Twangbanger
Grandmaster
- Oct 9, 2010
- 7,109
- 113
Trigger alert: this thread discusses a specific article.
The title is a reference to the Civil Rights Law of 1964, and specifically to its permanent, unintended effects, rather than the original intent which was being address at the time.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-law-that-ate-the-constitution/
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-law-that-ate-the-constitution/
Notable excerpts:
"...The genius of civil litigation as a method of censorship is that it puts private companies, not government, in charge of enforcement. “The fear of litigation privatized the suppression of disagreement, or even of speculation,” explains Caldwell. “Because there was no statutory ‘smoking gun’ behind it, this new system of censorship was easily mistaken for a change in the public mood.” Conservative brains were scrambled by this new situation in which businesses were the bad guys, so they fell back on the tactic of pointing out horror stories of P.C. overreach, hoping that the sheer ridiculousness of these examples would drive a stake through political correctness. This tactic will never work, Caldwell insists. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous business owners consider the latest P.C. demands. As long as the law requires them to be vigilant about conduct that can be characterized as discriminatory, they are going to keep enforcing P.C. rules..."
and:
"...If the consequences of civil rights law have been as totalitarian as Caldwell says, why has the harassed majority not revolted? The short answer is that they tried. Caldwell identifies the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as the moment when adherents of the old Constitution fought back, and the next eight years as the period when their hopes were conclusively defeated. “Reagan changed the country’s political mood for a while,” he laments, “but left its structures untouched.”Reagan promised to shrink government, roll back the Great Society, and end affirmative action “with the stroke of a pen.” Instead, the national debt tripled. The federal civil rights bureaucracy proved as impossible to abolish as the Department of Education. Voters favored lowering immigration and getting control of the border, and Reagan promised to do it, but the compromise bill passed in 1986 traded immediate amnesty for enforcement measures that never came. “Reagan flung open the gates to immigration while stirringly proclaiming a determination to slam them shut,” Caldwell observes. “Almost all of Reaganism was like that...”
The author is expressing a view I've often reflected on favorably, which is that everything we are experiencing with "PC," "Snowflakes," and "Social Justice" is the foreseeable legal consequence of the fact that the Civil Rights Act did not have an expiration date. It should have been an emergency, temporary measure. Every right that every American of every color ever needed protected, was already protected by the original Constitution. Our nation just did not live up to it. Fortunately, we have mechanisms for dealing with such short-falls. They needed to be addressed by temporary measures, not permanent ones. The erection of a permanent civil rights grievance architecture ultimately leads to the end of real freedom in this country.
I often see conservatives offering the childishly-endearing viewpoint that somehow, someday...the country must grow sick of this, and reject it. This seems like an impotent observation. I've often pointed out that right _now_, athletes with penises are competing against real biological women in legitimate athletic contests and beating them and winning titles reserved for biological women. This apparently gets no "rise" from anyone. If that's not a preposterous enough example to precipitate the much-hoped-for resistance and overthrow of these ideas - what is?
These kinds of outcomes are legally pre-determined. It just took a while to get there. Until we repeal the laws - either by legislation, or by the installation of the right kinds of judges to strike them down - this is going to continue to happen. Any form of "popular resistance" has no efficacy unless it results in the foregoing.
The title is a reference to the Civil Rights Law of 1964, and specifically to its permanent, unintended effects, rather than the original intent which was being address at the time.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-law-that-ate-the-constitution/
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-law-that-ate-the-constitution/
Notable excerpts:
"...The genius of civil litigation as a method of censorship is that it puts private companies, not government, in charge of enforcement. “The fear of litigation privatized the suppression of disagreement, or even of speculation,” explains Caldwell. “Because there was no statutory ‘smoking gun’ behind it, this new system of censorship was easily mistaken for a change in the public mood.” Conservative brains were scrambled by this new situation in which businesses were the bad guys, so they fell back on the tactic of pointing out horror stories of P.C. overreach, hoping that the sheer ridiculousness of these examples would drive a stake through political correctness. This tactic will never work, Caldwell insists. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous business owners consider the latest P.C. demands. As long as the law requires them to be vigilant about conduct that can be characterized as discriminatory, they are going to keep enforcing P.C. rules..."
and:
"...If the consequences of civil rights law have been as totalitarian as Caldwell says, why has the harassed majority not revolted? The short answer is that they tried. Caldwell identifies the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as the moment when adherents of the old Constitution fought back, and the next eight years as the period when their hopes were conclusively defeated. “Reagan changed the country’s political mood for a while,” he laments, “but left its structures untouched.”Reagan promised to shrink government, roll back the Great Society, and end affirmative action “with the stroke of a pen.” Instead, the national debt tripled. The federal civil rights bureaucracy proved as impossible to abolish as the Department of Education. Voters favored lowering immigration and getting control of the border, and Reagan promised to do it, but the compromise bill passed in 1986 traded immediate amnesty for enforcement measures that never came. “Reagan flung open the gates to immigration while stirringly proclaiming a determination to slam them shut,” Caldwell observes. “Almost all of Reaganism was like that...”
I often see conservatives offering the childishly-endearing viewpoint that somehow, someday...the country must grow sick of this, and reject it. This seems like an impotent observation. I've often pointed out that right _now_, athletes with penises are competing against real biological women in legitimate athletic contests and beating them and winning titles reserved for biological women. This apparently gets no "rise" from anyone. If that's not a preposterous enough example to precipitate the much-hoped-for resistance and overthrow of these ideas - what is?
These kinds of outcomes are legally pre-determined. It just took a while to get there. Until we repeal the laws - either by legislation, or by the installation of the right kinds of judges to strike them down - this is going to continue to happen. Any form of "popular resistance" has no efficacy unless it results in the foregoing.
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