Affirmative Action in the Village of Woodstock*

I just wrote the following letter to Brian Hollander, Editor of the Woodstock Times.

Dear Editor:

In response to allegations of racism in the local Tea Parties, I did an informal survey of the Town of Woodstock's representation of various minorities.  I counted the number of African-Americans, Native Americans, Mexicans, Asians and South Americans entering and leaving seven local stores.  My finding is that the proportion of minorities who live in the Town of Woodstock is not statistically different from the proportion of minorities in the local Tea Parties. It is, however, significantly lower than the proportion of minorities living in the State of New York and in Ulster County.  A fair assessment is that the Town of Woodstock is racist.

More than the Tea Parties, which do not use expensive house prices to exclude minority group members, Woodstock is a racist Town.  Fewer than five percent of the inhabitants are African American, Latin American, Native American or Asian.

My affirmative action plan is straightforward. The Town of Woodstock needs to mandate that all homes to be sold within its borders must be sold to minority group members until such point that the minority group members are proportionately represented.  This will force prices of many Woodstock homes to fall since such an ordinance would restrict demand.  However, in the name of equity, equality, affirmative action, and to redress the harm that the people of Woodstock have done to under-represented ethnic and racial groups, homeowners should be grateful for the opportunity to sell to them, even at a loss, to redress social wrongs that the people of Woodstock have perpetrated.   Anyone who does not support this proposal is a greedy and selfish racist.

Sincerely,


Mitchell Langbert


*Woodstock, NY is located about 100 miles from New York City.  It is famous for the Woodstock concert of 1969 (although the actual concert took place about 30 miles away); for artists' and musicians' colonies that go back for over 100 years; and as a weekend home center for Upper West Side "liberals."

Aristotle on the Middle Class and the Socialist Banking Oligarchy

Aristotle is the most prominent ancient advocate of freedom. However, his argument is imperfect because he supports the institution of slavery and opposes equality of women.  It is asking much of a philosopher to overcome the prejudices of his era.  Certainly no philosopher did so perfectly.  But the fundamentals of the argument for freedom are in Aristotle's Politics. In this he differs markedly from Plato, who was a totalitarian.  Aristotle's arguments against Plato's Republic suggest the arguments that the Austrian economists used nearly a century ago to show why socialism inevitably fails to operate efficiently.

One of the points that Aristotle emphasizes is the importance of the middle class to the functioning of constitutional government.  As well, he notes that kingly government was characteristic of "barbaric" Europeans.  He writes:

"For barbarians, being more servile in character than Hellenes, and Asiatics than Europeans, do not rebel against a despotic government.  Such royalties have the nature of tyrannies because the people are by nature slaves; but there is no danger of their being overthrown, for they are heditary and legal.  Wherefore also their guards are such as a king and not such as a tyrant would employ, that is to say, they are composed of citizens, whereas the guards of tyrants are mercenaries. For kings rule according to law over voluntary subjects, but tyrants are involuntary..."

Thus, writing in the fourth century BC, Aristotle outlined the nature of medieval Europe.  For following the decline of Rome in the fifth century AD, 900 years later, the same European barbarians conquered the former Roman Empire and established barbaric kingly rule across Europe, which remained intact until the 1800s (and in several cases is still intact today).  Today's socialist Europe reflects the evolution of the servility of Europeans to the kingly state that goes back for millennia.


The claim of some conservatives that retention of the barbaric kingships is "conservative" is a matter of perception.  For it would have been more "conservative" to re-institute the dictatorial Roman Empire than to retain barbaric kingly rule, or more conservative still to re-institute the kings of the other primitive barbarians such as the Celts that go back further.  Democracy would be the conservative path for someone wishing to "conserve" Athenian culture.  Personally, I prefer the "conservatism" of Aristotle, who believed in pluralism, freedom and constitutional rule, to the conservatism of barbarians or the reactionary socialist primitivism of Plato and Marx.

Aristotle's Politics  anticipated Book I of Karl Popper's Open Society and Its Enemies by 2,400 years.  For like Aristotle, Popper outlines the totalitarian nature of Plato's Republic, fleshing out Aristotle's argument in the opening chapters of Politics.  

Concerning the middle class, in Politics Book IV, chapter 11 (1296) Aristotle writes:

"...it is manifest that the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class, and that those states are likely to be well administered in which the middle class is large, and stronger if possible than both the other classes, or at any rate than either singly; for the addition of the middle class turns the scale, and prevents either of the extremes from being dominant.  Great then is the good fortune of a state in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property; for where some possess much, and the others nothing, there may arise an extreme democracy, or a pure oligarchy; or a tyranny may grow out of either extreme--either out of the most rampant democracy or out of an oligarchy; but it is not so likely to arise out of the middle constitutions and those akin to them...The mean condition of states is clearly best, for no other is free from faction; and where the middle class is large, there are least likely to be factions and dissensions.  For a similar reason large states are less liable to faction than small ones, because in them the middle class is large; whereas in small states it is easy to divide all the citizens..."

The considerable harm that the Federal Reserve Bank's and the illegitimate socialist federal government does to democracy and to freedom.  For in creating money and distributing it to wealthy investment bankers, the Fed harms the middle class; and in taxing the middle class further and redistributing the wealth to the lumpenproletariat, the middle class is harmed further still.  As America is pushed into a two-tier society, dominated by wealthy socialists who provide just enough to the lumpenproletariat to keep them happy, fewer and fewer can sustain a middle class lifestyle; the lumpenproletariat grows; and the socialist banking elite becomes an oligarchy.

Phone Your State Senator In Support of School Vouchers

I just received a phone call from the New York State Union of Teachers (to which I belong) asking me to call my State Senator, John Bonacic, in favor of increases, or at least elimination of decreases, in the state education budget.  This is the reason that the state budget is bloated. The state's education system is broken. Far too much money is spent on incompetently run schools.  Vouchers are needed.

In response, the Tea Parties should call the legislature in favor of budget cuts. Please call your state senator about the need for school vouchers.  Mr. Bonacic's phone number is as follows:

Albany Office:
Room 508 Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
(518) 455-3181

District Offices:
201 Dolson Avenue, Suite F
Middletown, NY  10940
(845) 344 3311
111 Main Street
Delhi, NY 13753
(607) 746-6675

Email address: bonacic@senate.state.ny.us

I Help Expose Faculty Union's Lies

Professor David Seidemann of Brooklyn College sued the faculty union of the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC).  The suit concerned the far-left union's use of dues money for political purposes unrelated to contract negotiation or administration.  The State of New York threatens any faculty member who would rather not pay dues to the union with violence.  Those not in the union must pay an agency fee.   The union has done little, if anything, to further the faculty's broad economic goals. Once the highest paid faculty in the nation, the CUNY faculty are now in the bottom quartile.  But the union spends an inordinate amount of time  in pro-left-wing and pro-Obama political activity. Initially, the current leadership's insurgency had been funded by one of George Soros's institutes.  In effect, the leadership is using the union as a cash cow to fund left wing political activity while failing to competently operate a union.

Seidemann had sued to require that non-members who are violently forced to the agency fee be able to get a refund for the portion of their dues spent for political purposes.  Initially the PSC claimed that less than 1% of the dues was used for political purposes.  One of Seidemann's former students is now an attorney at the prestigious firm of Jones, Day and he took the case pro bono. Because of a pro-union federal magistrate, the case had to be appealed twice.  As the case was appealed, more and more of the union's budget turned out to be devoted to political purposes.  When they were still not fully examined, the PSC decided to cut its losses and offered to pay Jones, Day Seidemann's legal fees.  By the time they settled, the court had forced the PSC to admit that over 14% of its budget is spent for political purposes.  The true amount is even more.

Yet, in a statement to its executive committee, the PSC lied once again and claimed to have won the case.

Sharad Karkhanis asked me to write an article for his Patriot Returns newsletter, which is sent to 13,000 CUNY employees.  The newsletter went out this morning.  I had asked the PSC to comment on the case, but they did not respond.  But this morning, after the newsletter was released, I received an e-mail from Dania

Rajendra, the PSC's coordinator, of communications. The e-mail added nothing.