Welcome to Keith and I don't tread on anyone in the
Libertarian Institute. This is a section from my book
Domestic Imperialism titled Arbitrary Divides.
On June 12th, 2016, Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded
53 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL.
While inside Pulse, Mateen called the police to admit to
the terrorist act in hopes of amplifying his motives.
Here's how then President Barack Obama addressed this tragedy 4
days later. This was an attack on the LGBT
community. Americans were targeted because
we're a country that has learned to welcome everyone, no matter
who you are or who you love. And hatred towards people
because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes
from, is a betrayal of what's best in US.
Here are the actual words spoken by Mateen in his phone call with
police on the night of the massacre.
You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq.
They're killing a lot of innocent people.
What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over
there? You get what I'm saying.
You need to stop the US air strikes.
They need to stop the US air strikes, OK?
They need to stop the US air strikes.
You have to tell the US government to stop bombing.
They are killing too many children.
They are killing too many women. OK, I feel the pain of the
people getting killed in Syria and Iraq.
They need to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. the US is
collaborating with Russia and they are killing innocent women
and children. OK, The air strikes need to stop
and stop collaborating with Russia.
OK? Tell the fucking the air strikes
need to stop. You see?
Now you feel. Now you feel how it is.
Barack Obama took what was
clearly a response to the US government's foreign policy as
an opportunity to place focus on the arbitrary demographic of the
victim's sexual orientation. He didn't say this was an attack
on young people, even though most of the victims were young.
He didn't say this was an attack on Floridians, even though the
attack occurred in Florida. A sane response would have been
this tragedy shows the human cost of our government's
violence against innocent people abroad.
As Americans, we must reject the use of violence against innocent
people to achieve our goals as a nation, regardless of country,
gender, nationality, or sexual orientation.
We must constantly have a policy, both foreign and
domestic, which embraces life, liberty, and the peaceful
pursuit of happiness. To clarify, in 2016, the year of
the Pulse massacre, the United States government dropped 24,287
bombs on Iraq and Syria, according to the Council on
Foreign Relations. The use of arbitrary divides
involves separating people based on accidents of birth or
irrelevant personal attributes, as opposed to actions they as
individuals, choose to engage in.
Here are some arbitrary group identities commonly used by
progressives to divide people of goodwill, male versus female,
rich versus poor, Russian versus American, straight versus gay,
black versus white. Two more examples illustrate
this issue. First from CNN in an article
titled US Black, White Inequality in Four Charts.
Second, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's speech Combating
the Gender Pay Gap. The implicit assumption is that
the existence of inequality is the result of discrimination,
and the state must coercively step in and mandate equality
between groups. Here are some disparities in
America that the article and the speech both conveniently
neglected to mention. How many hours men work annually
compared to women, which fields men tend to study compared to
those which women tend to study. Engineering, communications and
how ambitiously they studied. Black immigrants to America earn
more than US born blacks. Married men earn more than
unmarried men. The state wage gap.
Maryland versus Mississippi median income.
The age wage gap. Older men earn more than younger
men. Indian Americans and Asian
Americans earn more than white Americans.
Most homeless people are men. Men are 10 times more likely to
die on the job. Men are roughly 50% of the
American population, but 95% of those killed by police.
Women are roughly 50% of the American population, but 89% of
the elementary school teachers female only fans creators earn
78% more than their male counterparts. 1 Kenyan tribe The
Kalanjin produces the world's best Olympic runners and 80% of
California donut shops are owned by Cambodians.
The reality is that disparities and outcomes are all around us
and are not only the result of unjust discrimination.
Progressives seemingly cherry pick certain disparities to
create division among populations so that they can
have an enemy, thereby justifying their desire to rule
over others. Focusing on disparities also
distracts from focusing on the principle at hand.
Progressives will often oppose the war on drugs, for example,
on the grounds that certain demographics are
disproportionately targeted for drug arrests.
But this assumes that the state has the right to imprison people
for victimless crimes. So all the police need to do is
arrest more people at a rate proportional to each
demographic. According to the Selective
Service System, all men ages 18 to 26 must register for the
draft. One way to approach it this is
to say that forced labor is immoral.
Another is to say that this is sexist and discriminatory.
Therefore, women too should be forced to perform labor against
their will. The profit motive is another
arbitrary divide progressives use.
Every time a person acts, he is using scarce resources, time,
effort, money, products at his disposal in an attempt to
improve his situation. This is the nature of homo
economicus. Every second you spend reading,
you're not sleeping or hiking. For every dollar you spend on
coffee, it's one less dollar you can spend on clothing.
The Progressive takes this universal reality of trade-offs
and then pins it uniquely on the free market.
Do politicians not profit from television appearances and from
large crowds sharing their names?
Setting aside the psychic profit, politicians aren't
exactly unpaid volunteers, with most of them having net worths
much higher than those of their constituents.
Soldiers, teachers, and police officers are also profit
seekers, as opposed to unpaid volunteers or people who don't
reap any mental or social status benefits from their employment.
Everyone is trying to maximize profit at every moment of every
day. Actor Sean Penn recently used
the example of when police show up to protect Grandma, they
don't make her put her credit card down, insinuating that the
government exudes generosity while the free market is greedy.
What happens when Grandma doesn't pay sales tax, property
tax, or income tax? Does the government call her and
say, miss Grandma, we noticed you didn't chip in this year to
the Internal Revenue Service. Are you unhappy with our
services? Please reconsider being our
customer. Of course not.
The state will imprison people for not giving them money, a
method far greedier than offering a service voluntarily.
It's also worth noting now the voluntary profit incentive
encourages goodwill among people.
Almost every time I purchase a good or service in the private
sector, the employees will thank me for shopping at their store.
However, after having been a net taxpayer for 11 years, I have
never once been thanked by a police officer, soldier,
teacher, or politician. This constant attempt to divide
people of goodwill based on arbitrary attributes is what
makes progressivism such an insidious ideology.
Instead of separating heroes from villains based on income or
accidents of birth, as progressivism does, people
should be divided based on whose behavior is peaceful, honest,
and cooperative, in opposition to people whose behavior is
violent, fraudulent, and parasitic.
Thank you for watching Keith and I don't tread on anyone in the
Libertarian Institute.