Virginia Libertarian

Townhall.com::The End of Affirmative Action::By Mike S. Adams

[T]he discussion of affirmative action should by no means focus on the bad results it produces for white males like me. The real tragedy is its negative impact on the groups it purports to help. The effect is one I describe with a phrase called the “Reverse Roger Bannister Effect.”When Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, a whole class of people — not a race but those who run them — realized for the first time that a seemingly insurmountable goal could be achieved. So, naturally, others started breaking the four-minute barrier left and right just as soon as the bar of achievement was raised by Bannister.

That is precisely the opposite of what is happening with affirmative action. By lowering the bar and (in the short-term) making things easier for minorities, we guarantee persistent gaps in achievement. President Bush calls this the “soft bigotry” of low expectations. I prefer to call it the “hard reality” of low expectations.

Affirmative action is also an embarrassment for minorities who do not need or want to be measured by a lower standard. A black female student I taught in 1993 summed it up best by saying that although she had been admitted to college on the basis of outstanding grades and test scores, no one believed her. Whites just assumed she was there because of affirmative action. Once a class of people is given credit for something its members did not achieve, individuals in that class forfeit credit for the things they actually did.

[...]

[M]aybe widespread lying is the best solution to the problem of affirmative action. If [everyone] would wake up one day and decide to start checking the box for “African American” on every form, our affirmative action programs would break down altogether. Then maybe we could replace “race consciousness” with the colorblindness Martin Luther King envisioned.

This brings out more on the unintended consequences of good intentions. Now I’m sure that the people that wrote the AA laws had all the good intentions in the world, but they simply don’t think these things through. This also goes back to the improper use of legislation. You simply can’t anticipate how seemingly good laws will end up being used, thus it is best not to make them in the first place if you don’t have to. This is an example of a situation that really didn’t need legislation, as society would have taken care of the issue itself. Let’s take for instance a company, X, that refuses to hire green-skinned aliens. If the view in society is that green-skinned aliens should have as much right to a job as anyone else, then people would protest, usually by not buying the product that company X sells, or by not working at company X. This is going to put company X in financial trouble, and they will either have to revise their practices, or they will go out of business. If the dominant view in society is that green-skinned aliens really shouldn’t have a fair shake at getting jobs, do you really think that any laws that are written are going to change that view? The people holding that view will continue to have it, and will find other means of discriminating against green-skinned aliens. If you mandate that X% of your employees must be green-skinned aliens, then company X will hire exactly that many, and will find ways to remove from them any and all responsibility, just chalking up their salary to the expenses required to do business. Government is not going to be able to change society’s view on green-skinned aliens, that is still going to be up to the green-skinned aliens to do.

M. Davis: “Formidable” Florida Libertarians Thwart Eminent Domain

“It’s stealth legislation. When government begins to usurp the rights of property owners, then we no longer live in a free society,” said Kim Snow, a Libertarian candidate for State House District 47 in Hillsborough, who received 30% of the vote and led local efforts in Tampa.Now that the eminent domain-expanding bill is dead, stopping such attempts in the future has become a primary goal for activists such as Augustinowicz.

“Our state legislature tried unsuccessfully to slip this by the people,” he said, noting that no one noticed the potential dangers of the legislation until it was almost too late do take action.

“Make no mistake: This bill will be disguised and be back before our legislature again in the near future.”

Ok, so this begs the question, why do you keep putting these people back in office?  If someone was duplicitous enough to vote for or sponsor a bill like this, shouldn’t that clue you in as to what kind of representative they are, and get rid of them?

What organized labor wants, at a glance – Yahoo! News
By The Associated Press Mon Nov 13, 5:31 PM ET

Some legislative measures that are priorities for organized labor after the elections put Democrats in power in Congress:
MINIMUM WAGE: A federal minimum wage bill not attached to any legislation that complicates its passage.
President Bush has indicated he could support such a measure if certain benefits are given to small businesses.

They want to raise the floor, creating an entry barrier into low-skilled positions that would keep non-union employees from being able to obtain a job, thus protecting union employees from competition in the US labor market.

NEGOTIATION OF MEDICARE DRUG PRICES: A measure that would allow the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription drug prices.

This is not necessarily a bad thing to allow negotiations, but the entire Medicare program itself is a bad thing, and that needs to be addressed, not how government is allowed to negotiate.

EXPANSION OF HEALTH CARE: Expand Medicare and child insurance programs to provide coverage to more people, getting closer to providing health coverage for all who need it.

The way to do this is to allow insurance companies to provide a variety of health care plans instead of requiring them to provide minimum services to everyone.  There are some people that aren’t interested in certain forms of health care coverage that are forced to buy it due to government regulations requiring that health care plans provide certain types of coverage.  An example would be maternity care.  Not everyone needs to be covered for maternity health care, so why should everyone be forced into buying it?  My theory is that this may have come about from collusion between the health insurance industry and the government, with the insurance industry pushing the government to have required coverage to jack up their prices.  If most people end up not using maternity care, but everyone pays for it, the insurance industry makes lots of money from it.

PENSION PROTECTION: Provide more protection for the pension system, including defined benefit pensions, which are increasingly being replaced by 401k plans.

You want retirement protection?  Make your own retirement plan.  Don’t rely on anyone else to provide for your retirement.

TOUGHER TRADE AGREEMENTS: Push for opposition to trade agreements that don’t provide tough labor protections.

This is basically the foreign version of the minimum wage, designed to protect union employees from being replaced by foreign workers.

EASIER TO ORGANIZE: Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which allows for formation of a union if a majority of workers want to form one and increased penalties for employer violations.

Read: A means to force Wal-Mart into accepting union employees with no way of firing them.

REDUCE JOB OUTSOURCING: A change in the tax code to reduce job outsourcing.

More job protection, basically expanding upon the trade agreement above to protect union jobs from foreign workers

MINE SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS: Improvements in mining safety requirements, including increased oxygen supplies, better communications equipment and more thorough testing.

So the union basically wants to have a job that they don’t have to compete for (minimum wage and tougher trade agreements), and that they can’t be fired from (EASIER TO ORGANIZE).  That would just about make everyone happy right?  Oh, wait, I forgot, that’s how things are done in France, and look at how screwed up their labor market is.