zlacker

I think the libertarian suggestions are certainly part of the solution but I don't think they're sufficient on their own. History shows us that racism is remarkably resistant to market forces.

>>harryh+(OP)
It's not necessary to eliminate racism. Imagine if the citizens of a community had the power to pull some of their money away from ineffective police departments to hold them accountable. There could be competing police forces, all run by the government, and the citizens could fund the ones they prefer, not unlike charter schools allow parents to fund the schools they prefer, and food stamps allow the poor to buy the food they want from the grocery store they prefer.

If your police department sucks, but the one neighboring one is good, you could choose to move your funding to the other police department who would expand their operations to cover more territory.

>>harryh+(OP)
Racism is not something that could even be solved with market forces, nor would any libertarian claim such a thing. At best we would say the market gives non-racists the best chance to isolate the push back against racists

History shows that if a society is racist the absolute WORST thing you can do is have a strong government, as that government will likely be filled with racists who will pass racist laws. (See The War on Drugs and/or Jim Crow Laws)

The idea that more government is the solution to racism denies the entire history of this nation. Government is not now, nor has it ever been the solution to the problem of racism (nor any other problem), Government is like it always has been and always will be the problem...

the Classic Libertarian saying "Government: If you think you have problems, wait until you see our [government] solutions"

>>Consul+O
We had this with fire departments for thousands of years. It didn’t go well.

>>syshum+M1
How do you reconcile the fact that the US government is as big as it has ever been while at the same time we have made significant progress on racial issues? Further much of that progress was driven by government mandate: The Civil Rights acts, anti-discrimination laws for employment, affirmative action, etc.

>>harryh+y6
>> same time we have made significant progress on racial issues?

Have we? the current riots / protest seem to indicate not.

>Further much of that progress was driven by government mandate: The Civil Rights acts, anti-discrimination laws for employment, affirmative action, etc.

There is / was a double edge sword to many of those issues. For example more than 50% of the civil rights act was rolling back and repealing racist government laws and regulations. People seem to have this perception that the population was racist and the government saved the day when in reality the government was racist and then rolled back some (not all) of their racist policies.

So the 60's you have the Civil Rights acts, then what do we see in the 70's and 80's? The War on Drugs, and "Tough on Crime" laws that were disproportionately enforced and impacted poor and minority communities. This trend continues to today with continues sentencing disparity, mandatory minimums, and various other things that at a minimum are Class based enforcement if not outright racist enforcement of law

So I can easily reconcile my position that government is the problem because that is a factually accurate analysis of the history of law in this nation