I think I’m on the Ron Paul bandwagon

I’ve been reading quite a bit about Ron Paul in the local blogosphere lately, especially after Jim Ostrowski’s interview on WNYMedia.net. I’ve found him to be an interesting candidate – honestly pro-small government, pro-free market, and anti-war. After reading this post by Mike Rebmann today, I think my mind is made up. His views on racism pretty much follow mine:

In fact it is the federal government more than anything else that divides us along race, class, religion, and gender lines. Government, through its taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails in our society. This government “benevolence” crowds out genuine goodwill between men by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot. This leads to resentment and hostility between us.

The political left argues that stringent federal laws are needed to combat racism, even as they advocate incredibly divisive collectivist policies.

Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.

The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.

More importantly, in a free society every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality. This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant. Rather than looking to government to correct our sins, we should understand that racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual liberty.

Well said! You cannot eliminate racism by repeatedly making race an issue. You cannot have the double standard of saying certain terms are racially derogatory, but only if they’re said by certain races. You cannot have both “equal opportunity” and “minority hiring targets.” I think Ron Paul gets that, and I like that.