Marley are exposing their, and more broadly Progressives', authoritarian impulses. They are explicitly and brazenly suggesting targeted government restrictions on free speech so as to protect and advance the Progressive agenda. In doing so, they inadvertently provide powerful evidence for why so-called  “dark money” should never be banned.

Related Reading:

Murphy’s Veto of NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban Should Be Unconditional

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech--by Kimberley Strassel, especially Chapter 2, “Publius & Co.”

Kill New Jersey’s ‘Dark Money’ Ban

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill an Attack on Intellectual Freedom

NJ’s ‘Dark Money’ Bill is an Assault on Free Speech

The Anti-Free Speech Fallacy of ‘Dark Money’

N.J. AG Confirms: State’s Disclosure Law is about Stifling Political Accountability

Why Free Speech and Spending on Speech are Inextricably Linked

New Jersey Legislature's Monstrous Interference into the State’s Giant Pension Fund

NJ public employees and retirees be aware: You are about to be thrown under the bus by your elected representatives, on the absurd rationalization of "the fight against climate change." 

As Steven Rodas and Derek Hall report for NJ.com in N.J. could divest its $92B pension fund from fossil fuels. What it means financially and for climate change:

New Jersey would join a growing list of states to divest its pension fund from fossil fuel companies if a long-stalled bill crosses the finish line in Trenton this fall.

The legislation (A1733), now in its fourth iteration after it was first introduced in 2017, has gained new momentum in recent weeks as the fight against climate change intensifies nationwide. It will be considered Thursday by the state Senate’s environment committee.

This is a purely political move. There is no economic, scientific, or financial justification for this order. 

Morally, this is monstrous. Energy is the industry that powers every other industry. Therefore, the availability of reliable, cost-effective energy is vital to every aspect of our lives. Fossil fuels provide 80% of that energy, and will continue to be needed for decades to come, as it continues to grow both in the U.S and worldwide in the current absence of any viable alternative or competition. By joining in the suicidal movement to starve the fossil fuel industry of investment capital, the legislature is courting with a monumental human catastrophe that would dwarf any problematic climate side effects of burning fossil fuels.

But it is also illegal. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the people managing pension funds in America are fiduciaries. This is what the department explains under the heading Fiduciary Responsibilities

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) protects your plan's assets by requiring that those persons or entities who exercise discretionary control or authority over plan management or plan assets, anyone with discretionary authority or responsibility for the administration of a plan, or anyone who provides investment advice to a plan for compensation or has any authority or responsibility to do so are subject to fiduciary responsibilities. Plan fiduciaries include, for example, plan trustees, plan administrators, and members of a plan's investment committee.

The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits and paying plan expenses. Fiduciaries must act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses. In addition, they must follow the terms of plan documents to the extent that the plan terms are consistent with ERISA.  They also must avoid conflicts of interest. In other words, they may not engage in transactions on behalf of the plan that benefit parties related to the plan, such as other fiduciaries, services providers or the plan sponsor.

Fiduciaries who do not follow these principles of conduct may be personally liable to restore any losses to the plan, or to restore any profits made through improper use of plan assets. Courts may take whatever action is appropriate against fiduciaries who breach their duties under ERISA including their removal.

[emphasis added]

I don’t see how this conclusion can be avoided: Fossil fuel divestment is a major violation of the NJ pension managers' fiduciary responsibility. The fossil fuel industry is a major component of the common stock investment universe, and provides 80% of American energy. It is the industry that powers every other industry, and thus provides an indispensable product crucial to everyone’s short and long-term well-being. This obviously includes NJ public employees and retirees.  It follows that fossil fuels are crucial to a diversified portfolio, and thus a major component of investors' long term financial health. By cutting fossil fuels from its investment portfolio, the NJ pension fund is being forced to act against its sacred fiduciary trust to act only on the best interests of its public employee and retiree clients. 

The NJ legislature's coercive political interference in NJ's public employee pension fund injects a major conflict of interest into the management of the plans, another ERISA violation. It is explicitly forcing the pension fund investment managers to ignore an entire industry. This is outrageous. How can this order possibly be reconciled with the fund’s ERISA and fiduciary responsibilities? 

The entire NJ legislature should recuse itself from any power to micro-manage or affect in any way the investment decisions of the pension plan managers, who are legally duty-bound to comply with ERISA requirements specifically and to honor their moral responsibility to present and future retirees more generally.

Related Reading:

When Climate Dogmatism Meets Energy Reality

The “Divest-Invest Philanthropy” Movement and its Statist Roots

 RELATED: Protecting Oil Companies’ Rights is Not a Government Subsidy

Economic Egalitarianism Leads Directly to Racist Policies in NJ

The dangerous myth that wealth inequality, as such, is a injustice is the rationale for proposed racist law in New Jersey. 

In N.J. must ‘repair the harm’ of huge wealth gap between white and Black families, advocates say, Susan K. Livio reports:

The state Assembly Community Development and Affairs Committee met at the Statehouse in Trenton to hear testimony based on the report: “Making the Two New Jerseys One: Closing the $300,000 racial wealth gap in the Garden State.”

The committee focussed on three pieces of legislation:

One bill, A1519, would make it easier for real estate appraisers to lose their license if they caught [sic] scaling down property evaluation based on race, creed or national origin. 

Obviously, discrimination based on race, creed or national origin is evil. But how does one distinguish between appraisals based on legitimate economic criteria and one infused with personal bigotry. In today’s culture, with its extreme intolerance for bigotry, real estate appraisers are highly unlikely to openly admit that they are slanting their appraisals based on race, creed, or national origin. So how do licensing boards go about determining if bigotry is involved?  

This looks like a license to frivolously sue, and coerce higher appraisal values based on fear of lawsuits, enriching existing homeowners/sellers on paper, at the expense of buyers overpaying. How is it good to scale up property evaluation based on race, creed or national origin, for fear of getting accused of scaling down property evaluation based on race, creed or national origin? How is that fair to buyers, who will pay above-market prices for homes? How is that fair to sellers, if they believe their net worth to be higher than actuality?

Another bill, A1579, would allocate $70 million to launch a Baby Bond Account Program, which would invest $2,000 in a state-managed fund for every child born to a family that earns no more than 200% of the poverty level. A family of four earning no more than $27,740 a year would qualify, based on federal poverty rules.

The third bill, A938, sponsored by Sumter, would create a New Jersey Reparations Task Force. The 11-person body would hold hearings and write a report that would “examine the extent to which the State of New Jersey and the federal government prevented, opposed, or restricted efforts of former enslaved persons and their descendants who are considered United States’ citizens to economically thrive upon the ending of slavery.”

After documenting wealth disparities between “races”, the article says:

These inequities stem from slavery and generations-old systemic policies and practices, such as “redlining” or steering Black people away from buying in white communities, and restrictive housing covenants that barred Black people from ownership, she said.

There is no question that past racist government policies were horrible. It may even be plausible that some lingering effects of those policies, which had hindered the economic advancement of blacks, are responsible for part of today’s wealth gap. But those laws, Jim Crow, ended almost 60 years ago. It’s hard to imagine that, after so much time much of the statistical gap stems from generations-old system policies and practices, let alone centuries-old slavery. My wife and I married in 1972. Neither of us got one iota of a financial head start from our parents. We are not wealthy. But we are comfortable in our retirement. We built our wealth through work and thrift. If there is a gap compared to some hypothetical black couple, how is that an inequity stemming from long-ago injustices?

As to the racist-inspired Baby Bond Account Program, how is it equitable to reward or not reward 18 year-olds with a Baby Bond windfall based on what their parents earned in the year they were born? And as to slave reparations, how is it fair to hand a windfall to people who were not victims of past injustices, paid for by people who were not culpable for those long-ago injustices? 

Another bill not directly related to wealth inequality is also on the legislative agenda. In White men dominate most N.J. government boards. This bill aims to change that.by  Susan K. Livio and Kelly Heyboer (NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) report:

State boards and commissions that collectively control billions of dollars and make decisions affecting everyday life in New Jersey must include more women and minorities, under a bill approved by state Senate committee Monday.

Judging people by skin color or gender, rather than merit, experience, and character, is both racist and sexist. How is that just?

All of these bills are not about compensating actual victims of unjust government policies. In fact, not one individual victim, backed by evidence, was even identified. These initiatives are collectivist, racist, in some measure sexist, and motivated by economic egalitarianism—an axis of philosophical evil.

History is settled. What happened, happened. It can’t be changed. The practice of using unchangeable history as a weapon to impose new injustices on innocent people who were not part of that history, through revenge discrimination based on color or sex, to favor non-victims who were not part of that history, is not the sort of actions that civilized societies that supposedly value individual sovereignty and rights and justice for all should tolerate.

These initiatives highlight the danger of elevating a non-issue into a big problem. Apparently, the statists are losing confidence in their “historical injustice” rationalizations for socialist agendas. So they are turning to wealth inequalities. But egalitarianism is the greatest collectivist evil, and is no more a justification for racist policies than history.

Related Reading:

NJ Governor Murphy’s COVID-19 Double Standard Toward the Demonstrators

The Racism of the ‘Anti-Racists’: NJ Governor Murphy’s Strange and Discriminatory ‘Baby Bonds’ Scheme

NJ Turns its Back on the 14th Amendment – and History

Beneath the Title IX Controversy

Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality by Don Watkins and Yaron Brook