The Dan Bongino Show - The Bongino Brief - Feb 06, 2021

Episode Date: February 6, 2021

When government tries to enforce "equity" they end up pushing discrimination and unequal treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan Bongino. Welcome to the Bongino Brief. I'm Dan Bongino. So I wanted to cover this because the Biden administration decided it would be a good idea, again, to start committing to racial equity. Not equality, they've changed the word to equity now. Now, ladies and gentlemen, they do this all the time. They throw out a term like racial equity because they know no one's going to be on the other side of that. Like who doesn't want equity and equality? That's not exactly what

they're doing again. They're actually promoting racial division in the country. And I want to show you some video by Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and how when government tries to enforce equity, air quotes, or equality, what they're actually doing is treating people unequally with the force of government behind it. I know it doesn't make a lot of sense. I'll explain it. Here's the article first by Jason Reilly. Progressives put the racial equity squeeze on Biden. The left wants a spoil system on steroids. If the president gives it to them, heaven help us by the great Jason Reilly. Here's Jason Reilly from the piece. It's a great one, again, about how government, especially Biden, pushing for racial equity

and equality is really pushing for racial inequality and more division. Quote, Reilly says, similarly, blacks were joining the middle class professions at a much faster pace in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s than they would have after affirmative action programs were implemented in the 1970s. In fact, we now have evidence that suggests racial preferences have not only been ineffective in helping the black poor, but also counterproductive. After the University of California system

ended race-conscious admissions policies in 1996, black and Hispanic graduation rates rose dramatically. So Riley's premise is that Biden's move back from the Martin Luther King vision of a society blind to race and judging people on character, the Biden vision where we judge people on race and ignore their character will actually lead to more division and more damage in the minority community. Watch this brilliant clip by a living legend in every sense of the word today, Mr. Thomas Sowell. Here's a clip from him. I think this is back in the 70s. He's on a panel with Milton Friedman and other great intellects of the time, and also with Francis Fox Piven, not one of the great intellects of our time from the Cloward Piven destruction model.

He makes the point here that government processes and the results you want, which we all want racial equality. Of course, we all want that. The processes, though, are different and maybe they're counterproductive. Check this out. I think we're talking across purposes. On the one hand, we're talking about results that we're hoping for. On the other hand, we're talking about processes that we're setting in motion.

You're saying, should we hope for certain kinds of lessening of inequality and so on? The real question, the political question is, shall we set in motion certain processes because we hope for that? And do those processes enhance or reduce freedom. And I think the argument that Milton is making, certainly the argument that I would make, is that the attempt at doing these things, and it doesn't really matter, it's a complete straw man to talk about absolute inequality. But it's a straw man.

No, no, not at all. Yes it is, absolutely. Throughout the film this is the straw man he brings up in order to say how ridiculous to have absolute equality and then he goes on to say how ridiculous to have absolute and hom then he goes on as a result you see that you set up processes when that's who's in result may not be any more or less inequality than exists now but the question is those processes may indeed reduce freedom greatly so what soul's talking about here and the point he makes which is absolutely brilliant is claiming you want a goal that we all believe in, right? Racial equality, hopefully, right? We all believe in that. I know

I do. We don't like to see equality. It's a great thing to try to achieve, a society where everybody can get to some point of prosperity. That's a terrific goal. But that is not the same thing as advocating for processes that are causing the opposite effect. I'll give you an example of it. I saw in today's Wall Street Journal of exactly, because sometimes you got to like put your eyes on something to make it real using analogies and stories. An article from today's Wall Street Journal that shows exactly what he's talking about, how you can claim you're a liberal, you want racial equality, and then try to enact policies which do the exact opposite. Wall Street Journal opinion today, equity for Asian Americans in practice. Biden

bars the phrase Wuhan virus, but favors racial preferences at Yale. Isn't that weird, folks? So weird, right? Obviously dripping with sarcasm from every pore in my body. So liberals, again, claim they want racial equity and racial equality. But what's weird is there was a very solid legal case against Yale University that our United States government was behind, by the way, that Yale was discriminating. Allegations, of course, Yale's free to defend itself. I am an advocate for both, you know, for people's say in court, but that Yale was alleged to be discriminating against Asians. And the evidence was there that Asian Americans had to score on their SATs and college entrance exams substantially

higher than both white and black Americans to get into Yale and other sorts of allegations like that. The numbers were pretty devastating. Biden dropped that case. I wonder why. I'm just asking you from common sense terms, right? In a race neutral society where we judge people based on character, which is what I thought we wanted, it's certainly what I want. In a race-neutral society, why is it that Asian Americans have to work substantially harder to get the same opportunities as black and white Americans? Why is that? Well, the only real answer when you get through all the focus point tested talking points at these universities throughout there to try and logic this out, the only real answer is, well, we have too many Asians.

We have too many Asians. That sounds awfully racist and discriminatory. That's because it is. So in your efforts to use government policy, affirmative action, and others to promote minority groups, Black and Hispanic Americans to get into colleges, you're actually treating Asian Americans, another minority group in a discriminatory, unequal fashion. Does that sound fair to you? Really weird how the processes Biden is pushing now, as Saul would have said, and that was alluding to in that, oh, that's from decades ago, the processes are actually pushing discrimination and unequal treatment.

Milton Friedman addresses this too. This is the same cut, by the way. How government trying to force equality on people actually creates a situation where government has to treat people unequally. Check this out. There's no question about what equality of results, if it comes about through a framework unequally. That for the poor people of the world that Francis Fox Piven was talking about, the most effective mechanism for enabling them to improve their status is not a governmental program which seeks to ascribe to them certain positions, which seeks to provide them with certain goods and services, but a governmental program which tries to eliminate

arbitrary barriers to advancement. I would say that in this world, the greatest source of inequality has been special privileges granted by government. That government, you may talk a great deal, there may be a lot of talk about how we're going to eliminate inequality, but if you look at, go back to your case of Britain, is there any doubt that one of the effects of governmental intervention in Britain has been to create new opportunities for special classes? That the way to get wealthy in a society that supposedly is aiming at equality, that the way to get wealthy is to get a special government permit to import, to get foreign exchange, or to import goods,

or in this country to set up a television station. Brilliant. That when you petition government for special privileges, whatever, as a class, as a business, as a race or whatever, you create incentives for people to try to gain their prosperity through government and not through hard work, which creates division and anger amongst people out there who don't get those special privileges and then have to work harder like Asian Americans to get the same access to society that other special interest groups and categories be treated differently by the government don't have to get because they get special privileges.

The way to create a fair and just society is to focus like a laser on eliminating obstacles to people's success, regardless of their race or country of origin. I thought that was obvious.