Welcome to Keith and I don't tread on anyone in the Libertarian Institute. This is a section from my book Domestic Imperialism titled Arbitrary Divides. On June 12th, 2016, Omar Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL. While inside Pulse, Mateen called the police to admit to the terrorist act in hopes of amplifying his motives. Here's how then President Barack Obama addressed this tragedy 4 days later. This was an attack on the LGBT
community. Americans were targeted because we're a country that has learned to welcome everyone, no matter who you are or who you love. And hatred towards people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, is a betrayal of what's best in US. Here are the actual words spoken by Mateen in his phone call with police on the night of the massacre. You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They're killing a lot of innocent people.
What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there? You get what I'm saying. You need to stop the US air strikes. They need to stop the US air strikes, OK? They need to stop the US air strikes. You have to tell the US government to stop bombing. They are killing too many children. They are killing too many women. OK, I feel the pain of the people getting killed in Syria and Iraq.
They need to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. the US is collaborating with Russia and they are killing innocent women and children. OK, The air strikes need to stop and stop collaborating with Russia. OK? Tell the fucking the air strikes need to stop. You see? Now you feel. Now you feel how it is. Now you feel how it is. Barack Obama took what was clearly a response to the US government's foreign policy as an opportunity to place focus on the arbitrary demographic of the
victim's sexual orientation. He didn't say this was an attack on young people, even though most of the victims were young. He didn't say this was an attack on Floridians, even though the attack occurred in Florida. A sane response would have been this tragedy shows the human cost of our government's violence against innocent people abroad.
As Americans, we must reject the use of violence against innocent people to achieve our goals as a nation, regardless of country, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation. We must constantly have a policy, both foreign and domestic, which embraces life, liberty, and the peaceful
pursuit of happiness. To clarify, in 2016, the year of the Pulse massacre, the United States government dropped 24,287 bombs on Iraq and Syria, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The use of arbitrary divides involves separating people based on accidents of birth or irrelevant personal attributes, as opposed to actions they as individuals, choose to engage in.
Here are some arbitrary group identities commonly used by progressives to divide people of goodwill, male versus female, rich versus poor, Russian versus American, straight versus gay, black versus white. Two more examples illustrate this issue. First from CNN in an article titled US Black, White Inequality in Four Charts.
Second, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's speech Combating the Gender Pay Gap. The implicit assumption is that the existence of inequality is the result of discrimination, and the state must coercively step in and mandate equality between groups. Here are some disparities in America that the article and the speech both conveniently neglected to mention. How many hours men work annually compared to women, which fields men tend to study compared to
those which women tend to study. Engineering, communications and how ambitiously they studied. Black immigrants to America earn more than US born blacks. Married men earn more than unmarried men. The state wage gap. Maryland versus Mississippi median income. The age wage gap. Older men earn more than younger men. Indian Americans and Asian Americans earn more than white Americans. Most homeless people are men. Men are 10 times more likely to
die on the job. Men are roughly 50% of the American population, but 95% of those killed by police. Women are roughly 50% of the American population, but 89% of the elementary school teachers female only fans creators earn 78% more than their male counterparts. 1 Kenyan tribe The Kalanjin produces the world's best Olympic runners and 80% of California donut shops are owned by Cambodians.
The reality is that disparities and outcomes are all around us and are not only the result of unjust discrimination. Progressives seemingly cherry pick certain disparities to create division among populations so that they can have an enemy, thereby justifying their desire to rule over others. Focusing on disparities also distracts from focusing on the principle at hand.
Progressives will often oppose the war on drugs, for example, on the grounds that certain demographics are disproportionately targeted for drug arrests. But this assumes that the state has the right to imprison people for victimless crimes. So all the police need to do is arrest more people at a rate proportional to each demographic. According to the Selective Service System, all men ages 18 to 26 must register for the
draft. One way to approach it this is to say that forced labor is immoral. Another is to say that this is sexist and discriminatory. Therefore, women too should be forced to perform labor against their will. The profit motive is another arbitrary divide progressives use. Every time a person acts, he is using scarce resources, time, effort, money, products at his disposal in an attempt to improve his situation. This is the nature of homo economicus. Every second you spend reading,
you're not sleeping or hiking. For every dollar you spend on coffee, it's one less dollar you can spend on clothing. The Progressive takes this universal reality of trade-offs and then pins it uniquely on the free market. Do politicians not profit from television appearances and from large crowds sharing their names? Setting aside the psychic profit, politicians aren't exactly unpaid volunteers, with most of them having net worths much higher than those of their constituents.
Soldiers, teachers, and police officers are also profit seekers, as opposed to unpaid volunteers or people who don't reap any mental or social status benefits from their employment. Everyone is trying to maximize profit at every moment of every day. Actor Sean Penn recently used the example of when police show up to protect Grandma, they don't make her put her credit card down, insinuating that the government exudes generosity while the free market is greedy.
What happens when Grandma doesn't pay sales tax, property tax, or income tax? Does the government call her and say, miss Grandma, we noticed you didn't chip in this year to the Internal Revenue Service. Are you unhappy with our services? Please reconsider being our customer. Of course not. The state will imprison people for not giving them money, a method far greedier than offering a service voluntarily.
It's also worth noting now the voluntary profit incentive encourages goodwill among people. Almost every time I purchase a good or service in the private sector, the employees will thank me for shopping at their store. However, after having been a net taxpayer for 11 years, I have never once been thanked by a police officer, soldier,
teacher, or politician. This constant attempt to divide people of goodwill based on arbitrary attributes is what makes progressivism such an insidious ideology. Instead of separating heroes from villains based on income or accidents of birth, as progressivism does, people should be divided based on whose behavior is peaceful, honest, and cooperative, in opposition to people whose behavior is violent, fraudulent, and parasitic.
Thank you for watching Keith and I don't tread on anyone in the Libertarian Institute.