Q-I don't recall civil rights mentioned as such in the Constitution. How did the phrase come about and what exactly is considered a civil right versus another kind of right?

A-Civil rights were prominent in the Declaration of Independence as unalienable rights: ". . .that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Unalienable, or civil rights as we have come to call them, occur naturally or are the gift of a Creator, depending on your epistemological outlook, but in any rate they are not conferred on citizens by any government.

Q-I suppose then, they could be distinguished as either inherent or acquired.

A-Good. Acquired rights would depend on the State but inherent rights would exist independently of any form of government; the later are the civil rights we are talking about. If you really want to understand natural or civil rights, you've got to read the 17th century philosopher John Locke who was in instrumental in shaping the thought of our founding fathers. Locke thought the purpose of government was to protect and help people more effectively secure natural rights and therefore government itself could never violate those rights.

Q-That seems to be in direct opposition to the views of philosophers such as Hobbes, Spinoza and Rousseau who thought it was expected that individuals surrender at least a portion of their natural rights to society or the State.

A-As I said, our forefathers considered civil rights to be unalienable---not capable of being transferred. But if you read Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the tract that incited men to revolution, you will get a much better understanding of the importance of civil rights in the formation of this country than anything I might be able to say.

Also in The Rights of Man, Paine talked of rights in relation to society and was of the opinion that by means of a community relationship, a person should have stronger, not weaker rights than before he or she entered into the social contract.

Paine considered man's natural rights to be not really synonymous with, but rather the foundation of all of his civil rights. Natural rights become civil rights when they are protected by government but they originate in the very nature of man as an individual and do not depend on society for their existence, just for their protection.

Q-I'm sorry---you're losing me.

A-Suffice it to say that the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution determined to protect individual rights from government via separating and balancing the power of the various branches of the new government and by making sure the government protected the rights of individuals via the bill of rights, and especially the ninth amendment which states "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Q-How then could slavery have been tolerated in the United States of America?

A-The leading statesmen of the time, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay---just to name a few---believed that slavery was a violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically and in less than a hundred years, when the oratorical skills of the likes of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison and Abraham Lincoln failed to persuade, a war was fought over the issue, as you well know.

Q-Wasn't the idea behind the original civil rights movement to expand individual freedom and restrict the power of government?

A-Unfortunately, in my opinion at any rate, the civil rights movement lost its way, and instead of urging equal justice under the law and the opportunity to compete and share in social and economic benefits, it began crusading for the bestowal of these benefits upon groups of people on the basis of race and other classifications that they had formerly fought to have ignored. They redefined "equality" to mean "equal outcomes" instead of "equal treatment"; they emphasized the rights of the group instead of the rights of the individual; the movement became a collective struggle rather than an open road to individual achievement." Their goal became the redistribution of wealth.

Q-It would seem that the concept of "equal outcomes" is basically incompatible with the concept of "individual liberty". Am I right in thinking this?

A-At least you're in good company in your observation. The philosopher-economist Friedrich Hayek pointed out that since people are different, in order to obtain "equal outcomes" they cannot be treated equally, they must be treated differently or with discrimination.

According to Hayek, "Equality before the law and material equality are . . .in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either the one or the other, but not both at the same time."

Q-If that were recognized wouldn't you think people would prefer equality before the law since it could lead to material equality but not vice versa?

A-But people want it easy and expect it all. My biggest problem with the "new civil rights philosophy" is its abandonment of the individual in favor of the group. As Clint Bolick, founder of the Landmark Legal Foundation Center for Civil Rights said in his highly recommended book on this subject,(Unfinished Business) "Whatever rationales can justify favorable treatment of people by virtue of their membership in particular groups can also justify adverse treatment of individuals by virtue of their group identification. Only a system of rights inhering in every individual can provide durable safeguards against majoritarian tyranny."

Q-Hubert Humphrey, when arguing on behalf of the civil rights act of 1964, said, "our standard of judgment . . .is not some group's power. . .but an equal opportunity for persons."

A-That may be true, but not much later---in 1969 in fact---Whitney Young spoke for a new breed of civil rights activists, who championed groups over the individual, and declared that equality would be achieved in America when ". . .in each group in our society, roughly the same proportion of people succeed and fail. . ."

Q-But wasn't that success to be dependent upon handouts from already productive and successful groups, rather than based on individual achievement?

A-Unfortunately that's true. Mr. Young advocated entitlements such as guaranteed incomes and a right to a decent home. He unwittingly advocated making his identified group, dependent, weak and at the mercy of the majority.

Q-What do they say about the "proof being in the pudding", or something to that effect? Anyway it seems that over the past 23 years racial tensions have increased, and for a large portion of minorities, poverty and crime have become even more entrenched. In other words, this new approach to civil rights is obviously not working!

We enter the dialogue as the participants begin to discuss that over the past 23 years racial tensions have increased, and for a large portion of minorities, poverty and crime have become even more entrenched. It seems that this new approach to civil rights is obviously not working....

A-There have been enormous strides made by individual members of these groups but it is true that quotas, set-asides and other race-specific policies tend to benefit those who are already on their way and do nothing for those who most need help. In fact many sociologists are alarmed by the gap which has emerged between low-income and middle or high-income blacks.

Q-You said earlier that the Davis-Bacon Act, which calls for payment of prevailing wages on all federally financed or assisted construction, discriminates against blacks. How can this be when black congressmen support it?

A-Prevailing wages translates to union wages or higher. Do you honestly think this is good for blacks?

Q-Well, since back in 1931 blacks were not in unions it was obviously meant to keep them out of many occupations.

A-Obviously! In fact a congressman from Alabama said straight out at the time, "That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports and puts them in cabins. And it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country." That was his argument in support of Davis-Bacon legislation!

Black congressman are too often pawns of organized labor--they get money from unions. Early civil rights leaders knew unions were the enemies of minorities. I would go even further and claim that all laws and licensing restrictions are government-backed collusions in restraint of trade and are harmful, particularly to minorities and those trying to get a step on the first rung of the economic ladder.

Q-The Heritage Foundation came out with a turnabout theory recently that attempts to show that economic conditions in a neighborhood depend on the presence or absence of crime and not as generally believed, that crime depends on the economy. Did you hear about that?

A-I sure did and it makes sense to me. In a nutshell they claimed crime causes poverty more than poverty causes crime. To grow economically, preserve property values, and attract investments, a community must be safe. According to James K. Stewart, former director of the National Institute for Justice, "Crime is the ultimate tax on enterprise. It must be reduced or eliminated before poor people can fully share in the American Dream."

Q-You can bet that report wasn't news to the people who live in crime ridden areas. Isn't their first question to any politicking official, "What can be done to help minority communities plagued by violence and crime?"

A-State and local government have had little success in their attempts to change conditions in these neighborhoods, so in many cases residents have taken the task into their own hands.

Q-Do you have any examples?

Q-In Ravendale, Michigan on the east-side of Detroit, a violent drug-soaked ghetto by all accounts, a local minister, Eddie Edwards, is trying self-help. In 1986 he told a neighborhood group they had been operating under a welfare mentality too long and that it was time to help themselves. He got citizens to organize to fight crime, find jobs for the unemployed and clean up the neighborhood.

Volunteers surveyed the 4,000 residents and discovered most wanted more good jobs, less crime and somewhere to shop. A used bus was purchased and used to drive the elderly to stores. Little league and block neighborhood watches were formed, a regular community newsletter went out and volunteers announced Saturday meetings through a bullhorn.

The city responded to the efforts of the citizens by tearing down abandoned houses, towing wrecked cars, and raiding crack-houses. The neighbors cleared alleyways, planted shrubs and sold security lighting.

Habitat for Humanity, renovated three homes in the area. Volunteers painted 32 houses with donated paint, trained the unemployed for interviews and found jobs for 150 of them. A health clinic began providing medical services on a payment plan and the police built a mini-station in the neighborhood.

Q- That sounds like a real success story.

A-Wait, I'm not through. There wasn't the groundswell of support Reverend Edwards had anticipated. There just isn't much initiative in third-generation welfare families. People would come for the freebies and when the project started they would head on home. Churches and local businesses gave little or no support and there were few contributions from outside the community. Volunteers already had a hard time surviving, caring for their own families under very tough circumstances. In the end there was more talk than anything else and most of the dozen enthusiasts fell away.

Q-Nothing was accomplished in the end?

A-I wouldn't go that far, but the attitudes weren't right. For instance the volunteers managed to get a job for a 20 year old who said "I'm not going to get my hair cut for any job. I'll get my hair cut when I want to." He's still unemployed.

In another case a welfare mother remains in her run-down home, lacking the skills and confidence to find a job. She says, "I don't want to scrub floors or do any domestic work. I don't want that." Volunteers agreed to paint her run down house but their morale sank when they found three men--two sons and a nephew---on the couch watching TV and ignoring the workers outside!

Crime continues. The families in the ghetto were more demoralized than expected and Eddie Edward's ministry and its small paid staff, not the residents, keep the project alive. The good workers say "Evil is moving faster than you are and its overtaking the kids." Success will come only when residents take over administration.

Sixty-nine homes stood empty and crumbling in Ravendale two years ago; community members helped rebuild nine. The blight spread nonetheless. While they were renovating those nine, another thirteen were abandoned.

Q-But there are successes?

A-There are numerous examples. For instance, Robert Woodson, president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise has had many. But instead of getting into "feel good" stories, I would rather emphasize what needs to be done and what can be done in the still demoralized communities.

Q-That's what I asked for.

A-Take Alexandria, Virginia where black community activists were recently demoralized when both the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) appealed a law they had championed and which a federal judge subsequently ruled unconstitutional. The anti-littering law was intended to assist police in breaking up several open-air drug markets in the community. Maxine Clark, one of the leaders in the fight to clean up Alexandria, told the Wall Street Journal, "Our embattled communities are simply asking for the same kind of law enforcement common to the affluent neighborhoods. "

Q-What about those living with the violence of the Los Angeles gangs? They have been rightfully demanding more law and order.

A-It's not surprising that people who live in the neighborhoods covered by police gang-sweeps favor them. They have consistently voted more funds for police protection but have not been supported by voters in more conservative, and safer white districts in the county.

The main job of any government is protection of its citizens, and yet Los Angeles has produced an emaciated criminal justice system with far too few police, probation officers, judges, courts, prosecutors, public defenders and far too few jails.

Q-How would you reconcile that with statistics that were heatedly discussed in June 1991 showing that spending on schools is dwarfed by spending on jails and the criminal justice system?

A-I'm sorry, but without crime control you can forget the schools. An expert at the American Enterprise Institute found that each year about three million crimes are attempted or completed on or around school grounds.

Q-No wonder so many kids stay away from school.

A-Not only kids, but good teachers may not be willing to risk bodily harm. Fear of being beaten or robbed can make it impossible for even residents of crime infested areas to become productive employees or entrepreneurs. And forget entering the middle class through the professions.

Q-I guess no one's going to go to night school if they can be murdered on the way home.

A-Remember when we talked about practicing preventative law enforcement and you said people wanted it? Well a former Oakland, California resident has been having phenomenal success doing just that. In Charleston, South Carolina, formerly a crime ridden community of approximately 80,000, new Chief of Police, Ruben Greenburg got crime rates to decline by 42 percent by using an elite unit of foot patrolmen.

Q-What about operation "cul de sac" in Los Angeles?

A-You're right--crime fell by 90 percent in six months when the police barricaded streets to keep suspicious people out of a neighborhood and put up gates with signs saying "Open to Residents Only".

Q-And student attendance in neighborhood schools increased dramatically.

A-However, when the barricades came down crime moved in again almost immediately.

Q-Doesn't this approach to crime prevention have some newfangled name?

A-I think nowadays they refer to just about anything that prevents crime as opposed to investigating after the fact, as "community oriented policing".

Q- That would entail a lot of things.

A-You bet. Citizen unarmed voluntary patrols for one.

Q-Those are all over the country. I read in Washington D.C. there are 130 volunteer groups involving 6,000 residents who relay information regarding drugs and other crimes to the police.

A-The use of private security guards soared from 400,000 to 1.4 million in the same short time span that the uniformed regular police force across the nation rose from 400,000 to 600,000. Regular police cost a lot more and spend only about 2 percent of their time actively patrolling while the bulk of their time goes to testifying in court, wading through masses of paperwork and responding to calls. Private security guards spend 90 percent of their time patrolling and have managed to cut back crime significantly in those areas that use their services.

Q-I guess public housing projects have an extremely high crime rate.

A-About three or four times higher than the crime rate of the neighborhoods at large. The Department of Housing and Urban Development modified eviction procedures in about forty states that used to take at least two years to get rid of drug dealers and violent criminals.

Q-Apparently in housing projects in Orlando, Florida and Savannah, Georgia police have had good results working closely with tenants and even serve as a kind-of big- brother-role-model to kids who they take to ball games and other events.

A-Cleaning up neighborhoods deters criminals also, because it shows potential criminals that residents care and are more likely to report crimes committed in their neighborhood. Too often minor crimes, that do the most to spread a sense of lawlessness throughout a community, like vandalism, petty theft, juvenile drug and weapon possession, are left unpunished.

Q-In March 1989 Pat Moore, a black mother, organized an impromptu march of 100 people in Compton, California protesting lack of protection against criminals.

A-That was in response to the death of a two-year old boy caught in gun fire.

Q-I remember another Los Angeles ghetto mother (Cassandra Clark) was extremely incensed by a complaining letter to the Herald Examiner by a suburban father who felt his rights were being infringed when school authorities forbade his son to wear an earring to school. Earrings had been banned along with other gang-associated garb, in an attempt to reduce theft, robbery and other crimes.

A-Finally people who know the facts, because they are the targets of crime, are speaking out. For years the Los Angeles NAACP protested that crime was caused primarily by racial discrimination. In 1989 it came around and its president said "the related problem of gang activities and the selling and use of drugs is something to be condemned as a civil wrong in the community. When we constantly talk about excuses for this kind of behavior, we simply make it worse. . . We've got to apply the same pressure to civil wrongs that we applied in seeking our civil rights."

Q-I heard somewhere that a young black male is more likely to die on the streets of Harlem than in Bangladesh.

A-I think you realize by now that I think the entitlement mentality causes blacks to cultivate the attitudes of victims--triggers in whites the instinct of condescension and leads both to discount black achievement. Unfortunately, the status of victim is a coveted and lucrative one. As for role models, they are beneficial no matter what race, height, sex or anything else they may have in common with a young aspirant.

Q-It seems like all the black male role models are involved with sports and entertainment, and those are unrealistically hard fields to break into.

A-Ah, but there are a lot of black male role models not involved with sports or entertainment.

Q-For instance?

A-How about General Colin Powell, Virginia's Governor Doug Wilder, Health & Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan and professors and social commentators such as Carl Rowan, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Glenn Loury, Shelby Steele, William Allan and William Raspberry.

John Johnson is an excellent role model. He came from the welfare rolls of Chicago and now heads a publishing company estimated to be worth $150 million. He got an idea for a magazine directed at blacks and pawned his mother's furniture for seed money. He credits his success to his desire and ambition and willingness to take risks.

Q-Unfortunately there are even more unfavorable role models.

A-I suppose you're referring to the usual dropouts, drug dealers and so forth. A much needed middle class role model was denounced recently by the Daughters of Zion, a black women's civic association. They declared a Los Angeles area police officer on permanent disability leave because of the stress he says was caused by racism in his department, to be the wrong kind of black leader.

Q-What do you think about the unique point of view expressed by that tough minded black writer, Stanley Crouch?

A- Mr. Crouch criticizes other black writers, such as James Baldwin, who he claims removes free will from unsuccessful blacks through the "doom of color." Crouch makes fun of what he calls the Frankensteinian conception of life where the white man is Dr. Frankenstein and blacks are monsters, not responsible for their lives because they may have been made imperfectly by Dr. Frankenstein.

The following quote prompted the feeling of a kindred spirit between myself and Mr. Crouch: "I'm not going to submit to racism, I don't care whose version of it I happen to come in contact with; I'm not going to submit to superficial thinking about people; I'm not going to submit to any ideas that reduce the rich possibility of human life. . . Too many people are sold on defeatist philosophy. Too many people are told they can't get anything done before they ever get there. That's really dangerous. That's un-American,"

I obviously am a fan of Stanley Crouch and would be no matter what his color. I think his message is equally relevant to all races.

Q-Shelby Steele of San Jose State, shares the same point of view.

A-That's true. As far as I can tell, Professor Steele believes highlighting black racial identity, victimization and entitlement has placed blacks in an adversarial position to the mainstream. He criticizes affirmative action programs and many black leaders whom he feels promote what he calls a disabling victim psychology in blacks, that equates victim status with virtue and permits individuals to avoid self-examination and to rationalize failure.

He claims, along with Mr. Crouch, that remedies of affirmative action programs stigmatize recipients, subject them to self-doubt and reinforce dependency and a feeling of inequality.

Q-But he doesn't believe that self-reliance and a boot-strap mentality will solve any problems.

A-Maybe not, but Mr. Crouch (See previous file) endorses programs to develop people and communities and seeks answers in partnerships between the mainstream and the ghettos. From what I've read he seems to think blacks need to take responsibility---which is nothing new----early black leaders such as Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois called for individual self-determination.

Nevertheless, blacks can't solve the problem of drugs, crime, poverty and despair of the inner cities without outside help.

Q-That's the point Pat Moore was trying to get across. Remember, she's the mother from Compton, California (see previous file) we mentioned earlier?

A-That's right. But when criminal activities aren't involved, communities seem to be able to make headway on their own. There's a voluntary program in Beloit Wisconsin called "Help Yourself". Two days after school and on Saturday mornings, minority children between the ages of nine and thirteen, gather on the campus of Beloit College to speak Latin and gain a sense of cultural identity by studying ancient cultures.

In early 1991 they were studying ancient Alexandria, as a model for cooperation and learning among diverse peoples. The curriculum was set through a continuing fictional narrative which unfolds the adventures of a second century black Ethiopian family.

The idea was not to present black history, as is done in so many programs, but to present an integrated history in which blacks participated equally.

Q-Does the Bush Administration have any economic programs geared specifically to help minorities?

A-Well I'm not so sure it is as much George Bush's program, as it is Jack Kemp's, but there are ideas for a community-based youth corps, involving black youngsters in doing things for their own communities, free-enterprise zones to encourage job creation in high unemployment areas, tenant management and ownership of public housing, more magnet schools and earned income tax credits.

Q-I heard that a 13-year suit by the NAACP against the city of Boston and HUD was recently settled. The NAACP had charged that public housing funds were being allocated in favor of white neighborhoods.

A-You're right. In January 1991 the government agreed to pump $500 million into black neighborhoods in Boston to subsidize rental units for 500 families. I don't know why they just didn't give each family their pro-rata share and make them millionaires.

Q-Great except for one little thing--- the subsidies are to be spread over a fifteen year period and in government that's stretching into never-never land.

A-Some people are tired of waiting for the government to come through with help, and like Charles Stith, of the Boston-based civil rights group called ONE (Organization for a New Equality) they are taking things into their own hands and trying to revitalize their own decaying neighborhoods.

Q-What do you think about the polls that showed that many blacks opposed the American role in the Gulf war?

A-It seems to have been a butter versus guns issues in the minds of many opponents of the war. Over and over again you heard whites, as well as minorities, claim that we shouldn't be in the Gulf defending rich princes and big oil companies while people in this country suffered from poor housing food and health care---things that only fifty years ago Americans were supposed to provide for themselves.

The United States is constantly being compared to other countries and told to emulate their education, employment practices, health care, job security and so on and so forth.

Q-That's certainly true. I even heard an army sergeant deplore our spending billions on the war while there is still homelessness and poverty in the United States--as if poverty could be erased once and for all.

A-Powerful California legislator, Willie Brown claimed the proposition limiting terms which got the approval of a majority of California voters in 1990, is racist. Why? Because the most powerful minority politicians, including Willie Brown, are long time incumbents.

Q-I hope you're not denying that racism exists in this country?

A- I'm not that naive, but I hope you'll agree that sometimes it's a close call---determining whether a result is caused by racism or some other circumstance.

For instance, in the fall of 1990 a federal judge ruled that a residency requirement for municipal employees in the 99 percent white town of Harrison, New Jersey, discriminated against racial minorities. New Jersey law permits localities to enact residency requirements, justified on the grounds that they ensure that on-call employees, such as police and fire fighters, can get to their jobs quickly. But racism was read into the situation because minority employees lived in neighboring communities.

Q- I must admit those regulations sound mighty suspicious to me. Who said, "Regulation routinely has been used by special interests to conspire against the public interest."?

A-I'll take a wild guess and say Nobel prize winning economist, George Stigler because he exposed the myth of so-called public interest regulation.

Q-Are you familiar with Professor Stigler's theories?

A-Vaguely, I agree with him that more problems have been caused by government than have been caused by lack of it. Insufficient opportunities for racial minorities is one instance---and you may well be right about the Harrison, New Jersey situation. As I said, sometimes it's a close call.

But one thing is crystal clear----rotten school systems, thanks to a near government monopoly, means graduates have a hard time finding jobs. But all too often they are denied positions they could easily fill, not because of their poor education, but because of generally unnecessary licensing regulations. California alone has 178 occupations that require licenses for entry.

Q-I hear you. In Missouri, beauticians are expected to take a difficult written test which includes questions regarding the chemical composition of bones---irrelevant to styling hair, but it keeps blacks, who passed the hands-on practical examination out of the profession nevertheless.

A-That's exactly the kind of disgrace I'm talking about! Such devices effectively deny economic self-determination and constitute a denial of civil rights.

During the debate of the civil rights act of 1991, the shocking statement was made that since we already have requirements (regulations) for safety, financial, environmental and trade matters, why not race relations? "We can't go back", said the speaker, and I sensed a bit of nostalgia. It was as if he were saying, we have already lost so much freedom in these other areas, what's a little more.

Q-Why can't we go back? Isn't that in a sense what the Supreme Court has done in its rulings since 1989 by softening some of the harsh requirements placed on employers earlier?

A-No one really wants to "go back", we need to go forward, albeit on another path. If we really think too many of our freedoms have been curtailed, of course we can reverse the trend and "go forward".

Q-That smacks of the Orwellian rhetoric you claim to despise. "Love is hate; war is peace; ignorance is truth" and now backward is forward!

A-It is merely acknowledging human nature. People equate "going back" with losing ground, going backwards. We must always go forward, but with our compass pointed in the direction we, as a nation, have determined we want to go. We can't leave it solely to the politicians; we must add our input.

The Harry Singer Foundation, which I co-founded in 1987, sponsored a nationwide high-school essay contest in 1991 concerning the role of government in child care. I noticed students kept saying in essay after essay that having one parent home to look after the children is best, and then adding, of course that is impossible---this is the nineties, not the fifties.

If these kids really believe stay-home-moms are best, then they can find a way to have stay-home-moms in the future. If we really want individual liberty and individual opportunity for all groups in America we must do more than articulate the goals as Jack Brooks did; we must look under the surface to find the way. Removing legislation which pits groups, one against another, is the first step.

Q-What do you think of the statement made by Richard Gephardt in summing up the Democrats' position in favor of the Brooks-Fish amendment to H.R.1, the 1991 civil rights act? He said, "We have to challenge our sense of personal responsibility. . ."

A- "Personal responsibility"---that's what I believe it all comes down to. These relationships cannot successfully be mandated by law; these relationships must be the personal responsibility of each and every one of us.

I leave you with the words of Gary Franks, a new congressman from Connecticut, who knows first hand what I can never experience in the same way, although my heart and head tells me it is true. In arguing against H.R. 1 and the Brooks-Fish amendment, he said, "As one who has personally felt the stings and arrows of racism, I have come to realize our country will only evolve into a truly color-blind society once we remove economic barriers and support incentives for people to work and promote themselves as far as their skills and drive we'll take them."