What If We Could Talk About Anything

You don't have to completely agree with someone to have a sensible political conversation without lobbing insults and pitchforks. The following is a message thread between a Libertarian fellow and then myself. Out of respect I will not be including names or personal information.

"The standard Libertarian answer to Affirmative Action is that the market will straighten out racial discrimination. A company who hires the best workers regardless of race will be more economically successful than one that ignores a large portion of potential workers. This effect was very apparent in professional sports. Once the first black athletes were introduced to the pro leagues there was a much faster integration than in other areas of society because teams that recruited the best athletes without regard to color were more successful than teams that discriminated. All white teams couldn't compete with mixed race teams and they integrated relatively quickly. Even then, the few teams that were forced to integrate against their will were not forced by the government, but by contracts with their owners. By 1970 the NFL was almost 40% black without government intervention. So that is a good example of "affirmative action" driven by the market and not by the government.

Schools, public transportation, and other government programs are different. Those aren't affected by the free-market and the segregation there was government mandated to begin with so laws had to be changed to allow equality in those areas. Private businesses are still another issue. Restaurants that didn't allow "coloreds" had to accept the fact that they were ignoring part of their market and therefore intentionally hurting their own profits and I personally feel that a private business should be free to refuse service to anyone for any reason. I was in Mobile Alabama last week and there is a restaurant there that has what they call "white Wednesdays" and that is the only time whites are welcome in the establishment. They advertise this on their front window and I'm ok with it. I think it's extremely racist to not allow whites to eat there the rest of the week, but I firmly believe that they have every right to do that. The free market is inherently colorblind, it is the government that perpetrated the crimes of slavery and discriminatory "Jim Crow laws" for decades and I don't see more government intervention as a good solution."

Leaflet's response:

"I don't think that a free market could straighten out anything on the subject of race or sex conscious considerations and this is why: Affirmative action is required by law only where discrimination has already been historically proven. There is also suggestion that a business couldn't reach their potential if they openly discriminate current and potential employees - mainstream evidence against that is the overcasting success of Walmart, which has had some of the largest group discrimination lawsuits in the states. Surely people wouldn't stop going to Walmart if they heard of all the lawsuits they incurred, right? Hrm, as it turns out average people would rather eat their Monsanto hot dogs and apple pie than "inconvenience" themselves.

 In the same light, the portrayal of who exactly affirmative action effects is misconstrued; there seems to be a focus that blacks are the ones who gain the most advantage. Who benefits from affirmative action the most? White women. Seriously. And when you think about it and the incessant wage arguments that have been out in the open for years now, it's not very debatable in the job market.

Although we can agree that the progression of Sports in accepting racial integration was overall beneficial, it was still at its core enacted by the endeavor to profit. Bribery isn't exactly acceptance.

Of course no one liked the Jim Crow laws- but the black codes pre-existent to Jim Crow legislation were freely exercised by private businesses in the south. Had business owners even allowed blacks they might make a lesser profit because whites would no longer want to go there. Jim crow laws weren't a federal intervention, either - they were laws passed in the south by southern legislators after the civil war to perpetuate slavery by forced labor and other restrictions. 

I find it relevant also that we no longer have them because, well they're illegal now. Even though the south required you by law to segregate, the north did not - and the north did it anyway until civil rights laws were passed. A familiar example is Brown vs Board of education, which was held in Topeka, Kansas. Fighting government involvement now for reasons because of the way it existed soon after the 1860's would say that government is a solitary immutable object, when it should rather be defined as an ever-changing entity led by people we have the ability to vote out.

Just saying, yo."