There are a lot of special interest groups who are fighting (apparently) for a “better world”. Some of these groups have names (PETA, for example). Others don’t have names yet, such as the masses of women who are bringing down some major public figures by revealing those figures’ sexual improprieties. Is this going to propel us forward into a new age of progressive, humanistic enlightenment?
Doesn’t look that way to me.
Any time someone gets rooted in their ideology, and that ideology spreads, people forget the magic that spawned the idea. It seems to go like this:
- Person has an insight, and often this insight has merit (Christ disappears into the desert, has visions, comes back, and begins to call out the religious elite for their hypocrisy, greed, lust for power, etc.)
- People recognize this insight as having value, and so they join the cause (the apostles recognize Christ’s vision as being worthy of pursuit).
- People forget the technology, or mode of thinking, that led to the insight in the first place. Instead, they convert it to dogma, institutionalize it, and then struggle to press it upon all others, leaving no room for anything “other than” (the church is established, the rules get set into place, and the church itself becomes the new religious elite, with no room for thought outside the boundaries set by authority).
All of these movements have some thread of truth. It’s true that animals are treated like shit, and the method in which many of them are executed is obscene. People should be made aware of this if they’re concerned about creating a sustainable and humane future. It’s also true that when adjusting for population, blacks are more likely to be killed that whites, and also more likely to be unarmed. And though I don’t know much about the Bundy case, I think it’s fair to assume that if someone is trying to be self-sufficient and not doing damage to the community, the government shouldn’t show up and push them out.
However, is someone creating a sustainable and humane future when they publicly shame a fur-wearing person? Or when graphic pictures of slaughtered animals are forced upon people’s news feeds? What about generations of farmers who put their blood, sweat, and tears into their work?
How about when those opposed to police violence swear to “boycott white businesses”? How is that not embracing a fierce separateness?
There are also statistics that indicate that, while a higher percentage of blacks are killed by police when you adjust for population, that a much higher percentage of blacks also commit armed robbery, etc....then there will be a counter argument, such as that communities of color have been subjected to harsh circumstances for decades..and we can go back and forth forever, which is exactly what we're doing. But there's a solution to this that many parties - libertarian and leftist alike - could agree to.
You start with the place that all parties agree, and work from there. Simple: authority does not have the right to execute people in the streets (or at all). Sure, you can push for police reform and accountability standards, and you might eventually get a few officers convicted. But as long as people feel that it's your tribe vs. the rest, any option of consolidating resistance if out of the question.
If the Ted Bundy's and the BLM folks of the world can realize that they're fighting the same enemy (that of authoritarian overreach) that they could have a much broader coalition. If when you read this, you feel ready to release a howl of indignation and come up with a thousand reasons why these people are different, then you've made my point for me. The more you celebrate what's special about YOUR group, the more you do the work of division for them.
Whether or not communities of color, or farmers, or anybody else has something exceptional about their plight makes no difference. The severity of the problems extend from one monster - the elite, who are and have always been enemies of the public. The police are their militia.
Reduce the extent of their influence (which is masked as "representation") and man can begin to have more say in his own choices.
Many activist groups are (perhaps unintentionally) segregating themselves, embracing an identity that is concerned more with moral superiority than with justice. They are creating enemies they didn't even have before. At the most fundamental level, what many groups are struggling for is power over public policy; they are attempting to become the authority. Their mentality is that if only the good guys could win, then we could begin to cure society’s ills. What they do not account for are those that they would cast out, who would quickly become resentful and attempt to take the power back. If a man has the unalienable right to survive, we are descending into stone-age power struggles instead of looking to a future of cooperation.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, he was organizing the Poor People’s March - an eclectic group of Asian, African American, Mexican, and Native Americans. He had successfully gained rights for African Americans (though racism was still painfully apparent) and was now moving to embrace entire classes of people. That was when he became a danger to the establishment. His voice for the poor and opposition to Vietnam was too much for the “liberals” to handle. After he was killed, we apparently reverted to thinking in segregated terms, this time voluntarily. As Malcom X said, “White people can help us, but they can’t join us”.
I understand (and sympathize with) many of these rights groups. But stick all these activists in a room and see what happens. Vegan evangelists will be yelling at the feminists who are eating chicken. Those feminists in turn will be yelling at liberal politicians who have violated some sexual boundary, while those politicians are turning their ear to appease the Black Lives Matter groups who are also pissing the feminists off if they grew up listening to N.W.A....you get the point. No one will be happy until they coerce the majority to act in a way they consider appropriate.
We need to return to a fundamental acknowledgment of the other person. Other people have multiple components and you don't have to like all of them. When we stop seeing in tunnel vision, we can find a common cause.
On Facebook I'm acquainted with someone who is, more or less, a Trump supporter (I am not). He exiled someone from his page for referring to liberals as "libtards". Why? Because despite him supporting someone that I oppose, he doesn't resort to name calling. He doesn't dismiss leftists as idiots. He embraces the exchange of ideas and respect for his opponent, and that's getting extremely hard to find.