Al Sharpton as Moral Compass?


By now, we all know about the inflammatory remarks made by Don Imus on his daily morning show in reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team. He referred to the women as "a rough bunch" and "nappy-headed hoes". Most of the country has been outraged, as well they should be. However, as is the case with many polarizing incidents, the issue quickly moves from recognition of the problem to the matter of what exactly should be done about it.

Of course, many a race peddler is all too happy on such an occasion to jump out in front of the publicity circus surrounding the issue in an attempt to appear relevant and to advance their own political or personal agenda. Often this leads to the further exploitation of the very group of people they pretend to represent. Such is the case with Mr. Al Sharpton.

As a parenthetical, let me state for the record that I will not refer to Mr. Sharpton as a reverend, as so many apparently misguided individuals do. In light of Mr. Sharpton's public record, I cannot imagine any body of believers or organization of churches that would allow him to be considered a spiritual leader in any role whatsoever, much less that of a reverend; nor do I know of any such body which has positioned Mr. Sharpton in such a role. I do know that, as a child, and in his young adulthood, Sharpton did preach in his local church. However, in his adult life, Mr. Sharpton has turned from preaching about love and salvation to spewing hatred and condemnation. To continue to refer to him in this manner is to ignore the obvious to the point of absurdity.

Mr. Sharpton quickly jumped into the media spotlight by calling for Imus' firing on his own radio show and in the media. Imus later appeared for an interview on Sharpton's show to discuss the matter.

None of this is to say that Mr. Imus was without fault. Quite the contrary. People everywhere should be insulted, indignant and offended. However, the problem with Sharpton is two-fold.

First, is his characterization of Mr. Imus' remarks as racial. Mr. Imus referred to the entire team in his remarks. While the team is made up predominantly of black players, the team also has two white members. Is Mr. Sharpton insinuating that they should not be insulted simply because they are white? Was the comment any less offensive towards them than to the other players?

If Mr. Sharpton insists on labeling the remarks as racist, it is he that places the insult squarely upon the black players on the team, not Mr. Imus. Imus insulted the entire team, the white members included.

Also, Mr. Sharpton completely ignores the obvious sexism in the quotes. The word 'hoe' that Imus used to describe these young ladies is a thinly disguised slang term for the word 'whore'. Surely this reference demeans women specifically more than any particular race. Perhaps defending women against sexism is not nearly as conducive to his goals as is race-based antagonism.

Furthermore, Sharpton's contention that individuals should not be able to use public airwaves to insult others simply holds no water. The airwaves on which Mr. Imus broadcasts are bought and sold for very handsome sums of money. With that money, comes a license to broadcast and the right to air programming as the operating entity sees fit, provided specific curse words are not used on the air. Mr. Imus' comments did not violate any such regulations.

The reaction of the listening audience and advertisers to Imus' comments may lead his employers to decide that airing his program is no longer in their best interests. He may be fired or removed from the air because of such concerns. However, to say that he should somehow be forced off of the air solely in the name of the public good, or because he is using public airwaves is simply nonsense. It leads one to wonder how Mr. Sharpton can attempt to make a career in broadcasting with such limited knowledge of how the industry actually works.

I have but one final note on this point. Why do Mr. Sharpton and others assume that, without their prodding, these acts will go unnoticed and uncondemned by the public? They, as their position as race peddler suggests, seem to have lost all faith in humanity. They are out of touch with reality, or, at least, refuse to acknowledge it.

The great majority of people do despise these types of slurs and insults. Americans do feel sympathy towards their fellow human beings. This type of rhetoric is not acceptable to the majority of the population. Mr. Sharpton insults the black community in particular, and Americans in general, by assuming that we need him or anybody else to let us know when we should be offended and when we should feel hurt and disgusted by the actions of others. Is Mr. Sharpton worried that we will not recognize such people for as the bigots and chauvinists that they are, or is he more worried that we will recognize him for what he is?

I personally believe that people like Imus who are willing to proclaim their ignorance to the world should be the least of our worries. However, they are the easiest targets for those seeking to capitalize in the race market. Those who harbor their hatred in secret are much more dangerous, but much more difficult to uncover and confront. Perhaps Mr. Sharpton does not have the bona fides or courage to pursue the issues which are undoubtedly more important to his community than harmless idiots blabbering away on the radio. Perhaps he is just afraid to step into a role of true leadership, or, perhaps, he has no interest in it at all.

The second apprehension I have with Mr. Sharpton leading the charge on this issue concerns his own record in this same area. A quick recollection of Mr. Sharpton's public activism reveals some flaws in his character that are at least as serious, if not more so, as the problems he pretends to address so often in the national media.

Many may still remember the case of Tawana Brawley, a 15 year old African American female who was championed by Mr. Sharpton after she accused three white officers of raping and assaulting her in 1987. Mr. Sharpton even went so far as to accuse the lead prosecutor on the case, Steven Pagones, of being a participant in the assault, calling him a rapist and a racist.

As it turned out, the whole thing was made up. Neither the Brawley family, city police, or the grand jury could turn up one piece of evidence to prove a rape had ever occurred. The case was dismissed and Mr. Sharpton was later ordered to pay $345,000 to Mr. Pagones for making defamatory statements about him. A lawyer Sharpton had hired to handle the case, Alton H. Maddox, was also found guilty of making defamatory statements about Mr. Pagones, and was later disbarred.

During the time, New York governor Mario Cuomo urged Sharpton and members of Bradley's legal team to meet with the state Attorney General at the time, Robert Abrams. Mr. Sharpton responded by saying that cooperating with Abrams, who is Jewish, would be "like sitting down with Mr. Hitler."

Some may also remember Mr. Sharpton's involvement in the Crown Heights riots in 1991. A young boy of African descent, Gavin Cato, was killed when he was struck by a vehicle traveling in the motorcade of a Hasidic Jewish rabbi. A private ambulance driven by a man of Hasidic descent was ordered by police to remove the driver of the vehicle. Another ambulance arrived moments later to treat Cato and his sister who was also struck by the vehicle, but survived.

Angered by what they perceived as preferential treatment for the Jewish driver,black residents in the Crown Heights are rioted for four days, destroying Jewish homes and businesses. Amidst the rioting, a Jewish man named Yankel Rosenbaum was killed by a crowd shouting "Kill the Jew!"

Contrary to the image he tries to project, Mr. Sharpton did not act as a mediator, helping to ease tensions between races. In fact, Mr. Sharpton seemed rather bent on inciting more violence, making statements referring to Hasidic Jews as "diamond merchants" at the young boy's funeral, and leading marchers trough the streets chanting "No justice, no peace!" Sharpton also referred to blacks who opposed his inflammatory style during the time as "yellow niggers".

Let us not forget the incident in 1995 at Freddie's Fashion Mart. A group led by Mr. Sharpton organized a boycott of the Jewish-owned store after the owners had raised rent for a black sub-tenant. During the boycott, Mr. Sharpton commented that the black community should not sit back and allow a "white interloper to expand his business." The boycott eventually led to rioting and looting of the store, during which four employees were shot and killed. The store later was burned to the ground, killing seven more employees.
When Mr. Sharpton was confronted about his role in the rioting, he denied being present. However, he later was forced to recant this denial after video surveillance taken from the store's security system showed Sharpton on the premises just minutes before the store was burned to the ground.

Finally, many may recall the video captured by FBI surveillance cameras in 1983 that aired on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel in 2002. The footage showed Sharpton agreeing to launder cocaine money in a Mob-related deal set up by pal Don King. Mr. Sharpton unsuccessfully sued the network claiming the footage had been altered.

All of this having been said, I have no interest in disparaging Mr. Sharpton's character, or condemning him personally. I believe that God can restore individuals in love, no matter what their past has been. However, God's love for us does not change the fact that our actions have consequences. My point here is that, as a consequence of Mr. Sharpton's public actions, he should have long ago ceased to have any credibility in the position of a moral compass for the black community or for Americans in general.

Furthermore, Mr. Sharpton has never apologized to Mr. Pagones, the Jewish community, or any other party his actions have so negatively affected. In fact, he seems still heavily involved in a particular brand of activism that precipitates racial hatred rather than working to eliminate it. The tragedy is that his actions reignite hatreds and misconceptions that have all but dissipated, ultimately causing more hurt for the very people he looks to for his support and credibility-the black community.

But, racemongers like Sharpton must do this to survive. You see, America has already rejected him on so many levels, this is the last foothold he has.

America never viewed Sharpton as a spiritual leader. Somewhere along the way, Mr. Sharpton veered off the path to evangelical greatness that seemed so apparent after he was personally ordained into the ministry by the prominent black minister Bishop F. D. Washington in 1964 at the age of 10. He had no power left in that punch by the time he reached the public spotlight.

America has soundly rejected every attempt Mr. Sharpton has mounted in the political arena as well. In the 2004 national primaries of the Democrat party, Mr. Sharpton received only nine percent of the vote in South Carolina, a state in which 40 percent of the Democratic electorate is black. Other attempts at public office have resulted in similar results.

The majority of mainstream America has rejected Sharpton's attempts at leadership in the areas of race and morality as well. However, Mr. Sharpton, and others like him, still seem to find the relevance they so desperately crave in that small segment of the population who refuse to let racial tensions die and allow real healing to begin.

He still is hailed as a leader by those who believe that they are perpetual victims of society. Every incident the racemongers crow about is another in a long line of exploitations and victimization that they have suffered. As long as they suffer under such conditions, they may still be able to garner our sympathy, our charity, or-better yet-a government hand-out.

Maybe one day they, and Mr. Sharpton's cohorts, will abandon the strategies of race peddling and hatred for the more constructive work of healing and cooperation between men and women of all backgrounds. Perhaps at the thought of being ignored entirely, a hate-spewing racemonger like Mr. Sharpton might become relevant once again by abandoning the tactics and rhetoric he has hung on to for so long and doing some real good for mankind.

Of course he may insist on maintaining his current strategies and fall into anonymity altogether. Then, after all, I guess that wouldn't be so bad either.

Gouged by Peter Cottontail

I was gouged over the weekend. No, I'm not talking about 'mother-in-law-gouging-my-eyes-out' gouging. I'm talking about 'evil-merchant-overcharging-because-they-have-you-over-the-barrel' gouging. Let me explain.

In the spirit of celebrating Easter, and in hopes of providing a little enjoyment by way of an egg hunt for my five year old son (as well as to score a few brownie points with my wife), I joined the throng of shoppers on the seasonal Easter aisle at the local super discount store in search of Easter candy this past Friday evening. Of course, the manufacturers of the candy and store management had collaborated to make every possible form of delectable goodness imaginable related to the Easter holiday available in the aisles of that store at that precise time. After all, they knew their markets, and knew that 99% of people planning to have an Easter celebration would be planning their events to coincide with the weekend on the calendar in which Easter falls. Some people may have their Easter-egg hunts in the middle of July, but I suspect these folks would represent a very small fraction of all Easter celebrants.

Alas, after much pondering, and not a little jockeying for position in the aisle, I selected a few bags of delicious confections guaranteed to have my son bouncing off the walls for hours. I would have liked to have gotten the goodies for free, but two dollars for a bag of chocolate covered malt eggs (in August they are referred to as malt balls, I believe) seemed a reasonable price to pay, considering the benefits of putting on the egg hunt and the goodwill it would foster in the family. So I paid the cashier and went happily on my way. Unfortunately, that happiness wouldn't last very long.

You see Monday morning I happened to be back in the same store, on the same aisle again, but this time I was shopping for myself. It seems egg-shaped, chocolate covered malt balls are particularly addicting to my taste buds. I had exhausted a seemingly endless supply over the weekend and had to have more. Luckily, I knew right where to find them. But would there be any left after the candy-craving Easter crowd had worked over the candy aisle?

Not only were there some left over, but, in fact, there were still plenty to choose from. Feeling relieved, I grabbed for a bag. Just as I reached for it, however, a big red sticker on the package caught my eye. The price had been reduced. The package that had cost me two dollars only hours earlier was now available for only 50 cents. Apparently, the store was not confident that their other customers would come back in the same fervor for their Easter-related wares as I had. In fact, it seemed perhaps they were quite worried that they would not be able to sell the Easter-related items at all and would be forced to take a complete loss on the left-over inventory. In order to avoid this prospect, they had lowered the price of my candy by more than 75 percent in hopes that others who did not share my addiction might be drawn in by the lower prices and take the inventory off of their hands. I helped them out in this area by slipping four of the now-cheaper bags of candy into my cart.

A quick look around the aisle revealed a similar pricing strategy on almost every item related to the holiday. I was horrified. Marshmallow bunnies that had sold for 25 cents a piece were now available in counts of 20 for one dollar. Caramel-filled chocolate eggs previously offered for 97 cents were now available for a dime. What outrage! I had been victimized!

If the producers and sellers of my candy were now able to accept such low prices without the fear of going out of business, then it was only reasonable to assume that I had been taken advantage of for the remainder of the price that I paid. This was simply extra money that the evil candy manufacturers had charged me because they knew that I would pay it for fear of disappointing my son and losing the aforementioned brownie points with my wife. Simply put, they had taken advantage of me at my most vulnerable moment. I had come to them when I needed their product most, and they had exploited me.

I started to think about it. It seemed that last winter I had been similarly gouged on a box of hearts with little notes written on them. These boxes of hearts always seem to magically appear everywhere around February 14th of each year. I recalled even further back, and I remembered being gouged on some lights to string up around my house around the 3rd week of December last year. Around one Thursday in November I had been terribly gouged on the price of a Turkey. And the July 4th weekend last summer, I was gouged on the price of a gallon of gasoline.

I decided to talk all this gouging over with my coworkers in the breakroom one morning this week. When I mentioned the high price of gasoline we could all expect this summer, the mere mention of the subject touched off a lively debate. People wanted to know how the oil companies could get away with such a thing and what the government could do to remedy the situation. A host of suggestions were put forth on how to solve the problem. However, the conversation was much less animated when I mentioned the high prices of Easter candy I had encountered over the weekend. So I asked them, and now I ask the reader: Is there any discernible difference in what the two industries are doing? Of course not.

The reality is that Easter eggs are more expensive around Easter because that is precisely when demand is highest for them. In turn, when demand decreases (like the Monday after Easter) the amount that candy producers charge for their products decreases as well. The same principle applies to Valentines hearts, Christmas lights, Thanksgiving turkeys and, yes, summer gasoline.

Summer brings about a level of demand for gasoline that is not seen the year round. Kids are out of school. Trips to Granma's house are made in the summer that are not made during the winter. Vacations are taken to sun-bathed theme parks that are not even in operation during the winter months. More gas is needed for automobiles making long, cross-country trips. More jet fuel is needed for planes taking vacationers to exotic locations.

Mowers, edgers and blowers are fired up during the summer months that lie dormant at other times of the year. Boats are out on the water that stay covered up during the winter. RV's are out on the road that stay parked at other times. Any person with the smallest capacity of common sense knows that we consume more gasoline in the summer than at any other time during the year, and organizations such as AAA back those facts up with mounds of statistics.

However, we somehow refuse to let our minds believe that an increase in demand for this product will or should lead to the same results as an increase in demand for any other product. The price of gasoline will necessarily go up in the summer because of the decrease in demand for the product at that time. It is not gouging any more than expensive candy is at Easter time or expensive house lights are at Christmas time.

The truth is that all producers and sellers of products try to position their products in front of their customers at the time when it is most in demand because that is precisely the time they can make the most money. In fact, without the prospect of these profits, sellers would have no incentive whatsoever to even supply their products in the first place. In fact, it may be that higher profits in one part of the year make up for losses or smaller than normal profits in another part of the year.

In the particular case of gas, we seem to forget that we can avoid the effects of the higher prices of the summer months by staying home more and consuming less gas during these months. However, few of us are willing to take such drastic measures.

Could it possibly be that this is how free markets are supposed to work? High prices in times of demand discourage overbuying that creates shortages. Low prices encourage buying in times of surplus. And profits (high or low) encourage producers to match their supply to the demand of consumers. I believe it is.

So the next time you see gasoline at it's highest price at just about the time you are filling up to go on vacation, think twice before you accuse the oil man of gouging you. Unless you're willing to go after the Easter Bunny as well.

The Hypocrisy of Political Compassion

We hear a lot today in our society about compassion. It's on the lips of every politician, every layman; yet, so often, we mess compassion up. We end up helping one group at the expense of another, or hurting the population as a whole with a measure or policy that, on the surface, seems to be very meritorious in its stated goals. So why do we keep repeating our mistakes in this area?

It seems that no action, however invasive, is too egregious to be undertaken when performed under the auspices of charity. Policies that would be considered serious threats to personal freedoms under any other circumstances are tolerated, even praised, when embarked upon in the name of altruism. The offences come from both sides of the political spectrum.

Capitalism on the Left

Anyone who can bear to listen to the rhetoric from those on the left of the political spectrum will quickly deduce how they plan to improve the state of things in society. Their solution is found in government itself. If we could just give people enough housing, money, food, training, health care, etc., we would provide an environment in which all the ills of society would be cured. Poverty, disease, discrimination, and unemployment would all cease to exist. In effect, they would have the government run an end all, be all charity that would provide anyone with the tools they need to eliminate whatever undesirable condition they might find themselves in.

Therefore, they are willing to undertake any number of measures that are, admittedly-even by those who promote them-anti-capitalistic. Freedom is not as important, they say, as equality; opportunity not to be as highly regarded as fairness. However, given their tendencies in matters of public policy, it is interesting to see how they conduct themselves in private matters.

One of the most obvious instances of this charitable bent by the left is their alignment with labor unions who promise to achieve fair and uniform wages and working conditions for employees. Another is their aversion to using immigrant labor in production. This is looked down upon by the left as 'exploitation'- certainly not a charitable end. However, when Nancy Pelosi went into business as a winemaker, she hired a staff dominated by migrants (all of whom, we assume, are, of course, legal) to work in her vineyards. She then promptly barred them from unionizing.

If immigrant labor is exploitation, and unions help workers and our economy by ensuring fair wages and working conditions, why would Pelosi not hire all 'native' Americans working under the protection of a union? It's because she understands the tenets of capitalism. She knows that running a business in the most efficient manner possible (keeping costs-including the costs of labor-down) leads to accumulation of capital and wealth. She also knows that producing goods as cheaply as possible leads to lower prices for consumers and therefore a higher standard of living for the population in general.

When Pelosi, along with her friends in the newly-elected congressional majorities in the House and Senate, worked to push through a bill raising the minimum wage by 40% over the next three years, a curious exception was put into the bill. The American Samoan Islands, a U.S. territory normally subject to U.S. federal law, was exempted from the mandatory minimum wage increases. It seems that the owners of StarKist Tuna, a subsidiary of DelMonte Foods operating a large tuna-packing plant in the Somoan Islands, whose headquarters are in Pelosi's San Fransisco-area district, were afraid that the increased cost of labor resulting from the mandatory wage hikes would be bad for business. They were able to prevail upon Pelosi to put the provision into the bill that would exempt them from the new requirements.

So why would Pelosi and her friends on the left enact a law for the good of the whole country that was not good enough for businesses headquartered in her own district? Pelosi knows that the minimum wage increase will hurt businesses, and she did not want to get on the bad side of some of her more prominent constituents. She knows what we all know, that the hike will lead to higher prices for goods, less products on the market, and unemployment- or a combination of all three.

Hillary Clinton rose to prominence in Arkansas as one of the most successful lawyers in the state. How was she able to do so? Capitalism. It turns out that the services of lawyers are in high demand. Therefore the price paid for their time is quite high, making a nice salary for those in the profession. Clinton was able to make enough as a lawyer to begin investing in commodities, later making enough money off of the trades to draw the attention of investigators. What was she doing in the commodities market? Risking her own capital in an attempt to bring resources from a place where they were less valued, to a market where they would be more valuable in hopes of being rewarded with profits for doing so- a classic practice of capitalism used by entrepreneurs everywhere.

Al Gore, John Kerry, John Edwards and any number of other prominent politicians from the left all have this one thing in common: they have come to considerable wealth through free-market capitalism. If capitalism, when applied to their own private lives, has been so instrumental in allowing them to obtain the means and status necessary to run for high public office, why do they insist on promoting policies in direct opposition to these principles in their public roles as politicians? The error seems even the more egregious when one considers the fact that their influence and position give them a much better platform from which to promote the ideas that have made them so successful and that would allow the whole of the public access to that same system.

The reason is very simple. Political power is more important to them than the well-being of people. They know that enough people will agree with them that it puts anyone promoting the ideas of fairness and equality above all else within reach of election. They blatantly pander to that portion of the electorate that will take heart in their anti-capitalistic sophistry. Their great hypocrisy is that they know from personal experience that capitalism works to bring people great wealth and opportunity better than any other system of political economy, yet they continue to promote policies and practices that will be direct hindrances to these ends.

Bleeding Hearts on the Right

In the same manner, anyone strong enough to listen to the disquisitions from the right for any length of time will likewise quickly divine how they propose to remedy all the maladies that beset us. The solutions, they say, are to be found in private enterprise and freedom of association, and the right often does half-heartedly pursue these interests in their public policy decisions on some issues. However, it is interesting to see how far they will trample onto these same rights in certain areas of discourse.

Fiscal conservatism is a staple in the doctrine of the right. They banter about the excess and waste of big government and all the needless programs pushed upon us by the left, and claim to favor a smaller government that will spend less of the people's money. But in some instances, they are just as bad as any in the area of excess and waste, and, ultimately, wind up injuring the public just as bad as their counterparts on the left. Vice squads and drug prohibition are two examples.

Prostitution is a practice as old as time and, insofar as it is entered into voluntarily by consenting adults, is a victimless crime. But the compassionate conservatives don't see it that way. They see it as their job to protect communities, as well as the would-be participants, from the dangers and evils resulting from this type of vice. So every night we pay officers to spend hour upon hour in strip-clubs making sure that no dancer (who we assume is employed voluntarily) dances too close to a paying customer-buying drinks and dances themselves, no doubt, the whole time, in order to maintain their cover. Every weekend we see the elaborate undercover operations to arrest tricks and johns at incredible expense to the public, only to see the same women and men hooking up at the same street corner a week later.

Not only is this incredibly wasteful, but it's injurious. How many homicide detectives could be put on the street to solve and prevent murders with the money needlessly spent in a strip club, adding to the coffers of the very establishments they claim to be protecting us from? How many rapists could be tracked down before they reach their next victim with the money spent on undercover 'sting' operations on prostitutes and their customers?

But this doesn't happen. Murders are committed that could have been prevented; others are left unsolved, leaving the perpetrators free to strike again. Rapes are committed that need not be tolerated and rapists are left on the street, free to terrorize neighborhoods with their violence. Yet those on the right stand in the public square and talk about their desire to 'protect the community'-all with a straight face.

The same holds true for the war on drugs. Any good conservative will tell you that we need to reduce the amount of money we spend on welfare and government programs, but there seems to be no end to the amount of money that would be considered prudent to use in the combat of the drug trade. Of course, the rationalization is that of the public good-a thinly veiled disguise for government charity, a concept the right claims to loathe.

The drug trade is profitable, at least for those at the top of the distribution chain, for a reason. Prohibition makes supply significantly lower than it would be otherwise, and increases the risk associated with distribution, both factors in the high prices the product can bring on the streets of this country.

Those who do take the risk to engage in the trade are highly rewarded, at least as long as they can avoid incarceration. As basic economics teaches us, high profits encourage new entrants into the field in which the are being realized. We should not expect the drug trade to be any different.

The war on drugs sets up drug dealers as the richest people in the ghetto when, otherwise, they would not be. They become a hero, of sorts, to the community. They drive the nicest looking cars, wear the nicest looking clothes and date the nicest looking women. This only encourages young, impressionable, men and women who see no other way out of their poverty-ridden existence to join in and give drug dealing their best shot, hoping that they will be one of the few who succeed at it. As we know, very few do. Most end up incarcerated or dead, leaving orphans and poverty behind them, two of the greatest causes of human suffering known to man.

In the face of these facts, politicians on the right continue to run campaigns for office, promising to clamp down even further on vice and the drug trade. So why do they persist in promoting policies in the name of the public good that have been shown to be either useless or downright detrimental to the goal of reducing human suffering? Once again, it's pandering.

They know they can appeal to bleeding hearts everywhere who will believe that the government has the ability to establish and maintain order and protect the public from such evils. Their great hypocrisy is that they are willing to sell the public on a lie of government as protector of the community when they know it will only, in fact, lead to more suffering. If they can convince enough people that the farce is true, they can lead a comfortable life as a government bureaucrat-society be damned.

We realize that it is not human nature to heap suffering and misery upon people. The actions of those in government, and their supporters in the electorate, are undertaken with good intentions. This question is never about intent-it's about effects. The question that we should really be asking ourselves is, "Is this something that government should even be involved in to start with?" I don't think charity is something the government should involve itself in. It only leads to hypocrisy.

Do We Hate Each Other?

In discussions of politics, I always argue for liberty and freedom. Freedom for rational adults to do what they wish as long as they do not infringe on the equal rights of others has been a staple of our society ever since the founders formed our government so many years ago. Although almost everyone believes in liberty as an abstract concept, many seem to loose their faith in the principle of freedom when it is applied to practical matters.

Ludwig vonMises said, "Freedom allows men to do the right thing and to do the wrong thing." Most of us realize this without even thinking about it. The problem that interventionists and statists everywhere seem to have is a lack of faith in humanity to do the right thing when given the choice in a state of unadulterated liberty.

People are, by nature, compassionate beings. It is true that our first instincts are toward self-preservation, but, once our own requirements for survival are fulfilled, it is human nature to turn our affection towards our fellow man. Many would say that this assumption gives humanity far too much credit, but common experience would tend to show otherwise. In fact, when we think about a spouse's care for his or her partner, or a parents love for their child, we see every day acts of love and kindness that would dispute the presumption of man's self-love as his most basic instinct.

It is true that humans have an indomitable will to survive embedded within us; this desire, no doubt, has been placed in us all by nature for our own good. However, when it comes to our loved ones, and in fact to most all of our fellow man, we often act in opposition to our own self-interest. We can easily think of the husband that would step in front of a bullet for his wife, or a mother who would go without food so that her child could be fed. These are acts of self-denial rather than self-love, yet we consider it so much a part of human nature for people to act in this way, that the case of a husband who protects his wife seems to pass without any particular notice, while the husband that would abuse his wife draws the ire of everyone. It is not the mother that goes hungry for her children that garners recognition; rather it is the mother that lets her children starve that draws our attention.

One might argue that while certainly this self-denial is in human nature to preserve our loved ones and those close to us, we often do not show the same type of behavior to strangers or even neighbors. People that promulgate such opinions would have us believe that humans are calloused to the suffering of our fellow man-that, in fact, we do not care about another's misfortune so long as it does not directly affect us. We don't care about the grocer that can't make it to work because of car trouble unless he closes the market and we cannot get any bread. Then and only then will we offer him a ride. We don't care about the poor person without insurance so long as they are not seen in front of us in the emergency room. Then and only then do we think about how insurance could be offered to everyone. We do not think of the drug addict in the ghetto unless they come and rob us for drug money, and on and on this way of thinking goes. However, this is clearly not the case.

In fact, people show self-hate all the time when it would be easier to practice self-love. Every act of kindness towards a stranger deprives the person giving the favor of whatever resources or time they would have retained if they had not given it to the person in need. A person that drops a dollar in a collection plate is showing a small degree of self-loathing. That dollar could have been spent on them or their family, but they were glad to give it, because they were happy to help their fellow man once their own basic needs were provided for.

The person who stops to offer a ride to a young woman whose car has broken down along the highway does the same thing. Though they may not take any alternate path into town or give the girl any money directly, the time that it takes to stop and pick the person up in itself could be considered a resource. It could have spent on a million different selfish purposes, yet the person is glad to trade the time for the benefit of the one who he bestows it upon. In this way, this person, too, has shown a certain disdain for themselves since, surely it requires less effort to pass by without stopping than to pull over to the side and offer a ride, no matter how inconsequential this small action may seem.

We see selfless acts of kindness like this everywhere and-again-we see it as human nature. The good Samaritan rarely is taken note of. In fact, the person that would take advantage of a fellow human being in the situation described above is considered the rare bird. We never read in the newspaper of the man who gives the young girl a ride into town or calls for help, but if a man or group of men were to set upon the hapless lass and rob her or rape her, this would make the evening news.

It is true that stories of violence and gore make the news because the sensational nature of these crimes sells newspapers and draws good ratings. This also, though, is an affirmation of the goodness of mankind to one another. Violence and gore are sensational; that should give us reason for hope. If violence and gore were the norm, they would be considered mundane, nothing to take note of; what makes them sensational is the fact that they are rare.

Why, then, do people say that humans are generally selfish, greedy, and uncaring, then turn to the news reports of violence and debauchery to provide proof for their theory? It is self- contradictory.

Let us consider an example. What would you do if a woman were to knock on your door at 2:00 am claiming that a man was trying to kill her, and immediately you saw a man just afar off running towards your door with a knife, all the while screaming at the poor subject in front of you? How many of us would not quickly usher the beleaguered person inside and lock the door in an attempt to save them from harm? We would do so in spite of the very real risk of injury to ourselves. Assuming the person was attempting to hurt our new friend in earnest, he would probably have no better designs for the person that would shield her from his abuse. Yet, we would think it inhumane to not take this risk onto ourselves in order to preserve her. You see, it is not only human instinct to act in order to preserve ourselves. We, in fact, act instinctively to preserve all humanity, often at our own peril.

Our opening statement about self-preservation could be put another way: We always act in the best interests of others unless our own survival is directly challenged by it. Even then, we sometimes put others above ourselves, as is shown in the example above. Simply put, we do not, as a matter of instinct, take actions that will harm our fellow man until he directly challenges our survival.

When it comes to a mutually exclusive decision in which we must harm (or kill) another in order to preserve ourselves, or allow ourselves to be harmed (or killed) at the hands of another and allow them to survive, then, and only then, will we instinctively take actions to harm our fellow man. This is so widely accepted as a principle of human behavior that, in almost any civilized society, the only acceptable reason to kill another human being is self-defense.

Still the argument may persist along a couple of different lines. This hypothetical girl who knocked upon our door, it may be said, falls into the category of the person who we do not care about so long as their suffering does not directly affect us. Once she has woken us at 2:00 am, we then take an interest in her plight in order that we might be rid of the nuisance she has caused by waking us and then resume our preferred activities-presumably that of sleeping.

However, the same principle applies to the young woman on the side of the highway mentioned before. She did not run out in front of our car or do anything that would make our helping her necessary to our own happiness. Yet we still would subject ourselves to the risk that she might shoot us as soon as she got into the car with us, because the overwhelming tendency in our nature is to help our fellow man. In the process, we often expose ourselves to these types of risks, or put these types of possibilities to the back of our thoughts.

However, the chances of this happening, it might be argued, are very small. To give an example that would subject the good Samaritan to a similar level of risk then, let me ask: How many of us would not attempt to help a person that we happened to walk by that was being robbed or severely beaten? Though they prayed not upon our good will-perhaps they were not even aware that we were passing by-would we not still help them as best we could, presumably at a similar level of risk involved in helping the woman who knocked on our door in the middle of the night? Not only would we, but we would consider it inhumane not to do so.

A second line of argument might be made pointing to the severity of the cases mentioned. Of course, it might be said, the majority of us would rescue a fellow man in extreme peril, but, in day to day activities, we show far less concern for the plight of others. Is this true? Hardly.

Think of every time someone offered you a ride when you had no way to get somewhere, picked you up when you'd run out of gas, or gave you a jumpstart when your car battery was dead. Think of every time you dropped a dollar in the collection plate, donated to charity, or gave a buddy an interest free, five-dollar loan he could pay back on payday. Think of every time you bought overpriced sausage for the boy's troop, or overpriced cookies for the girls troop. Think of every time someone donated vacation time to a coworker who had to take time off to care for a loved one, or a time when church families delivered meals to a grieving widow. Think of the millions of charities that exist or the millions of different ways people help each other without ever thinking of themselves.

Every one of these acts is an act of self denial. We cannot help someone else without using resources that we could have just as easily used to serve our own interests. In fact, the phrase used above 'helping someone without thinking about yourself' is redundant in that helping someone automatically means thinking of them instead of yourself, or at least putting your own self-interest aside.

These type of actions are those that we take out of instinct. These are the actions that we take for granted will be performed for one another. Violence, greed, disdain, discrimination, and all the characteristics we hate in humanity-these are not the nature of man. These actions require a specific thought process, a specific effort to carry out, while the actions of human kindness are performed instinctively without thought.

Humans naturally crave peace, not war; harmony, not tension; love, not hate. Adam Smith's famous quote on charity has been referenced in these same pages before, but it bears repeating here. Smith said in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it."

This statement stands up as perhaps the most accurate summary of man's nature in all of philosophy for a good reason, namely that it assesses human nature correctly. We as humans do have in us this nature that makes our fellow man's happiness necessary to us even though we don't get anything out of it other than the pleasure of seeing it. It's called compassion, and it is in our nature. In fact, it is the dominant feature of our nature. The only thing left to do is to start giving ourselves credit for it.