Libertarian Girl

If you think you’ve ever been to a busy mall, shopping area, or highway, you’re wrong unless you’ve seen what awaits shoppers in Paramus, New Jersey along Route 17. I used to live nearby, and I hated having to buy anything because it meant dealing with the crowds and traffic on Route 17, which I understand takes in more money than any shopping area in the country (it’s right next to New York City in Bergen County, New Jersey).

The amazing thing about Paramus is that the Route 17 shopping corridor contains anything you would ever want in life, except if you’re wanting it on a Sunday. Everything except food is closed on Sundays due to Bergen County’s “blue laws,” pretty much the only ones left in the nation. The laws recently made national news because new NJ governor Chris Christie proposed ending them to help close the state’s budget gap (against some local opposition).

I’m reading some essays by the author/essayist Charles Chesnutt for a class. Chesnutt is fascinating because if you saw him today, you would immediately classify him as white without a second thought. However, by the “one-drop rule,” Chesnutt was black, and he self-identified as African-American even though he looked as white as anyone.

In his essay “What Is A White Man?”, Chesnutt writes about the laws deciding what composition of genetics made a white or black man, especially in the South: “Some day they will, perhaps, become mere curiosities of jurisprudence; the ‘black laws’ will be bracketed with the ‘blue laws,’ and will be at best but landmarks by which to measure the progress of the nation. But to-day these laws are in active operation, and they are, therefore, worthy of attention; for every good citizen ought to know the law, and, if possible, to respect it; and if not worthy of respect, it should be changed by the authority which enacted it.”

Isn’t it fascinating that Chesnutt wrote in 1889 as if blue laws were a quaint relic of ancient history, and yet, Bergen County is still clinging to them 120 years later?

The upside, of course, is that at least America has left behind the hideous practice of the government deciding what race we each are (and therefore what rights to bestow on us). The government may want you to choose a race for your census form, but you can self-identify as anything. Sometimes rather than focusing on how bad our current government is, it’s nice to reflect on how bad some things used to be and how in many ways, government has improved as time goes on. After all, that’s what every libertarian hopes for, right?

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 at 2:40 pm and is filed under Free market economics, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.