The False Charge of Racism Against Republicans and TEA Partiers

In response to a post at the Liberal Blog Balloon Juice calling the Republicans and TEA Partiers "modern Negrophobists" because of our nearly universal collective yawn at President Obama's proposals of more of the same failed economic stimulus policies, and his new "Give'em Hell, Barry" Demeanor (a la President Truman), Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection put up a post in his "Saturday Night Card Game" series about the use of the race card for political gain that "The Negrophobia Card is played"

Ironghost, one of the commentators posted the following comment:

Until Republicans get out of the country clubs and into Black Communities and educate them about how Republicans really are, the race card will continue to work. All thoughts otherwise are cute dreams, but hopeless in the face of reality.

I posted most of the following commentary at Legal Insurrection, but it's important enough that I discuss it here as well:

Many of us are working in the Black and Low Income Communities, and that is why in large part this consistent race baiting on the part of Liberals and Main Stream Media Commentators against everything "anti-Obama" is failing to stick to those it is hurled against. Almost every week, I end up with someone different saying to me “I always thought Republicans only supported the wealthy and powerful. I didn’t think that a Republican would act the way you do; would support the ‘little guy;’ would nurture personal freedom, liberty and individual rights; etc....”

Now, I don’t correct them that I’m actually a Conservative, but the point is still the same.

Many of us are making inroads into the Communities that for years have been the bastions of Statism, in large part because Republicans abandoned them as part of the “welfare state” and everyone assumed that the votes of these communities could simply be “bought” by modern Liberal-Statist pandering.

Some examples from my family:

• My father sits on the board of the Rescue Mission of Syracuse, New York, and that organization has been making significant inroads into the homeless communities and low income populations, helping them to learn skills necessary to get jobs and lift themselves from hunger, homelessness and poverty.
• My mother picks up and delivers food for Caz Cares (the local food bank), in the town where my parents live.
• I volunteer teaching life skills to the Black Community, especially youth, in El Paso through a program run by a Black Church for at risk youth. Because I have backgrounds in Manufacturing & Finance as well as a Law Degree, I am able to teach about financial planning, budgeting, debt reduction, job interviewing, technical skills, and a whole host of other topics which are crucial to 15 to 21 year-old individuals to try to get them a chance at becoming financially self-sufficient.

It’s these sort of inroads to the Black and Low Income Communities which are rapidly eroding support for modern Liberalism (Statism). More and more, those communities recognize that the Liberals and the Democrat party have utterly failed them by simply throwing money at them, thereby creating dependence, without actually teaching the people of these communities how to lift themselves up.

When Republicans and Conservatives show up to help, while it is harder and we challenge the people we’re helping, at the end of the day the people find that they’re self sufficient, and no longer need help (or need a vastly reduced amount of it for only a limited period).

The minute you empower someone to break the chains of dependency (either upon the government or someone else) and further empower them with the abilities to support themselves they will flee from that dependency as far and as fast as they can. Somewhere deep down, there is an inherent pride that all individuals cherish in being able to say “I AM able to support myself; I CAN earn things on my own.”

Fleeing From Utopia...

I hope that this blog will largely be about forgotten little quirks of the law and oddities that I have found. I expect that it will also become a commentary upon how a law system once easily enough understood by the common man has become a behemoth requiring you to consult someone with a 3 year post-college degree to engage in even the most routine transaction. However, I will likely touch on politics often enough that the reader should know where I stand.

The modern Conservative believes in the interconnection of free markets, private property, religion, tradition, authority, representative government, separation of powers, natural rights and ordered liberty. He is responsible for seeing to his own well being, the well being of his family and as a citizen to contribute to the well being of the community through volunteerism and good works. These concepts, developed through the human experience, promote The Civil Society.

The modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state (nation), as opposed to the classical Liberal who opposed authoritarian regimes in favor of personal freedom. Thus the modern Liberal is more appropriately now named the modern Statist. To the modern Statist, the imperfection of the individual and the allowance of personal pursuits via liberty impede the creation of the Utopian state.

The Statist's Utopia can and has taken many forms throughout history but all have the same flaw: that the Statist misuses the concept of equality.

The Founding Fathers (and by extension, the modern Conservative) understood equality to be the natural right of every individual to live freely under self-government, to acquire and retain the property he creates through his own labor and the leverage of his individual property, and to be treated impartially before a just law.

The Statist uses the claim of creating 'equality' to pursue uniform economic and social outcomes at the expense of self-government, individual property rights and individual liberty. Further, he believes that he can tame man's natural state of imperfection and through man's perfection can Utopia be achieved.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. (C.S. Lewis). The Statist attempts to deconstruct The Civil Society and instead offers the tyranny of authoritarianism. They talk of individual rights, but promote collectivism. They talk of enfranchisement and suffrage, but promote judicial and administrative usurpation of the representative state. They talk of workers' rights but promote the heavy taxation and regulation of labor. This is not liberty.

The Statist portrays Utopia as a kind of heaven on earth, but has a high tolerance for the widespread hell of Statist-caused misery, believing it is the price humanity must pay to pave the way for Utopia, or believing that Statist caused misery is due to misapplication of Utopian ideals, poor performance of a particular regime or nefarious doings of perceived "enemies of the state."

The modern Conservative recognizes that equality is the equal opportunity before God, man and the law of the individual to prove unequal talent. He also recognizes the double meaning from the Greek that Utopia is both the good place and no place, for it does not exist. Nevertheless, the modern Conservative finds himself Fleeing From Utopia.

[Some concepts and language borrowed from Mark Levin's essays contained in Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. 2009]