For many of us, Barack Obama\u2019s presidency has been anything but an occasion for rejoicing.\u00a0 From its beginnings to the present, and particularly during the last couple of months with the eruption of one scandal after the other, it has been like a dark cloud hanging over the nation\u2019s head.<\/p>\n
Still, this dark cloud does indeed have a silver lining.<\/p>\n
Five years ago, Obama and his supporters (on both the left and right<\/i>) assured the country that his election promised to alleviate interracial tensions.\u00a0 Most people bought this line.\u00a0 Some of us, though, knew that it was just that\u2014a line.\u00a0\u00a0 Moreover, we knew that not only would race relations not improve, they would actually worsen as the usual suspects in the Racism Industrial Complex (RIC), ever fearful that a black president would undermine their heretofore tried and true narrative of perpetual white oppression and black suffering, accelerated their cries of \u201cracism.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, some of us also knew that RIC agents\u2019 fears were not unfounded.\u00a0 For however frequently and loudly they screamed \u201cracism,\u201d the presence of a black president\u2014and a black president with the name of Barack Hussein Obama, <\/i>to boot\u2014could very well, eventually, suck the life out of their template.<\/p>\n
An NBC\/Wall Street Journal poll taken\u00a0two weeks ago\u00a0suggests that maybe, just maybe, this is beginning to occur.<\/p>\n
The poll found that the public\u2019s support for affirmative action is at an all-time low.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
Forty-five percent of respondents maintain that this race-centered preferential treatment policy is still necessary in order to protect racial minorities.\u00a0 But, for the first time, an equal number of people think that it is unjust inasmuch as it discriminates against white.<\/p>\n
The significance of this can\u2019t be overstated.\u00a0 Two decades ago, 61 percent of Americans supported affirmative action.<\/p>\n
Predictably, race and politics remain reliable indicators of where one comes down on this issue.\u00a0 Opposition to affirmative action stems from nearly 60 percent of whites, 40 percent of Hispanics, and 20 percent of blacks. Sixty-seven percent of Democrats support it, versus just 22 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of self-identified members of the Tea Party who do so.\u00a0 Independents support affirmative action by just 39 percent.<\/p>\n
As NBC News\u2019 Domenico Mantanaro writes, this historically low support for affirmative action is attributable to several things, including \u201cdiversity fatigue\u201d and \u201c20 years of anti-affirmative-action campaigns.\u201d\u00a0 Yet, he adds, it is also explained as a result of \u201can African-American being elected president [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether Obama\u2019s presidency is just one cause among others or a primary contributor to the erosion of support for affirmative action is neither here nor there.\u00a0 To the extent that it accounts to any extent for this phenomenon almost makes his time in the Oval office worth it, for there are few policies as inimical to our constitutional order as affirmative action.<\/p>\n
The liberty that Americans have always prized and that our Founders did their best to codify in and secure by way of the Constitution did not fall like manna from heaven.\u00a0 It is the product of many generations, a complex of historically and culturally-specific habits, including and especially the habit of despising large concentrations of power.\u00a0 This last found its penultimate expression in respect for the rule of law.<\/i><\/p>\n
The rule of law prevents those in government from succumbing to arbitrary\u2014i.e. unlawful\u2014deployments of the power at their disposal.\u00a0 In other words, it forbids them from acting partially, whether in their own interests or those of a class.\u00a0 It requires of the government that it refrain from privileging some citizens above others.<\/p>\n
The rule of law precludes affirmative action.<\/p>\n
Reporting on the results of the NBC\/WSJ poll, Domenico Mantanaro says that respondents who reject affirmative action reject it on the grounds that such \u201cprograms unfairly discriminate against whites.\u201d\u00a0 They are mistaken.\u00a0 Affirmative action deserves to be rejected, certainly, but not because it is either discriminatory or discriminatory against whites.<\/p>\n
Affirmative action needs to be abolished because it is government <\/i>discrimination against some citizens and in favor of others.<\/p>\n
As such, it is an affront to the liberty of all citizens.<\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t it be ironic if Obama\u2019s color wound up actually harming <\/i>his cause by facilitating the end of affirmative action and a restoration of some measure of liberty?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For many of us, Barack Obama\u2019s presidency has been anything but an occasion for rejoicing.\u00a0 From its beginnings to the present, and particularly during the last couple of months with the eruption of one scandal after the other, it has been like a dark cloud hanging over the nation\u2019s head. Still, this dark cloud does…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n