Before the movement on behalf of "civil rights" began last century, "discriminate" meant nothing more than to make a clear distinction. Since then, the word has developed a new connotation that has all but eliminated the old; it now refers to distinction-making on the basis of class or category without regard to personal merit. Nowadays, those who speak broadly of "discrimination" are normally referring only to discrimination against those who belong to the Left's victimological pantheon, including blacks, women, Hispanics, American Indians, immigrants, homosexuals, and the disabled.
With this new word in its arsenal, the Left has backed its opposition into an uncomfortable corner. By championing the "rights" of groups who seem to face unconquerable disadvantages, the Left cultivates a guise of inherent moral superiority that it uses to command the political debate and browbeat opponents. Thus, liberals have sainted themselves and remade American history into a political drama about an enlightened few valiantly resisting bigots, religious right-wing nuts, and other backward types, all in order to fulfill the promise of the Constitution and bring justice to a beleaguered people.
Even the Bowdoin Republicans took the bait. In inviting Michael Heath to campus, they were caught contemplating the argument for Bible-based bigotry. In the atmosphere nourished by that event, Alex Linhart's recent editorial plea on behalf of free enterprise hasn't a chance of being heard. Indeed, what could be said against the "No on 1" activist onslaught?
We could begin by correcting the Left's legalistic view of our founding philosophy. As any worthy historian knows, the American Revolution was fueled by a radical libertarian vision of inviolable right to life, liberty, and property. For more than 50 years before 1775, the philosophy of John Locke and the inflammatory editorials of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon nurtured the colonists' already individualistic outlook. Beginning in the 17th century, they had resisted every single authoritarian encroachment on what they proudly viewed as their inherent rights. Many of the founders were afraid that even the Constitution made for a dangerously centralized government and signing it did not change their belief that government is derived from the people and not the other way around.
Since they meant to guarantee liberty for all men, they would have rejected the basic motivation for modern "civil rights" legislation. For if we must specifically identify each group that is entitled to basic rights and legislate to secure them, we are admitting that our rights are not inalienable but must be won again and again in the political machinery of successive votes and referendums. Hence, we are cultivating the notion that everyone's rights belong first to the government rather than to individuals themselves.
Further, current Leftist rhetoric obscures the fact that anti-discrimination laws constitute a massive assault on private property, something that would have made the revolutionaries grab their guns and head for the woods. For in order to bend businesses to its will and force them to comply with current anti-discrimination laws, the government assists employees in confiscating several hundred million dollars each year in lawsuits. In addition to the harm inflicted in lawsuits, employers spend enormous amounts of money to remain constantly prepared and reduce the likelihood that complaints will be filed. They spend precious resources in actually litigating each complaint, or if they're lucky, in settling out of court. They sacrifice efficiency in hiring individuals only because they belong to a particular marginalized group. For businesses treading on the margin, these costs can mean the difference between profit and bankruptcy.
If forced to acknowledge this argument, the "No on 1" activists would argue that such measures are necessary and justified. The government must intervene so that race, sex, and gender-bias may be eradicated from society.
Yet government intervention does not accomplish this goal. Anti-discrimination laws merely create their own trends of discrimination based on the whims of the majority.
Instances of employers forced to hire individuals only because they happen to belong to a favored marginalized group are well-known. This in itself should embarrass the pride the Left feels in its agitation for justice and equity in hiring practices.
In contrast to the economic damage and rampant rights-abuse that are inherent in civil rights legislation, the free market tends to resolve unfair hiring practices peacefully. By hiring on the basis of race, color, creed, or sexual orientation, businessmen undermine their productivity and risk angering customers, thus endangering their profits. As the economist Murray Rothbard wrote, "on the free market, everyone earns according to his productive value in satisfying consumer desires." In this economic fact lies our only realistic security against unfair discrimination.
The prevailing rhetoric can't hide the reality that ballot-measured and minutely-legislated rights are no rights at all, and that anti-discrimination laws constitute an intolerable assault on our property and our freedom to associate with whom we please.