Denny’s squared

FrontPage Magazine has an article on an interesting combination of the Denny’s Hustle and government by consent decree: Harvesting the Fruits of Liberal Guilt. The Denny’s Hustle, of course, is the practice of bringing strike suits against large PR-conscious companies complaining of multiple acts of racism. Government by consent decree is a procedure whereby activists outside government bring suit against an agency, generally one controlled or staffed by sympathizers, that is settled by an agreement between the parties that court approval turns into the law of the land. In the FrontPage article, some black farmers brought suit against the US Department of Agriculture complaining that it was unfair that the 1 percent of the nation’s farmers who are black got only 3 percent of USDA loans. The Clinton Administration settlement, approved by the court, gave $50,000 to blacks who said they had applied for loans (government records only go a few years back and no proof was required that older applications had actually been made) and were willing to submit purported copies of letters complaining about discrimination (no verification was required that the letter had actually been sent or received by the government). An advertising campaign induced 25,000 to jump aboard the gravy train, of whom 60% collected. Who says this isn’t the greatest country in the world?
Posted by Jim Kalb at August 29, 2002 08:59 AM | Send