The Black Lives Matter movement has been receiving a lot of press over the last few years, with a large part of it being negative. We continue to see this social justice movement paraded as an equivalent to Martin Luther King Jr.’s, but shown as a violent, destructive one in which neighborhoods are burnt down and riots ensue. The big questions I keep asking myself in watching the actions of this movement as well as its aftermath, is why are they so destructive on their own community? Why do they keep voting for the Democrats? What are the deep underlying problems?
For a lot of people, they see Libertarians as isolationists. People only out for themselves who could care less for the poor and unfortunate. I severely disagree with this notion. On the contrary, Libertarians simply believe that the people themselves, such as a community, could provide better for the people than a large centralized government. Why not, instead of looting and burning down your local businesses, work with them to improve the conditions of your community? Instead of having activist leaders who run around with a megaphone inciting riots, why not have local small business leaders encouraging entrepreneurship as a way to help solve a lot of the injustices facing their community? Such as being able to hire young black males for stability and job experience. Or being able to fund programs in your community run locally to assist in homelessness and prevent gang membership.
I’m obviously biased – as a Libertarian – but I cannot fathom why the black community continues to vote Democrat. They simply continue to provide welfare programs which keep a large portion of this community on the Fed’s and Democratic Party’s bosom. I firmly believe that Democrats want to bring the top down to make everyone equal, while Libertarians believe in giving everyone an equal opportunity to get to the top. Where instead of welfare checks and food stamps, these young members of society are given entrepreneurship opportunities. Where members of this community with a prison record or recently released from prison are forced to live on government assistance because of a high minimum wage, they are able to receive a job, (lower paying hourly but still a job), to acquire work experience and help make the transition back into society to build them up professionally to get to those higher paying jobs.
When it comes to the deep underlying problems, I am simply an outsider looking in. My one advantage may be that I am completely neutral in the situation. Gary Johnson recently stated that the War on Drugs was the underlying problem, resulting in the jailing of many blacks in victimless crimes. I think that is a very large part of it, but what about their main self-professed problems? The biggest one has to be the brutality and biased of law enforcement. I truly believe that an overwhelming majority of our law enforcement officers are great people, doing a great service to our community. I think the fatal flaw within our criminal justice system, though, has to be the extensive and in many cases, ridiculous, amount and content of laws they are asked to enforce. That, coupled with the militarization of some departments, is causing a very human and American response. This is the fear of tyranny. Do I ever think our men and women in uniform would knowingly participate in tyranny? Of course not, but the key word here is “knowingly”. Politicians are great at decorating their terrible policies and decisions into “what’s best for the people”.
I would like to finish with a quote from one of my favorite literary masterpieces by Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom:
“It is a striking historical fact that the development of capitalism has been accompanied by a major reduction in the extent to which particular religions, racial, or social groups have operated under special handicaps in respect of their economic activities; have, as the saying goes, been discriminated against.”
* This guest author wishes to keep his identity anonymous.
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