Do you choose whether to pay your taxes??! Do you decide how they're spent? What a bizarre things to say.

You're arguing because you don't like the idea of your taxes being spent in a particular way. That's your right, of course. But don't pretend that this is some kind of moral stance. Your taxes are already being spent in ways you don't like.

I'm talking about government because people, including you and I, are governed. We have no choice about paying taxes. We have little to no say about how those taxes are spent. I'd say you're the one trying to blur these simple facts.

You keep talking about personal responsibilty and I'm a strong advocate of that. Personal responsibilty is essential. A mindset of apathy and victimhood is poisonous. There are too many black people who have embraced this mindset. I oppose it in the strongest possible terms and have written many times about the problems with it. Please stop acting as if I don't understand this. It's annoying.

But personal responsibilty isn't the only factor in life outcomes. Black people in the 60s took responsibiltiy for themselves. They worked hard, they studied, they did everything they were supposed to, but the government (yes, there's that word again) actively created or ignored policies that prevented them from succeeding. While their white peers at least had a fair chance to succeed, to build wealth, and, most importantly, to pass that wealth on to their children, black people didn't have the opportunity to do any of that.

Multiply that by a few generations, and you have the wealth gaps that we see between black and white Americans today. It's not about a "victim mentality" or at least not entirely. It's about deliberate, state-sanctioned discrimination that prevented black people, to use an analogy from earlier, from entering the store. So things like affirmative action are about saying:

"Hey, there are hardly any black people in the store because we stopped them from entering for hunderds of years. Let's let some in. What happens when they're inside is up to them. If they don't work hard, they won't be able to succeed, they'll have to leave eventually, or others will take their place, and that's fair enough. But let's try to repair the impact of all those years when we unjustly stopped them from entering (while, by the way, making them build the store)."

I'm not talking about punishment (again, you keep arguing with things I'm not saying. Not once in this whole conversation, nor in the article, have I talked about punishment). I'm talking about justice. I'm talking about making things right, or as right as possible, for people who were wronged or who face life with certain disadvantages. You act as if this is punishing you in some way and it's not. you're just being asked to share opportunity where you weren't previously. Sorry if this comes as a shock to you.

So for the umpteenth time, I fully understand the importance of personal responsibilty. But to claim that anybody who doesn't succeed in life, in the face of whatever obstacles placed in front of them, simply didn't take enough personal responsibility and is playing the victim, is simplistic and frankly, cruel. I hope your circumstances don't one day change in such a way that you learn this lesson. However strong and proud and responsible you think you are, believe me when I say there may come a day when you need help for reasons other than a "victim mentality". I hope the people deciding whether you get it, see this issue more clearly than you do.