Black Americans Should Look to Conservative Policies

Last Saturday night, President Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus and asked blacks to care not about themselves but to put all their efforts toward getting himself re-elected.

Here is the president still talking about his non-existent jobs bill:

That starts with getting this Congress to pass the American Jobs Act.  (Applause.)  You heard me talk about this plan when I visited Congress a few weeks ago and sent the bill to Congress a few days later.  Now I want that bill back -- passed.  I’ve got the pens all ready.  I am ready to sign it.  And I need your help to make it happen.  (Applause.)

I wonder at what point this speech will actually converge with reality.

Obama here conflates progress (towards what?) with blacks following in lock step with his administration:

Throughout our history, change has often come slowly.  Progress often takes time.  We take a step forward, sometimes we take two steps back.  Sometimes we get two steps forward and one step back.  But it’s never a straight line.  It’s never easy.  And I never promised easy.  Easy has never been promised to us.  But we’ve had faith.  We have had faith.  We’ve had that good kind of crazy that says, you can’t stop marching.  (Applause.)

Here is Obama with a rousing finish:

I expect all of you to march with me and press on.  (Applause.)  Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes.  Shake it off.  (Applause.)  Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.  We are going to press on.  We’ve got work to do, CBC.  (Applause.) 

I know it's an old point, but what if a Republican had said those lines?   Screams of racism would have been plastered all over the editorials of Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne.  MSNBC anchors would be in a permanent state of hyperventilation.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be crusading for impeachment.

Apart from that, it's interesting to note that under Obama's watch, black unemployment has jumped from 12.6 to 16.7.  So much for being your brother's keeper.

Clarence Thomas has also dealt with these same issues in the past, but his language and prescriptions were a little different than those proposed by the president.  Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Thomas was Chairman of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission; and while serving in that capacity, he often gave speeches that the men who typically headed government agencies would never think of giving.  One of those speeches was titled "Why Black Americans Should Look to Conservative Policies," which Thomas delivered at the Heritage Foundation in 1987.  Unlike Obama's speech, Thomas based his treatment of the subject upon the natural law and natural rights foundations of the American Founding.

Here is Thomas:

Those on the Left smugly assume blacks are monolithic and will by force of circumstances always huddle to the left of the political spectrum. The political Right watches this herd mentality in action, concedes that blacks are monolithic, picks up a few dissidents, and wistfully shrugs at the seemingly unbreakable hold of the liberal left on black Americans.

An important critique of the Reagan Administration (and conservativism in general) on civil rights issues:

During my first year in the Administration, it was clear that the honeymoon was over. The emphasis in the area of civil rights and social.policies was decidedly negative. In the civil rights arena, we began to argue consistently against affirmative action. We attacked welfare and the welfare mentality. These are positions with which I agree. But, the emphasis was unnecessarily negative. It had been my hope and continues to be my hope that we would espouse principles and policies which by their sheer force would preempt welfare and race-conscious policies.

Thomas offers a prescription to the ailments of both the Left and Right:

Blacks just happened to represent an interest group not worth going after polls rather than principles appeared to control. We must offer a vision, not vexation. But any vision must impart more than a warm feeling that "everything is just fine--keep thinking the same." We must start by articulating principles of government and standards of goodness. I suggest that we begin the search for standards and principles with the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence.

An appeal to the natural law arguments of the Declaration is the beginning to getting back on the right track:

[the natural law] approach allows us to reassert the primacy of the individual, and establishes our inherent equality as a God-given right. This inherent equality is the basis for aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws and equal employment opportunity laws designed to protect individual rights. Indeed, defending the individual under these laws should be the hallmark of conservatism rather than its Achilles' Heel. And in no way should this be the issue of those who are antagonistic to individual rights an d the proponents of a bigger more intrusive government. Indeed, conservatives should be as adamant about freedom here at home as we are about freedom abroad.

Instead of belief in Progress and marching in lockstep towards liberalism, black Americans should re-orient themselves by the principles of the American Founding.  Similarly, conservatives must be able to better articulate natural rights arguments and make it clear that those arguments apply to everyone equally, no matter race, gender, or religion.