Obama's Disingenuous ‘Defense’ of the First Amendment

Former President Barack Obama lowered the boom on social media for allowing what he sees as “the threat of false information online” to our society and democracy. As Ryan and Jullian Smith report in Former President Obama argues free speech doesn't apply to social media companies for ABC 6:

He delivered sharp remarks at Stanford University about the threat of false information online, calling for more transparency and regulations for Big Tech.

Obama spoke about the impact these issues have on society, including what the country saw during the 2020 election and anti-vaccine rhetoric during the pandemic.

“The First Amendment is a check on the power of the state. It doesn't apply to private companies like Facebook or Twitter any more than it applies to editorial decisions made by the New York Times or Fox News,” he said.

Despite the unfortunate wording of the title of the article, Obama seems to be saying here that the First Amendment is not a check on the private companies’ right to moderate what is said on their platforms, not that ”free speech doesn't apply to social media companies.” He’d be correct. It is crucial to recognize the bright line between government and private entities. Kudos to Obama for highlighting this vital point. 

But he contradicts that principle when he calls for government regulation and Section 230 "reform" to reign in "misinformation", thus opening up a path for the government to make an end run around that bright line established by the First Amendment..

As Melissa de White, Taylor Kubota, and Ker Than report in ‘Regulation has to be part of the answer’ to combating online disinformation, Barack Obama said at Stanford event for Stanford News:

During a speech at Stanford University on Thursday, former U.S. President Barack Obama presented his audience with a stark choice: “Do we allow our democracy to wither, or do we make it better?”

The former president put forth various solutions for combating online disinformation, including regulation, which many tech companies fiercely oppose.

“Here in the United States, we have a long history of regulating new technologies in the name of public safety, from cars and airplanes to prescription drugs to appliances,” Obama said. “And while companies initially always complain that the rules are going to stifle innovation and destroy the industry, the truth is that a good regulatory environment usually ends up spurring innovation, because it raises the bar on safety and quality. And it turns out that innovation can meet that higher bar.”

In particular, Obama urged policymakers to rethink Section 230, enacted as part of the United States Communications Decency Act in 1996, which ​​stipulates that generally, online platforms cannot be held liable for content that other people post on their website.

Obama did call for we, as private citizens, to take responsibility:

The responsibility also lies with ordinary citizens, the former president said. “We have to take it upon ourselves to become better consumers of news – looking at sources, thinking before we share, and teaching our kids to become critical thinkers who know how to evaluate sources and separate opinion from fact.”

But Obama should have stopped there. "Disinformation"/misinformation/fake news/false information”—choose your buzzword—is the opening for politicians and other government officials to squash ideas they don't like. How does smothering public debate and silencing dissent make our democracy better? 

Short of certain very clearly delimited exceptions, such as instigating imminent violence or threats to public safety, any attempt by government to regulate speech of any kind, no matter how false or offensive it may be, violates the very “check on the power of the state” that Obama readily acknowledges the First Amendment is designed to erect. Regulation can easily serve as an end run around First Amendment protections. As Sen. Dianne Feinstein brazenly threatened in a Senate hearing for social media companies, “You created these platforms. And now they’re being misused. And you have to be the ones who do something about it. Or we will.”

‘Or we will!” That’s a direct threat. U.S. Representative Tom Malinowski of NJ, in calling for social media companies to reign in “Political extremism”, “white supremacy” and “domestic terrorism,” was even more direct: “And if they don’t do it voluntarily, we’re going to have to regulate them to death.” “Regulate them to death”! Let that sink in. These are the kinds of threats that can force private companies to ban, allow, or “moderate” speech and ideas according to politicians’ desires. It’s called censorship-by-proxy. It’s very dangerous. And it’s the kind of power that regulatory authority gives to politicians. And they don’t even have to pass regulations—just threaten them. 

This, all in the name of fighting “political extremism”, “misinformation”, or whatever [fill in the blank] rationalization they can come up with. So much for the First Amendment’s “check on the power of the state”. So much for Obama’s defense of the First Amendment. And so much for free speech in America.

Related Reading:

Dem Rep Malinowski Reprises Trump in Proposed Legislative Attack on Social Media and Free Speech.

Malinowski's Censorship-By-Proxy 'Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act' Advances

Trump Joins Biden in War on the Average Person’s Newfound Power to be Heard

Politicians Want to Destroy Section 230, the Internet's First Amendment: Four myths about the law that made the modern internet possible. -- ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN AND PAUL DETRICK for Reason

The 'Climate Crisis' Dictatorship Storms Toward Us

 After reading J.D. Tuccille's Reason.com piece Your Favorite Crisis Doesn't Justify a Dictatorship: Authoritarianism grows increasingly popular, with environmentalists among the greatest enthusiasts, All I can say is, I TOLD YOU SO! Here are some excerpts:

"In the Q&A session after every talk I give on climate change, someone will typically raise a rather uncomfortable question: are democracies, given the short-termist nature of electoral politics, fundamentally incapable of tackling the climate crisis?" writes Mark Lynas, author of Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency, at Persuasion. "Nor is this idea limited to a political fringe. Environmentalist academics with impeccable liberal credentials also occasionally raise the question of whether classic Western liberal democracy isn't up to the job."

Lynas goes on to cite recent books, essays, and scholarly papers by environmental advocates suggesting that climate change is such a pressing concern that it justifies government officials steamrolling over limitations on state power and protections for individual rights.

"While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise," wrote Ross Mittiga, a political scientist at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in a paper published in December 2021 by the American Political Science Review. "A salient example of this is the COVID-19 pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach."

The most recent example may have come too late for Lynas to include. On Tuesday, Elected Officials to Protect America (EOPA) held a virtual press conference calling on President Joe Biden to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) "to accelerate a clean energy transition for energy security" and, incidentally, "to help Ukraine." The Ukraine mention, one suspects, was thrown in because the DPA lets the federal government centrally direct the economy for national defense purposes. Then-President Donald Trump stretched "national defense" in 2020 to cover COVID-19, but the EOPA seem to recognize that climate change may be a step too far on its own, hence "Ukraine."

You can read the whole thing here. 

Here's what I've written:

October 15, 2018—New U.N. 'Study' Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs

March 7, 2019—‘Climate Crisis’: The Dem’s Path to Totalitarian Socialism

March 31, 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was getting going—Did Trump’s Defense Production Act Invocation Clear the Way for the Democrats’ ‘Climate Crisis’ Authoritarianism?

April 30, 2020—As We Endure Through COVID-19 Lockdowns, Dems Gear Up for ‘Climate Crisis’ Authoritarianism

I TOLD YOU SO!

Related Reading:

The ‘Crisis’ Dictatorship

The Collectivist Left Media Launches Major ‘Climate Crisis’ Propaganda Campaign

NJ Highway Service Center Renamed for Larry Doby

The Garden State Parkway will rename a service area for Larry Doby. Who is Larry Doby, some might ask? As Larry Higgs reports for NJ.com,

On Friday, the Brookdale Service area in Bloomfield was renamed in Doby’s honor, commemorating his career with the Cleveland Indians to become the first Black player in the AL, signing with the major league ball club in 1947, 11 weeks after Robinson signed with the Dodgers, according to his New Jersey Hall of Fame biography.

Higgs observes that “Jackie Robinson is renowned as the player who broke through baseball’s color barrier.” “But,” Higgs asks, “what about the first Black player to break the color barrier in the American League?” Overshadowed by Robinson, Higgs notes Doby deserves his “overdue recognition.” 

But I have long recognized Larry Doby’s, and Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck’s, great achievement. I wrote Larry Doby, American Hero for The Objective Standard in 2012. 

Related Reading:

Larry Doby, American Hero

42: The Triumph of Courage and Moral Certitude over Irrationality and Bigotry

NFL Players Should Protest Injustice, Not Americanism—the Cure for Injustice

Larry Doby's Overdue Congressional Gold Medal

Fighting Anti-Private Discrimination Laws: The Role of Principles in the Fight for Freedom

Title 2: Government vs. Private Action

The Missing element in NJ’s Self- vs. Full-Serve Gas debate: Why is the Government Even Involved?

New Jersey is still the only state that legally bans self-service gasoline. And as happens periodically, someone introduces a bill to change that law, and renewed public debate erupts. This time, it’s the bipartisan “Motorist Fueling Choice and Convenience Act”. 

This seemingly minor issue features heated rhetoric. People on either side get really worked up. Some people believe it is Our sacred right to full-service gas, as the Star-Ledger facetiously puts it. Others believe their rights are being trampled by not being allowed the choice to save time and/or money by jumping out of their cars and pumping their own gas.

Count me in the second  camp. But my take is somewhat different from both sides. The argument centers around what the law should say. I ask, why should law be involved at all? 

Proponents of keeping the legal ban on self-serve gasoline always point to polls showing a majority prefer having their gas pumped. A Rutgers-Eagleton poll is the latest. According to that poll, 73% favor full-serve against 22% who prefer self-serve. But popular opinion polls are irrelevant. The only “poll” that matters is the market, which should be free of government involvement. The free market measures what people actually do, not merely what they say. Besides, what right does the 73% have to forcibly prevent the 22% from pumping their own gas, if the station allows self-service. Absolutely none.

Some propose halfway measures. In a Tribune News Service op-ed, Sal Risalvato recommends changing the law to allow self-service but also mandate some full service pumps. Perhaps, in today’s screwed-up political atmosphere, that’s a necessary compromise. But that doesn't answer the begged question, why should the government be involved at all? 

I have addressed many of the bogus arguments of those who favor keeping the ban on self-service here and here. So I won’t repeat them here. The point I wish to make here is that neither side understands that this should not be a political issue. Government has no role here. It should simply leave station owners free to set their own policies, based on their own reading of market preferences. 

Unfortunately, the basic issue has been lost in emotionalist rhetoric. For example, one full-serve gives us this winter-time red herring:

Fortune wills it that your gas gauge reads empty, so you slide into the nearest service station. A young, hardy, fully-parkaed, and ski-masked attendant steps up. You slip your window down an inch, present a credit card, and vocalize those time-honored words, “Fill ‘er up.”

The days of mandatory gas station attendants are numbered in New Jersey. The state may have finally succumbed to the wiles of the self-service advocates. Then, you will need to step out into the cold to fumble with your gas cap, drop your credit card in an oily puddle, press the wrong octane, listen to some chirpy video ad placed where you cannot possibly avoid it, and stand there snorting ice crystals until your car has its fill — ultimately dribbling some gas on the sleeve of your nice new coat.

I mean, what?—are we in New Jersey a bunch of overgrown, incompetent 5-year-olds? Well maybe James Terminiello is: But speak for yourself, kid. But that’s what passes for a rational, mature argument in favor of legally—i.e., forcibly—preventing us adults from getting out and pumping our own gas.

But that’s the basic argument— no one should be legally forced. And no one has ever proposed forcing the Terminiellos of NJ to have someone “Fill ‘er up.” When you bring law into it, you’re bringing force into human relationships. 

Full-servers counter that they shouldn’t be forced to pump their own gas. But no one has ever proposed to legally ban full-serve gas. But, they counter, if service stations are free to decide their own policies, what if a station decided to be 100% self-serve? Wouldn’t that in effect “force” me to pump my own? No. Where’s the force? There is none. The station owner is voluntarily choosing 100% self-serve. Customers are voluntarily stopping by to help themselves to a tank full. Those who adamantly oppose self-serve can find another station, ask for help (which most self-serve stations everywhere else will usually provide), or bite the bullet and pump their gas. 

But there is no “sacred right” to full-serve—or for that matter, self-serve. All I ask is to liberate the market from government interference, and let the chips fall where they may. 

Neither full-serve nor self-serve should be legally mandated. The government has no role here, beyond policing the markets against force or fraud. It should never initiate force on anyone’s behalf. Whichever side tries to use the legal mechanism of government to force their preference on others is a bully. That’s the full-serve mob. If the free operation of the market results in most stations going full self-serve, then that’s life in a free society. Some may be unhappy when change happens. No one is entitled to any service, if no one else chooses to provide it. Just as I had to switch to cassettes and ultimately compact disks for my music when my beloved 8-track tapes became obsolete, so full-serve lovers will have to switch to self-serve if full-serve goes away. I have never had a smartphone. A flip phone suits my needs just fine. But some day, the flip will disappear. So be it. I would never demand to outlaw CDs or smartphones, so I can keep my old technologies. I’m not an entitlement-minded narcissistic bully, like my full-serve opponents. Turning to law to force stations to provide full-serve, self-serve, or any other type of service is immoral and un-American. It amounts to involuntary servitude. My last reading of the Constitution is that the 13th Amendment hasn’t been repealed. 

For decades, against all common sense, self-serve advocates have tried to overturn the self-serve ban, and the full-serve mob has fought back hard, turning this logically trivial issue into a continuing “fight to the death”, as former NJ Governor Jon Corzine described it after being pilloried for proposing a modest pilot program of self-serve in 2006. But it needn’t be this way. If everyone respected the genuine rights of others, got the government out of the issue, and let the market work freely, sanity would return. 

Related Reading:

After Big Gas Tax Hike, Will New Jersey Finally End the Ban on Self-Serve Gas?

New Jersey’s Still Debating Whether to Legalize Self-Serve Gasoline

A brief history of why you can't pump your own gas in N.J.—S.P. Sullivan for NJ.com

Where Does Valid Law End and Regulation Begin?

SUPPLEMENTAL TO ‘New Jersey’s Proposed Bill to Study Racial Reparations’: The ‘Slavery is Good Economics’ Argument

As a followup to yesterday’s post about New Jersey’s flirtation with racial reparations, there is one more thing in the article I want to comment on. It is an argument advanced to bolster the case for reparations that deserves to be separately called out because it is so egregious and is pregnant with horrific implications. From Reparations, and the dark Jersey history Trenton is scared to discuss:

“[New Jersey] was a very sympathetic state to Southern slavery,” says Stephanie Wilson, executive director of the state’s Amistad Commission, which advises schools on curriculum. “Slavery was in almost every town and enclave. It’s a hidden and unspoken piece of our history that was central to building our economy.” [My emphasis]

The idea that  “Slavery . . . was central to building our economy.” is one of the vilest, and false, statements ever uttered. It implies that slavery is good economically. This is a version of one of the old Confederate arguments in defense of slavery, King Cotton, a false theory which held that the American and world economies were built on cotton slave plantations and would collapse if the North won the Civil War and abolished slavery.

Prosperous economies are built by free people working, innovating, and trading voluntarily, each in pursuit of his own self-interest. Slavery has existed throughout history on every continent among every people. Yet The Great Enrichment of the past 250 years only happened under the rise of Enlightenment-spawned Capitalism, the social system of universal, equal, inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Why? Because prosperity happens only to the extent that the common person was liberated under the rights-protecting constitutional republican government to speak, believe, associate, trade, and innovate. 

Slaves enjoy none of those freedoms. They are, by definition, not self-owning and self-governing. They therefore cannot live freely by their own judgment to participate and contribute to the free market economy. George Washington Carver, the great agricultural innovator, achieved his success as a free man, not as a slave. The period of greatest economic progress in America was The Inventive Period between the end of the Civil War, when slaves were freed, until World War I—the freeist period in world history. There would have been no George Washington Carver, or other great black innovators who flourished as free people, if African-Americans had remained enslaved. Indeed, America’s great black innovators and entrepreneurs flourished under Capitalistic freedom, not communistic slavery. How many would-be highly productive black people—how many George Washington Carvers—were held back in slavery, robbed of their freedom to think, learn, and act, thus diminishing, not building, our economy by robbing us of their entrepreneurial benefits? 

America is worse off, not better off, because of slavery. Slaves were forbidden from attaining even a minimal education. Was America’s economic might built on ignorance, or intelligence—by muscles or minds? Are we are to believe that the minimal contribution of muscular slave labor “was central to building our economy?” Free minds and free markets, to the extent people were free to enjoy them, had nothing to do with it?

Slavery “central to building our economy?” BULLSHIT On steroids!! If that were true, human history would have been one long economic boom, because slavery had existed on every continent but Antarctica, among all people and races, prior to The Enlightenment and America. The Great Enrichment didn’t start in 1619, when the first slaves arrived in the colonies by British slave traders. It began at the end of 18th Century, when the Declaration of Independence was signed and America was born. It is Capitalistic individual freedom that is central to our, or any, flourishing economy. Slavery is central only to economic stagnation, as the history of the world clearly demonstrates. 

It’s absolutely disgusting that there are still people pushing the false neo-Confederate argument that slavery is good for the economy. That an educator who “advises schools on curriculum” is behind this argument is just another example of the ideological corruption that permeates American schools. Are reparations advocates so desperate to justify their cause as to actually advance the idea that slavery builds vibrant economies? Disgraceful.

But is that the whole story? Is reparations the ultimate goal of this theory of economic power? Given that the “slavery is good economics” argument is easily refuted as an economic fairy tail, could there be some deeper motive? One must ask, what social system gains the most intellectual backing from the claim? Certainly not Capitalism, the manifestation of a free society and individual rights. Confederate slavocrats certainly knew. They hated Capitalism, explicitly and unequivocally. Anti-Calitalist, pro-slavery intellectual George Fitzhugh explicitly proclaimed “The Failure Of A Free Society” in 1854.

It’s an argument that only socialists, and slaveholders, could love. And that’s what I meant by “pregnant with horrific implications.” Fitzhugh gushed that “Slavery relieves our slaves of these cares altogether, and slavery is a form, and the very best form, of socialism.” Those “cares” include concerns about food, clothing, shelter, medical care, a job, and so on. Those cares were, in theory, relieved by their masters. Isn’t this what socialism, including Bernie Sanders style “democratic socialism”, promises to everyone, with the state in place of the plantation master? How else does one set America up to become one big socialist slave plantation, if not by claiming that slavery is the foundation of the economy? We’d all be equally better off as slaves under socialist masters, whether their names are Bernie Sanders or Nicolás Maduro.

There, in a nutshell, is the motive behind anyone who claims that slavery is “central to building our economy,” or any economy. Reparations is a cover. To promote slavery is to promote socialism. The socialists will never admit it. But that is the real motive of these moral deviants.

Related Reading:

‘Reparations’; Another Leftist Path to Socialism

Why It’s So Important to Understand What Actually ‘Made America Great’ in the First Place

Was America 'made possible by stealing Indian land and the labor of slaves?'

The Southern Slave Economy Was Anti-Capitalistic

America: A History of Racism or the History of Individualism?

America: A History of Racism or the History of Individualism? - - 2

Slavery, Racism and Collectivism... and New Jersey's Folly

On New Jersey’s Proposed Bill to Study Racial Reparations

There is a proposed bill in the New Jersey state legislature that authorizes the creation of a commission to study reparations for past injustices. In Reparations, and the dark Jersey history Trenton is scared to discuss, NJ Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran has some thoughts on the bill and the subject. 

“Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter,” reports Moran, “has been pushing a bill [in the NJ Legislature] that would establish a task force to study this state’s dark history on race, and to offer recommendations on reparations.” Reading this article, it strikes me that the commission’s mandate is biased in favor of reparations of some kind, leaving the debate over whether or not reparations are appropriate off the table. 

Moran starts with a brief revue of New Jersey’s history in slavery. He then moves on to the Jim Crow era, the severity of which he rightfully and squarely pins primarily on government’s laws, not private action (cleverly avoiding the fact that legally-enforced segregation was the project of the liberal/progressive wing of American politics). 

Next, he gives a fairly accurate description, albeit incomplete, of the pro-and-con arguments. Here is a sampling:

The reason Sumter has been unable to get traction in the Legislature is because the idea of reparations is toxic to white Americans, with only 28 percent supporting cash payments to descendants of slaves, the purest form of reparations. (That compares to 86 percent among African-Americans.)

The main reason? Most white people feel that Black people alive today don’t deserve compensation for the suffering of their ancestors.

“All Americans can trace some difficulties their forefathers and mothers faced,” says Tatishe Ntete, an associate professor at University of Massachusetts, who has polled extensively on the issue. “The attitude is that it’s up to the individual in the present day to deal with the consequences. Get over it, work hard, and you can enjoy the benefits of American society.”

 

To his credit, Moran doesn’t ridicule or minimize that argument, as he often does other valid arguments against positions he holds. He goes on:

I get that. My people came to Boston from Ireland after the 1848 famine with nothing, and my great-grandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War. He was disabled by a gunshot through the hand and worked as a janitor for most of his adult life, at a time when the Irish were dismissed as drunken Papists.

But Moran cites a difference in degree.“But please, folks,” counters Moran, “No one in my line was sold or lynched.” 

But, so what? True, enslavement and lynching are orders of magnitude worse that being denied a mortgage or business loan because of one’s race or ethnicity. But how does the magnitude of the evil make a moral difference in the argument over whether descendants should be victimized or rewarded for ancestral evils? It doesn’t. It makes no difference to an innocent whether she’s unjustly forced to compensate today’s non-victims because they’re descendants of Irish “drunken Papists” or because they’re descendants of people sold or lynched because of the color of their skin. Targeting innocents for past wrongdoings of others is unjust on any level.

Moran’s recounting of the history of NJ’s role in slavery early in this nation’s history will make your blood boil.* Interestingly, though, Moran never gives a genuine moral argument in favor of reparations for descendants of slavery. Rather, he vaguely asserts that slavery, racism, and legally enforced segregation has had “lingering effects”—he mentions, not surprisingly for a Leftist, wealth disparaites as a lingering effect, as if differences in wealth and incomes among individuals is somehow wrong. (One thing you can almost always count on Leftists to do is to find a way to inject economic inequality and/or climate change into the subject. But, hey, at least he didn’t blame climate change on slavery.) He seems to be depending on the emotional response to the horrors of slavery long gone to sway us into supporting reparations.

That won’t cut it. By all means, let's have a discussion on reparations. But let it be objective. If you start from the premise that people should be "compensated" (read, rewarded) for the injustice perpetrated against ancestors, your starting from a biased premise. 

The debate really boils down to individualism versus collectivism. Collectivism holds that we are all mere parts of, and subordinate to, some group. Thus, the premise pimples, we have responsibility for, and must be judged by, all of the actions and characters, for better or for worse, of all ancestral members of "our" group, in perpetuity. Individualism holds that we are all independent individuals born morally tabula rasa, and are responsible only for our own ideas, actions, and choices, and not born with any preexisting victimhood or grievances or unearned guilt or moral claims on other people's lives, liberties, or wealth. Collectivism is the ancient philosophy of savages. Individualism is the progressive philosophy of civilization.

I am a radical for individualism. Progress toward civilization is synonymous with the advancement of individualism. I am for individualism and civilization, which means, in a word, justice—the real thing, which means individual justice, not "social" justice or racial justice or collectivized justice or collective justice of any kind. Yes, reparations should be paid to real living victims, by real living perpetrators. And there are valid claims to reparatory justice by actual victims. Consider the still living Cordelia Clark, an actual victim of Jim Crow who was forced to run her Evanston, Illinois restaurant “out of her kitchen and parked cabs for her taxi company in her backyard because Black residents were effectively barred from owning or renting storefronts in town,” according to a Reuters story. It should never be paid to non-victims by innocents, which is why claims to reparations should be decided in the courts, where objective facts and proper legal process, rather than politics, reign.

The focus on racial reparations is a focus on the past. It fosters manufactured grievances and manufactured victimhood and manufactured unearned guilt. Slavery ended 147 years ago. Jim Crow laws ended 58 years ago. Opportunities for all Americans have never been greater. Racism in the culture has never been more marginalized. My advice to any “victim” of the supposed lingering effects of slavery or Jim Crow is -- stop looking back. Turn around, and look forward. No one will stop you, unless you let them. No one can, regardless of any lingering racism that exists at the fringes of society. “We Have Overcome,” as Jason D. Hill puts it. Just follow the inspiring example of Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee.

Facts matter. I do not believe there are objectively identifyable lingering effects of slavery. Too much time has passed. Too many other influences have intervened. As to lingering effects of past legally enforced racism and segregation, which is much more recent, they are more likely to exist. But the answer is not more forced redistribution of wealth or hand wringing over wealth disparities, a red herring if there ever was one. Useful steps can include ending the War on Drugs, reigning in local zoning powers, rolling back business regulations (which favor established businesses over entrepreneurial newcomers), reforming and reducing occupational licensing laws, and above all defunding the public schools through universal school choice, funding the students individually rather than funding schools and districts, thus transferring power from the criminal monopoly we call the teachers union and their political/intellectual elite allies to the parents and educational entrepreneurs. In other words, more individual freedom, not more legalized grand larceny.

Part of the Revolutionary greatness of America is that it liberated individuals from corruption of blood—the idea that you are responsible for wrongs committed by ancestors or family members (a bar to corruption of blood even appears in the U.S. Constitution). This principle can easily be widened beyond blood to cover American citizenship: Why should innocent citizens (and even non-citizens) of today be made financially responsible for injustices perpetrated by prior Americans against slaves generations ago? Call it corruption of citizenship. No one has ever given an answer to that question. The same principle has a flip side: Why should any descendant of slaves separated by generations benefit from the suffering of their ancestors? ** 

History is settled. It's done. It can't be changed. Past injustice can't be righted by new injustice or by revenge discrimination and racism. North African nations raided, captured, and enslaved Europeans, especially Italians, for decades. Do I, an Italian American, deserve reparations from today's Nigerian immigrants to America? Tribalism, with its perpetual cycles of revenge, is not the answer. Collectivism can not, will not, correct racial injustice past or present, because racism is collectivism. Individualism, the foundational premise of America's Founding, is the only answer.

* [New Jersey legally abolished slavery in 1804, the last Northern state to do so. But it shamefully had grandfather features that allowed some slavery to linger within its borders right up until the Civil War. Nonetheless, anti-slavery political forces did score a partial victory. Politics is messy and slow, making major change hard. You take what you can get, when you can get it. NJ’s partial abolition laws enabled many African-Americans, albeit not all, to finally live free.)

** [It would be different if slaves were only recently emancipated. We are all responsible for the current government we have. If New Jersey outlawed slavery yesterday, the state government’s culpability would demand, justly, reparations, which obviously must be financed by its taxpayers, who lived under the government that allowed and protected slaveholders. But should today’s taxpayers be held responsible for a government they didn’t live under two centuries ago? On what principle of justice and morality could anyone answer yes? Of course, the people who would be most responsible for reparations would be the slaveholders, slave breeders, and slave traders. Of course, they, along with the slaves, are long dead. There should be no corruption of blood, or of citizenship.]

Related Reading:

The Founding Fathers, Not ‘Diversity,’ is the Solution to ‘Our Racialized Society’

The Dem's Jim Crow 2.0

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

‘Reparations’; Another Leftist Path to Socialism

Booker’s Racism Charge Against Trump’s ‘Go Back’ Rant is Rich

Slavery, Racism and Collectivism... and New Jersey's Folly

America: A History of Racism or the History of Individualism?

America: A History of Racism or the History of Individualism? - - 2

My thoughts on the inspiring life philosophy of Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.