Systemically forced segregation is wrong, but so is systemically forced integration ...

To use a non-racial example, saying that women must use separate fitness facilities as men is just as wrong as saying that women must use the same fitness facilities as men; and there is nothing wrong with a chain of fitness facilities existing that exclusively caters to the needs of women, while having other facilities that choose to target both men and women. The only time anyone ever questions this is when someone would choose to make a gym that exclusively caters to men; and depending on the reason for this segregation people would have varying levels of disapproval, for example segregating because you wanted to focus on the specific approaches that work best for men would result in far less disapproval than segregating because you thought women should be doing more womanly things.

Now, for legislation to be fair it has to treat all groups equally; and therefore legislation to eliminate segregation and to force integration also eliminates reasonable segregation. To put this in the context of my gender based example, this means that Curves and Spa-Lady (and any women only gym, or any gym with a women’s only area) would be forced to allow men to join their gym.


This isn’t to say that a libertarian would approve of all cases of segregation; but that they would tend to see the appropriate way to deal with this segregation was to put social pressure on a business to integrate, or to boycott the business on principle, not to legislate against it. By dealing with it socially rather than legally it allows it to be dealt with on a case by case basis, and for the status to reflect the prevailing views of the community. If (for example) the Ginger Club of America formed and denied access to people of various visible minorities because they were not "Ginger" society on the whole can decide whether that is an appropriate discriminatory policy far better than the legal system can.

The thing is that this is crazy.  The fact that we work to eliminate racial segregation doesn't mean that we should logically also work to eliminate men's and women's toilets.  Dealing with it on a case by case basis as you might say. 

And dealing with racial segregation socially ... didn't work.  Or, rather, the way it worked was the South, 1880-1950.  Now the innermost quoted post by you will say that this is simply a sad consequence of the correct position to take (government noninterference) but the idea that the problem would just go away on its own (once Jim Crow laws were gone) is pure fantasy.  Without the law against them the South may well have held out indefinitely. 

To put it another way, I'm looking at your final sentence.  If I'm not mistaken, racist clubs are allowed to exist, but businesses are treated differently since they are supposed to be open to the public.  American society on the whole decided racism was inappropriate, but Southern society came to a different answer, which they stuck to until American society as a whole used the law to force them to stop it. 

The "seized the oppurtunity to free the slaves" part.  He didn't do it because he wanted to save the slaves.  He did it beacuse it was a political gambit that forced the British and French to withhold support from the south.  By reframing the Civil War about slavery he kept foreign support out of the war.

Lincoln didn't give a damn about the slaves, thought they were inferior, and planned to send them all back to Africa.

Okay, so then the tea party goes from being frighteningly white to merely a little whiter than society as a whole. Which, again, is not surprising since (1) blacks overwhelmingly support Obama and (2) whites bear more of the tax burden and thus will be more keen to reel in government spending.

And I'm not sure why you care or what it has to do with anything, but yes, I have.

1. After that poll you showed and ones I linked I realize now that I need to see it when it's a tea party candidate against another candidate to really get a better picture of how the nation sees itself.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1 so Obama got 95% out of the total population of blacks that make up 13% and about 2/3 of hispanics and asians that combine for 11% of the population .  He got 43% out of the 74% of whites and McCain got 55% which means the majority of Obamas votes still came from whites .  Even when it's "frighteningly" black, asian, hispanic etc they are still a minority so in the crowds it just looks like a multicultural crowd and there's not a frighteningly high number of anything really.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Particularly the bolded part.

2.  Whites bear more of the tax burden because once again they make up the majority.  When hispanics or whatever group becomes the majority they will bear the brunt of the taxes.  And taxes doesn't really have anything to do with race anyway it's income and class.

I agree that it is more a function of income than race, but my point was that since whites tend to make more - and the tea party is comprised of of people who are somewhat richer and better educated than the average person - it's natural that the tea party should be whiter than society at large.

3.  I asked because I was curious who you voted for and why.

K, kewl.

4.  In a earlier post I said we have to wait and see but I thought that tea party candidates would not be able to win any major elections simply because they would split the republican party and because they don't make up enough of the population and at the moment I right according to at least one poll.

 http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1436

"Only 13 percent of American voters say they are part of the Tea Party movement, a group that has more women than men; is mainly white and Republican and voted for John McCain, and strongly supports Sarah Palin"

"While voters say 44 - 39 percent that they will vote for a Republican over a Democratic candidate in this November's Congressional elections, if there is a Tea Party candidate on the ballot, the Democrat would get 36 percent to the Republican's 25 percent, with 15 percent for the Tea Party candidate, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds".

So a third party splits the vote? Well, knock me over with a feather. The tea party, however, is not a party unto itself, so this is entirely hypothetical.

I've heard that Rasmussen skewed right all through election season, but when the big night drew nigh it came more in line with the others -- that being the point at which you are judging them and they were closest.  Not true? 

I admit I'm a little rusty in my US history it's been years but you sound rusty yourself.  Lincoln campaigned to stop the expansion of slavery and he thought slavery would eventually die out on its own.  He also considered negotiating with the states to buy out all of the slaves those points I do remember.

Now to your point about him making it about slavery to keep foreign support away you are just wrong.  True the confederate  wanted support from Britain and France but the United States warned them that if they supported the confederacy it would mean war with the united states and since the us had a formidable navy they would cut off the shipment of supplies to and from Britain.

In fact this is a large part of the reason the  North beat the south they toke over ports and blocking the movement of supplies I believe it was called the ananconda plan.

Finally if he didn't care about the slaves he would have said slavery is allowed to expand in to new territories and he wouldn't have considered buying out the slaves from the slave owners. 

Nah, i'm not rusty on it at all. 

You think the British and French were afraid of the US Navy?  Seriously?  Either one of their Navy's would of worked over the US Navy something fierce.

The reason he didn't allow slavery to expand is because he was from a free state.  Free states and Slave states were fighting for control of the union because the northerners were putting huge tarrifs on goods the south wanted to buy for Europe that they used in their argicultural trades.  So the South would instead be forced to buy from the Industrial North.

By stopping the expansion of slavery in the west you were creating more "Free Industrial" states... which means the "Free Industrial" states would win out and the Tarrifs would remain in place.

It was a pure economic and political move.  Like most moves politicians make when they claim morality.  The actual morality of the action is purely incidental.

If you study him, you'll realize he thought that black people could never be integrated in white society.  He didn't want to free the slaves... he wanted to kick them out of the country.