Christopher Donavan: A Quick Confession of (Tempered) Jealousy

Christopher Donovan:  From libertarian (and law school) days, I remain on the mailing list of a group called the Institute for Justice, a libertarian pro-bono legal group dedicated to fighting eminent domain, free speech restrictions, government-backed market cartels, and so on.  I’m looking at their most recent “Liberty & Law” (no link, but their website is here), and I have two thoughts.

One, I’m jealous of The Institute for Justice.  I wish white advocates had a legal outfit as on-the-ball as the Institute for Justice.  Law students want to join them, they get press, their litigators went to Harvard, and so on.  They’re established, they’re slick, and they’re having an impact on the law.

But two, they’re absurd.  For years, for instance, they’ve pushing the issue of African hair braiding as an enterprise that ought not be subjected to cosmetology licensing because it involves no chemicals or even equipment.  In the most recent newsletter, they have an emotional article titled “The Power of One Entrepreneur” featuring lovely photographs of the black woman helped by their lawyers.  The rest of the newsletter is peppered with photos of smiling black people who’ve all been helped by the power of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.

“Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” doesn’t begin to describe it.  It reminds me of what Sam Dickson once called “the silly right”, i.e., obsessing about details while ignoring the larger white dispossession.  In the face of an oncoming white minority, these jokers are dedicating their lives to African hair braiding.  Do the smarty-pants people of the Institute for Justice get any of this?