Despite All Its Flaws, Our System Still Works

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And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make
—The Beatles

In a just system, those who engage in a lot of self-sabotage shouldn’t be handsomely rewarded. Handsome rewards should only be reserved for those who avoid self-sabotage and make themselves useful. Now check out the following chart:

Assuming for the moment that out-of-wedlock births measure the degree to which people are having children they can’t afford, SAT scores measure the degree to which people are taking education seriously, and arrest rates per million measure the degree to which people are subjecting themselves to the career-destroying qualities of felony records and prison, isn’t it interesting how group household income statistics shake out? Asian-Americans, the group that engages in the least amount of self-sabotage, have the highest household income, and black-Americans, the group that engages in the most amount of self-sabotage, have the lowest household income.

Discrimination Is a Lame-Ass Excuse

What would you think if I told I didn’t get married until I was 40 because of rampant discrimination in the dating scene in America? After all, based on my estimates, roughly 30 percent of the eligible women in my pre-marriage days wanted nothing to do with a white guy.

Would you give my discrimination argument any credence?

I hope not. Yes, there’s discrimination in the dating scene. But there’s also impartiality. If 30 percent of the eligible women in my pre-marriage days wanted nothing to do with a white guy, that means that 70 percent of the eligible women in my pre-marriage days had no problem dating and marrying a white guy. The truth behind my late marriage date is much more straightforward and far less sinister. I didn’t get married until I was 40 because I was piss-poor marriage material prior to 40 (i.e., I engaged in a lot of self-sabotage on the relationship front). It’s as simple as that. Once I got my act together, however, and became a much more presentable, likable, and dependable human being, I had no problem finding and successfully wooing the fabulous Mrs. Groovy.

Now let’s turn to the income front.

Is there discrimination in those things that most affect an individual’s ability to earn income—particularly things such as the college admission process and employee hiring process? Hell, yes. Just ask an Asian-American high school student applying to Harvard. Or better yet, ask a Trump-supporting straight white male professor trying to join the faculty at Harvard.

Discrimination is a sorry fact of life for every conceivable group in America. People are just too flawed to expect otherwise. The real question we have to ask ourselves is just how debilitating the existing level of discrimination is. In other words, do people need perfect impartiality to make a middle-class income or better, and if not, is there a sufficient amount of impartiality in a given environment for a person to make a middle-class income or better—providing, of course, he or she avoids the most glaring forms of self-sabotage?

The position taken here is that human beings don’t need perfect impartiality to succeed in anything—especially when it comes to making money. As already noted, Asian-Americans are discriminated against by many of our elite colleges, but despite this afront to impartiality, Asian-Americans are still the highest-earning group in America.

The position also taken here is that there’s a sufficient amount of impartiality in America in those things that most affect an individual’s ability to earn income. The everyday American has all the opportunity he or she needs to make something of him- or herself. Again, part of the reason elite college discrimination against Asian Americans hasn’t materially hurt their ability to earn money is that they don’t need an elite college to secure a valuable credential. There are literally hundreds of excellent non-elite colleges in America that aren’t turned off by high-achieving Asian-American applicants. They’ll gladly take elite college “rejects.” And this same analysis applies to our other three groups as well. Impartiality is far more common than partiality. For every employer who has a problem with white skin, or black skin, or a Hispanic surname, for instance, there are scores of employers who don’t.

Black America and Discrimination

Black Americans, for reasons we know all too well, are the poster-child for victimhood in America. And white America, to its credit, has done yeoman’s work trying to address the historical wrongs it has perpetrated against black America. White America has also done yeoman’s work making sure that anti-black racism is extremely unacceptable in mainstream society.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that black America no longer has to deal with the scourge of discrimination. It does. But the discrimination that black America faces is far less debilitating than our corrupt journalists, professors, entertainers, CEOs, and politicians would have you believe. In fact, the environment in America today is extremely conducive to black economic advancement. Consider the following:

• It’s illegal to discriminate against black Americans. Any black American who suffers unequal treatment, not just unequal results, and has concrete evidence of said unequal treatment, will have little trouble being made whole—either at the behest of our courts, our civil rights bureaucracy, or our kindly SJW mafia.
• It’s legal to discriminate IN FAVOR of black Americans in most of America* and every major institution that can avail itself to this civil-rights loophole does so. This is why black applicants don’t have to score as high as Asian and white applicants on the SAT to gain admission to the Ivy League. And this is why every Fortune 500 company has “diversity” programs in place to make sure black Americans get a leg up when it comes to hirings and promotions.
• No one is stopping any black American from doing anything educationally or financially constructive. We don’t have segregated libraries, we don’t have segregated trade schools or coding boot camps, and we don’t have segregated financial instruments (i.e., brokerage accounts, Roth IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.). Nor do we have a segregated internet. If a black American wants to up his or her job skills, master the art of frugality, or begin saving for retirement, he or she is not only free to do so but he or she also has access to all the tools and resources he or she needs to get the job done.
• It doesn’t take 400 years to learn any useful skill or knowledge. Many valuable skills and much valuable knowledge can be learned in a few years with a reasonable amount of effort. If it took 400 years to learn algebra, welding, or the principles of personal finance, I would say black America—because of the evils of slavery and Jim Crow—has a legitimate gripe.
• We are well ensconced in the internet era. And because of this, it’s never been easier and cheaper to learn something or start a business. EdX is mostly free and the Khan Academy is completely free. YouTube has how-to tutorials out the ying-yang—all for free. And thanks to Bluehost, Printful, and Etsy, anyone with a credit card and a hundred dollars worth of credit can have a blog and an online store in a matter of hours.
• And speaking of starting a business, no one is stopping any black American from starting his or her own business. If a black American feels slighted or underappreciated by his or her current employer, he or she is not only free to fire that employer but he or she is also free to start a rival company and put that employer out of business.

Again, I’m not saying black Americans don’t face discrimination. They do. But they also face a lot of we-don’t-care-what-color-you-are impartiality and a lot of pro-black favoritism. The discrimination that black America faces is thus an annoyance, not a soul-crushing yoke that removes all hope and makes a mockery of earnest behavior. Simply put, a black American today saying that he or she has trouble getting ahead because of discrimination is as lame-ass as me saying I had trouble getting married because of discrimination.

* Because we live in a republic, states have a lot of leeway for self-governance and several states—most notably California and Michigan—have outlawed preferential treatment for any race, ethnicity, or gender. So the civil-rights loophole that allows for discrimination in favor of black America isn’t universal. It should also be noted that California is in the process of repealing its ban on preferential treatment. It desperately wants to discriminate in favor of blacks and Hispanics at the expense of whites and Asians.

We Got to Stop Babying America’s Screw-Ups

Take a look at the below video. Jerry was standing at a bus stop waiting for his ride home when a maniac rolled up and shot him in the face with a shotgun.

Now, I completely understand why Jerry succumbed to self-sabotage after surviving this incomprehensible act of cruelty and became homeless. If I was suddenly and unjustly rendered blind, dexterously impaired, and horribly disfigured, I’d probably turn to drugs and alcohol too.

Human beings no doubt have a breaking point. Subject them to enough trauma and they will seek the comfort of a self-destructive vice.

But just where is the breaking point for the average human being? Getting a good chunk of your forehead blown off would no doubt test your intestinal fortitude. But what about second-hand trauma? Is seeing someone from your tribe on tv being mistreated by a cop enough to turn you into a heroin user? Is learning that your ancestors were horribly mistreated enough to make you stop trying at school or work? And what about trivial first-hand trauma? Is seeing someone from another tribe “appropriate something from your culture” enough to make you procreate irresponsibly?

Now a question. How many struggling Americans have experienced trauma anywhere near as severe as Jerry’s? In other words, how many struggling Americans have experienced trauma so grave that their gravitation to self-sabotage is perfectly justified?

Call me mean-spirited, but I have a hard time excusing the self-sabotage exhibited by most struggling Americans. Jerry-level trauma is extremely rare in America. And Americans aren’t a new breed of human beings who are easily broken. The rampant self-sabotage we see in America today is thus entirely unjustified. Struggling Americans haven’t gravitated to self-sabotage because they’ve been visited by unspeakable trauma. Struggling Americans have gravitated to self-sabotage largely because they’re unenergetic, undisciplined, and unwilling to forsake the comfort of the delusional herd.

Final Thoughts

America is far from perfect. There’s too much crony capitalism and there’s too much crony socialism. And we make a lot of things needlessly harder for the poor and working class. A perfect example of this is America’s foremost credential, the vaunted bachelor’s degree. Making kids take 40 courses when 10 courses are all that’s needed for most entry-level jobs in most fields is an affront to logic and decency. But cronyism and our misplaced fondness for outmoded traditions are grist for another post. The point of this post is rather encouraging. America is above all else the land of karma. Get your poop together and embrace constructive behaviors and attitudes and America will smile upon you. Don’t get your poop together and cling to destructive behaviors and attitudes and America will frown upon you. Asian Americans are a perfect example of this encouraging reality. And sadly, so too are black Americans.

Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Is America largely just—a place where the self-sabotagers do poorly and the self-improvers do nicely? Or is America a crapshoot—a place where the self-sabotagers and self-improvers have an equal chance of doing poorly or nicely? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.