Echoes in Eternity

John Stossel has a great piece on the importance of property rights in growing and sustaining wealth and prosperity. It all comes down to the simplicity of having one's own mailing address... something Americans take for granted. I have an address because I own a plot of land in Crystal, Minnesota. As Stossel points out, because of that, I can borrow money for investment and any business I start out of my home can be legally recognized. In developing countries, due to the lack of rule of law, property rights are either non-existent or capricious in nature. You may live in a home, but nothing is legally stopping the government or an individual from claiming that home for himself**. That is why if poor countries are ever going to begin to prosper, they need property rights. And to get those rights, they need a stable rule of law. And to get that rule of law, tyrants and dictators need to be removed and struggling democracies need to be strengthened. Which is why a simple government military intervention can sometimes do more long-term good in one day in a particular country than all of the Western charties can in a year. Or it can do much harm.

** Of course, in this country, we're steadily losing our property rights. Because of serious abuses of eminent domain, American bodies of government (local or federal) have been taking people's homes and property from them without consent and sometimes without proper compensation.

John Stossel has a great piece this week on the topic of racism and the Civil Rights Act.

This controversy started when Rand Paul, who had just won a senatorial primary, told TV talker Rachel Maddow that the part of the Civil Rights Act that bans discrimination by private business is improper interference with property owners' rights. He, too, condemned racism.

But the chattering class's reaction to Paul's statements must have made him uncomfortable. The next day, he issued a statement saying that he would have voted for the entire act because federal intervention was needed.

Maybe. At the time, racism was so pervasive that such an intrusive law may have been a good thing. But, as a libertarian, I say: Individuals should be surrounded by a sphere of privacy where government does not intrude. Part of the Civil Rights Act violates freedom of association.
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America's fundamental political philosophy has deteriorated quite a bit if we can't distinguish between government and private conduct. I enthusiastically support the parts of the civil rights act that struck down Jim Crow laws, which required segregation in government facilities, mass transit, and sometimes in private restaurants and hotels. Jim Crow was evil. It had no place in America.

Racist policies in private restaurants are also evil, but they do not involve force. Government is force, so it should not be used to combat nonviolent racism on private property, even property open to the public.

I just don't trust government to decide what discrimination is acceptable. Its clumsy fist cannot deter private nonviolent racism without stomping on the rights of individuals. Today, because of government antidiscrimination policy, all-women gyms are sued and forced to admit men, a gay softball team is told it may not reject bisexuals and a Christian wedding photographer is fined thousands of dollars for refusing to take photos of a homosexual wedding.

I'll say it again: Racial discrimination is bad. But we have ways besides government to end it. The free market often punishes racists. Today, a business that doesn't hire blacks loses customers and good employees. It will atrophy, while its more inclusive competitors thrive.

In the pre-1964 South, things were different. But even then, private forces worked against bigotry. White owners of railroads and streetcars objected to mandated segregation. Historian Jennifer Roback writes that in 1902 the Mobile Light and Railroad Company "flat out refused to enforce" Mobile, Alabama's segregation law.

In cities throughout the South, beginning in 1960, student-led sit-ins and boycotts peacefully shamed businesses into desegregating whites-only lunch counters. Those voluntary actions were the first steps in changing a rancid culture. If anything, Washington jumped on a bandwagon that was already rolling.

It wasn't free markets in the South that perpetuated racism. It was government colluding with private individuals (some in the KKK) to intimidate those who would have integrated. {emphasis added}

It was private action that started challenging the racists, and it was succeeding -- four years before the Civil Rights Act passed.

Government is a blunt instrument of violence that one day might do something you like but the next day will do something you abhor. Better to leave things to us -- people -- acting together privately.

Well, I indeed had the great opportunity to hear Mark Steyn speak at noon today. I actually walked over to the lecture hall behind the group he was walking with, so I knew I wasn't running late. He spoke for about 30 minutes, then answered questions for another 25. He began by making a comment on yesterday's murders at Virginia Tech. As our society and pundits are apt to do in situations such as that one, the "experts" are rushing to say how this shows that we need more gun control. However, Steyn insisted that, as always, the individuals are the ones who save the day and if you are want future VTU killings to be stopped sooner, letting people be armed is the key. Allowing for self-reliance and moving away from the nanny-state where the police are the only ones with the guns was Steyn's take on it. He is right, if there had been just one trained person nearby carrying a weapon, that killer would have been taken out with much fewer casualties. Instead, our college campuses have this inane rule that even if a person has a conceal-carry license, they are not allowed to carry that gun onto campus. It doesn't protect students, it makes them more vulnerable to attacks such as yesterday's.

Anyway, then Mr. Steyn got into his main subject matter (The Islamification of the world and the downfall of the "West"). He did so by mentioning four separate stories that have been printed this week in newspapers here and abroad. The first was one in the Minneapolis Star Tribune ("hardly readable" as Steyn called it, with which the audience heartily agreed) discussing a local college's decision to offer Muslim-only bathrooms that allow Muslims to wash their feet for prayer time. Then he pointed out one from the Wall Street Journal which talked about a Muslim imam in Indonesia who wants to transform that country into a radical Islamic state. The next was one from a Cambridge newspaper mentioning that a student in England had just profusely apologized for printing cartoons which may have mocked Islam (nevermind that it mocked all religions). The last article was one discussing the population crisis that Europe has encountered. Steyn said that in any given week, you can find very similar stories which fit certain categories and give you a picture of what is happening in the world.

He went more in depth and discussed the lack of cultural confidence that is prevalent in Europe and how that weakness is being exploited by radical Muslims. After a few more points, he took some questions. One question was something to the effect that he may pooh-pooh global warming, but does he see any value in alternate energies and the sort. He answered that global warming is a joke and he doesn't see how bankrupting the world's economies is going to make much of a difference except to kill many people in the third world who are relying on the developed world for survival. As for individual environmentalism, he doesn't see how "Hillary turning off the light to Bill's intern's room" makes a difference. However, he is very much in favor of destroying the oil industry and finding a new energy resource to make us no longer reliant on other countries. However, Steyn feels that ethanol and most of the current fads aren't going to be that solution.

I don't recall all of his speech, but suffice it to say, it was very enjoyable and he is definitely as entertaining of a speaker as he is a writer.

Next week, John Stossel is in town. I might just have to go to that...

John Stossel (best known for his work as correspondent on ABC's 20/20) has a great article about how foolish the plan to raise the minimum wage really is. If only Bush and the Republicans would have some guts and stand up to the Dems...unfortunately, that would be political suicide on this issue, so they will just go along with it. If right and truth are ever going to win in this country, we have to start with the hearts and minds of the people, and that means framing the debate. Or for that matter, having any debate would be nice. Most liberals and Democrats avoid debate like the plague.