The Shotgun Blog
« Blogger: Stephen Harper like an abusive spouse | Main | Risky Business »
Monday, September 08, 2008
Lemieux: The puzzle of official discrimination
The law prohibits many forms of discrimination. At the same time, the law allows or even promotes discrimination against some groups. Is this a puzzle? And, if it is, how do we resolve it?
This week, Pierre Lemieux tackles the puzzle of official discrimination. He asks the following question:
"Why is it that some minorities — religious extremists, Aboriginals, established companies, homosexuals, old or sick people, environmentalists — are consistently favoured by the state, while others — redneck types, gun owners, smokers, drug users, unconventional entrepreneurs — are constantly discriminated against by laws, regulations, and subsidies?"
Starting from an analysis of government anchored in public choice economics, Lemieux theorizes that the minorities government tends to favor fall into two groups.
First, there are minorities who are willing to use violence to get their way. He includes Aboriginals and certain religious extremists in this group. These are minorities the state has some reason to fear -- not because the state is in any particular danger from them, but because violent encounters between police and Aboriginal protesters make bad headlines (to take an example.)
Second, there are minorities who can be counted on to give the state their obedience in exchange for favorable treatment. This includes sick people, environmentalists, and similar groups. These groups may even appear to criticize the state, but only because it is not doing enough to further their particular agendas. In the end, the goals of minorities in this group are identical to the goal of the state: the increase of the latter's power.
In between are non-threatening minorities and those with an independent streak that makes them unwilling to trade obsequiousness for the state's table scraps. This includes gun owners, smokers, and peaceful drug users. Because these minorities are unwilling to play along, the state treats them harshly, by "de-normalizing" them and exposing them to intense propaganda campaigns.
I find Lemieux's hypothesis extremely interesting, but I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment and try to resolve his puzzle in a different way.
Let us take anti-smoking laws as an example. It's true that these laws make life more difficult for smokers, especially in the winter. Those who favor such laws acknowledge this fact, but claim their desire is to reduce the harmful impact of smoking. The same goes for those who push for stricter gun control laws.
(That those who advocate for these kinds of laws are probably wrong on the empirical facts regarding the harm of second-hand smoke and the benefits of gun control is beside the point; I'm just trying to be charitable about their motives.)
Harm is an ambiguous concept. But surely there is something to the old-fashioned liberal idea that the state has a legitimate role to play in preventing some people from inflicting harm on others. The law can and should discriminate against behavior that inflicts harm on others.
On the other hand, the discrimination the law prohibits -- racial discrimination, for example -- does not really involve harmful behavior at all. Rather, these laws express the idea that as long as people are not harming others, they ought to be treated equally in certain respects. Anti-discrimination law also acknowledges the tremendous, if indirect harm, inflicted on those who face constant discrimination based on harmless traits not within their power to change.
Certainly, Lemieux is right that the violent tendencies of religious extremists have cowed some people and produced results that favor those extremists over the rest of us. But much of the discrimination he discusses can be explained through the notion of harm and the law's role in preventing that harm.
Read Lemieux's column here.
Posted by Terrence Watson on September 8, 2008 | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200e554ee6b9b8833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Lemieux: The puzzle of official discrimination:
Comments
Excellent post. It reminds me of this quote:
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. – Ayn Rand
Posted by: TM | 2008-09-08 10:12:50 AM
"Anti-discrimination law also acknowledges the tremendous, if indirect harm, inflicted on those who face constant discrimination based on harmless traits not within their power to change."
What about the tremendous and direct harm faced by the host community, a loss of freedom and democratic rights? Apparently, that has no value.
Posted by: DJ | 2008-09-08 10:25:25 AM
DJ,
Just asking, but is the freedom to discriminate against black people that important to you?
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-09-08 10:33:38 AM
Terrence,
Is freedom important to you? Is the democratic process important to you? Apparently not. If not then stop masquerading as a libertarian.
Posted by: DJ | 2008-09-08 10:40:04 AM
DJ,
Certain kinds of freedom are very important to me. The freedom to discriminate against black people -- not so much.
Some kinds of freedom are more important to me than others because, in my view, they're linked to the development of uniquely human capacities. That is, I don't just take it as a given that freedom is valuable: if it is valuable, it is so because of its connection to other things that make life worth living.
So no, freedom to discriminate against black people isn't linked to my idea of what makes up a good life. Why do you think it is so important?
Terrence
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-09-08 12:09:02 PM
Do you live in a black neighbourhood Terence? Probably not. Most racial egalitarians don't. They just play the white hypocrite game. Like Clinton, Bush or McCain.
"John is white. He is married with two children. He wears a blue collar when he leaves his shabby, inner-city house to go to work. Life has been a struggle for John, but now he faces his most difficult challenge. John's neighborhood is turning black.
In John's city, neighborhoods do not integrate, they go black. He has seen it happen elsewhere. He knows what to expect. John and his family will soon face intolerable hardships. They will have to move. Inevitably the last whites able to leave, will. High among their reasons will be fear -- fear of becoming victims of violent crime. As his neighborhood turns black, John and his family will notice many changes, but none will be more dreaded than the prospect of being violently victimized."
How would John's neighbourhood fair if a covenant that ran with the property title excluded the sale of homes to blacks?
Why does Israel's immigration policy discriminate against non-Jews? What harm could possibly come from an Israeli non-discriminatory immigration policy?
Why do Japanese bath houses post Japanese only signs? What harm might those burly, drunken Russian sailors do?
The point is that your founding premise, "discrimination based on harmless traits" is false. That's why it's so important. The CHRCs were founded to guard against these "excesses". The freedoms of Canadians were destroyed because of the assault on the freedom to exclude.
Posted by: DJ | 2008-09-08 1:27:53 PM
DJ,
Just asking, but is the freedom to discriminate against black people that important to you?
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 8-Sep-08 10:33:38 AM
I'm curious Terrence...How do you get that DJ is discriminatory against blacks? I don't see anything on this thread to indicate that. Was it from other posts somewhere?
JC
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-08 2:22:08 PM
PS I know and get along with a few black people just fine....they're the only ones I actually know. But while living and working in New Jersey I was escorted..."escorted" out of black neighborhoods by black policemen, for my own safety. Its a crime thing, I think, more than a race thing.
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-08 2:24:30 PM
DJ's posts suggest that he harbours an unhealthy hatred for Jews and people of colour. What I call unhealthy is when a person harbours a profound and consistent hatred for all people belonging to the group without exceptions. One cannot ignore that not only white people are victims of obsessive hatred, since examples abound with individuals from all colours and groups.
Nonetheless he does raise in my opinion a valid point concerning the double standard in Canada. Why do we treat as vile and even criminal white Canadians who want to form a white only association, club or group while we accept this from "visible minorities" and Natives? Why is a club restricted to white males treated the same way, while a women only club is accepted? This confirms that we do accept discrimination as long as it is not practised by whites and in particular white males.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-09-08 2:32:45 PM
JC,
Some of it was from other threads, yeah (some of which I believe have been removed.) But if someone is objecting to anti-discrimination law because it infringes on his freedom, I feel the need to ask: ok, what freedom are you losing? And why is that freedom in particular so important to you?
Having the freedom to exclude violent or unruly people from (say) staying in one's hotel is important. Freedom to exclude black people, just because they are black, does not seem like a kind of freedom worth having.
But I could be wrong. And if I am, I'd like to know why: what's so important about being able to discriminate in this way? At the same time, I'm too much of a conservative to accept the answer, "Because that's just what I want to do."
Surely we can justify our freedoms on firmer ground than that! Freedom of speech, association, and the like are all linked to the development of valuable human capacities, the kind that make life worth living. Freedom to reflexively exclude people based solely on their skin color seems linked to somewhat darker, more primitive impulses.
I don't expect every libertarian to agree with this, and I do recognize that anti-discrimination law interferes with private property rights. But if property rights come in a bundle, this particular stick may be one worth giving up.
Best,
Terrence
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-09-08 2:49:32 PM
Freedom to exclude black people, just because they are black, does not seem like a kind of freedom worth having.
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 8-Sep-08 2:49:32 PM
Absolutely agreed.
"Freedom to reflexively exclude people based solely on their skin color seems linked to somewhat darker, more primitive impulses."
Yes it does.
Being aware of the the fact that I choose to enter an area that is ethnically one sided and crime ridden, that I may be in danger from "those people" (whatever their color) does not qualify me as racist. It does allude to street awareness though and they are not the same thing.
Alain makes a good point also when he says that any and everyone except white males are tolerated when behaving in a racist fashion. (not a direct quote) I am deeply offended by this situation. However I put the blame squarely where it belongs...on our own governmental policies, court system and HRC's, and not on visible minorities. Racial intolerance is ok as long as you aren't white...then its a crime. And that's just an observation of the obvious.
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-08 3:05:09 PM
I may not have been clear...
I am deeply offended by "policy" not people.
All people have some prejudices, not all are racist. Racism is actually a disease.
(in my opinion)
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-08 3:09:28 PM
Alain is Jewish, so he always defaults to Derbyshire's rule.
"Anything a non-Jews writes about Jews will be found by some one somewhere to be anti-Semitic."
"Douglas Leiterman (Jewish?) and Patrick Watson, producers of "This Hour Has Seven Days", send Norman Depoe to interview American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, in October 1964, broadcast the nonsense on prime time TV and then wonder why the Association of Holocaust Survivors go screaming to the Board of Broadcast Governors. And then three months later they send Larry Zolf to interview a Rockwell follower, David Stanley, who is handing out pamphlets on a street corner in Toronto. Then of course the then Minister of Justice, Guy Favreau, announces the establishment of a Committee on Hate Propaganda, headed up by, surprise, surprise, Max Cohen, a law professor at McGill(?) and Saul Hayes of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Special committee guest was Pierre Elliot Trudeau."
Posted by: DJ | 22-Dec-07 9:38:40 PM
John West - thank you for the reply to DJ's. He is obsessed with us Jews, nevertheless to remove his right to free speech would not be acceptable either.
Posted by: Alain | 23-Dec-07 12:50:40 AM
The execrable reason we have hate speech laws today
By Ezra Levant on September 1, 2008 12:00 AM |
"I've written before about how in the 1960s the Canadian Jewish Congress spent its donors' money building up the "Canadian Nazi Party" as a straw man for them to later bravely knock down, with cameras rolling. It all made no sense if the CJC's goal was to make the country safer for Jews; it made a lot of sense if the CJC's goal was to usher in powerful new censorship laws for its own use, and to write dramatic fundraising letters -- in other words, to perpetuate the symbiosis between themselves as "victims" and fake Nazis as "victimizers".
I recently came across this 1965 video clip in the CBC's archives, from the old show This Hour has Seven Days. It doesn't involve the CJC fabricating a Nazi threat. It involves the CBC fabricating a Nazi threat. It was one of the strangest things I've ever seen."
Basically, nine months earlier I wrote the same thing as Levant did September 1, 2008. The only difference is that one evokes cries, (from a Jew) of Jew-hater, the other cries of "freedom fighter".
Funny how it works that way.
Posted by: DJ | 2008-09-08 3:17:45 PM
"Freedom to reflexively exclude people based solely on their skin color seems linked to somewhat darker, more primitive impulses."
Yes, like survival, which is virtuous.
At least it's clear the libertarian guise is a ruse and Terence is little more than an agent of the Leviathan.
Posted by: DJ | 2008-09-08 3:26:09 PM
JC, I also agree with you and indeed the reason for the present mess is due to our leftists, or what I call the collectivists. The Left loves to accuse the Right of being racist, but it is the Left that insists on identifying people by colour, ethnicity, sex, sexual preference and religion. Many leftists seem to be obsessed with self-hatred/hatred for their own colour and heritage.
DJ, I did not use the term anti-Semitic purposely, nor have I ever suggested that only Jews can criticise individual Jews. I do find it interesting that not only on the present topic but just about any other topic, I can count on you to blame the Jews. That is a major difference. Try identifying the individuals or even their organisation (as the CJC) when criticising their actions and behaviour and drop the group identification thing. The same applies to non whites, women and others.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-09-08 3:59:42 PM
I wonder if anyone could get away with starting the a magazine called "Cloud"? You know, to deal with issues sensitive to white people? And maybe a Miss "White" America contest? Or an all white University?
I don't take any of these suggestions seriously, but you must see the obvious contradictions in policy here right?
Posted by: JC | 2008-09-08 4:45:08 PM
JC,
I'm sure a magazine like that could be published in the United States -- IF you could find a publishing company willing to do it. But such companies would be reasonably worried about people boycotting their other publications.
Also, you'd have to find a distributer. It'd be a mess, but I don't think the law in the U.S. would prohibit it.
In Canada, on the other hand, who knows..?
You're right: there is an inconsistency here, and it runs deep. I admire what U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts had to say about discrimination:
"The way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race."
Best,
Terrence
Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2008-09-08 4:49:43 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.