Free The Revolution by Ron Paul Page B

governments having less and less power. It was a trend he wanted to see continue in Germany, in order to build “a powerful national Reich” in which the central government could impose its will without having to worry about recalcitrant states. Hitler wrote:
    National Socialism as a matter of principle, must lay claim to the right to force its principles on the whole German nation without consideration of previous federated state boundaries, and to educate in its ideas and conceptions. Just as the churches do not feel bound and limited by political boundaries, no more does the National Socialist idea feel limited by the individual state territories of our fatherland. The National Socialist doctrine is not the servant of individual federated states, but shall some day become the master of the German nation.
    No form of political organization, therefore, is immune to cruel abuses like the Jim Crow laws, whereby government sets out to legislate on how groups of human beings are allowed to interact with one another. Peaceful civil disobedience to unjust laws, which I support with every fiber of my being, can sometimes be necessary at any level of government. It falls upon the people, in the last resort, to stand against injustice no matter where it occurs.
    In the long run, the only way racism can be overcome is through the philosophy of individualism, which I have promoted throughout my life. Our rights come to us not because we belong to some group, but our rights come to us as individuals. And it is as individuals that we should judge one another. Racism is a particularly odious form of collectivism whereby individuals are treated not on their merits but on the basis of group identity. Nothing in my political philosophy, which is the exact opposite of the racial totalitarianism of the twentieth century, gives aid or comfort to such thinking. To the contrary, my philosophy of individualism is the most radical intellectual challenge to racism ever posed.
    Government exacerbates racial thinking and undermines individualism because its very existence encourages people to organize along racial lines in order to lobby for benefits for their group. That lobbying, in turn, creates animosity and suspicion among all groups, each of which believes that it is getting less of its fair share than the others.
    Instead, we should quit thinking in terms of race—yes, in 2008 it is still necessary to say that we should stop thinking in terms of race—and recognize that freedom and prosperity benefit all Americans. As Thomas Sowell points out, lobbyists for various racial groups will spend all their time trying to enact programs that specifically help their own group, even though that group would reap far more benefit from advancing economic freedom in general. He gives the example of taxi licensing restrictions, a government policy that disproportionately hurts blacks. But since it is not thought of as a racial issue per se, racial pressure groups do absolutely nothing to overturn it. That’s another reason we should stop thinking in terms of race. Consider Sowell:
    Politically, however, it makes far more sense for a black leader to fight tooth and nail for a hundred more CETA [Comprehensive Employment and Training Act] jobs in the Philadelphia ghetto than to fight for an end to taxi licensing restrictions, even though the latter would probably mean thousands more jobs for blacks—jobs with far higher pay than CETA jobs and of permanent duration. Ghetto jobs are an earmarked benefit, however few, tenuous and low paid.
Benefits to blacks as members of the general public are no feather in a black leader’s cap, even if blacks are benefited more than others by gaining access that was nearly impossible for them before
[emphasis added].
    As I discuss in Chapter 5, the federal war on drugs has wrought disproportionate harm on minority communities. Allowing for states’ rights here would surely be an improvement, for the states could certainly