Tim Scott, Rand Paul Embrace Affirmative Action

SENATORS EMBRACE RACIST, SELF-PROMOTIONAL “RLJ RULE”

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott has always struck us as an elected official willing to stand up to the divisive voices emanating from America’s left.  You know, the ones who try to make everything about race – attacking legitimate criticism along racial lines.

Four years ago when he was first running for the U.S. Congress, Scott stood up to the establishment-friendly NAACP when it attacked the Tea Party movement.

“The Tea Party is a color-blind movement that has principled differences with many of the leaders in Washington, both Democrats and Republicans,” Scott said at the time. “Their aim is to support the strongest candidates – regardless of color or background – who will fight to return our country to its Constitutional roots of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets.”

Obviously that movement hasn’t exactly panned out, but Scott’s rebuke of the NAACP – while not as firm as ours – highlighted an important point.  The cause of limited government, fiscal responsibility, free markets and individual liberty is  colorblind … whether the liberals admit it or not.

Anyway, that’s why it was so disappointing to see Scott championing the so-called “RLJ Rule,” a self-promotional affirmative action ploy being pushed by Black Entertainment Television (BET) founder Bob Johnson.

According to the “RLJ Rule,” companies interviewing for “managerial openings at the director level and above” would voluntarily pledge to interview at least two minority candidates.  Meanwhile at least two minority-owned businesses would be given the opportunity to bid on “any vendor contracts.”

Scott has recently incorporated the “RLJ Rule” into draft legislation.  And this draft legislation has been co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican presidential hopeful who is on the lookout for symbolic ways to ingratiate himself with black voters.

Symbolic though it may be, Scott’s bill is dangerous in our estimation.  Sure, it takes great care to describe itself as “neither an employment quota nor Federal law,” but it represents a first step toward the federal government imposing a new era of discrimination on the private sector – one that’s every bit as nefarious as the discrimination that used to be practiced against  minorities.

Or the discrimination recently practiced by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) against limited government groups.

Seriously … what’s next?  Are we going to force companies which sell 30 percent of their products to a certain demographic group to also employ 30 percent of that demographic group in their managerial chart?  And create another new wing of the IRS to monitor and enforce this “equality in hiring?”

It’s a slippery slope …

“We have always believed that any law which unfairly limits an individual’s rights on the basis of their skin color, ethnic origin, gender or sexual orientation is wrong,” we wrote back in 2012.  “Unfortunately such an inherently fair world view is anathema to many in our ‘fair share’ world – where the fundamentally American notion of equal opportunity has been replaced by an expectation of equal outcomes for all.”

Kelli Goff over at The Root  says Scott and Paul’s advocacy is “refreshing.”

“At a time in which Congress is more divided and gridlocked than ever before, the fact that a potential bipartisan solution may have been found to one of America’s most divisive issues—the role of race as a barrier to economic advancement—is extraordinary,” she wrote in praising their sponsorship of the bill.

Really?

Last time we checked the barriers to economic advancement for poor and middle class blacks – and whites – were as high as they’ve ever been.  Thanks in no small part, we’d humbly add, to the black president whose election she describes as a “watershed moment.”

And in no small part to that ignorant cracker who preceded him …

We know the reflexive reaction of the politically correct left is to blame everything on skin color – and presume government can dictate a solution to this “problem” by imposing new regulations on corporate American – but that’s just not reality.  The reality is that economic inequality has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with government’s maintenance and expansion of the dependency economy – while it prints more money for “one percent.”