What Racial Barriers?

Skull Pilot

Diamond Member
Nov 17, 2007
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A good piece on why BHO's electoral win is not a sign of racial barriers crashing down.

Breaking Barriers or Dividing Society? - Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (ed.) - Mises Institute

But why should politics be the standard for what constitutes a barrier or a barrier broken? The ability of individuals in a group to navigate the murky and treacherous waters of electoral politics has no necessary connection to the status of the group as a whole.

A much better indicator concerning the status of any group – racial, religious, sexual, or otherwise – is commerce, which is the real engine that makes society work. And here we see that there are no such barriers in existence. We need only look at the status of black-owned businesses to see that there are more than one million in the United States, generating revenue of some $89 billion per year, which is more than the GDP of 140 countries around the world, and growing (according to most recent data) at a faster pace than all businesses.

Tragically, Obama does not seem to see that expanding this trend is a pathway forward. For him, the answer is the failed politics of redistribution, a pathway that can only exacerbate racial tension. Far from being a healing force in American life, his success at taking from one group to give to another will only increase conflict....


These are the underlying assumptions behind much of the media celebration of the Obama victory. It stems from the belief that the "tables must turn" – the strong must be made weak and the weak made strong – in order for history to move forward on its path toward some imagined social ideal. Again, evidence of progress that conflicts with this agenda is routinely ignored, which is why you don't often hear about peaceful, productive, commercial associations among blacks and whites at all levels of society.

This is why we hear about "breaking barriers" rather than encouraging opportunity, about policies rather than freedom, about power rather than entrepreneurship. For the media writing about all this, it is the only intellectual model they have in mind. The conflict view of society was taught to them in college and is reinforced daily in the press. Also, unless you have some clear filter in mind, it seems like the conflict view is supported by plenty of evidence, given that the rise of the state has actually generated social antagonism where none should exist.

For a uniter, BHO seems to be stuck in the conflict society paradigm. it will be interesting to see if we evolve beyond this during his presidency.
 

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