Freedom of Association Works Both Ways

With today being Martin Luther King Day I felt that it would be a good day to rehash on what freedom association really is. One of the biggest negatives on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a libertarian perspective is that it interferes with freedom of association with it's anti-discrimination laws. Like many laws with "good intentions" it tends to be the direct opposite. People should not be forced to deal with one another via government force nor should that same force be used to keep people from dealing with each other. That was the problem with Jim Crow laws, the state used it's gun to keep people from dealing with each other.

Left-statists basically took Jim Crow, repackaged it and called it something new. That's not reform and it's definitely not liberty. Also the social justice warrior faction of the left-statists whether they realize it or not are re-arguing for Jim Crow type laws. Right-statists (specifically the culture justice warrior faction) argue that government forced separation should come back in the name of society and those who wish to associate with others of different traits are viewed as "degenerates". Both these views are anti-liberty, the only difference is that left-statists don't make the claim that they believe in liberty. Real freedom of association is a two-way street, people have the right to associate and not associate with whoever they want while at the same time people have no right to interfere with the associations or the non-associations with others. If one believes in one and not the other then they don't support liberty no matter what kind of flowery rhetoric one uses.

Has Dr. King's Dream been realized?

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

 

This quote comes from Dr. Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech which in itself argues that the concept of race is nothing but a social construct and that skin color isn't a reason for a man to be treated differently under the law. While King's movement made great strides (even in the face of government spies/plants and people who didn't want the challenge to the status quo) he died without seeing his vision fully realized. 

 

While there will always be individual people who will see race and nothing else (Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Pat Buchanan, Frosty Wooldridge, David Duke, Louis Farrakhan to name a few) government  should've supported the ideal which it doesn't. As far as I'm concerned there is no point in 2012 to release data or even engage in the collection of data that divides people based on race. What relevance does it have to say the Asian males are more unemployed than Black males? Last time I checked being unemployed is not a desired situation to be in no matter who you are. It's not just unemployment data, high school graduation rates, college attendance rates, poverty rates, abortion rates, the most recent census, etc, etc, etc. Yes I understand that news organizations and others will publish figures and polls based on race as well but the principal applies to them as well. Such data based on race does nothing but help the people King fought against since they'll likely use it for their various class/race warfare based agendas. 

Did King advocate things that sounded good on paper but wrong in practice yes he did but that shouldn't discount what he tried to achieve as a whole. Programs such as affirmative action perhaps made sense of the time (I was born in 1984 and I'm 27) but really have no place in 2012. Does it hurt not to get a job based on your skin color yes but it's better for a bigot to reveal themselves off the bat than further down the road which could make one's life a living nightmare. It's not just applying for a job, would you eat somewhere in which the restaurant manager uses a racial slur at you? I sure as hell wouldn't I rather the SOB call me a spic right off the bat then try to poison me later.  As the saying goes, your enemies will stab you in the face, while your "friends" will stab you in the back. Using the government gun on a person because of their skin color is bad but is as well forcing people to like each other. People are assholes and thats the way it will always be, it's wrong headed to think that a government gun can change that. Government is supposed to be colorblind, not hindering one group of people while helping another. 

Will King's vision ever be fully realized maybe, maybe not, I can't predict the future. Government seems to benefit from the race baiting and affirmative action baiting industries who paints the other as the enemy of the people. 

Politics and Sports

One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing sports and politics mix, whether it's athletes making statements on a hot button issue the rabble rousing over the 2008 Olympics in China or Major League Baseball debating about hosting the All Star game in Arizona due to it's immigration law.

With Martin Luther King day coming up on the 17th, ESPN goes into it's yearly event of talking to prominent black athletes and leaders during the civil rights era. In addition posting various polls on how white and black fans react to certain players and situations. ESPN tries to be non-controversial when discussing issues of race when they present themselves however bringing an asshole like Jesse Jackson is just a completely wrong move. Yes, Jackson was in Dr. King's inner circle but there is a huge difference between the Jackson of that era and the Jackson that we know today. For years Jesse Jackson has used Dr. King's legacy to line his own wallet and his own personal agenda. Dr. King would be turning in his grave if he saw what Jackson alongside Al Sharpton has done over the years. They have no intention of letting character dictate what a person is, it's skin color in their minds and nothing more.

I would be just as equally annoyed if conservative news outlets brought on Pat Buchanan of all people in an MLK discussion. Since just like Sharpton and Jackson, Buchanan and others like him Frosty Wooldridge being an example look for race whenever they can. One pair looks for racism at every corner while the other looks for affirmative action.

Dr. King would be turning in his grave

On January 18 the country observes Martin Luther King Jr day. MLK, the central figure in the Civil Rights Movement which fought for all to be equal under the US Constitution. Dr. King’s famous “I have a Dream” speech is to be considered one of the best speeches in the 20th century in regards to liberty. Unfortunately for Dr. King he would be turning in his grave if he saw the country he loved in its current state.

Like a moth to a flame the politicization of Dr. King and his legacy is always expected. Liberals like Jesse Jackson (who was once apart of Dr. King’s inner circle) and Al Sharpton have used his legacy to enrich themselves and their allies. While all the while supporting candidates and policies that are counter to what Dr. King fought for. Programs like Affirmative Action were probably necessary in that time period (don’t know since I didn’t live in that era) but in modern times where people like David Duke and Neo-Nazis are regarded as pathetic extremists by most rational thinking people such programs are no longer needed. To the credit of Liberals however it was Liberal Democrats and Liberal Republicans who got the Civil Rights Act passed which as we know was signed by Liberal President Johnson.

Then of course there are Conservatives who try to claim Dr. King’s legacy for themselves. Not all of them of course, Paleoconservatives to this day still attempt to paint Dr. King as a Communist and believe that racism is a Liberal concept that doesn’t really exist. Yes Dr. King was a Republican, but not in the Republican mold of Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. King’s views on war and civil liberties would clearly place him in the camps of Barry Goldwater, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. Like Albert Einstein, Dr. King was no Conservative; he was a Libertarian at heart.

Dr. King wouldn’t have supported the war in Iraq and probably would’ve started asking questions about Afghanistan’s current situation. I can picture a facepalm on Dr. King’s face if he saw the whole ordeal in how President Obama was treated with kid gloves by his supporters in the news media and likewise the treatment he got from the opposition in how he was and still compared to Adolf Hitler. He wouldn’t have approved the forced integration either. Has Dr. King’s dream been fully achieved? I would say about 80% but that 20% isn’t up to the Government it’s up to individual people.