Martin Luther King Day

It is MLK Day, and yes, I am working, as are many Americans.  Unlike the government those of us in the private sector just can't vote ourselves additional days off without repercussion.  I thought about writing a post talking about an ideal vision of equality of opportunity and equality under the law for all in America, as expressed here, from the "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, August 1963:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

However a number of others not only beat me to it, but have produced much better work than I most likely would have.  In particular, read La Shawn Barber in her column reprint today.

King would be distressed by the perverting of his vision. In the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement, race preference proponents have essentially redefined “civil rights” to now mean special rights for certain groups instead of those rights belonging to all individuals, including due process, equal protection under the law and freedom from discrimination. Race preferences bestow upon blacks special rights, setting them apart from the rest. This is not what King envisioned.

Though in any system there will be both successes and failures, the law and the government should not be in a position of picking winners and losers, favored and disfavored.  For conservatives the argument is about avoiding systems that do this, not about the need to produce equal outcomes dictating the use of unequal policies.  There are undoubtably "old boy" networks that allow some to gain access where others are excluded (yes, probably including GW Bush at Yale, and also probably Al Gore at Harvard).  And "donations" can often produce results you would not see without the cash.  But these have very little to do with racism, and they also have very little to do with inequality under the law.

See also Michelle Malkin today for a link roundup.

UPDATE: As I stated above, some have produced much better work than I most likely would have.

However, it is the principle of equal treatment under law without regard to race that for one hundred and twenty-five years constituted the unvarying goal of antislavery crusaders and civil rights advocates. The most distinctive legal claim of the American civil rights tradition has been the principle of nondiscrimination, above all a claim for equal treatment by the government without regard to race.

The ideals of a color-blind Constitution and of color-blind law have deep historic roots in the first principle of freedom -- the proposition, as Lincoln called it -- that all men are created equal, and that this equality forms the basis of inalienable individual rights. It was to vindicate this principle that Americans ratified the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery, as well as the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing "the equal protection of the laws" to all citizens.

Exactly.