Changing Course: Civil Rights at the CrossroadsChanging Course traces the rise and fall of the civil rights movement in the United States. It locates the origins of the civil rights vision firmly in the intellectual soil of the American Revolution. This vision carried the day through the abolition of slavery to the triumph of equal opportunity in the 1960s. Throughout, Bolick argues, the efforts of the civil rights movement were rooted in principles of natural law, and anchored in concern for fundamental rights and equality under the law. Bolick explores the movement's sudden abandonment of those principles during the 1960s, and examines the nature and consequences of the revised civil rights agenda during the past two decades. The book is particularly timely, appearing in the midst of growing polarization over civil rights and at a time when both liberals and conservatives are grappling to set a course of action for the post-Reagan years. "Changing Course "identifies clearly real civil rights problems of today as government-erected barriers to entrepreneurial and educational opportunity as well as a vicious cycle of dependency and despair. Bolick outlines a vigorous course of action that would eliminate those barriers based on traditional principles of civil rights. The book provides an intellectual and practical framework for a positive alternative to the agenda of the present-day civil rights establishment. It challenges advocates of individual liberty to reclaim leadership in the quest for civil rights for all. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 47
... society in which slavery was sanctioned and abetted by law to one in which all Americans share basic freedoms has not been an easy one . We are today still reminded of our often shameful past — and distance we have yet to travel — by ...
... society . Tragically , a dramatic and fundamental reversal took place in the civil rights agenda during the past two decades . just as the movement was ap- proaching its zenith . Many of those who today invoke the mantle of lead- ership ...
... society , I submit the problems confronting us today are precisely a consequence of abandoning fundamental principles . I believe a good dose of those principles will go far in restoring momentum to a civil rights movement that has been ...
... society governed by the people . " This unique philosophical synthesis constituted an epochal development in the evolution of Western societies . The notion that individuals derived their rights from nature rather than at the sufferance ...
... societies " for the sole pur- pose of more effectively protecting their natural rights . Society is thus a volitional entity that derives its existence from the consent of its constitu- ents . But the power of society is necessarily ...
Contents
5 | |
Abolitionism The Quest for Freedom | 13 |
The Triumph of Opportunity | 31 |
The Quest Abandoned | 53 |
RECHARTING THE COURSE OF CIVIL RIGHTS | 79 |
Introduction to Part II | 81 |
The Failed Agenda | 84 |