From: Alex F. Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 27 2001 - 14:56:59 MDT
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On Fri, 27 Jul 2001, Olga Bourlin wrote:
> There were a myriad of segregation problems - theaters, restaurants,
> schools, drinking fountains, etc. were segregated (can you imagine being a
> black child - and the horror of growing up in a society like that?);
> lynching "happened" sometimes; so called anti-miscegenation laws existed in
> many states; there were no voting "rights." Even if the problem of sitting
> at the "back-of-the-bus" tradition got solved (the way I see it from the
> libertarian perspective - and forgive me if I'm not up on all the
> libertarian perspectives, I'm on a steep learning curve here - blacks would
> then have been free to set up their own bus businesses, and there would have
> been more busses in general (without the monopoly); and (lo-and-behold!) the
> problem of sitting at the back of the busses would indeed have been banished
> forever because blacks would then have had their own busses in which to sit,
> as well as whites). Therefore, I think better and more "improved"
> segregation would have happened as a result - not less segregation
> (unacceptable to begin with).
Just as today there are businesses that find an increasingly lucrative
market among women, immigrants, people of color, and gays. Now they
cater to traditionally oppressed groups not in some selfless do-gooder
crusade but simply because their money is as green as anybody
else's. Everywhere and everyplace there are always merchants shrewd
enough to go after that money if governments don't interfere (with
laws like the ones banning women from voting, banning gays from
marrying or enlisting in the regional security monopoly, aparteid,
etc.)
The corollary of this is that if you want to advance the cause of
whatever group you belong to, the key is to become an economic
force to be reckoned with.
The Jim Crow era was really a fight between the liberal Federal
government and certain reactionary state governments. While it does
cast doubt on the Republican "State's Rights" doctrine it only lends
support to anarcho-libertarianism, because if there weren't any
governments passing irrational laws in the first place, intervention
from an even higher level of government would not have been necessary.
> Libertarians don't favor
> > outlawing stupidity, but stupidity should have its costs.
It does, by definition, except when some do-gooder authority
decides to redistribute these costs and protect the stupid
from the consequences of their actions.
- --
NSA Wackenhut Waco
Why are the above words in my signature? Check out:
http://www.echelon.wiretapped.net
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