Yes, You Have a Right to Be a Bigot

In March 2015, a controversy roiled in Indiana over passage of the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That divisive controversy is the latest fruit of a terrible legal precedent established during the Civil Rights era -- which was in turn based on terrible confusion and misunderstanding of the nature of "rights."

Protestors of the Indiana law (which in fact mirrors the federal RFRA law and similar laws in 30 states) claim that, by protecting the rights of (say) Christian business owners not to serve or deal with (say) gays, the RFRA violates the "right" of the latter to be served by these private businesses, without discrimination.

But does any such "right" exist? Let me attempt to untangle this mess.

Our individual rights have a moral basis: They are based on the moral premise that every individual is an end in himself -- not a means to the ends of others. Rights are moral principles established to institutionalize that premise as the basis for peaceful social relationships. Individual rights prohibit one person from living at the expense of someone else by means of force, fraud, or coercion.

Which brings us to the role of government. The Declaration of Independence states that the purpose of government is "to secure these rights" to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government is established to protect these rights of individuals from acts of force, fraud, and coercion by others. And to enforce those protections of rights, government may use force and coercion only in retaliation against those who violate the rights of others.

In other words: Since government is an agency meant to protect the rights of all, and because it is funded by all, it therefore must afford equal legal protection to all. As an impartial umpire and protector, it cannot "play favorites" in its actions without operating unjustly.

To this end, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did some very good things. In the Act, the Titles (or sections) numbered I, III-VI, VIII, and IX were aimed at ending discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and similar traits by government bodies, officials, and laws. For many decades before passage of the Act, various government bodies did operate unfairly and prejudicially, especially against blacks. Such officially sanctioned bigotry and bias was a moral and legal outrage, and it needed to be put to an end. So, these particular sections of the Civil Rights Act are rightly celebrated as a boon for the cause of individual rights.

However, Titles II and VII of the Civil Rights Act took matters a step too far. They banned owners of private property from exercising their own individual rights of freedom of association on and with that property. In other words, those sections violated an individual's right to choose his own associations, and on his own property, for whatever reasons (rational or irrational). 

To repeat: The basic premise underlying and justifying government and law is that each individual is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others. But that very premise -- which demands that government act neutrally and impartially toward all -- also protects the right of individuals in the private sector to associate freely with whomever they wish, for whatever reason they wish. Those reasons don't have to be admirable. Let me be clear: I think that discrimination based solely on race or sexual orientation is disgraceful and stupid. However, it is an individual right to be a fool and a bigot.

To compel, by law, some legally specified people to associate with other legally specified people means that...

(1) the first group are not being treated as ends in themselves, but are being forced into the role of being the servants of others;

(2) the government -- which is supposed to be impartial -- is favoring the second designated group at the expense of the first; and

(3) the rights of individuals to peacefully use their private property as they see fit are to be subordinated to collective social purposes.

Ironically, (1) imposes "involuntary servitude" -- exactly what the 13h Amendment made illegal. From Wikipedia: "Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the worker's financial needs." To compel a business owner to serve someone not of his free choosing meets the very definition of "involuntary servitude." That may include compelling (say) a Christian baker, who does not believe in "gay marriage," to provide pastries at a gay wedding reception. If you think that is okay, then what would you say if a white racist or -- even worse!!! -- a RICH CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN REPUBLICAN (say, Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin) demanded, under the same "non-discrimination" laws, that a liberal, Democratic, gay, female, African-American baker provide pastries for his or her daughter's wedding?


Ironically too, in the name of "non-discrimination," (2) lets the government coercively discriminate on behalf of some people over others in what otherwise would be private, voluntary relationships.

And (3) represents a de facto nationalization of private businesses. Ownership, by definition, means the right to freely and peacefully use and dispose of property as the property holder sees fit. But under those two titles of the Civil Rights Act, property is no longer to serve the individual ends determined by its owner; instead, it is now to serve the collective ends of his customers, by governmental decree. The businessperson's private property rights are thus subordinated to collective ends, just as the businessperson himself or herself is subjected to involuntary servitude on behalf of customers.

I said above that "individual rights prohibit one person from living at the expense of someone else by means of force, fraud, or coercion." To use force and coercion in order to compel the owners of private property to deal with or serve you, is a direct violation of the owner's individual rights.

The fact that these violations of rights are rationalized because they are "for a good cause" is irrelevant. Just as the First Amendment protects the free speech of individuals, even if we despise  what they say, so too does the rest of the Bill of Rights protect the freedom of business owners to hire or serve whomever they wish, even if we despise their specific hiring choices or service policies. The way to deal with bigots, in either case, is through boycott and ridicule -- which is perfectly within the rights of any protester.

But now, the law has been stood on its head: It has become a tool to discriminate against and violate the individual rights of people whom we don't like . . . perversely, in the name of "protecting rights" and "non-discrimination."

As I write, Republicans such Governor Mike Pence of Indiana are back-pedaling frantically, trying to rewrite Religious Freedom Restoration Acts so as to prohibit private acts of "discrimination." But in doing so, they are caving in to those who are using such demands to destroy what little is left of individual and property rights. And they are thus joining the mobs that treat individuals as nationalized means to social ends, and no longer as moral ends in themselves.

BAD DEEDS Wins CLFA Book of the Year 2014

I am delighted to announce that my second Dylan Hunter thriller, BAD DEEDS, just won the Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance “Book of the Year 2014 Award.”

Given the quality of the finalists — books by prominent, bestselling authors Larry Correia, Sarah A. Hoyt, and Mackey Chandler — I sincerely didn’t think my thriller stood a chance of winning. But thanks to Dylan’s devoted fans, the book won the final vote.

I want to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to all of you who have made my stories and characters a part of your lives. I am touched and grateful to you for your loyal support, and my special appreciation goes to those of you who voted for BAD DEEDS. Thanks to you, this award will bring the book and its unique vigilante hero a lot more attention — and that is why I entered it in the competition in the first place.

The Narcissist and The Narrative

He is, above all, the consummate narcissist. 

Consider: By his own admission, he spent most of his youth chasing girls, in a self-indulgent marijuana haze. In school, he used his long-honed tactics of glib, manipulative, arrogant "charm" to coast through, getting grades that, to this day, he has refused to release to the public. He learned to sweet-talk his way through life, also learning early on that white liberals were only too eager to serve as slavish Enablers for a bright, handsome black kid who made them feel noble about themselves.
 

Along the way, he learned how to con people with narratives, with stories that embodied the liberals' own fantasies and self-flattering aspirations. His biggest narrative con was about himself: He concocted a black kid's Cinderella story. Liberals just ate that up. With precious little effort on his own part, they lined up to elevate him up each political rung of his career ladder, pushing him toward the Narcissist's ultimate objective. He helped mainly by seeking out positions that kept him in the public eye, in front of cheering crowds. He became very, very adept in front of crowds, practicing and refining his narratives till they were polished. Though he could be a slick orator, he added a bit of informal, boyish, countrified charm, strategically dropping "g's" at the ends of words -- you know, so that he'd be "talkin' about changin' the country." He did that only occasionally: Like most of his studied tactics, he could turn these on and off like a faucet, as needed.

In each political position he held along the way, he never actually bothered to do the job. He never left behind any legislative footprints, any actual accomplishment. To him, winning the political position was the accomplishment: It was an end in itself -- an affirmation in his mind that he was loved, noticed, and approved of by thousands. But it was never enough: He wanted that universal affirmation from millions. So, he never stayed more than a few years in any political job. They were only stepping stones to his ultimate objective.

 
His big break was when throngs of white liberals put the skinny kid from Chicago on stage at the Democratic convention in 2004. He had just won his Senate race, and was now the new black poster boy for white liberals. I saw that speech on TV. I saw how the white liberal crowd responded and ate it up. Do you know something? At that instant, I knew. And I began to work a Barack Obama character into the storyline of the original Dylan Hunter novel that I was then planning, as the first black man to run for the White House. Yes, I knew even then that that was exactly what he was after, and where this adoring crowd of liberals was propelling him.

At that time, his only qualifications for the White House were a couple of faux "memoirs" that advanced his phony, self-inflated biographical Narrative. That. Was. IT. The rest of his resume? A Harvard law student whose grades nobody ever talked about. A figurehead occupant of the position of "Editor" of the "Harvard Law Review," where he never wrote and contributed a single article himself. A Chicago community agitator. A part-time, adjunct college instructor. An ambitious schmoozer and schemer who ingratiated himself into the Chicago political machine. A state representative who, backed by the Machine, used hardball tactics to get elected -- then never did a damned thing in office except run for his next position. Ditto as a one-term occupant of the U.S. Senate while he immediately began running for the White House.

Then, as a candidate whose vacuous political speeches matched his resume: empty odes to "hope" and "change," whatever those things were supposed to be. Barack had learned that all you needed were moral-political narratives, built on vague generalizations, and a personal biographical Narrative, built on the univerally appealing Cinderella story. People would want to believe in those stories; so they would grant any candidate embodying their mythology a free pass from close, critical scrutiny. Nobody would bother to notice that he was just an empty suit: They would fill that empty suit themselves, with a Somebody of their own imagination and aspirations -- all to make them feel good about themselves.

And so The Narcissist was elevated to become President -- any narcissist's ultimate symbol of self-congratulation and universal adulation. That was the goal. That was the objective. He had reached it. Not for any specific things he could actually accomplish; oh, sure, he had a leftist wish list of goals, and he surrounded himself with other hard leftists. But the real pleasure was the ability to wander the grand rooms of the White House; to be saluted getting on and off Marine One and Air Force One; to be able to jet anywhere on the taxpayers' tab; to ride around Washington in The Beast, surrounded by a motorcade of Secret Service agents; to put his feet up on the historic desk in the Oval Office (there are photos of him doing this); but mostly to preen in public before nests of cameras and thickets of microphones, soaking in the attention.
 

The actual work of the job bores him. Actual work always bored him. He chafes at hanging around in the White House. Sure, it's fun to wander into the Situation Room and be surrounded by nervous generals and fawning lackeys, and to be visited by anxious corporate cronies looking to kiss his ring and get favors, and to chum around with all the Hollywood and sports celebs lining up to entertain him in the evening. But the work is BORING. He just can't wait to get out of the place and away from that damned desk. So, at every occasion, he orders his staff to rev up The Beast, Marine One, and then Air Force One, and get him off to some exotic vacation spot, where he can hang out with his buds on some lush green golf course.

The Consummate Narcissist. That's who America elected -- twice. They still don't understand how they could have been fooled so badly. But Barack understands. He's like another handsome black celebrity narcissist of an earlier generation: O.J. Simpson. Everyone loved The Juice, too, for exactly the same reasons. Why, the two narcissists are virtually interchangeable.

In the end, Barack Obama is merely O.J. Simpson, with intellectual pretentions...and without the knife.