Talk to a real estate agent, who deals in
mid-sized suburban properties, and they will tell you that the local schools
sit atop their client’s list of concerns. A great house in a bad
neighborhood usually means bad schools and no one will choose that on purpose.
Instead, families will pay extra for a not so nice house in a great
neighborhood because that means good schools. You can fix up your house,
but you cannot make the local school better if it is full of misbehaving
knuckleheads or headed that way because of the neighborhood.
People instinctively understand a basic
truth about education. That is the quality of product coming in dictates the
quality of product coming out. Despite generations of lectures from our
betters, we still know that the apple does not fall far from the tree. If the
parents are low-IQ losers, the kids are most likely going to be low-IQ
losers. The schools are not correcting this. In fact, it is the opposite,
because the other old saying about apples is also true. One bad apple can spoil
the whole bunch.
Everyone, including our
hypothetical real estate agent, is too polite and too afraid to say what
this means as a practical matter. For instance, I knew someone who lived in a
mostly Jewish suburban neighborhood of starter homes. These were townhouses and
ranchers. A black family moved in next door and they got along well with
everyone. Then another black family moved in, but it was ghetto time,
with parties into the late hours. Suddenly, the neighborhood sprouted “for sale”
signs and the demographics changed within one summer.
In a prior age, this problem was mostly
solved through free association, homeowner associations, and covenants. People
in that neighborhood would have prevented the threat to their
property values by prohibiting the sale of houses to people who did not belong.
It was not entirely fair, of course, but it allowed people to protect their
property rights without having to resort to lying. As is always the case, there
were trade-offs, but at least there was a natural way for people to guard their
rights as property owners and citizens.
Similarly, in a prior age, the neighborhood
association would have cracked down on the troublemakers. Even the
“progressive” neighborhoods policed their ranks and used the rules to enforce
standards. A couple generations of myth-making have convinced everyone
that these rules were used strictly by racists, and they often were, but they
were more often used to maintain public order without having the government
send in the police. With enforced diversity came the police state and that is
not a coincidence.
Free association is illegal now. If a
real estate agent is too obvious in how they handle these things, they face
disciplinary action from the real estate board. A homeowner, who refuses to
sell or rent to whoever shows up, can easily find themselves in front of a
judge. Freedom of association is no longer a right in America. Everyone has to
seek permission from the state before they can make these decisions. That means
finding a place to live has become a game of cat and mouse for middle-class
families.
It’s yet another example of the
worthlessness of modern conservatism. They rolled over for this stuff long ago,
accepting the Left’s assertions that discrimination was the vilest of sins and
therefore required an extraordinary remedy. Once you accept that people don’t
have a right to say with whom they will associate, addressing things like crime
and the schools means begging the Left to make exceptions to their moral code
in order to enforce anything resembling civic order. That’s where school choice
and voucher programs come in. They are an appeal to the Left for an exception.
Of course, the Left hates the middle-class
so any appeal on their behalf is denied. Instead, these appeals have to be
decorated in such a way that appeals to the vanity of the Left and allows them
to benefit. So-called charter schools that are for the “gifted and talented”
are marketed to Lefty as a way to cull from the ghetto, all of those bright and
creative minds, otherwise left to be raised by their parents. In reality it
means those self-righteous progressive women get to send their kids to
schools that are not so diverse.
School voucher programs attempt to
expand on this by playing the Magic Dirt game. “If only those poor mothers can
get their kids off that tragic dirt and onto the magic dirt.” They muster
statistics and education studies to buttress the claims. It’s all
nonsense, but it is the only way modern conservatism can frame the issue.
They are begging the Left for an exception to the moral code. No one is
fooled by it, which is why school voucher programs have gone nowhere. The Left
will not tolerate them.
Freedom of association is not
just forbidden. You’re not even allowed to talk about it anymore. Imagine
what would happen if someone went on TV and said they don’t want to live next
to Koreans or Somalis. They would have their life ruined. It’s why all
those principled conservatives we keep hearing about were nowhere to be found
when the queers started attacking bakers. Even libertarians sprint from the room when the topic of
free association is raised. It’s the result of conceding the moral
high ground to the Left.
It’s why the so-called Right is in a panic
over Trump’s immigration talk. If it is acceptable for Americans to say
“no” to Muslims on the grounds that we don’t want any more Muslims,
then we’re back to discussing the limits, if there are any, to the freedom
of association. Put another way, if we don’t need a reason to say “no” to
Mohamed, then we don’t need to ask for permission in order to say “no” to
diversity. That’s not a fight or even a discussion, the so-called
conservatives want to have with the Left.
It’s also why the hand-wringing over free
speech on campus is a pointless distraction. You cannot have free speech
without freedom of association. That’s the obvious lesson from the confines of
the academy. Put a bunch of people in close quarters and you have to police
what they say and where they go. Otherwise, you have violence. The same is true
of all other rights. All natural rights are premised on freedom of people to
live apart from those they do not wish to associate. Self-segregation requires
little policing.
Bring back freedom of association and all
the other rights follow.
