Bill O’Reilly and Megan Kelly from Fox News had an interesting debate about the perceived disparity of the black population and the so-called white privilege that is so much talked about regarding minorities. Kelly rattled off a series of statistics which showed that blacks are clearly falling behind in virtually every category of social measurement and she leaned in favor of the argument supporting “white privilege.” O’Reilly proposed a number of opposition arguments which provided clarity refuting the designation favoring whites. That discussion can be seen below and is worth noting.
I have had more personal friends who were black than white over the years and understand the issue very well. Megan is only talking about the result of statistics, but not the cause—whereas Bill O’Reilly began to touch on the real issues. There is no white privilege in America. The suppression of the whites against the blacks is a thing of the past and is only still considered by the very ignorant. The cause of the disparity between the statistical facts rattled off by Megan Kelly is that blacks tend to support by default the position of collectivism versus the personal responsibility of individualism. Collectivists associate all the things that happen to them as a group allowing many in that group to hide their bad behavior behind the mask of consensus. In poor populations where fathers are infrequent, government sustains personal incomes, and the general philosophy is a collectivist oriented belief system statistics like the ones Megan Kelly discussed will take place regardless of the color of anybody’s skin.
If personal responsibility is not present in a culture, it will fail and resemble the kind of conditions seen in Ferguson. The cries for equality by blacks and accusations of white privilege only come from those who decry personal responsibility and seek more collective mandates to hide their crimes. The crimes of the typical perpetrator of the Ferguson riots would be loose moral attributes, poor family structure, terrible work ethics and deplorable personal conduct—all traits that center on collectivism. Those who are successful in society tend to be those who conduct themselves with a code of some valor, personal responsibility, and awareness of their impact on the world around them not as a collective mass—but exclusively as an individual.
Being an avid motorcyclist I can name countless times that I have watched a person in another car throw a smoked cigarette out of a window. A lot of the time the same cars displaying environmental concerns are the worst perpetrators. Think how hypocritical it is for a lover a nature to liter the streets of earth with cigarettes freshly consumed and still smoking. But whenever a car is seen with bumper stickers displaying rainbows of support for mother earth, and cigarette smoke dances from a cracked window, 9 times out of 10 that same person will throw their empty cigarettes into the road while sitting at a stop light. Many times they throw them out the window while driving not even caring that I’m on a motorcycle behind them.
I have studied this behavior for many years and this is the conclusion resulting from those observations. People who throw their cigarettes out of windows tend to be collectivist oriented people who do not hold personal responsibility in high regard. They assume that they are hidden behind a mask of anonymity provided by collectivist identification. Because personal responsibility is not what they are functioning from they can’t imagine why or how their small cigarette thrown from a window could harm the earth. What they fail to see is that if 30 to 40% of all people in a 300 million person population did the same, the roadways would be littered with pollution caused by the cigarettes. But if the same person believes that a corporation—which is a collective group is harming the earth with pollution, then they will march with signs of activism and proclaim with fervor—“down with the rich CEO” the individuals at the top of large companies. Their lack of personal responsibility has a double edge to it, first they hate individuals who control groups of people—so they attack CEOs, second they only understand things in terms of collective reference. Anything outside of those parameters are invisible to them—like the thought that a simple cigarette might cause pollution in the world.
The same can be said of the welfare recipient, or the louse who blows off a free public education because their fatherless households failed to instruct them of the value, or the drug addict who shrugs away the value of their life in favor of getting high—the removal of personal responsibility during times intoxication. The collectivist cannot associate responsibility with personal behavior because their lives are constructed around avoiding that diagnosis. Thus you have race baiters like Al Sharpton declaring to a mass of angry blacks that “police have the money for guns, but not for education,” as if spending money on public education would solve the problem in poor black neighborhoods. Billions of dollars in additional funding could be thrown into public education in a black neighborhood and nothing would improve—just as nothing has improved in public education in spite of additional spending for decades now—because personal responsibility for education is not being taught as an entry-level criteria. Until that happens nothing will improve.
No matter what the topic when collectivism is involved, the result is always the same. Decaying circumstances follow no matter what the skin color or sex involved entails. If personal responsibility is vacant, corruption follows in every case. There are no exceptions.
It is a lack of personal responsibility that is killing black America. It is a lack of individual assessment and family structure that causes most of the trouble in communities like Ferguson. During the last election, I supported Herman Cain and in the future I hope that Ben Carson runs for president, just as I have supported Alan Keys in the past. They are all black politicians who I adore, so nobody can call me a racist. I have more affiliations with more minorities than most people have in their entire lives, so I can speak fluently when I say that personal responsibly is the key to success in life. The lack of personal responsibly is the cause of failure almost every time—even considering the misfortune of hard luck.
White privilege only comes to those who are taught to conduct their lives responsibly. White people who adhere to collectivism as their guiding philosophy are just as wrecked as blacks who do the same. Color has nothing to do with it—personal responsibility is everything. I have known many blacks who are quite successful. I know whites who are very successful. And I have known many other types men and women who are very successful—and what they all have in common is a belief in themselves as individuals. All the failures in life that I have ever known all share in common a belief in collectivism—in the hope that they can live forever concealed from responsibility. They of course cannot, but the fault of their circumstances are their own. They can read these words and become angry, but they can offer no argument in favor of collectivism that cannot be refuted easily. Notice the lack of comments on this article—which is free to the world—yet the lack of a defense of collectivism. That is because they can’t defend it. Collectivism is the reason that black communities, white communities and groups of all kinds fail. It is no mystery, only a carefully concealed secret driven by a desire for waking intoxication of personal irresponsibility.
Rich Hoffman
The Gunfighter's Guide: 