I was disappointed, even sickened, by Cliven Bundy’s stupid
and clumsy remarks from the other day.
Of course the media is jumping on them to obscure the very real issues
that were, and still are, at stake.
Therefore let’s take a moment to:
1.
Briefly rehearse the original issues involved in
grazing land dispute
2.
Address the “better off” comment in the deep
detail it deserves
Bundy’s stand off
against the Feds spotlighted some very important issues regarding the scope of
the Federal government and its relationship to its constituents. These include:
1.
What right or reason does the Federal government
have for holding so much land that is non-essential to its enumerated
responsibilities? Could we not relieve a
good deal of the Federal government’s financial woes by selling off and
privatizing its land holdings? And what
about the “tragedy of the commons” the environmental phenomenon that privately
held lands are better maintained than public lands?
2.
What right did the government have in displacing
Bundy from land that his family had utilized for over 120 years? What value did the government add to said
land to feel that they were entitled to hefty usage fees? If governments are instituted to protect the
rights of men, as the founding Declaration states, then why are they
persecuting farmers in defense of tortoises?
3.
Why did the Feds spend untold millions to
recover a mere million? Was it simply to
make a show of force so as to intimidate other would be dissenters? Why does
Senator
Reid persist in making oblique threats? Is that the kind of America we
want?
These questions remain valid whether the protagonist is nasty
or nice, a sinner or a saint.
With regard to his “better off” comments let me be
unambiguous about this. No one is better off as slave.
Libertarian philosophers from Locke through Rothbard have protested
that free will and self ownership are essential and inalienable properties of
being human. They insist that no person
can rightfully take them from another nor can an individual surrender them. In short, slavery is unjust and morally
indefensible.
The correct question is whether all Americans and its
poorest minorities in particular, are better off living under the suffocating welfare
state or under conditions of freedom, empowerment and opportunity? To answer
this, let me draw upon remarks that I prepared for a 2010 symposium in Trenton on
the plight of the disadvantaged urban poor.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Politicians who vie
for the inner city vote are often heard to invoke the class warfare mantra that
America is at war with its own urban poor.
However if these
politicians were to be honest, they would be forced to concede that net effect
of most urban policy is to condemn the poor to a life of misery - to dependency
on the new plantation master – the welfare state. Should these leaders look into the mirror,
they might echo Walt Kelly’s famous line from Pogo: “We have met the enemy and
it is us”.
Nearly a century of
“progressive” policies form both parties have done more harm than good to those
people whom these policies are ostensibly meant to benefit. Typically, the chief beneficiaries of
progressive policies are public office holders and bureaucrats.
Time is limited so let
me just touch on a handful of specific policies that hurt all Americans yet have
their most devastating impact upon those on the lower rungs of the economic
ladder. These are policies that combine
into a toxic cocktail that erodes social structure, lowers expectations,
diminishes opportunity and breeds disrespect for life. This inevitably leads down a path of
dangerous and destructive behavior.
Monopoly Schools
It is a given that
education and material success go hand in hand.
However, it is not for a want of funding that public schools are failing
our kids. Zip code monopoly schools,
that are staffed by tenured union employees, breed complacency and arrogance. We must introduce free market competition
into the education system to allow parents to effectively shop for the best
education options for their children.
This can be accomplished through state and private scholarships that
empower parents of all means to participate in the educational market.
Welfare
In 1965 Daniel Patrick
Moynihan foresaw a coming crisis in Black America. He noted that one-in-four African American
children were born outside of wedlock. I
don’t think that it is necessary to recount the innumerable advantages that
accrue to children who grow up in intact, two parent households. However, since 1965 the birthrate among non-married
women has tripled. Although, this is a society
wide phenomenon, the non-married birthrate among Blacks and Hispanics is double
to triple to that of Whites. In large
part this is attributable to welfare policies that penalize marriage and
incentivize single motherhood. We should
look to find ways to assist the poor that do not discourage family formation.
Healthcare Regulation
Government meddling in
the healthcare market, which began as far back as World War II, has made both
insurance and treatment less accessible and less affordable. The Affordable Healthcare Act has already
begun to put upward pressure on pricing and to force some employers to drop
coverage. Sadly, when things are bad for
society in general, they are only worse among its poorest. During the recent healthcare debates a number
of free market reforms were put forward but rejected. I submit that these should be reconsidered to
drive down healthcare costs and access for all including inner city poor. These include:
1. Direct individual ownership rather than
employer supplied health insurance
2. Ability to shop and purchase from
out-of-state insurers
3. Removal of coverage mandates so as to allow
buyers to purchase low cost catastrophic coverage plans
4. Tax deductable health savings accounts to
enable patients to cover routine out-of-pocket costs
Corporate Income Tax
Corporations do not
really pay taxes. Corporate taxes simply
increase the cost of goods produced and pass those costs on to consumers. This has two negative effects for America’s
disadvantaged:
1. Increased costs reduce the buying power of
their limited incomes.
2. It depresses manufacturing job creation by
making U.S. goods more expensive for the export market, thereby depressing job
opportunities for urban workers
Minimum Wage Laws
Beyond classroom
learning, urban kids need real world job experience, resume builders and valid
references to advance in their working careers.
Minimum wage requirements along with payroll taxes often make hiring unskilled
and untested young workers unaffordable for employers. In many cases it is likely that these stepping
stone jobs will go to illegal aliens working under the table.
The War on Drugs
No one can deny that
drug abuse and addiction are deadly serious problems. However, the War on Drugs
has proven to be ineffective in keeping drugs off the streets and out of kids’
hands. Additionally, drug related
arrests, prosecutions and incarceration have disproportionately fallen upon
inner city minority youth. This puts
them on the path to a life of criminality and outside of mainstream
careers. Like Alcohol Prohibition before
it, the War on Drugs has created a lucrative underground economy that enterprising
criminals are eager to exploit.
Repeal of the Federal
Controlled Substances Act can open the door to sensible State and local oversight
of drug policy. This was the net effect
of the repeal of the Volstead Act, which led to a mosaic of differing
regulations from state to state and even from town to town. This is what the founders had in mind when
they called the various states “laboratories for democracy”.
Abortion on Demand
Nothing says that
African American life is more disposable and worthless than the abortion
epidemic in the Black community. Alveda
King has called the abortion industry “lynching in the womb”. Pro-choice advocates have held up legalized
abortion as a magic bullet that would help alleviate many social and economic
ills that plague the African-American community. It has turned out not to be magic, but simply
a bullet for self inflicted African American genocide. Over 14 million African American children
have been aborted since Roe v. Wade.
The abortion rate
among African American women is three times higher than that of the general
population. Since 1973 more African
Americans have been killed by abortion than the total number of African
American deaths from AIDS, violent crimes, accidents, cancer and heart disease
combined. This brings to fruition the
racist vision of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret who wrote "We should
hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service
backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful
educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't
want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and
the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to
any of their more rebellious members."
Rev. Denise Walker,
who operates a post-abortive healing ministry, put it squarely: “What the slave
ships couldn’t do to us, what slavery itself couldn’t do to us, and what the Ku
Klux Klan couldn’t do to us, abortion has accomplished.”
America’s founders
envisioned a nation rooted in human freedom.
A nation where “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their
Creator with …unalienable Rights…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
The founders were not
perfect men, and their actions often fell short of their lofty ideals. Nonetheless, the American journey has been
has been a pilgrimage to the land of the founders’ vision by abolishing
slavery, overcoming Jim Crow and expanding voting rights to include women and
young adults.
My prescription to my
inner city brothers and sisters is the same that that I hold out for all
Americans:
1. Cherish life. Protect and defend it.
2. Embrace liberty. It is only though liberty, through free
thought, free expression and free markets that the human race will achieve
broad based happiness and prosperity.
Therefore, escape dependency on government and put your trust in
your God, your family, your community and yourself to create a free, peaceful
and prosperous America.
And while it is
wonderful that a handful of African Americans have achieved phenomenal success
in the fields of sports and entertainment, these gifted individuals are, as
Charles Barkley puts it, “no role models”.
It is outside of the reach of all but the very gifted to earn a livelihood
in these rarified pursuits.
Therefore, I call upon
a new generation of African American role models to step up to the plate to
mentor at-risk youth. These kids need to
see and interact with successful Black professionals, businessmen, shopkeepers,
tradesmen and contractors. Voluntary
mentoring, apprenticeships and internships
can give kids hope and show them the lawful path up and out of the vicious cycle
of poverty, despair and criminality.
I know that I am the
outsider here. Perhaps that is why I was
invited, to provide a libertarian, free market perspective. I am honored and humbled to do so. Still, I believe that with legal barriers
broken down, the sky is the limit for all Americans. I hope that young African Americans take
heart in the fact that we have arrived a new day, where a Black family now
lives in the White house, that opportunity is unlimited in the lawful free
market.
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"Half the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon
