Rad Geek People's Daily

official state media for a secessionist republic of one

Posts tagged David Bernstein

In a freed market, with no government anti-discrimination laws, what will stop bigoted business owners from resegregating America?

A. We will.

Context-Keeping and Community Organizing. Cato Unbound (2010-06-18):

David Bernstein makes the strongest libertarian case I can imagine for Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His key point—which I fully embrace—is that the Southern states operated the equivalent of a "white supremacist cartel" in public accommodations....

But as Sheldon ultimately argues, there's more than one way to break a cartel, and starting out with the notion that the *only* options are one kind of federal law or another kind of federal law, is simply to beg the question. We can't dismiss [direct action by nonviolent social movements] as impractical because it had been working several years before Title II was enacted. ... Title II, in other words, was unnecessary. But worse, it was detrimental.... [W]hat is given like a gift can be more easily taken away, while what one secures for oneself by facing down power is less easily lost. ... The libertarian answer to bigotry is community organizing.

Anticopyright. All pages written 1996–2026 by Rad Geek. Feel free to reprint if you like it. This machine kills intellectual monopolists.