Political Chat

Discussion
1

Hi Everyone,

I want to know if anyone is going to the Political
Chat tonight. If so, a topic I would like to suggest
for discussion would be Prop. 54.

Voting yes on Prop. 54, from my understanding, would
eliminate government institutions from collecting
racial and ethnic data on people, which is currently
done by those boxes at the end of most forms we are
asked to fill out. People in favor of such collection
of information are urging people to vote No on prop.
54, allowing this to continue.

People who want this collection of data by government
institutions to end, and be illegal, want people to
vote Yes on prop. 54, which will make it illegal.

This sounds pretty straight-forward to me, and an easy
decision to vote on, however, we do live in the
Alice-in-Wonderland times that we live in now.

Who would think we would come to a time when many
people would be in favor of supporting a government
database collecting names of people and classifying
them by their race or ethnicity? If one just looks at
the track record of government's oppression of people
throughout history, why would one be in favor of so
easily allowing those who are, or who could be in a
position of power, to have access to such a thing?

Being a public school teacher, and a student at a
university, so many people I meet are in favor of
keeping the collection of racial data in place. Many,
many students are walking around with buttons that say
to vote non on 54, keeping racial data collecton in
place. Those who I've heard speaking claim it's for
tracking health-related issues, and making sure
"People of Color" and "minorities" are having their
needs met. How can we, as Libertarians, convince
people that this is not a good idea without coming
across as being uncompassionate to the health and
"equity" of 'People of Color?'

People claim that this is an attack on "People of
Color" (voting yes on 54). They want government
institutions to continue to collect racial and ethnic
data on POC, and they claim that those who are against
this (Voting yes on 54), are against "progress" made
in making sure the needs of POC are met.

Met by who? The government? Again, this is truely
amazing to me that I would see so many people,
especially non-white people, wanting to continue such
collection of such personal information on them, by
people and institutions that they don't even know.

How do we convince people that this is wrong, without
sounding that we aren't against "non-white" people
making progress? This is similar with other issues we
have to debate on without sounding uncompassionate,
such as the environment, "universal" health care,
living wage laws, etc. etc....

I hope people will continue the political Chats, even
though I can't make them anymore. Tonight I start my
first class on how to be a Principal of our government
schools. I wish I could share some of the material we
are asked to read (for this class) with all of you.
The last essay I had to read in preparation for my
class tonight was against free-market solutions to
public schooling. None of the arguments in this essay
pointed to why they were against free-market
principles, but just mentioned over and over the word
"social justice" and a "lack of equity," throughout
the entire essay. It's incredible.

Dave Barker.

2

Can't make it. Moving on Saturday and packing this week.

Sounds like a good topic though. It's weird how many "progressives" balked at
government plans to catalog the names and HIV status of all gay men to help
those with AIDS. It was government offering a redistribution of wealth from
taxpayers to people stricken with a disease. That's certainly "progressive",
isn't it? Well, everybody saw right through it and knew that Jesse Helms or
John Ashcroft with a list of HIV positive gay men was a very dangerous thing.
Now, though, faced with a similar wealth redistribution scheme based on race,
they say that privacy means nothing, and government would never do something
sinister with that information. Odd, isn't it?

3

Dave,

  One way to address the issues raised by Prop. 54 is to focus on people who are multiracial. Why should such individuals be forced by government into denying part of their heritage by being stuck in a single box?

  The fact that it is folks of mixed heritage whose existence is being marginalized is no coincidence. The racial demagogues in society don't want people to intermingle. They don't want people to have mixed allegiances — they want everyone to be one color, and one color only. Note, in this context, the term "La Raza" used by a number of leftist hispanics — it means "the race" — as if all other ethnicities are irrelevant. Of course the advocates of maintaining racial divisions can't achieve this in reality, but they will go to great lengths to have government maintain the fiction. It helps perpetuate racism when people are either/or rather than neither/both.

  I'm also glad to see you put the term "people of color" in quotes. This is a subtly racist term that I often actively discourage people from using. It attempts to divide the world into two groups of people, those of loosely European ancestry and everyone else, implying that the former group is colorless, or lacks color, and trying to symbolically unite everyone else against them.

  Ward Connerly is extremely good at clarifying and articulating these issues. People wanting more arguments against Prop. 54 might do well to look up him or his group (I believe it's called the American Civil Rights Coalition.)

Yours in liberty,
              <<< Starchild >>>

4

Thanks for the reply, Starchild, but why are so many
people wanting these racial categorizatons to
continue? I don't think that every college student
wearing a No on 54 button wants people to be divided
by Race (even though that's what they are supporting).
Why are so many people buying the racial preference
trend, and how can we, as libertarians, get our point
across without being accused of being racist or
uncompassionate?

Also, I think you meant 'in favor of' instead of
"against" in your comment below, and I will check his
website out. Thanks!

Dave Barker

--- Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:

  Ward Connerly is extremely good at clarifying and
articulating these
issues. People wanting more arguments against Prop.
54 might do well to
look up him or his group (I believe it's called the
American Civil
Rights Coalition.)

Yours in liberty,
              <<< Starchild >>>

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I want to know if anyone is going to the Political
> Chat tonight. If so, a topic I would like to
suggest
> for discussion would be Prop. 54.
>
> Voting yes on Prop. 54, from my understanding,
would
> eliminate government institutions from collecting
> racial and ethnic data on people, which is
currently
> done by those boxes at the end of most forms we
are
> asked to fill out. People in favor of such
collection
> of information are urging people to vote No on
prop.
> 54, allowing this to continue.
>
> People who want this collection of data by
government
> institutions to end, and be illegal, want people
to
> vote Yes on prop. 54, which will make it illegal.
>
> This sounds pretty straight-forward to me, and an
easy
> decision to vote on, however, we do live in the
> Alice-in-Wonderland times that we live in now.
>
> Who would think we would come to a time when many
> people would be in favor of supporting a
government
> database collecting names of people and
classifying
> them by their race or ethnicity? If one just looks
at
> the track record of government's oppression of
people
> throughout history, why would one be in favor of
so
> easily allowing those who are, or who could be in
a
> position of power, to have access to such a thing?
>
> Being a public school teacher, and a student at a
> university, so many people I meet are in favor of
> keeping the collection of racial data in place.
Many,
> many students are walking around with buttons that
say
> to vote non on 54, keeping racial data collecton
in
> place. Those who I've heard speaking claim it's
for
> tracking health-related issues, and making sure
> "People of Color" and "minorities" are having
their
> needs met. How can we, as Libertarians, convince
> people that this is not a good idea without coming
> across as being uncompassionate to the health and
> "equity" of 'People of Color?'
>
> People claim that this is an attack on "People of
> Color" (voting yes on 54). They want government
> institutions to continue to collect racial and
ethnic
> data on POC, and they claim that those who are
against
> this (Voting yes on 54), are against "progress"
made
> in making sure the needs of POC are met.
>
> Met by who? The government? Again, this is truely
> amazing to me that I would see so many people,
> especially non-white people, wanting to continue
such
> collection of such personal information on them,
by
> people and institutions that they don't even know.
>
> How do we convince people that this is wrong,
without
> sounding that we aren't against "non-white" people
> making progress? This is similar with other issues
we
> have to debate on without sounding
uncompassionate,
> such as the environment, "universal" health care,
> living wage laws, etc. etc....
>
> I hope people will continue the political Chats,
even
> though I can't make them anymore. Tonight I start
my
> first class on how to be a Principal of our
government
> schools. I wish I could share some of the material
we
> are asked to read (for this class) with all of
you.
> The last essay I had to read in preparation for my
> class tonight was against free-market solutions to
> public schooling. None of the arguments in this
essay
> pointed to why they were against free-market
> principles, but just mentioned over and over the
word
> "social justice" and a "lack of equity,"
throughout
> the entire essay. It's incredible.
>
> Dave Barker.
>
> =====
> "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while
the legislature is
> in session."
> Nineteenth century jurist
>
> "A little rebellion is a good thing now and then."
> Thomas Jefferson
>
> "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust
laws."
> Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ---------------------~-->
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Epson, Canon or Lexmark
> Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or
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http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/69cplB/TM

5

Dave,

  You're right, I did mean "in favor of." Thanks for catching that.

  It's a delicate balance to do it without reinforcing racism, but I think libertarians have to play the race card ourselves: Make it clear who the racists are. Make these people feel guilty for forcing multi-ethnic people to choose one part of their heritage over another. Make them feel guilty for spreading hate against people of European descent. Make it clear that we do not agree with their PC religion, and we reject the "original sin" they want to lay on anyone who is "white," "straight," male, non-disabled, etc.

  We need to remind those susceptible to PC ideology of the history that this ideology tries to erase — the universality of slavery before modern times, the enslavement of Africans by other Africans, the bloody culture of the Mayans and other pre-Columbian societies, etc. Remind them that it was Europeans, and people in capitalist-leaning societies who led the drive to abolish slavery worldwide, and who have given us the institution of representative democracy, and tried to legally establish respect for each and every individual in society regardless of race.

Yours in liberty,
              <<< Starchild >>>

6

Dear Everyone;

What is Ward Connerly attempting to achieve with his various " color -blind " initiatives? Is Connerly trying to force people to be color-blind by removing racial diversity issues in hiring and admissions? If this is his goal he is going against in-grained human nature which for the better part is hard-wired into the human psyche.

This is the human psychological factor that " I am better than you ". People will internally assign a status to an individual or a group of people based on that persons interpretive
understanding of the other persons social class or standing. In India this has been carried to the point of the caste system. In other countries around the world it's known as racism in one form or another.

This is not only limited to one class of people over another but inside classes of people. People within a class system will consider a person better or worse than another inside their class based on both internal class culture and external class culture.

Ward Connerly will never get people to stop classifying people based on " color-blind " laws. He can get laws to be " color-blind " but he will never get the people to see " color-blind ". This is Connerly's and his supporters greatest failure in their attempts to get people to see "color-blind ". They can't change human nature.

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian

Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:
Dave,

You're right, I did mean "in favor of." Thanks for catching that.

It's a delicate balance to do it without reinforcing racism, but I
think libertarians have to play the race card ourselves: Make it clear
who the racists are. Make these people feel guilty for forcing
multi-ethnic people to choose one part of their heritage over another.
Make them feel guilty for spreading hate against people of European
descent. Make it clear that we do not agree with their PC religion, and
we reject the "original sin" they want to lay on anyone who is "white,"
"straight," male, non-disabled, etc.

We need to remind those susceptible to PC ideology of the history that
this ideology tries to erase � the universality of slavery before
modern times, the enslavement of Africans by other Africans, the bloody
culture of the Mayans and other pre-Columbian societies, etc. Remind
them that it was Europeans, and people in capitalist-leaning societies
who led the drive to abolish slavery worldwide, and who have given us
the institution of representative democracy, and tried to legally
establish respect for each and every individual in society regardless
of race.

Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>

7

I think that's the main point. One cannot legislate human nature or
thought, which is precisely what the affirmative action folks have
been trying to do for decades. It's just not possible to do that.
So, we might as well make sure government treats people equally, and
just wait a few generations for all the bigots to die off.

- -----Original Message-----

8

Dear friends:

I am glad (ecstatic in fact,) that this issue is being addressed. I am one of those "multi-racial" persons mentioned in these discussions, so perhaps my point of view would be of value. I was born in the GREAT city of Berkeley of multi-racial parents. The neighbourhood that I grew up on was a truly multi-cultural environment. We had many different representatives of Europe, Africa, Asia, as well as other American-born families that were multi-racial. Additionally, my parents gave me no indoctrination into any ideas of how I was supposed to inter-act, who to associate with, or labels of any kind. In fact, my parents racial make-up was rarely discussed. Henceforth, the identity that I am extremely happy to possess is my own. And one of my prevailing missions in life is to refute and challenge any and all attempts by others to force me to accept any label. When I am asked the irrelevant (and offensively annoying) question of "what are you?" my response after asking a rebuttal question
of "why do you need this information?" is to respond with, I am the same race as you; human. The specifics are rarely divulged as I resent the question on principle, and feel strongly that it is irrelevant. Although, if given a choice, I would prefer to be asked rather than have a race arbitrarily assigned, which is frequently done. This infuriates me to say the least, and WILL be challenged every time.
It was not until several years ago, that I finally realised that my child-hood experience was unique to say the least. However, growing up in 1970's Berkeley was a great thing, and one of the many things I learned was individualism (militantly sometimes,") and not letting people force their ideologies upon you. Even though I do not now reside in Berkeley, I do attend school there, am constantly there, and love the city very much.

I confess, that I was unaware of the specifics of Proposition 54, and I am still confused about the implications of such. I will say, that when asked on a form to declare a race, I check the other block and put Human on the line. If there is no such option, I write-in "none-of-the-above." I found that by ignoring it altogether, someone will arbitrarily decide for you. In conclusion, I feel that all of this energy and time spent wondering what race someone is is ludicrous and an extreme waste of time. Now I vacate my soap-box.
(At least for now, that is.)

Leilani

Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:
Dave,

One way to address the issues raised by Prop. 54 is to focus on people
who are multiracial. Why should such individuals be forced by
government into denying part of their heritage by being stuck in a
single box?

The fact that it is folks of mixed heritage whose existence is being
marginalized is no coincidence. The racial demagogues in society don't
want people to intermingle. They don't want people to have mixed
allegiances � they want everyone to be one color, and one color only.
Note, in this context, the term "La Raza" used by a number of leftist
hispanics � it means "the race" � as if all other ethnicities are
irrelevant. Of course the advocates of maintaining racial divisions
can't achieve this in reality, but they will go to great lengths to
have government maintain the fiction. It helps perpetuate racism when
people are either/or rather than neither/both.

I'm also glad to see you put the term "people of color" in quotes.
This is a subtly racist term that I often actively discourage people
from using. It attempts to divide the world into two groups of people,
those of loosely European ancestry and everyone else, implying that the
former group is colorless, or lacks color, and trying to symbolically
unite everyone else against them.

Ward Connerly is extremely good at clarifying and articulating these
issues. People wanting more arguments against Prop. 54 might do well to
look up him or his group (I believe it's called the American Civil
Rights Coalition.)

Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>

9

Dear Sarosh:
I appreciate the kind words. Part of the difficulty however, is that I do not fully understand what Yes or No signifies. With my very tight schedule it would be extremely difficult to do such a thing, but if I was convinced that it was a useful time expenditure, I would consider it. Someone, please tell me the Pro's and Con's of this issue.
Many thanks,
Leilani

Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:
Dave,

One way to address the issues raised by Prop. 54 is to focus on people
who are multiracial. Why should such individuals be forced by
government into denying part of their heritage by being stuck in a
single box?

The fact that it is folks of mixed heritage whose existence is being
marginalized is no coincidence. The racial demagogues in society don't
want people to intermingle. They don't want people to have mixed
allegiances � they want everyone to be one color, and one color only.
Note, in this context, the term "La Raza" used by a number of leftist
hispanics � it means "the race" � as if all other ethnicities are
irrelevant. Of course the advocates of maintaining racial divisions
can't achieve this in reality, but they will go to great lengths to
have government maintain the fiction. It helps perpetuate racism when
people are either/or rather than neither/both.

I'm also glad to see you put the term "people of color" in quotes.
This is a subtly racist term that I often actively discourage people
from using. It attempts to divide the world into two groups of people,
those of loosely European ancestry and everyone else, implying that the
former group is colorless, or lacks color, and trying to symbolically
unite everyone else against them.

Ward Connerly is extremely good at clarifying and articulating these
issues. People wanting more arguments against Prop. 54 might do well to
look up him or his group (I believe it's called the American Civil
Rights Coalition.)

Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>

10

The *one* argument against Prop. 54 that I can almost buy is this:

Government discriminates. Cops disproportionately pull over drivers of color, white schools get more funding, etc. If we don't have statistics on the race of people being pulled over, then we can't effectively fight government discrimination. [Note that health disparity is explicitly covered under Prop. 54.]

However, there are two problems with this argument. One is that, most of the time that statistics are being collected now, it's due to a consent decree with the federal Department of Justice; Prop. 54 explicitly exempts such actions (and couldn't really do otherwise, as a proposed state law). The other is that there's nothing preventing *private* citizens from collecting this data; drivers could be surveyed about their experience getting pulled over, correlated with their race, and school populations could be demographically analyzed by parents or other interested parties.

~Chris

11

Chris,

  Excellent points... I concur.

              <<< Starchild >>>