Liberty Alone

There seems to me to be no worse way to promote equality of treatment for a minority than to claim that any criticism of a member of said minority is driven by discrimination.

Lee Jasper’s claim that the media campaign against him is racist falls squarely into that category. Rather than admit that there are questions to be answered (even if he thinks he can answer them and clear his name), he tries to hide behind a claim of suffering racism, a claim which is patently absurd.
If there is any motivation to go after Mr Jasper in particular, its more a desire to go after Ken Livingston through him for political reasons. That and the newsworthy aspect of the case - allegations of corruption.

There are real cases of racism, sexism, homophobia and other superficial discrimination. It is quite right to campaign against them and to seek to educate people about them. Claiming discrimination in this way demeans the suffering of those who are exposed to real discrimination and abuse. It is crying wolf and will make people disbelieve true claims of abuse.

The New York Times reports on a strange instance of sex discrimination in the US. It isn’t a simple matter of discrimination against women, but affects both sexes at different times.
The situation is that there are different tariffs on items of clothing based on whether they are for men or women. For example, men’s synthetic swimwear has a 27.8% tariff whilst women’s only has a 11.8% tariff. Women are hard done by when it comes to shoes with a 10% tariff as opposed to an 8.5% one for men’s shoes.

At last, the clothing industry is taking this to court though. Hopefully they will win - striking a blow against sex discrimination and hopefully lowering tariffs at the same time.

Nobody knows why this tariff structure is in place. It is illogical, but then again tariffs themselves are illogical when it comes to the overall economy.

(hat tip: Marginal Revolution)