Presidential Memos and Dirty Harry

A recent presidential memorandum on regulations requires federal economists to analyze ways to include and promote “social welfare, racial justice, human dignity, equity, and the interests of future generations.” It went on to say that they should make sure regulations benefit, or don’t inappropriately burden “disadvantaged, vulnerable, or marginalized communities.” In some ways, all of this is to say stop discriminating and try to remedy past discrimination. But one big problem with these requirements is that the memorandum may have to include just about everybody.

One of the most popular discriminators in movies was Dirty Harry. Clint Eastwood played the fictional San Francisco detective, Harry Callahan, who “doesn’t play any favorites, Harry hates everybody.” Although 1970s San Francisco had peace loving hippies, it was also a “violent, ugly place and no hippie utopia” with the Zebra Murders, the Jim Jones cult, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the Zodiac killer. Cops were routinely called “pigs” at the time and all of that combined to make the movie a wildly popular film.

I would also argue that Americans have discriminated, like Harry, against nearly everyone at some time or another. Let’s take a look at who are either been or are currently being discriminated against in the U.S along with their current population: 

In other words, pretty much everybody at one time or another has been the victim of Dirty Harrys and, most likely, most have played the role of Harry. And let’s not forget Wiccans. There appear to be 1.5 million witches in the U.S. Three hundred years ago, Virginia convicted Grace Sherwood of being a witch after she survived being dunked in Lynnhaven Inlet (escaped the ropes) at the end of what is now called Witchduck Road. 

One reason for discrimination against those from other countries may be insistence that newcomers to this country leave the bad ideas from their old country at the border. Getting assimilated into American society might actually help to prevent premature introduction of bad ideas from elsewhere. Whether it is collectivism, totalitarianism, or a social credit system, discrimination may help to hold off bad ideas from entering mainstream American life before they are measured, weighed and judged. 

On the other hand, trying out new theories, even the crackpot ones that suggest we are a terrible country or need to be more authoritarian, more fascist, communist, socialist or whatever, is also part of what Americans do. We are free to suggest things and even free to try to enact them into law, no matter how crazy. But the Dirty Harrys will scowl and push back. 

America calls itself a great “melting pot” of cultures that makes us stronger because of our differences and I believe that’s true. Obviously, we can find discrimination and marginalization in every country but, if it were a competition, the U.S. would probably win simply because we are so diverse. So no matter how economists respond to the president’s memorandum, one discriminated against subgroup will benefit while another one will pay.