. . . muttered the ogre

Steve Sailer comments on the Michigan ‘diversity’ case:

. . . the Bush Administration is saying that universities are supposed to achieve their “diversity goals” (a.k.a., quotas). They should just do it in a more cunning fashion.
. . .
Bush’s speech is an unsubtle call to erect a photographic negative of the kind of nominally colorblind devices – for example, poll taxes – that Jim Crow states once used to discriminate against blacks.

One may be reminded of Michael Kinsley’s definition of gaffe as an inadvertent and scandalous expression of truth; we might extend it to include policies that openly declare their shameful purpose.

As usual, Sailer closes thus:

It’s time to start thinking about what can be salvaged from the wreck. Above all: to minimize the damage done by quotas, we must have immigration reform – to slow the growth of racially-preferred groups.

A decade ago, some of my friends were saying “We can’t allow easy immigration so long as there’s a generous welfare-state.” I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t like it now. Why take away what ought to be a right – the freedom of both migrant and native to do business with, or marry, whom they choose, and the migrant’s freedom to live where they prefer – because some subset of the beneficiaries abuse what ought not to be a right? Is it moral to let the abolition of one wrong depend on the abolition of another? (If so, the cause of broad reform – even if everyone favors it – seems hopeless, because you’ll never get consensus on the right order.)
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