Race and Liberty in America:
Damon Root has an interesting review of this book, which the publisher describes as explaining "the major themes of the anti-racist, classical liberal tradition of individual liberty and equality."
Race and Liberty in America:
Damon Root has an interesting review of this book, which the publisher describes as explaining "the major themes of the anti-racist, classical liberal tradition of individual liberty and equality." |
For the most part yes, but the Republican Party of the past few decades has gotten some negative publicity largely due to a bunch of former Dixiecrats switching parties, bringing their racial baggage to the Republican Party: Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, Jesse Helms, etc.
The Republican Party of the past few decades has shown little interest in "breaking the back" of racism. Chief Justice Roberts wrote a plurality opinion in Parents Involved rejecting voluntary efforts to integrate as unconstitutional. The Republican Party of today thinks voluntary integration is unconstitutional. That is a far cry from antiracist libertarianism.
That is a ridiculously tendentious characterization of Justice Robert's opinion, given that the case involved public school assignment based on race. The plaintiffs obviously did not regard the assignment as voluntary; the school assignments here were "voluntary" in the same sense that we voluntarily pay federal income tax each year.
This book does show that BOTH parties have been "wrong on race" since the late 1960s but classical liberals have still won constitutional referenda and court decisions.
FYI: I found the book's material on Louis Marshall really fascinating. I asked Jewish friends and few knew how much he did for immigration (against quotas) and for the NAACP. Amazing guy.
I'd read "voluntary integration", without qualifiers, to mean the private sector voluntarily changing its behavior to promote integration: individuals moving between neighborhoods, private schools changing their admissions policies, individuals choosing which clubs to join, etc. I don't think Roberts has indicated any opposition to that variety of voluntary integration.
I agree there's a difference between a city pursuing a policy as a public policy choice, and a court ordering it to do the same as a matter of law, i.e. whether an action is legislatively chosen or judicially mandated. But legislative choices are only "voluntary" from the city's perspective, not from citizens' perspective, which is what the inquiry in these cases investigated---whether the city was governing its citizens (for whom the choice was not voluntary) in an unconstitutional manner.
My original comment about voluntariness was made in response to Jack Gorgonzola's absurd contention that Roberts' opinion in Parents Involved was somehow anti-libertarian because it forbade "voluntary integration." In that context it certainly is ridiculous to refer to the school assignments at issue as voluntary. By that definition of "voluntary," any conduct mandated by policies enacted by public officials is "voluntary." Whatever the proper characterization of these policies from the persepective of the municipalities involved, Roberts' opinion does not disallow voluntary conduct in a fashion that offends libertarian sensibilities. That was my point.
If public officials represent the will of the people, then what is wrong with that definition of voluntary? There seems to be little proof these integration policies were unpopular except with a small minority of parents who filed the lawsuit.
Could one possibly express the totalitarian mindset in a more succinct manner?
The essense of something being voluntary, of course, is that you may chose to do or not do it regardless of what the majority think.
So, any public school system is definitionally totalitarian? Having rules for school transfers is totalitarian because there are winners and losers? You may not send your kid to school wherever you want in a public school system; there are rules. You are an anarchist, not a libertarian. By your definition of involuntary, the atmosphere is forcing you to breathe.
No, having laws and requiring people to do things against their will is not necessarily totalitarian. The totalitarianism here is your abuse of language. To insist that coerced acts are "voluntary" because the majority are in favor of them is positively Orwellian.
Wrong agent - it is our physiology that forces us to breathe. But of course breathing is involuntary; If you stop, you die.
So, using your analytical framework, the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence was anti-libertarian, because the court struck down a statute duly enacted by a state legislature that embodied the will of the people and, as such, gays' compliance with Texas's anti-sodomy statute was purely voluntary? After all, to paraphrase you, there seems to be little proof that Texas's statute was unpopular, except with a small minority of the state's population, two of whom pressed the issue in federal court.
That was the point. Your definition is just off.
1. Lawrence was a criminal case. Parents Involved was not, so the libertarian calculus is different. Physical imprisonment is a type of liberty.
2. My views on Lawrence are that the Governor of Texas could have pardoned the two men, mooting the case.
3. I do not understand the bolded portion of your comment, or how it relates to "my analytical framework".
Where is the coercion in maintaining a transfer system for school assignments? It was a popular program that only a few parents disliked. Attending school is mandatory for children, anyway; there is no more coercion implicated by a transfer system than already exists in a public school setting in the first place. By your definition, all validly enacted laws are coercive to the point of totalitarianism and public schools are akin to slave labor camps. You are nuts.
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