Politics and Culture

Two unrelated incidences combined with the perusal of a book reignited my thoughts on freedom and the people who purport to support it. One incidence occurred in Belmont, California where smoking was banned in people's cars even when they're by themselves. The second event transpired at John Hopkins University, where a fraternity was suspended for an admittedly crude and offensive, Halloween in the Hood party, (the fraternity case doesn't bother me as much because a private university should have a right to regulate what happens on its campus and with campus groups, although I'm sure the university wouldn't have nothing to say had they burned Bush in effigy with a flaming American flag). Third, a good liberal friend of mine lent me a book entitled American Apartheid which I've only thumbed through, but I've done enough of a thumbing to extract its main thesis: the greatest threat to America is the wealth-differential between top and bottom income earners. In fact, if one searches for Apartheid on Amazon, one will notice a recent vogue in books with Apartheid in the title and all of them are from the left.

The first two examples above demonstrates a left lack of enthusiasm for individual choice and expression and the last one betrays the left's true concern, equality (apartheid, it's opposite, being enforced inequality). Progressives might call it social justice or human rights-the right to have broadband was a revealing one from a few years back- in order to add moral weight, but what they mean is equality and equality of circumstance is contradictory to freedom. One arrives at this conclusion through simple deduction:

1. Men are different.
2. Some of these differences make some men more valuable to a community than other men.
3. Naturally, men with the most valuable gifts will be more sought-after than those more moderately gifted.
4. Sought-after men may seek more compensation for their skills.
5. If a society wants people of different skills to live in equal circumstances, they have to make rules regulating social and business transactions.

The next article will give examples of how the left prioritizing of equal outcomes often subverts truth, morality, and, sometimes, logic (hint-PC).

I might add that most honest progressives will not argue with the above conclusion and that unless one is a libertarian, conservatives have greater concerns than liberty as well.

Previous freedom discussions. 1, 2, 3, 4.

If one searches for social justice, the first page yields the picture above.

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass by Nancy Denton

Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter

The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington