Has Alan Keyes lost his mind?

I was going to ignore this topic entirely, but reading LaShawn Barber's commentary, "Disgruntled Token" has pushed me over the edge.

(Incidentally, that's such an odd word. As if Keyes was "Gruntled" before...)

I got to like Alan a few years ago. In fact, until just this week, I would have said I was a "big fan" of his. I liked his apparent moral compass, his clear arguments, his eloquence. I liked the fact that he could disagree without being disagreeable. And the way he'd often make mincemeat of his opponent's arguments, sticking doggedly to a point as they tried to dance around it.

(Though I wasn't impressed by Alan's sweaters.)

And he got a few points for bravery. I'm always impressed with conservatives who are formed in, and in spite of, situations where that's tremendously not-cool. Horowitz. Keyes. Barber (just getting to know her). Thomas. Sowell. Being a former liberal is one such case. Coming from the black community, is another. (Yeah, Sowell, a former Marxist, and Barber, a former liberal, earn double points.) And even more points for anyone, like Sowell, daring to be a conservative in an academic setting.

Sadly, I fear Keyes has lost his mind. Or principles. Or something.

Perhaps he's being consistent in some way, and I just never knew him before. Perhaps he's being an agent provacateur. I don't know... it's just sad.

First, he says he'll pull up stakes and run in Illinois. Despite having (rightly, IMHO) criticized Hillary for doing so in NY. Fine, I think. Nobody's perfect. Sad to see a flaw, but power, and perhaps partisanship, can be a pretty strong lure. Perhaps I'd do as badly if faced with the same temptation...

I'd have been more impressed if he'd said something along the lines of: "What Hillary started was wrong, but it's a new reality we all have to adjust to. I shouldn't have spoken so hastily before when I said it was something I wouldn't do."

Now, as you probably know, Alan's come out for race reparations using income tax breaks. As a guy who wants to see less taxes paid, I understand the attraction of that half of the equation. But I'm also annoyed, as a conservative, that the tax code has become a pervasive mechanism for social engineering. Each exemption puts another paragraph or two into the tax code, makes the tax system less efficient, makes complying with the tax code more burdensome, and puts more money into the pocket of lobbyists, laywers, and tax professionals, all of whose talents could be put to better public service elsewhere.

But that avoids the real issue...

I agree slavery was harmful, and agree its legacy lives on today -- both in the minds of racists but also in the minds of leaders and "intellectuals" who want to whip up bitterness about acts done hundreds of years ago to advance their careers. While it's always useful to learn the lessons of history, there's nobody alive today we can beat with that stick.

Sadly, Keyes has entered that camp. True, his solution doesn't necessarily penalize non-blacks -- in fact, he's probably right we'd all benefit as well. (Why *wouldn't* I want to see businesses growing where ghettos are now? That's good news for everyone.)

But Keyes seems to have missed Thomas Sowell's studies on preferential policies, and overlooked some the detrimental effects he documents.

First, Sowell demonstrates such policies tend to benefit those among the preferred class who need it least. In this particular case, I fail to see how income tax exemptions will help those we'd argue are "most affected" by slavery: poor blacks, who, under the current code, pay no income taxes at all. How will a tax break improve their lot in life?

Instead, those who benefit will be blacks among the middle and upper classes. Call me selfish, or a rube, but I've never understood why, as a taxpayer, I'm supposed to support measures to specially "help" people -- anyone, really -- who makes as much as I do or more. I mean, if I'm living at this level and not complaining, why should I bend over backwards for my economic peers, or those much richer? Is skin color supposed to alter this judgement? Am I supposed to feel "pity" and weep for a man living in opulence in a mansion as long as his skin color is dark, when I would not do the same if it were a pale-pink, olive, tan, or yellowish tint?

The only possible reason one could find for such would be what Sowell calls "cosmic justice" -- in this case, the desire to repay or right past wrongs. But, in that case, I've got to defer to the bible, which tells me the children are not guilty for the sins of the fathers, and that I should leave the "cosmic justice" to God. I've must also point out that "cosmic justice", as humans apply it, produces some rather unjust results in the land of the living.

And that brings me to the next point: Sowell also shows, in every case, that preferential measures increase prejudice, division, resentment, and strife. In this case, I fear such a measure would contribute to the perception that those black who succeed have only done so because of unfair advantages. (Sowell often remarks that he was glad to have won his own academic awards before affirmative action kicked in.) That both undermines the individual's efforts, and gives added (and often undue) credence to the social engineering program.

And this isn't likely to be a charge whispered only in the less-respectable corners of the "white" community: There are good, persuasive cases to be made that Native Americans, Mexicans, and others have been similiarly aggrieved through bad behavior over the course of this nation's history. Wouldn't they, by the same token, deserve and resent being denied similar exemptions?

And perhaps that is what Keyes intends: To get everyone clamoring for lower taxes for their special interest groups. (And this would be different, how?)

But here's the crucial problem:

Like the Star-Bellied Sneetch markings, such a scheme puts people at each other's throats, rather than working together. Socialists have always grabbed power by attempting to divide people by some criteria (be it "class" (Marx) or "race" (Hitler)) and promise government action as the solution.

Today, liberals use the "the rich got a bigger tax break than you!" argument to divide us, and make us forget the real enemy is the bloated bureaucracy which we're all feeding. Alan's proposal shifts the liberal argument against tax breaks from a class war to a race war. The goal should be to reduce the total burden, not to shift it onto some group -- whether defined by race or class -- of which you're not a member.

Bad. Very bad.

Socialism works just fine by any mechanism, but the goals have always been the same: Divide up society somehow (race, economic bracket, religion, caste, whatever), and then use the resulting strife to give more power to the state. In the Soviet Union, it was "class". Today in the US, it's numerous special interest groups. Keyes is playing directly into this strategy.

Then there's the issue of who gets the breaks, and how we go about determining that. (Since Native Americans started receiving gaming liscenses, long lost "tribe members" -- often looking quite pale -- have been coming out of the woodwork.) I suspect Keyes, if he's got a bit of conservative still about him, wouldn't mind having the definition of "black" applied as broadly as possible. After all, he should support less taxes anyway, right? But this issue has been beat to death on other blogs, so I don't need to elaborate further.

Lastly, criticism which simply says "no" is not constructive. By way of giving positive suggestions, I'd suggest Alan consider this (as if I had more than three readers!):

If Keyes wants to figure out how to help those who have been "hurt" by slavery, he should figure what "hurt" means. For example, I don't think Jesse Jackson, though black, has been "hurt" by slavery. (Instead, he seems to be making quite a bit of money off that idea. In a US with no history of slavery, assuming he were still here, he'd out of a job.)

So perhaps we'd say a person could be shown to be "hurt" if they were poor. Or if they were getting a lousy education. Or were living in certain distressed areas. Or had a damaged family structure. Or whatever.

Then, once you have figured out how to spot those who were "hurt" -- and no, I won't buy into any formula can show a millionaire is "hurting", economically -- then apply it consistently, without regard to race. After all (he said, invoking his best liberal arguments) why just help those who are hurting for one reason? Aren't others also entitled to be helped?

Didn't Native Americans have their land taken from them? How about Mexicans? Weren't the Irish and Jews subject to discrimination, too? Not to mention the ugly or overweight? And those with parents addicted to drugs?

For example, say a poor white boy with learning problems goes to a majority-black school, and the school has a reading program for the "disadvantaged" -- but defines "disadvantaged" by racial critera. Yet isn't he in the same boat, regardless of color? What does this little kid have to do with anything? He's only six, and isn't responsible for any of the criteria you've used against him.

That's the stupidity of race-based selection criteria.

It would be better to apply the program based on economic bracket and test scores: After all, we could argue rich kids' parents -- of any color, mind you -- can afford tutoring, and kids with no learning problems -- again, of any color -- don't need the extra assistance to read well.

If your criteria has a disproportionate effect, and helps more blacks, then that's great. I strongly support that -- it shows blacks were, in fact, hurt, and helps fix that in a colorblind fashion by helping whoever has been hurt, for whatever reason. But if it not, then you're left concluding either that blacks aren't as "hurt", by that metric, as you'd like to think, or that you're using a lousy metric and you need to go back to the drawing board.

And that, Alan, is the conservative way to go about solving social problems. In your case, perhaps you'd like to give those residing in the poorest neighborhoods tax breaks, regardless of color. That would be a similar solution I could support. If applied to property as well, it could help bring business (and thus jobs) into blighted areas.

But Alan's not proposing that.

In the end, I don't think this will help Keyes. Despite his own tendancies, Obama's address during the convention was, in some ways, a profoundly conservative one: There is one America, not two. We're all in this together. We need to start looking to each other.

As conservatives, our message always been to help people focus on the possible, the things they can do, the improvements they are capable of making, and stop portraying individuals and consent-based communities as powerless sans coercive government intervention. And where government intervention has been required, we favor incremental, tested changes designed to have a real effect, not massive, untested measures meant to implement somebody's abstract idea of social justice.

It looks like Obama understands this, given the profoundly conservative speech he gave at the convention. How sad that Keyes, as a purported representative of conservative thought, is taking the opposite line.

stop looking to factors we can't change, and politicians who promise, somehow, they'll change them, and instead