It completely undermines it. Even from the standpoint of our being a much less racist nation now than in the 1960s, and how perhaps our laws should now take that into consideration, the civil rightists still instinctively oppose such. They fundamentally reject both property rights and the right of free association, for both principled and strategic reasons.
It completely undermines it. Even from the standpoint of our being a much less racist nation now than in the 1960s, and how perhaps our laws should now take that into consideration, the civil rightists still instinctively oppose such. They fundamentally reject both property rights and the right of free association, for both principled and strategic reasons.
Even if all the so-called "civil rightists" are completely and eternally implacable (which seems implausible), they can be ignored as long as a critical mass of intellectuals convert to the more libertarian position.
Even I'm not that pessimistic. But the fact remains that the vast majority of present-day occidental intellectuals are in the camp of the Civil Rights Movement. They are ideologically and strategically opposed to the freedom to discriminate, and see property rights as an obstacle to equitable distribution of resources.
One look at the Masterpiece Cakeshop fiasco should be enough to illustrate this. It was fairly narrow grounds: Jack Phillips was fine with selling any of his off-the-rack goods to Craig and Mullins, but would not make them a wedding cake as he personally opposes same-sex marriage. Though Phillips ultimately won his case 7-2 at the SC, he was immediately trolled with another suit by a transexual asking for a gender-confirmation cake, which is still being hashed out in court to this day:
Needless to say, Phillips not only received zero help from any mainstream civil rights organizations, but saw active celebration from both the ACLU and the NAACP on how the narrowness of the ruling won't impact laws disallowing discrimination in public accomodations. This is the world you claim is more amiable to the right to discriminate than the support of hereditarianism? Where even the freedom to express oneself in pastry is no longer trusted by the left-of-center? Assuming that world ever existed, it's been dead for some time.
>… the vast majority of present-day occidental intellectuals are in the camp of the Civil Rights Movement.
True, but libertarianism appears to be growing at an impressive rate. Not many decades ago it was a virtually unknown ideology.
>They are ideologically and strategically opposed to the freedom to discriminate, and see property rights as an obstacle to equitable distribution of resources.
Agreed.
>One look at the Masterpiece Cakeshop fiasco should be enough to illustrate this. … This is the world you claim is more amiable to the right to discriminate than the support of hereditarianism? Where even the freedom to express oneself in pastry is no longer trusted by the left-of-center? Assuming that world ever existed, it's been dead for some time.
The two theses can be expressed rather differently:
1. Everyone is entitled to freedom of association concerning their person and legitimate property.
2. Non-white people are on average intellectually inferior and bound to fill more of the lowly roles in society.
Many intellectuals might initially agree with the first proposition even if they backtrack once the full implications are spelt out. The second proposition is liable to provoke extreme animosity immediately. I certainly see no reason to keep quiet about the nature and desirability of liberty and instead insist on only banging the hereditarian drum (as appears to be Cofnas’s approach). That is quite perverse from the viewpoint of effective propaganda. I also see only abeyance where you see death.
In some ways, your push for liberty has similar flaws as the push to accept Sowell's cultural explanation for racial differences. It may be easier to get a person to accept the position, but it is not as coherent a position. If we accept that everyone is the same but the environment/discrimination is what causes the differences, then you are saying that people who gained extra by being in an unjust system should be allowed to keep their ill gotten gains to the detriment of those they oppressed because of liberty? Such is not a long term acceptable answer.
Liberty concerning some public action that impacts others only makes sense after the action is determined to be morally good or neutral towards others. No one will ever agree that someone should have the liberty to do an action that is morally bad towards others. It seems that you are claiming that you can make a liberty argument to those who think such actions are morally evil.
That is one significant reason that it’s important. But it doesn’t answer the given question. Wokeists are liable to either fail to see the truth or feel that it’s a “noble lie” to deny the truth.
And why would they be any less likely to do this for the freedom to discriminate? The whole point of the Civil Rights Movement was to abolish the right of people to discriminate!
That was the entire purpose of the lunch-counter sitins by the SNCC. It was never exclusively confined to protests against government-sponsored segregation, like with the Montgomery bus boycott. Woolworth's and Walgreens were, still are, private companies, and they were the main target of the sitins. Just short of zero of the protestors against them cared about such distinction, and people are even less likely to care now.
Their views are not beyond the influence of argument. They need to understand that discriminating with one’s person and property promotes both liberty and welfare for all. It is not the work of a moment, but long-term ideological change. “Thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft, And wit depends on dilatory time.” https://jclester.substack.com/p/discrimination-a-libertarian-viewpoint?utm_source=publication-search
You're literally just making the same arguments Goldwater made in '64, where he proceeded to lose to Johnson, 61 to 39. And his position is even less popular today:
Again, keep in mind, I'm with you. The Civil Rights Act of '64 has been deeply damaging to human freedom. But to support the freedom of private discrimination is itself to relitigate the entire Civil Rights Movement, which has basically been our national religion for at least two generations. It's preposterous to think you'll have any easier of a time than I will with my crusade, especially since you're primarily appealing to philosophical values, whereas I'm appealing to facts. People can change their values, but they can't change facts. They can only ignore them, but that doesn't make them go away.
>You're literally just making the same arguments Goldwater made in '64, where he proceeded to lose to Johnson, 61 to 39. And his position is even less popular today…
The relevant philosophical theory of libertarianism didn’t exist when Goldwater was alive. And he was trying to win the immediate popular vote in an election rather than influence the long-term philosophical ideology of dominant intellectuals.
>… to support the freedom of private discrimination is itself to relitigate the entire Civil Rights Movement, ...
A philosophical debate is not to “relitigate” anything. Politics has little to do with it.
>It's preposterous to think you'll have any easier of a time than I will with my crusade,
This is an inverted sense of the “preposterous”. Again, consider the two approaches:
1. A philosophical exposition and defence of liberty for all. Hereditarianism can be discussed, but only if relevant issues arise with a particular critic.
2. An exposition of why non-white people are intellectually inferior to the complete exclusion of any discussion of the nature and value of liberty: two unforced faults in propaganda.
>especially since you're primarily appealing to philosophical values,
The appeal is primarily to what are the facts (although disputable and not empirical) about what liberty is and what it implies. Only after that are values relevant. These are not “philosophical values” but philosophically explained and defended values. There are several, including liberty, human welfare, and tolerance.
>whereas I'm appealing to facts.
This is only partially appealing to facts as facts, for those facts have also to be valued. And some people will need to be argued into that.
>People can change their values,
People cannot change their values by choice. As with all beliefs, including the subset that is what we believe is valuable, we simply find what they are by introspection.
> but they can't change facts. They can only ignore them, but that doesn't make them go away.
The epistemological approach to facts and values, and science and philosophy, is the same. We can only conjecture and criticise. At best, we have only a currently critically-preferred conjecture.
Libertarianism is absolutely NOT growing, at an impressive rate nor otherwise. Back in '16, they got an unprecedented three-and-a-quarter percent of the popular vote, and fewer Electoral College votes than a woman named "Faith Spotted Eagle". They got barely a third of that in 2020, and will do even less well in '24 now that the Mises Caucus has stripmined the party into a fascist vanguard. Nor is there any sort of libertarian air among the candidates who mattered, as both Harris and Trump rank among the least-libertarian candidates in presidential history, and their VP picks are even less libertarian than they themselves.
This is too narrow in terms of time, space, and overall influence. Libertarianism was virtually unknown about sixty years ago. Now there is a cornucopia of libertarian institutes in the US alone and, just to choose one general example, 382 libertarian meetup groups worldwide (there are only 215 conservative and 25 socialist ones).
All of this is completely insignificant next to the constant political defeats suffered by the philosophy and its practitioners. The fact that there are so many different meetup groups relative to conservative or even sociqlist ones is also hardly a boon. If anything, it illustrates the political weakness of the whole movement that they can have this many meetups and still not win any elections, nor advance their views successfully within the major parties. It makes their plethora look more a matter of just not beibg able to consolidate, assuming these are even real numbers you're gicen me, as you're completely wrong about libertarianism being almost unknown sixty years ago, given that by 1957, Atlas Shrugged was a bestselling novel, and Rand was already famous and bestselling long before then.
Not to mention the afformentioned libertarian candidacy of Goldwater in the '64 election, who bombed horribly and was replaced by the most unprincipled and cynical of moderates who literally sold out a U.N. Security Council seat to lawless Communist insurrectionists, and thus also legitimizing their illegal nuclear weapons program. Said moderate won, healthily, twice over, and the prospects for libertarians have remained dire ever since.
At one time advocacy for the abolition of slavery, equality for women, stopping persecuting homosexuals, etc., also suffered “constant political defeats”. But the movements kept growing and eventually they won (unfortunately, they then overshot due to apparent overcorrection and the relevant groups are now positively privileged). Yes, of course, the libertarian movement is still politically weak (although Javier Milei is worth noting). Argument takes a lot of time. Politically active people are far more impatient than political ideologues.
Insofar as they followed Ayn Rand, people were not libertarians (according to Rand herself). The word “libertarian” was usually met with a blank stare before Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (and that was even in politics and philosophy departments).
With Rand, it was mainly a matter of branding disagreement, seeing as hiw she was a cult leader, and wanted people to follow herself rather than her ideas.
Her cult followers ("Randroids" as they were, and are, known by critics) accepted her branding and wouldn't mention libertarianism to other people. They were, and are, "Objectivists".
It completely undermines it. Even from the standpoint of our being a much less racist nation now than in the 1960s, and how perhaps our laws should now take that into consideration, the civil rightists still instinctively oppose such. They fundamentally reject both property rights and the right of free association, for both principled and strategic reasons.
Even if all the so-called "civil rightists" are completely and eternally implacable (which seems implausible), they can be ignored as long as a critical mass of intellectuals convert to the more libertarian position.
Even I'm not that pessimistic. But the fact remains that the vast majority of present-day occidental intellectuals are in the camp of the Civil Rights Movement. They are ideologically and strategically opposed to the freedom to discriminate, and see property rights as an obstacle to equitable distribution of resources.
One look at the Masterpiece Cakeshop fiasco should be enough to illustrate this. It was fairly narrow grounds: Jack Phillips was fine with selling any of his off-the-rack goods to Craig and Mullins, but would not make them a wedding cake as he personally opposes same-sex marriage. Though Phillips ultimately won his case 7-2 at the SC, he was immediately trolled with another suit by a transexual asking for a gender-confirmation cake, which is still being hashed out in court to this day:
https://www.deseret.com/faith/2023/10/25/23930090/christian-baker-jack-phillips-masterpiece-cakeshop-where-is-he-now/
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/06/18/colorado-transgender-cake-lawsuit-jack-phillips/
Needless to say, Phillips not only received zero help from any mainstream civil rights organizations, but saw active celebration from both the ACLU and the NAACP on how the narrowness of the ruling won't impact laws disallowing discrimination in public accomodations. This is the world you claim is more amiable to the right to discriminate than the support of hereditarianism? Where even the freedom to express oneself in pastry is no longer trusted by the left-of-center? Assuming that world ever existed, it's been dead for some time.
>… the vast majority of present-day occidental intellectuals are in the camp of the Civil Rights Movement.
True, but libertarianism appears to be growing at an impressive rate. Not many decades ago it was a virtually unknown ideology.
>They are ideologically and strategically opposed to the freedom to discriminate, and see property rights as an obstacle to equitable distribution of resources.
Agreed.
>One look at the Masterpiece Cakeshop fiasco should be enough to illustrate this. … This is the world you claim is more amiable to the right to discriminate than the support of hereditarianism? Where even the freedom to express oneself in pastry is no longer trusted by the left-of-center? Assuming that world ever existed, it's been dead for some time.
The two theses can be expressed rather differently:
1. Everyone is entitled to freedom of association concerning their person and legitimate property.
2. Non-white people are on average intellectually inferior and bound to fill more of the lowly roles in society.
Many intellectuals might initially agree with the first proposition even if they backtrack once the full implications are spelt out. The second proposition is liable to provoke extreme animosity immediately. I certainly see no reason to keep quiet about the nature and desirability of liberty and instead insist on only banging the hereditarian drum (as appears to be Cofnas’s approach). That is quite perverse from the viewpoint of effective propaganda. I also see only abeyance where you see death.
In any case, if intellectuals are dogmatically opposed to ending anti-discrimination laws, then why would they more readily accept hereditarianism?
In some ways, your push for liberty has similar flaws as the push to accept Sowell's cultural explanation for racial differences. It may be easier to get a person to accept the position, but it is not as coherent a position. If we accept that everyone is the same but the environment/discrimination is what causes the differences, then you are saying that people who gained extra by being in an unjust system should be allowed to keep their ill gotten gains to the detriment of those they oppressed because of liberty? Such is not a long term acceptable answer.
To put liberty first is not to exclude hereditarianism. While to put hereditarianism first to the exclusion of liberty seems to be a double error.
Liberty concerning some public action that impacts others only makes sense after the action is determined to be morally good or neutral towards others. No one will ever agree that someone should have the liberty to do an action that is morally bad towards others. It seems that you are claiming that you can make a liberty argument to those who think such actions are morally evil.
Liberty is morally neutral towards others. That is what people need to understand. Yes, moral opinions can be changed. https://jclester.substack.com/p/act-omission-doctrine?utm_source=publication-search
Because hereditarianism is true, regardless of whether or not anybody accepts it. That's the be-all, end-all of why it's important.
That is one significant reason that it’s important. But it doesn’t answer the given question. Wokeists are liable to either fail to see the truth or feel that it’s a “noble lie” to deny the truth.
And why would they be any less likely to do this for the freedom to discriminate? The whole point of the Civil Rights Movement was to abolish the right of people to discriminate!
That was the entire purpose of the lunch-counter sitins by the SNCC. It was never exclusively confined to protests against government-sponsored segregation, like with the Montgomery bus boycott. Woolworth's and Walgreens were, still are, private companies, and they were the main target of the sitins. Just short of zero of the protestors against them cared about such distinction, and people are even less likely to care now.
Their views are not beyond the influence of argument. They need to understand that discriminating with one’s person and property promotes both liberty and welfare for all. It is not the work of a moment, but long-term ideological change. “Thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft, And wit depends on dilatory time.” https://jclester.substack.com/p/discrimination-a-libertarian-viewpoint?utm_source=publication-search
You're literally just making the same arguments Goldwater made in '64, where he proceeded to lose to Johnson, 61 to 39. And his position is even less popular today:
https://www.nytimes.com/1964/06/19/archives/text-of-goldwater-speech-on-rights.html
Again, keep in mind, I'm with you. The Civil Rights Act of '64 has been deeply damaging to human freedom. But to support the freedom of private discrimination is itself to relitigate the entire Civil Rights Movement, which has basically been our national religion for at least two generations. It's preposterous to think you'll have any easier of a time than I will with my crusade, especially since you're primarily appealing to philosophical values, whereas I'm appealing to facts. People can change their values, but they can't change facts. They can only ignore them, but that doesn't make them go away.
>You're literally just making the same arguments Goldwater made in '64, where he proceeded to lose to Johnson, 61 to 39. And his position is even less popular today…
The relevant philosophical theory of libertarianism didn’t exist when Goldwater was alive. And he was trying to win the immediate popular vote in an election rather than influence the long-term philosophical ideology of dominant intellectuals.
>… to support the freedom of private discrimination is itself to relitigate the entire Civil Rights Movement, ...
A philosophical debate is not to “relitigate” anything. Politics has little to do with it.
>It's preposterous to think you'll have any easier of a time than I will with my crusade,
This is an inverted sense of the “preposterous”. Again, consider the two approaches:
1. A philosophical exposition and defence of liberty for all. Hereditarianism can be discussed, but only if relevant issues arise with a particular critic.
2. An exposition of why non-white people are intellectually inferior to the complete exclusion of any discussion of the nature and value of liberty: two unforced faults in propaganda.
>especially since you're primarily appealing to philosophical values,
The appeal is primarily to what are the facts (although disputable and not empirical) about what liberty is and what it implies. Only after that are values relevant. These are not “philosophical values” but philosophically explained and defended values. There are several, including liberty, human welfare, and tolerance.
>whereas I'm appealing to facts.
This is only partially appealing to facts as facts, for those facts have also to be valued. And some people will need to be argued into that.
>People can change their values,
People cannot change their values by choice. As with all beliefs, including the subset that is what we believe is valuable, we simply find what they are by introspection.
> but they can't change facts. They can only ignore them, but that doesn't make them go away.
The epistemological approach to facts and values, and science and philosophy, is the same. We can only conjecture and criticise. At best, we have only a currently critically-preferred conjecture.
Libertarianism is absolutely NOT growing, at an impressive rate nor otherwise. Back in '16, they got an unprecedented three-and-a-quarter percent of the popular vote, and fewer Electoral College votes than a woman named "Faith Spotted Eagle". They got barely a third of that in 2020, and will do even less well in '24 now that the Mises Caucus has stripmined the party into a fascist vanguard. Nor is there any sort of libertarian air among the candidates who mattered, as both Harris and Trump rank among the least-libertarian candidates in presidential history, and their VP picks are even less libertarian than they themselves.
This is too narrow in terms of time, space, and overall influence. Libertarianism was virtually unknown about sixty years ago. Now there is a cornucopia of libertarian institutes in the US alone and, just to choose one general example, 382 libertarian meetup groups worldwide (there are only 215 conservative and 25 socialist ones).
All of this is completely insignificant next to the constant political defeats suffered by the philosophy and its practitioners. The fact that there are so many different meetup groups relative to conservative or even sociqlist ones is also hardly a boon. If anything, it illustrates the political weakness of the whole movement that they can have this many meetups and still not win any elections, nor advance their views successfully within the major parties. It makes their plethora look more a matter of just not beibg able to consolidate, assuming these are even real numbers you're gicen me, as you're completely wrong about libertarianism being almost unknown sixty years ago, given that by 1957, Atlas Shrugged was a bestselling novel, and Rand was already famous and bestselling long before then.
Not to mention the afformentioned libertarian candidacy of Goldwater in the '64 election, who bombed horribly and was replaced by the most unprincipled and cynical of moderates who literally sold out a U.N. Security Council seat to lawless Communist insurrectionists, and thus also legitimizing their illegal nuclear weapons program. Said moderate won, healthily, twice over, and the prospects for libertarians have remained dire ever since.
At one time advocacy for the abolition of slavery, equality for women, stopping persecuting homosexuals, etc., also suffered “constant political defeats”. But the movements kept growing and eventually they won (unfortunately, they then overshot due to apparent overcorrection and the relevant groups are now positively privileged). Yes, of course, the libertarian movement is still politically weak (although Javier Milei is worth noting). Argument takes a lot of time. Politically active people are far more impatient than political ideologues.
Insofar as they followed Ayn Rand, people were not libertarians (according to Rand herself). The word “libertarian” was usually met with a blank stare before Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (and that was even in politics and philosophy departments).
With Rand, it was mainly a matter of branding disagreement, seeing as hiw she was a cult leader, and wanted people to follow herself rather than her ideas.
Her cult followers ("Randroids" as they were, and are, known by critics) accepted her branding and wouldn't mention libertarianism to other people. They were, and are, "Objectivists".