Posted on 04/14/2009 12:10:33 PM PDT by mnehring
"Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage—the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors."- Ayn Rand
The Department of Homeland Security has, as been the case time and time again, chosen to lump the 'Right' with radical racist groups such as the Klan. It has become almost standard in political lexicon to associate 'Radical Right Wing' with racist organizations, but what is the truth and how did the two become lumped together?
The Left and Right Divide
Before exploring this, it is important to understand and define specifically what is associated with the Left/Right divide that is often referred. While many people have created all sorts of complex graphs and charts, the line can simply be defined as the rate of collectivism versus individualism. If you imagine a line, in the political spectrum, the further Left you move, you increase society's collectivism, the further Right, the increase in individualism. Mainstream political thought generally falls into a small bubble in the middle, with the extreme Left being totalitarian communistic collectivism while the extreme Right could represent complete anti-State anarchy. What we as Conservatives generally define as 'extreme Right' in our political experience generally is a pure Constitutional, strong Tenth Amendment supported anti-Statist society. It, in no way resembles anarchy because most on the Right acknowledge the need for a rule of law to protect the basic freedoms of the individual.
The extreme Left, however, has an interesting history. In all collectivist societies, there is always the case of the collector and the collected- in most cases, this involves property or productivity, but it also is represents the collectivism of individual liberty. Extreme totalitarian, Communist societies involved a very small controlling class attempting to control all aspects of society, redistributing all production, regulating religion, belief, even speech. In most of these cases, what defined the collector was usually a ruling class definition, but more often than not, there where racial overtones as said classes almost always represented a specific group of people and subjected other groups. The individual was completely crushed within the system and what he could or couldn't achieve was always defined by the controlling class and what they deemed ideal.
For those in the Western political Right, the concept of collectivism is the antithesis of our beliefs, and as Ayn Rand stated, "racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism." The fundamental principle of the philosophy of the Right is the power and freedom of the individual to achieve in a free society. The concept of any 'group' supremacy is not compatible with the individualistic nature of the Right. Your ability to succeed is based on your individual drive, not by who your ancestors may or may not have been nor trivial things like the melatonin content within your skin.
Those who Define
Why is it then, with this basic concept that few would argue with, that the Right has been associated with racist groups and ideology?
First and foremost, it is pure marketing of the Left. In order for any collectivist to have power, there must be those who do the collecting and those who are collected from. To create these groups, the Left has successfully created hundreds of categorical boxes within our society and has succeeded in making most people feel as though their place is in one of these boxes. If you are XX race, you belong in this box, if you are YY, you belong in this box. The Left then goes to each group and says "see the folks over in that box, your box isn't achieving because of that box"… and so on… the cycle continues until all of the boxes blame each other for their own lack of achievement, and of course, then look to the ultimate collectivist, the government, to 'set things right'. The collectivist has no intention of actually solving the problems of any boxed group, all they care about is continuing to make sure each group remains in its own box, always looking at the other boxes as blame and to the collectivist as the solution.
Of course, what this has resulted in, is that all of the boxes each look at the collectivist as the one who is speaking to their box, to the one promising their box something. What they don't see is why they are subjected to the limitations of the box in the first place.
For the Right to speak to the 'boxes' like this is to acknowledge that the limitations of the box exist. It is then to become what the Left is, collectivists who assign limitations on individuals based on their 'box'. When the Right speaks, it isn't to box A or box B, it is to each individual. Of course, this is spun by the Left to mean that, because the Right isn't speaking to your personal box, they don't care about, or they actually oppose what your box represents. The Left also takes individual issues, such as the Right to Bear Arms, where there may be some agreements and ties the two groups together. What they will never acknowledge is that the collectivist desire for the freedom to bear arms is not about the defense of individual liberty, but in the desire to have the 'right people' armed for some sort of control. The Right believes all individuals have this right, the Left, the Collectivist, fights for their own right, but does not want this right for all.
The Brass Tacks
With all this being said, let's put it out on the table. Racism is Collectivism. It is restricting the individual's rights to the subject of what the collectivist deems worthy or in their interest. Racism and individual liberty do not mesh in the least. The Right wholeheartedly rejects the concept of racism in practice and in philosophy. Wherever you find institutionalized racism, you find the collectivist flexing his muscles.
I, for one, am sick and tired of the collectivist Left defining the Right by their own philosophy. It is time we call them out. It is time we point out how their collectivist attitude is at the core of racism and how it is the Radical Left, not the Right, which believes in and supports institutionalized racism.
"There is only one antidote for racism: the philosophy of individualism and its politico-economic corollary, capitalism." - Ayn Rand
Racist, sexist, homophobe, Nazi, etc., etc., etc. It’s all straight out of the leftist playbook. Villify anybody who dares to disagree with you.
I’m half black. It was the Democrats who were originally in favor of slavery and who voted against the civil rights legislation of the 60s.
I have discussed with my roommate who is black also, how for the left, it is about mind controlling the black community into thinking that they have to be dependent on programs and government to have success in life. I told her about how democrats voted to BLOCK D.C. residents who are pooorer from attending better schools. i told her about how the welfare state is set up to make sure that those who are on it stay there and stay dependent. the black family before the 60s was much more intact than it is today.
and of course i had to show her how abortion is effecting our communities. why is it that abortion clinics are always in black areas?
she voted for obama but agrees with me; after thinking about it more, she is almost more vocal than me in the speaking out against the amount of government spending, and socialism that is coming our way.
Her definition of “racism” is perhaps one of the best ever. Still it has little to do with today and reality. Reality being the left can continue to define whites as evil unless they are subservient leftists and say for example blacks as worthy recipients of largesse, and no one challenges the existance of “race” when they do so. If you were serious about the absolute equality of humanity then you and other Randists would shout from the mountain tops there is no such thing as “race” then it would be problem over. But no one even bothers to ask a question of the Left where they could explain the necessity of programs based on something that in their words never exists.
I shout that quite often actually, it is just a human construct made to divide people. The fact is, there is far more differences genetically between individuals than those few things we use to define ‘race’.
You do but day after day the charade continues where race is used as a club primarily against whites, but in general against decency. FTR I could care less about Poltical Correctness, but if some wish to believe that genetics and physical reality mean nothing they are just wishful fools who partake of the left’s hatemongering tendencies.
FTR Obama’s first book dwelt on “race” there is plenty of “human construct” in that to make somebody a nice career showing what a hypocrite the man is when it comes to race.
Racism is used as a club against everyone. Even those who pander to groups using race, are using the racist club against those they claim to stand for, keeping them proverbially and literally, enslaved to the collectivist. Racism is used to divide as well as control.
Everyone must love the club then because for the life of me all I ever see is people using the club of “racist” to browbeat others, and they never define it and worse no one ever asks for a definition, they just take their beating.
I am with you 100%. The most racist and extreme pukes I have ever come across have all been left-wing nutcases.
That's questionable to say the least. Would Rand have had a problem with displacing hunter-gatherers to establish an individualist, property-based order?
Wouldn’t the ‘hunter-gatherers’ be freely choosing that lifestyle? Wouldn’t displacing them be an act of collectivism in itself? Wouldn’t, in a completely free society, an individual have the opportunity to choose this path if he wants, to live in the gulch so to speak?
All true. But I suspect Rand would have been on the side of people who would dispossess them.
Ayn Rand on the American Indian:
"They didn’t have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their ‘right’ to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent." - Address to West Point, 1974
Obviously, the vast majority of us are here now because the Indians were pushed aside. So it's a very tricky question, but if you yake a very long view of things Ayn Rand may not be so libertarian as you might think.
I disagree with her on that one (and abortion, and some military issues, and God).. Most weren’t as primitive as she implies, nor, do I believe, that their personal decisions and/or growth negate their right to the lands they lived on. What happened is what it is though, many freely traded or treatied away lands, many where conquered, but lack of advancement doesn’t mean lack of fundamental rights.
BTW, I certainly don’t think Rand was Libertarian, she despised them.
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