Concerning Yesterday’s Tirade

     A great many well-meaning persons in the Right stoutly resist the suggestion that the only guaranteed way to end racial strife is to separate the races. I know a number of such persons. One for whom I have great respect commented here just yesterday evening. It’s the most commonly expressed sentiment among Americans of all political inclinations, and it speaks of the good will that animates them.

     But it reduces to this: “We can’t give up now! We haven’t tried everything yet! Something has to work!”

     No one wants to admit failure. Failure is humbling. It hurts us where we’re most vulnerable: in our self-regard. The wound is especially bloody when we’ve thrown so many resources at the problem. And of course, one can never be sure one has “tried everything,” which gives the plaint special poignancy.

     But I must reply with a certain weariness:

     For we must accept that regardless of the problem, no one can ever try every possible solution. When the problem has been completely politicized, such that its solution has been relegated to government(s), the matter is extremely acute, for a reason the late Milton Friedman expressed better than anyone else:

     This is the incentives matrix each of us faces any time he has to make a spending decision.

     In Type I and II situations, the spender is spending his own money, and so has strong incentives to control cost. In Type I situations, where the spender will be purchasing some benefit for himself, he will attempt to maximize the quality of the thing purchased. In Type II situations, where the benefit will go to someone else, the quality of the thing purchased declines in importance, and is sometimes sloughed entirely.

     In Type III and IV situations, which embrace all government spending, the spender is spending someone else’s money, and so has little or no incentive to control costs. In Type III situations, where the spender is buying something for himself, he’ll attempt to maximize the benefit. In Type IV situations, where the spender is buying something for someone else, there are no compelling reasons to control either cost or quality.

     When a government addresses a problem, it does so in the “Type IV context:” the costs and benefits will go to persons and institutions other than the government itself. Those within the protective envelope of the State are almost never touched by the problem or by the cost of the putative solutions to be applied. The problem of racial hatred and violence is no different from any other.

     There must be a limit. There must be a point at which We the Put-Upon say, “No more experimentation! You have squandered enough of our blood and treasure on your schemes. We’re taking the problem back into our hands.”

     Reasonable people will disagree about where that point should be. No matter where the emerging consensus puts it, admitting that we’ve failed to solve the problem will hurt. (That’s why the last word heard from a Cockpit Voice Recorder recovered after a crash is usually “Shit.”) The torrent of if-onlies and maybe-ifs doesn’t salve the wound. Nothing can.

     American society is in extremis. The machinations of recent Democrat administrations have brought it to the brink of total failure, and the racialists and their mascots are doing their damnedest to finish the job. Few neighborhoods are acceptably, reliably safe. Whole cities have been laid waste. The “public” schools are turning into mini-arenas for interracial violence. Retailers face increasing losses to pilferage. Government treasuries are exhausted and worse.

     If we were discussing death and destruction brought about by an identifiable individual, the solution would be to execute or incarcerate him. Is it not so? But we’re not. Instead, we have before us a tide of death and destruction being brought about by an identifiable race. Why, then, must we eschew the simple solution – separation of the races – simply because the perpetrators are many instead of just one? Haven’t we tried hard enough, with great enough patience, and at great enough cost to the innocent among us?

     I could be wrong…but even if I were certain of that, I would not want the odium for imposing yet another remedial scheme upon millions of others willy-nilly, knowing that they, not I, would bear the cost. The time has come for humility: a virtue those in the corridors of power notably lack.

     And so I prescribe:

• Repeal the Civil Rights Acts of:
  • 1957,
  • 1964,
  • 1968,
  • 1987,
  • and 1991.
• Repeal all other federal and state anti-discrimination statutes.
• Terminate all agencies and commissions relevant to “equal opportunity.”
• End all transfer programs that pay clients based upon “single mother” status.

     Once these things have been done, the races will separate — peacefully — to the degree required. It’s our last chance to do so. If we miss this one, this is the most pleasant of the outcomes remaining.