Segregation Revisited

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Americans used to oppose segregation – the legalized exclusion of a category of people from mainstream society (and commerce) based on the idiotic and evil assertion that every member of the outcast category was a potential danger and for that reason they all had to be kept at arm’s length.

Even contrary to the wishes of people who wanted to extend their hand.

Many Americans now seem to favor a Vaccinated Only society, in which a whole category of people – those who’ve declined to be forced to take the Jab, for sound practical and hugely important principled reasons – are to be forcibly excluded from the general society. This is no less evil (or imbecilic) a measure than remanding blacks to “Colored” water fountains – and so on.

But there is an interesting difference, this time.

In the days of legalized racial segregation – and even today – few object to voluntary segregation. It is certainly not illegal. Well, provided it is practiced by a politically protected category of people.

There are entirely black fraternities, for instance – and even black-only (or mostly) colleges and universities. And there is nothing wrong with this – if the principle is respected that all people have the right to freely associate, on whatever basis.

If some black people prefer the company of other black people, those black people have every right to associate according to their preference – provided there is no legal cudgel in place forcing them to associate only with those people nor denying them the right to associate freely with anyone who wishes to freely associate with them.

This is where the civil rights movement went off the rails – assuming its primary goal was, in fact, civil rights.

Of course, it was not that.

Rather, the putative goal was used to further the actual goal, that being the empowering of the administrative state to deny the right of free association, according to its whims. It wasn’t merely that it became unlawful – and rightly so – for black Americans to be denied equal access to public spaces, such as public transportation and other such things financed by general taxes and controlled by the government.

It was used to abrogate the right of some people  – e.g., whites who wished to associate with other whites in their own private places.

That may not be a laudable thing – but it is no less laudable than blacks having their own fraternities and colleges. But if that is their wish then it is their right – and ought to be respected.

Provided no one is forced to associate.

It is certainly a dangerous thing to abrogate anyone’s right to choose with whom they wish to associate – and an even worse thing to force anyone to associate with others they’d prefer not to.

Most of us would recoil at the prospect of being told whom we must marry or may not marry. Or even be friends  with people not freely chosen by us.

And us, by them.

That some other person – a bureaucrat of the administrative state – should be empowered to become the arbiter of our associations is perhaps the most obnoxious concept imaginable for it is a fundamental abrogation of our right to steer our own ship and to crew it as we wish.

Why not let us each steer our own ship?

If this principle were accepted, then segregation can become a solution rather than a tool of oppression.

People would be free, under the law, to associate with the “vaccinated” – or not. And the not would be free to do the same, each deciding for themselves and each respecting the others’ decision.

This could be the peaceful solution to what ails us.

No one forced to enter a store or restaurant or gym that admits the Unjabbed – and no store or restaurant or gym owner denied the right to decide who will be admitted to their store or restaurant or gym. The Jabbed free to associate with the Jabbed and the Unjabbed free to associate with the Unjabbed.

Maybe a mix of both.

Let people decide for themselves – and associate, accordingly.

This is the principle that made America diverse, by the way. Not just superficially – but actually. People free to do their own thing – the most fundamentally diverse thing there is. It is not coincidental that America has become depressingly homogenous in every way except for the most superficial bean-counting, color-coded ways in parallel with the rejection of this principle.

Another aspect of letting people decide for themselves was embodied in the safeguard political principle of divided sovereignty that once formed the basis of what used to be the American republic.

There were meaningful differences beyond the geographic and topographical when one traversed the distance between one state and another state. Virginia, for instance, was freer as regards firearms than Massachusetts – just as Virginia was less free than Montana as regards traffic laws. The existence of these differences – and the option to freely associate with those who were like-minded – served as both alternative and check.

If people who esteemed their right to keep and bear arms could move to a state where that right was more respected, it served as an incentive to states that did not respect them to at least not totally eviscerate them. And even if they did eviscerate them, one could always leave.

And freely associate.

But what is wanted now – as regards everything – is enforced homogeneity; a bleak one-size-fits all. To be enforced by an elite caste of managers, who will tell us what we will be allowed to do and with whom we may associate – and also forbid us from associating with those we wish to associate with.

It is something that only the sick minds of the authoritarian Left could conceive of. It is effective, because the innocent minds of the people used by the authoritarian Left generally do not see the machinations underneath the pretexts, because their minds cannot conceive of such pathological thoughts. They take things at face value, not seeing what’s behind the false face of brotherly love and wearing is caring.

But once seen, it cannot be unseen.

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