“Equal access” versus “individual freedom”
Zach’s claim that blacks still vote for Democrats “because many Republicans won’t even support the simple justice of laws guaranteeing equal access to public accommodations” is the purest form of nonsense, of course. There is zero chance that Republicans would take away equal access even if they completely controlled all three branches of the Federal government. Anyone who actually listened to Republicans and their candidates would know this.
The claim that Republicans threaten these rights, used as a strawman as Zach uses it here, is extraordinarily weak. However, it is exactly the kind of lie the Left would tell to blacks to persuade them to vote against Republicans. To the extent such lies are believed, Zach is right that they could cause blacks to vote for Democrats.
But in the real world, not the lying world of the Leftist propaganda, even advocating such a position would be political suicide. The Republican party has done some dumb things, but it is not that stupid. We in the Bookwormroom are not so constrained, however. The topic is actually quite an interesting one, so let me get the ball rolling and see where it goes.
My Grandfather was an FDR/George Wallace Democrat and an unapologetic racist. He was fond of saying,”If I’m a barber and I don’t want to cut red hair, why should the damn government have the right to tell me I must?” He felt that to the extent the government forced him to cut red hair against his will it was taking away his freedom. At some level that sounds reasonable. But it becomes a bit of a problem for redheads if Granddad is the only barber in town. It’s a far more difficult problem if we are talking about the only doctor in town. And it is an unbearable problem if all the medical schools in the country are private and all of them require all students to take an oath not to treat red haired patients. Eventually, I came in my own mind to accept that some groups should be protected, even at the cost of the denial of a bit of the freedom Granddad so cherished. At that point, the issue turned to which groups should be protected. Now, of course, there is a huge list of protected groups — race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc. Red heads haven’t made the list yet, but I suspect a refusal to cut nappy hair might cause a problem.
Still, I always come back to Granddad’s question. It is not a matter of “simple justice” as Zach suggests. It is a matter of a violation of one person’s rights to serve a greater societal good. It seems to me that we ought to at least acknowledge the violation exists and weigh the violation against the good in deciding how much freedom to violate. It is easy (for me, anyway) to say that doctors should not be able to discriminate based on race. It is a lot harder to justify, say, forcing members of a private club to open their doors and associate with groups of people they do not wish to associate with, when nothing more than the association is at stake.
So, what trade-offs are appropriate? Unrestrained by the need to be elected, what do you folks in the Bookwormroom think the rules should be? And what do you think the political realities are? Finally, returning to the original question, assuming I’m right that there is zero chance that Republicans will ever take away equal access (am I right about that?) how do we overcome the Leftist lies, get that message out, and persuade blacks to vote for Republicans?
