Among the international issues in this section is the ongoing tragedy in Africa. Most Americans were well aware of the injustices of South Africa's apartheid and white rule that gave South African blacks little participation in their country's political and economic arena. Politicians, civil rights organizations, and assorted do-gooders made us aware of it through demonstrations and calls for economic sanctions, boycotts, and disinvestment in American companies doing business in South Africa.
What most people don't know, and many who do know attempt to hide or trivialize, is that the injustices suffered by South African blacks pale in comparison to those suffered by their fellow countrymen elsewhere on the continent. Those injustices include actual slavery in countries like the Sudan and Mauritania and slaughter of millions of poor souls in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, and Liberia. Sometimes the slaughter included unspeakable atrocities such as dismemberment and boiling in oil. The West's open criticism of injustices by South African whites against blacks and the deafening silence in the face of horrible black injustices against other blacks makes one think that we only care about black suffering when whites are the perpetrators.
I also discuss international trade issues and how political indulgence of vested interests of certain businesses and labor unions adversely affect producers and consumers. Talk about protection is seductive, but government can't produce a special privilege for one group of people without simultaneously creating a special disadvantage for another group. With trade restrictions, like tariffs and quotas, the disadvantage is borne by consumers of the product being protected. A clear case can be make for our asking, when the government protects one group, what other group deserves to be harmed and why?
Other columns in this section present what I believe to be a powerful argument that personal liberty, limited government, and free markets are highly correlated with growth and prosperity. By contrast, socialism and extensive government control and regulation are not only highly correlated with low growth and prosperity but also with significantly less liberty and human rights protection as well. World evidence proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.