Polite Kid

Many of you read AmRen. I read it, though I don't post there. But I am finding the quality of comments over there of late to be deteriorating.
First, I have heard that comments there are heavily moderated, and apparently many posts never make it, being culled out for whatever reason.
That's fine: I would actually prefer to read a moderated discussion from which the profane and illiterate posts are excluded, along with the obviously trollish and disruptive.
However I wonder what the policy is there, as regards which comments make it past moderation and actually get posted. I have noticed that the mod or mods are tolerating a lot of comments which are openly hostile to Christianity, from one poster in particular. He manages to work in some kind of dig at Christianity on just about every thread he posts on, regardless of the topic being discussed. For example, on a thread about the financial crisis and the 'subprime mortgage' situation, he gets in a shot at Christians.
If there were similar criticisms and slams of other religions, it might not be so noticeable, but on the many threads about, say, Somalis or Moslems per se, I recall seeing few criticisms of the Islamic religion. Christianity alone is fair game, it appears. Yet I don't recall this being the situation when I first began reading AmRen.
In addition to the anti-Christian comments, there is the commenter who repeatedly urges people to return to Europe. I mentioned him before; actually, it appears that there is more than one such poster, though they may be the same person under different names. The commenter always mentions that all his friends, or "many" of his friends, are relocating to Europe and blending right in there. The whole story seems implausible to me; what are the odds that an individual would know 'many' people emigrating to Europe? The rare person might know one such friend, but 'many'? I suppose it could be that he is living in an ethnic enclave and has many friends whose ties to the 'old country' have never been broken, and hence they've decided to return to their ancestral country. Still, the man seems to be on a mission to convince as many as possible to follow their example and go 'back to Europe.' Now, if he were making the argument that a certain country needs immigrants and welcomes them, it would make more sense, but he isn't making a pitch for a particular country or locality, just 'go back to Europe' where you will fit right in. It all seems odd to me, and the comments are repeated almost word-for-word on many threads over there, as if he is cutting and pasting.
And last, I've noticed that a certain leftist commenter has been dominating certain threads with digs at Protestantism, as well as slurs against the realists who make up most of the commentariat there. Why he is allowed to post repeatedly on certain threads and spew his nonsense is more than I can understand. I know that AmRen states that they 'reserve the right to hold critics to a lower standard' when it comes to comments, but there should be some limits to that policy.
I suppose I am just saying that I don't understand the moderators' standards for approving comments there. If the idea is to drive away people who are sympathetic to AmRen's cause, it might just work. Or if the idea is to provide a platform for obnoxious leftists and anti-Christians to spout their poisonous ideas, then they are certainly accomplishing that.
I think AmRen serves a useful purpose especially for people who are finding themselves opposed to political correctness and multiculturalism, and looking for answers, but I am disappointed with the direction they seem to be taking over there. It does seem as though the commenting standards have lowered, or changed. Does anyone else perceive it that way?

Labels: Blogosphere, Free Speech, Political Correctness

At SBPDL, Paul explains his banning of a certain commenter, who tended to dominate (and derail) most discussions on that blog. I've mentioned before that I thought the SBPDL blog would be better without this bothersome commenter and others of that sort, so I think this is a good move.
Predictably, though, a few commenters decry 'censorship' and bemoan what they see as a move towards having an 'echo chamber' or a boring discussion with no opposition to debate. There are always these schools of thought among blog readers.
It's possible to have a free exchange of ideas without tolerating obnoxious commenters or discussion-derailers. We've seen a few passing through the comment section here over the years, and a few of them have been IP-banned, without any appreciable loss to the discussion here.
I think it's more important on a blog to maintain a certain level of civility, and to try to keep things on a higher plane. Abusive or insulting comments degrade the discussion, and when I am visiting a blog that tolerates that kind of thing, I will just remove the blog from my list of daily reads. I am sure there must be others who react similarly to blogs with out-of-control comment sections.
Of course some people are attracted to that kind of rough-and-tumble atmosphere, and to each his own, I suppose, but that's not my cup of tea. It isn't my idea of debate. Maybe the blunt language and rough banter is more of a ''guy'' thing, but it's just not for me. Still, every blogger has his own philosophy of what a blog discussion should be.
I'm all for freedom of speech when it comes to expressing ideas and arguments and points of view, but there is a limit. I will let comments stand even if I disagree with the ideas expressed but I will ban for abusive or aggressive or hostile language, because I believe it's possible to get one's points across in a civil and respectful way. Generally I give people a couple of chances to make their points in a civil way, and if they can't, well, they are gone.
Some of the comments at SBPDL which took exception to the new policy stated the need to 'hear what the opposition is saying.' Personally I find that I can hear what the opposition is saying just about anywhere; read any mainstream news source or blog, and there is nothing else but the 'opposition viewpoint.' So dissident bloggers have no crying need to welcome the opposition; they offer nothing but predictable nonsense and falsehoods, so it's absolutely redundant to have such commenters on our blogs. Such is my opinion, anyway.
Recently on some blog I was reading, a commenter complained about a blogger joining in the discussion on the comment thread; this complainer thought that was very bad form, and should not be done by a blogger. I've noticed over the years that certain bloggers do not join any discussion in the comment section. Personally, when visiting others' blogs, I am put off by that. I remember before I started blogging myself, that some bloggers never came down from Olympus to interact with the readers who commented. I tend to take the opposite approach. I don't know the preferences of my readers, but I recall one reader a couple of years ago, who seemed new to the blog, who left a comment to which I did not, for whatever reason, reply directly to. The commenter took angry offense at my failing to reply, and huffily announced that he would not read my blog anymore and that I was not welcome in his neck of the woods. I was taken aback, because I had meant no offense to that person, but in any case, he took his leave.
I generally like to acknowledge comments and interact because I value comments -- most of them, anyway -- and especially value my regular, faithful readers. I understand, though, that others have a different approach, especially those blogs which have scores of comments on a given post.
There are many approaches to blogging and managing the discussion, so there's no one right way I suppose, although I think we should all be able to agree on rules of basic civility towards one another.

Labels: Blog Business, Blogging, Civility, Free Speech

Further thoughts relating to this thing called political correctness, some of them sparked by reactions to my previous post on the subject:
If there is something about Anglo-Saxons that fosters the attitudes embodied in political correctness, why did that something not appear in earlier centuries, or at least, not in the lethal form in which it appeared in the mid-20th century?
Another question: it's often asserted that Anglo-Saxon peoples, more than other European peoples, display weak ethnic identity or ethnocentrism. This is given as the reason why Anglosphere countries, particularly the UK, Canada, and America are being overrun by immigrants and opportunists, with the complicity of the native people. Yet at the same time, Anglo-Saxons have always been the recipients of sharp criticism by other ethnicities for being too exclusive, too dominant, too Anglocentric. This whole damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't, line of criticism is reminiscent of the similar contentions made about Christianity: that Christianity has always been militant, crusading, intolerant, and a cause of bloody conflicts, and at the same time, it is said to lead to universalism, pacifism, and sentimentality towards the world's losers.
It would seem, in the case of the criticism of Christians, as well as Anglo-Saxons, that something happened which resulted in a marked change by the mid-20th century. I don't accept that the liberalism which is supposed to characterize Anglo-Saxon peoples and Christians in general is intrinsic to those groups. I think it is obviously a recent development, or perversion.
Secondly, I see that the discussion is causing discomfort on the part of some of my readers. I don't see how I could write an honest post on the subject without making some uncomfortable, although that was not my intention. As I wrote before on this subject, I feel compelled to follow the truth where it leads, insofar as that is possible, and if that steps on someone's toes, I can only say it's unfortunate. I cannot, in good conscience, decree certain groups to be exempted from examination or criticism. If I did so, I would only be yielding to the political correctness I so often deplore and rail against -- which would make me something of a hypocrite.
As I've said, civility and reasoned arguments are essential; make a civil, reasoned, argument, and your views will generally be allowed. If any object to those views, answer them with civility and reason. Refute them if you can. That's the best way, not flames or hurt feelings or offense-taking. So far, this has been the tone of the comments, with mature attitudes predominating.
I think those of us who see that our country, and Western Christian civilization are under siege and in danger realize that will never be equal to the task of defending our heritage if we are offended or made uneasy by criticism of certain groups, whichever they may be. Nobody should be above criticism or questioning. If some are not able to accept my approach, so be it. I have long since learned it's impossible to please everybody while pursuing truth and honesty.
Our society in the West is drowning in dishonesty and cant; I won't participate in it. I will tolerate a lot of things but I will not bow to the dishonesty and cant of political correctness. I have to repeat again what my kinsman (one of the non-liberal WASP New Englanders) wrote:
I never hated anything in my life except two things: dishonesty and the appeasement of evil. These I hate with every fiber of my being. I would rather face controversy and bitterness indefinitely than surrender to either one.'' - Carleton Putnam, Race and Reality
Political correctness has made liars and hypocrites of too many of us. We have made certain classes of people to be near-saints, while we ourselves are cast into the role of the perpetual villain, responsible for all the world's injustices and woes. Enough is enough.
Our founding ancestors sought to shed many of the habits of the old world, such as the belief in an aristocracy of birth. Certain people, by virtue of their birth, were entitled to greater respect and privilege and flattery. Political Correctness merely created a kind of upside-down aristocracy, in which the underdogs become the exalted class. I won't participate in that injustice any more. If all men are truly equal under the law, then no group or class, past history of suffering notwithstanding, has a right to be above criticism.
Some still cling to the habit of making excuses for the protected victim classes, maybe in a show of noblesse oblige, or maybe in an attempt to allay a conscience that feels guilt at saying 'mean-spirited' things about the victims of the world. But we are under siege; we are on the ropes. We don't have time to worry about the victims and the laggards and the losers of the world; we have to worry about us and our children and our children's children -- if we can last that long. And we will not be able to if we are still prone to take everybody's side but our own. To those of you who still have guilty consciences or tender feelings towards the others, what can I say? Sacrifice yourself and your children if you must, but don't hold the rest of us back, and don't try to impart your guilt feelings or your sanctimony to the rest of us. We can't allow ourselves to be hampered by foolish altruism when we are in trouble. Our misplaced altruism and concern for the world has put us in this dire predicament.
I notice that one or two of the bloggers who link to me are attempting to edge away and distance themselves as I post some of these controversial pieces. So be it; I can understand that some don't want to be tainted by association, even if only through a link on a blogroll, to someone who is pushing the PC envelope. If any of the faint-hearted want to de-link me, that's fine. My ancestors didn't shrink from controversy or opprobrium, and I don't either. I have to say what I have to say, and if I say it to an audience of a few, or nobody at all, so be it. I won't go along to get along, and I won't try to please or flatter anybody at the expense of truth.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
I will not hide my tastes or aversions...If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.''
I suppose the very fact that I feel the need to say these things in regard to political correctness shows that even the PC scofflaws, like myself, feel constrained to offer justifications for our rebellion. And it shows that people who are ostensibly on the same side are still unable to tolerate speech that walks too close to the edge and defies the very powerful taboos.
At least this discussion will sift us, and help us decide who is who, and who is where. Examining reality honestly is never a loss.
For now, I'm considering a post on our politically incorrect founders and forefathers. Too often we are presented with a whitewashed view of the Founding Fathers and other great leaders, which bowdlerizes many of their politically incorrect statements. This is a distortion I would like to see rectified.

Labels: Free Speech, Freedom Of Thought, Liberalism, Political Correctness, Victimhood

This story and a later one are interesting in a couple of ways. First, though, we all knew, those of us who care about these things, that this was a deliberate plan. We knew that it was being carried out contrary to the wishes of the people of the UK, just as the same kind of thing is going on here and in all Western countries. An excerpt:
Official figures to be published on Thursday will confirm that foreign immigration under Labour added more than three million to our population.
At the same time nearly one million British citizens voted with their feet, some saying that they were leaving because England was no longer a country that they recognised.
How could all this have happened in the teeth of public opposition? Even the Labour government�s own survey last February showed that 77 per cent of the public wanted immigration reduced, including 54 per cent of the ethnic communities, while 50 per cent of the public wanted it reduced 'by a lot�.
[...]
The strongest evidence for conspiracy comes from one of Labour�s own. Andrew Neather, a previously unheard-of speechwriter for Blair, Straw and Blunkett, popped up with an article in the Evening Standard in October 2009 which gave the game away.
Immigration, he wrote, didn't just happen; the deliberate policy of Ministers from late 2000...was to open up the UK to 'mass immigration.'
But the fact that this is being discussed so openly is the interesting thing. Can any American reading this blog imagine one of our large daily newspapers acknowledging such a thing? I can't. The Washington Times is the only thing approaching a 'conservative' major daily paper, and it is politically correct in its way. I confess I have not read the Washington Times lately, because it is so predictably Republican and 'safe.' But though stories about border violations (Border Patrol agents shot by illegal immigrants or drug gangs, etc.) they did not address immigration policy, or the very fact that our country was being transformed, even though it may be the biggest story of our lifetimes.
So, the British media is sometimes more open and frank than our own media on this issue, at least. And given the fact that the UK overall seems to keep a much tighter control over people's speech and behavior, this is not what we would expect.
A commenter says:
''Immigration has utterly ruined this country. Our homogenous British population gave us a stable society to which everyone belonged to, with everyone sharing the same culture and values. Mass immigration of foreign people and their cultures has thrown a very large spanner in the works, one which is rapidly eradicating the cultural and ethnic identity of our country. I really fear for the future of our country. It's the British people who made this country great, but they are now being replaced.
- Oliver, Surrey, G Britain
This is a very civil and factual comment, but I think in some of our papers, the moderators would delete it. The first sentence alone would probably doom the comment to deletion.
Most such articles in the Telegraph seem to elicit hundreds of comments, so there are obviously strong feelings on the part of many people in the UK, where immigration is concerned.
We here in the States have some latitude as to freedom of expression, but politically incorrect comments on newspaper websites are often deleted or heavily moderated, and usually are met with obnoxious responses from leftist readers -- who may in fact be people who are paid to shout down politically incorrect comments on the Internet, or they may just be true believer leftists. In any case, I would say that outside the blogosphere, viewpoints that are politically incorrect are just not heard, not allowed to be heard. Some news websites are more lenient than others, but a great deal of censorship goes on.
This is also true of talk radio, which used to be considered a bastion of conservatism. So other than blogs, these issues are pretty much ignored.
Most Americans on 'conservative' blogs jeer at the British for being too passive and supine when it comes to the transformation and ethnic cleansing that is going on, but I question whether that is an accurate impression; it may be that there are things going on beneath the surface.
Before someone tells me that I am imagining this to be true, just indulging in wishful thinking, I think that one advantage that the people of the UK have is that they are not afflicted with this national neurosis regarding slavery, racial amends, and proving our lack of 'racist' inclinations. While American 'conservatives' are scouring the landscape, searching the farthest horizons for 'conservative blacks' to promote to leadership, the British, French, et al seem relatively free of this strange affliction, thus enabling them to think more clearly about the situation. Until we Americans can disentangle ourselves from this obsession, we will forever be spinning our wheels.
I don't count the British out just yet; we don't know what may happen. And there are signs of life in France as well, though now ''our'' government is presuming to teach the French how to have better rapport with their 'minority populations.' It would be laughable, were it not so tragic.
Somebody needs to teach the American people, particularly those of the colorblind Republican persuasion, how to shed their peculiar hangups so that this country might be able to see clearly again.

Labels: Ethnic Cleansing, France, Free Speech, Globalism, Mass Immigration, Race Replacement, Tyranny, Uk

We knew this was coming. But all the same, it doesn't bode well, for obvious reasons.
THE ratings used for films could be applied to websites in a bid to better police the internet and protect children from harmful and offensive material, Britain's minister for culture has said.
Andy Burnham told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper the government was planning to negotiate with the administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to draw up new international rules for English language websites.
"The more we seek international solutions to this stuff - the UK and the U.S. working together - the more that an international norm will set an industry norm," the newspaper reports the Culture Secretary as saying.
Giving websites film-style ratings would be one possibilty.
"This is an area that is really now coming into full focus," Mr Burnham said.
Internet service providers could also be forced to offer services where the only sites accessible are those deemed suitable for children, the paper said.
[...]
"If you look back at the people who created the internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach," Burnham told The Daily Telegraph. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now."
He said some content should not be available to be viewed.
"This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."
[Emphasis mine]
We all know that the interpretations of 'offensive' or 'harmful' or 'hateful' will rest with the liberals and leftists who are now to be in the drivers' seat in Washington, D.C. as of January. And if ''our" government is to work hand-in-hand with the leftist British government, no good can come from that for either country.
Blogs like this one, and many other, far less politically incorrect blogs and forums will be filtered if not removed entirely. It may not happen overnight, but this is the direction in which we are headed.
The politically correct vigilantes will be ever more emboldened to silence anyone who fails to toe the line.
We should be thinking about ways to circumvent this effort to quash free speech. We will have to find alternatives, and I believe where there's a will, there's a way. We will have to find alternative ways to communicate and to speak the truth that needs to be heard.
I'm convinced that one of the first acts of our new overlords will be to pass the 'hate speech' and 'hate crime' laws that they have been itching to push through, but failed to do in the last session. I am convinced that this is a priority for them.
"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." - John Adams
"In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Who ever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." - Benjamin Franklin
"For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time. - Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland
"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no Constitution, no Law, no Court can save it...Where do you stand Citizen?" - Judge Learned Hand
'"Truth is hate to those who hate the truth" - quote from protester Arlene Elshinnawy, from the WND article linked above

Labels: Bloggers, Blogs, Censorship, Cultural Marxism, Free Press, Free Speech, Freedom Of Expression, Hate Speech, Internet, Liberal Intolerance, Liberals

From what I have seen in the video here, there is hardly a dime's worth of difference between these young people and the ones who storm the stage to harass and silence politically incorrect speakers on campuses. The only difference might be that these people are better-groomed and better-dressed, but still knee-deep in PC.
At the link there is a lengthy discussion going on around the video from CPAC, with the young ''conservatives'' rebuffing Jamie Kelso, and displaying an incredible level of ignorance in their 'arguments' against him.
There seems to be a consensus among many pro-White Americans that the Republican Party, and what is roughly called the 'conservative movement' is either useless or is in effect on the opposing side, along with their Democrat soul mates in political correctness.
However there is still a persistent idea that we can use the GOP as a vehicle for advancing our interests. I think everybody who has read this blog for any length of time knows where I stand. I started out as a more-or-less mainstream 'conservative' or Republican, although I had lost the veneer of political correctness long ago. My 'old American' realist upbringing kicked in and I began to wonder how and why American Whites seemed to have so little in common with our near ancestors. Even my parents generation, and maybe yours, dear readers, held what we now call 'racial realist' attitudes. So why did the 'conservatives' stop conserving, and start mimicking the liberal left, whom they claim to reject wholeheartedly?
Conservatives who don't want to conserve their own people, their own ethnicity, and don't consider their progeny or the future, are no conservatives by any definition I understand.
The Republican Party seems to want to preserve the material goods of life only, and all the hue and cry about 'smaller government' is only to that end. American conservatism has long since lost its soul, or sold its soul.
The 'Tea Party' candidates have proven to be as easily compromised as any other Republican, despite their pandering to the populist sentiments that have surfaced recently.
Personally I think the GOP is impervious to any efforts of White citizens to influence it away from its present policies.
Right now the party is busy recruiting 'diversity', and enlarging the 'big tent' so that one and all may be included, regardless.
Come one, come all, and bring your political correctness and ethnic grievances along.
Some say that this CPAC gathering was not representative of the party as a whole. Some social conservatives in the GOP objected to the pro-gay slant, but in general this seems to be the direction the party is going. Social conservatives are being marginalized, and seem to be fewer in number every year, as the older generations die.
But if you spend enough time on Republican forums on the internet you will see how very politically correct most 'mainstream' Republicans and conservatives have become, especially on racial issues. Most of the FReepers cling to the idea that 'legal immigration: good' while only illegal immigration is bad. Why? Because to state that all immigration should be halted, if only temporarily, is to invite a charge of racism. Some of those on these Republican forums and blogs will become like a pack of baying hounds when they scent anything that resembles 'racism' or anti-Semitism.
We see the behavior of these young people, who are likely from fairly prosperous backgrounds; they have been conditioned to attack when certain taboos are violated. Carleton Putnam in his 'Race and Reality' referred to 'hypnotism' in this connection, and watching some of these PC-saturated people in action makes one think they are under some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion, so quickly do they react to certain triggers. In any case, these are not thinking young people, but knee-jerk liberals, despite their Republican patter.
I don't believe it's an either/or situation, where we must choose between working with these indoctrinated liberal Republicans or simply accepting our demise. Those are not the only two choices.
And if we are in such a dire state that we are forced to try to work with people to whom we are anathema, then we are in such a desperate state that it's far too late for the gradual approach. And in fact I think we really don't have the leisure to use the gradual subtle approach, from within.
This is a subject that has come up before, and I will say the same thing I said to my readers of an earlier time: the point that must be understood is that we don't need to 'win over the masses' or attain a majority of people who agree with us. No great movement of history was ever driven by a majority. It has always been a relatively small group of people, highly-motivated, that has been behind the great movements and causes.
Unfortunately we seem to have a very highly-motivated group of people opposing us, and most unfortunate is the fact that they have enormous amounts of money and the media on their side, as their lackeys. It is hard for a few people to go up against this group of mostly unknown elites and the masses who follow their lead. But numbers don't always guarantee a win; there are any number of times in history in which the few have prevailed over a formidable many.
And again, this politically correct multicultural tower of Babel is an edifice that is built on lies, and is buttressed by lies upon lies. It is in conflict with human nature; it requires constant effort to keep it from collapsing of its own weight.
It takes the expenditure of a lot of energy to keep it standing. It apparently takes a lot of conditioning via the media and via peer pressure to maintain it. The fact that these people who are the power behind the scenes seem to feel the need to double down on the propaganda may mean that they are feeling uncertain of their success.
One more thing: this multicult monstrosity is very costly in terms of money; imagine how much has been spent and is being spent to construct it and to keep up the false façade.
To think that we have to hitch our wagon to the Republican Party is folly; as if that party is not decaying and crumbling along with the system of which it is a part.
I have hopes for the A3P, but we will see where that goes. And before somebody pipes up to tell us that 'no third party will ever succeed' -- I say that is the kind of thing that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is accepted as some kind of certainty. The future is not known; there is a first time for everything. And again, the Republican Party (the party of Reconstruction, by the way) began as an upstart third party.
And those of us who are Christian know that there is one other factor to be taken into consideration when pondering the future: God. Atheists and 'halfway-house Christians' as CWNY calls them may scoff, but God is not dead 'nor doth he sleep', as Longfellow wrote. He will have something to say about all this before it is over. In fact, Christians know that we have a glimpse of the direction of the future, and we know what the ultimate outcome will be. It's hubris to imagine that we hold everything in our hands.
Still, we are not to be passive observers, but active doers of what is right, and speakers of the truth.

Labels: Ethnopatriots, Free Speech, Party Politics, Pc, Republicans, Third Parties

In a recent discussion thread, a reader left a comment that might easily provoke controversy.
At the time the comment appeared, I judged that the comment might provoke such a response, and I considered how best to handle the situation. However, probably to my discredit, I was guilty of choosing to sidestep the issues raised by the comments, which was probably not courageous on my part. So I let the comment stand.
At the same time, the Haloscan glitch occurred, and I was unable to access my comments, manage them, or write any responses. And today when I was able to access my comments, I saw that there was a disagreement going on, with one commenter requesting that the original offending comment be deleted.
This is not an easy call for me; I've deleted comments rarely during the 15 months or so that this blog has existed. However I can and do ban people who have been uncivil and who make profane, pointless or inflammatory comments.
For some people, an anything-goes atmosphere epitomizes freedom. I disagree; I don't believe that free speech means there are no rules or standards. I don't see how a traditionalist could support that idea of freedom.
On the other hand, I am committed to following the truth wherever it leads, as I said to another commenter on another recent thread. I'm not inclined to forbid certain opinions or lines of questioning out of hand, because that approach is simply not consistent with seeking truth or having an open and honest discussion about the very real threat to our country and our culture and our very survival. These are not trivial and inconsequential matters we are discussing here, but the continued survival of our country and our posterity. America and the West are under threat from within and without and to refrain from discussing our predicament and its causes from all angles is to further diminish our chances.
Those who have read my blog for any length of time know that I am a sworn enemy of political correctness in all its forms. I find it much more than a mere annoyance, and far more than just a quaint absurdity, as some people regard it. Political Correctness is the mortal enemy of truth and honesty and fairness. As such it is one of the main factors in the compromising of our national immune system; it is one of the main weapons with which our enemies, internal and external, keep us weak and divided, and keep us from examining the truth with honesty. Political Correctness has to go if we are to continue to exist as a country, and if we are to have real freedom of thought, freedom of belief, and freedom of expression. Political correctness and sacred cows will find no friends here.
I've quoted a phrase of Carleton Putnam more than once here, and the quote seems apt here:
'I never hated anything in my life except two things: dishonesty and the appeasement of evil. These I hate with every fiber of my being. I would rather face controversy and bitterness indefinitely than surrender to either one.''
To me, avoiding the exploration of any question regarding America's predicament amounts to dishonesty. How can I forbid the asking of certain questions, especially when I oppose political correctness, and I refuse to put any group of people above criticism or questioning?
Many people who are as concerned with America's survival as I am are angry at 'White Anglo-Saxon Protestants', especially those of New England stock who all too often are liberal elitists, eager to sell America out in order to be seen as philanthropic and enlightened. I was just at another web forum where WASP New England liberals were taking quite a thrashing from several posters. Now I've said before that I have Puritan New England roots, (as well as much more numerous Southern roots), so some of the worst culprits among WASP politicians are in fact distant cousins of mine. I could name names, but I will refrain; fill in the blanks as you like. Suffice it to say that I have been critical here on this blog of individual political figures who are my own kin, albeit distant kin. As I said, I am no respecter of persons, and yes, there are too many old-stock New England elites who have no allegiance to this country and who are, quite bluntly, a disgrace to our common Puritan ancestors. So my own ethnic kin and my own extended family members are not above criticism; there are no sacred cows here.
I could, following the fashion of the day, take personal offense when someone insults WASP elites and liberal New England people, but I don't, because I recognize that there is more than a grain of truth in the insults. I could protest that there are exceptions, and complain about stereotypes and bigotry but I acknowledge there is truth in the stereotypes. That there are welcome exceptions among the 'New England WASP elite', such as my distant cousin Carleton Putnam, does not disprove the rule. He was an exception, and not typical overall.
I've been fairly hard on people of Irish and Italian immigrant stock here, but I have nothing against individuals of those groups if they are not rabid open-borders advocates or anti-American.
So when a commenter made remarks which were critical of Jews, I was torn as to whether to let the comments stand, and I ultimately allowed them. If the commenter had made similar comments about Irish-Americans, who tend to be very pro-immigrant and pro-open borders, would the same offense have been taken?
I know that the comeback would be: but the Irish have not suffered the persecution that Jews have suffered; there is no organized anti-Irish hatred whereas there is very real anti-Semitism which has resulted in genocidal violence at times in the past.
However some Irish partisans will answer that they themselves were 'targeted for genocide' by the British, and that they almost died out during the Famine of the 1840s. So on and on it goes.
But is it legitimate to place a group of people off limits for critical comments, based on past persecution? And is a fear of current persecution legitimate or overblown?
If I place one group above criticism, how does that square with honest discussion?
I can and occasionally do delete comments which are abusive, race-baiting, and slanderous. I have let stand many comments that I found to be personally insulting and rude, although I usually ban such commenters in the future simply because I am resolved that this blog will not be dominated by incivility or personal squabbles; I've seen it happen on far too many forums and blogs. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, the conflicts tend to drive away others who prefer not to witness the disputes.
My concern is to keep the discussion here as civilized and as objective as possible.
Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand. Freedom without responsibility is license and sometimes ultimately anarchy.
We have free speech in this country but this blog is not obligated to allow any and all comments in the name of 'freedom.' I do require that my commenters make their points as civilly and as reasonably as possible, and refrain from personal comments and insults.
So was the controversial comment bannable? If so, in order to be consistent and fair, I would have to ban harsh comments about all ethnic/racial/religious groups if I banned the comments in question. And I and my commenters make some rather harsh comments about certain groups here, being no friends of political correctness. But we do so in the spirit of telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. In a country which has become increasingly afraid to speak difficult truths, we have to kick over the traces or we will be history.
So it's a dilemma. I will not make a blanket pronouncement about any group being exempt from criticism or questioning, but I will ask that commenters temper their comments, and refrain from making inflammatory or malicious statements, realizing too that the definiton of what is inflammatory or malicious is open to some subjective interpretation.
I will say, on the Jewish question, that I've been among many paleos who seem concerned with Jews in particular, and I have found that often their beliefs in a ubiquitous Jewish conspiracy sound eerily like the complaints heard from militant blacks who think Whitey invented AIDS to commit genocide against them, or that Whitey induces blacks to eat pork products because they contain a brain parasite which suppresses black functioning.
On the other hand, because I differ with paleocons on this one issue, I am not inclined to dismiss everything they stand for because I consider them tainted by this one opinion. I know this is the approach of many on the 'respectable right' but I think it is shortsighted. Because I disagree with one emphasis of the neocons, I can't declare them discredited completely, as some other conservatives do -- although I think they are wrong far more often than the paleos, and wrong more often than they are right.
In the end, I confess I am not comfortable with the conspiracy theories which portray Jews as all-powerful; it really reduces us, the majority, to being helpless pawns and victims, and to think of ourselves as victims and pawns is not a healthy state of being. Our forefathers would not have brooked that kind of thinking.
I do accept as reasonable that most minority groups who have experienced persecution, or who believe themselves to have experienced it (as with Irish-Americans) there is a kind of self-protective us-against-them mentality, a sense of grievance which leads to intense ethnocentrism and often a desire to promote one's ethnic group at the expense of the feared majority. Groups do act in self-interested ways; there is no denying that, and minority groups especially so, perhaps defensively at times.
But I prefer to keep discussion here on a higher plane if possible. Most of my commenters do so; I'm generally well-impressed with the quality of most of the comments I get here.
However we are adults here, and if a comment is made that you disagree with or find objectionable, refute it if possible; show where the facts are wrong, the reasoning is flawed, or the conclusions unfounded. Most of my commenters are good debaters and can do that with ease. I WILL step in and delete and ban where warranted , although our respective judgments on just what is acceptable and what is not may differ. It's much better to refute a falsehood than to merely silence it, but granted, sometimes feelings run high and the debate becomes heated.
I will put the question to my readers, or those who are still with me, anyway: should I ban certain topics or questions or issues here? If so, which ones? Or do I make a blanket ban on all ethnic generalizations? If so, then do I then become the people I've decried so often, such as the 'anti-illegal immigration' fighters who ban people for saying 'wetback' or who banish people for criticizing Hispanic culture? What topics and questions are forbidden?
I honestly hope that I will not lose readers over this issue, but truth is paramount here. I do pledge to try to be fair and honest and to keep the discussion civilized.
I realize I probably won't please everybody here; that's not always possible. But I hope that those who have added so much to the discussion on this blog will continue to visit and comment.

Labels: Blogging, Free Speech, Freedom Of Expression, Political Correctness, Truth

The recent trend towards more comments on this blog is a welcome thing; I generally like seeing more people join in the discussion. However it seems that the uptick in comments has brought with it some problems, among them, the inevitable spam, which is an annoyance to deal with, and then there is a tendency to get off-topic in some threads.
The off-topic posts are only a minor problem, but if possible let's keep to the subject being discussed; if there is a burning issue you want to discuss or a link you feel compelled to share, the forum would be a great place for that, since all who are registered can post topics and links. And yeah, I know the forum is something of a ghost town at the moment, but it looks like there has been a little increase in activity, so it need not stay deserted over there; it's you, readers and commenters, who will make or break the forum.
Another more difficult problem to deal with is the free speech issue. I've come down pretty firmly in favor of allowing ideas and points of view that others might exclude on the basis of political correctness. I am an enemy of PC in all its forms -- but how do we maintain a high level of discourse, which is what I am attempting to do, if we don't have standards, and if the standards aren't enforced?
I would really be sorry to see the discourse deteriorate here on this blog as has happened in many places; it doesn't take much to bring that about. So I am going to go through one of my draconian phases and start editing or censoring and banning if need be. Free speech is good but there is no absolute free speech anywhere, at least if some level of civilized discourse is to be maintained.
I ask rather little, really: just civility, no personal attacks towards me or other commenters, no obscene or blasphemous comments, no crude language generally. We should be able to put our ideas across or make our points without such language. And advocating violence or force is not something I tolerate here. It just isn't.
After a warning or two, (and I've been pretty lenient with people who are on 'our side' while I generally cut leftists and liberals no slack) I will ban those who disregard my basic rules. That's just the way it works here.
Rather than become too lax and tolerant and let the discussion be adversely affected, I will act when I need to, to keep things civil and mature here. I know most of you will honor my rules. Thanks.

Labels: Blogging, Civility, Free Speech, Freedom Of Expression

Via Steve Sailer's blog, a post from the Stuff White People Like blog, called Being Offended:
To be offended is usually a rather unpleasant experience, one that can expose a person to intolerance, cultural misunderstandings, and even evoke the scars of the past. This is such an unpleasant experience that many people develop a thick skin and try to only be offended in the most egregious and awful situations. In many circumstances, they can allow smaller offenses to slip by as fighting them is a waste of time and energy. But white people, blessed with both time and energy, are not these kind of people. In fact there are few things white people love more than being offended.
Naturally, white people do not get offended by statements directed at white people. In fact, they don�t even have a problem making offensive statements about other white people (ask a white person about "flyover states"). As a rule, white people strongly prefer to get offended on behalf of other people.
It is also valuable to know that white people spend a significant portion of their time preparing for the moment when they will be offended. They read magazines, books, and watch documentaries all in hopes that one day they will encounter a person who will say something offensive. When this happens, they can leap into action with quotes, statistics, and historical examples. Once they have finished lecturing another white person about how it�s wrong to use the term "black" instead of "African-American," they can sit back and relax in the knowledge that they have made a difference.''
I originally found the Stuff White People Like blog via Steve Sailer, and I blogged about it then. As I said then of the blog:
Is it all in good fun, or does it contribute further to the disparaging of white people which is so popular today? And assuredly this kind of self-ridicule (I am going on the assumption that the blogger is in fact white) is hardly fresh or new; I've (unwillingly) watched parts of movies of the last ten years or so in which caricatures of white people were a central basis of the 'humor', movies like 'White Chicks' or 'Undercover Brother'.
Reading the many, many comments following, I am still left asking myself who the target audience of the blog is. Is it the upper-middle-class or affluent liberal whites who seem to be the subject of much of the ambiguous 'humor'? I suppose such people would greatly enjoy laughing at themselves, or at somewhat grotesque caricatures of themselves; after all, their lives are centered around guilt and self-examination, and seeing themselves satirized or lampooned feeds into their sense that they are flawed, morally inadequate people, and also at the same time very important people. They like being the center of attention, even if the attention is unflattering to some degree or another.
Am I stereotyping white people? I hope not, because the stereotyping is one of the things I find unenjoyable about the blog, SWPL. One segment of white people, mainly liberal, PC, urban or suburban, affluent, educated, (probably over-educated) and mostly young, is made to represent all white people, and that is grossly inaccurate. White people are so much more varied than the blog implies, and the people described therein simply as 'white people' or 'whiter people' (whatever that means) are a small and unrepresentative segment. Yet they are made to stand for all white people. What is the message behind that? It could be that the blogger is himself part of that group, and feels more comfortable aiming barbs at his own group, or it may be that the blogger is part of that group and, having had contact mostly with that rather ingrown group, really considers them to be representative of the white race.
Is the blogger secretly pro-white and politically incorrect? Some claim this to be so, but I'm not convinced. The commenters (and there are many) all seem to see something different in the blog: some see it as an indictment of liberal political correctness, while others think, seemingly, that the satire of liberal young whites is meant to discredit them, deservedly. Some seem to think that the blog is rather anti-white, and therefore hip, since anti-whiteness is hip these days. Most of the young (white) people in my vicinity seem to think that anything which humiliates or caricatures whites is high hilarity, and well-deserved by whites.
The approach of the blog is successful, certainly, in terms of the traffic it draws, and the attention it has gotten. The blogger has also obtained a sweet book deal. However, I think the quality of the comments leaves much to be desired; I don't enjoy reading the comment threads at all.
Nevertheless, despite the uneasy feeling the blog evokes in me, the post in question makes some good points about white people (I would say liberal, PC white people) and their exasperating habit of taking offense on the behalf of their non-white 'wards'. Or should I say their non-white charges? Clients? My previous blog entry about 'The White liberals' burden' relates to this habit of theirs. They are so caught up in being the advocates or self-designated protectors or champions of minorities that they react as if they themselves are wounded when they perceive any slight or slur against their dependent clients, non-whites.
For some whites, specifically liberal/leftist PC whites, their protectiveness of nonwhites extends as far as wanting to adopt them, literally, and thus make non-whites part of their literal family, under their tutelage and protection. Is this a God complex? A desire to be the Savior or saint? For many liberals, their political and social belief system is a substitute for a non-existent religious faith, and in the cases where the liberal is actually a churchgoer, they affiliate with a church which serves their liberal agenda, so their social gospel beliefs are the center of their religious practices.
But just as with all the other manifestations of this attitude, this taking of offense on behalf of others is condescension, and it should be seen as somewhat of an affront to the one who is supposedly the target of the offense, real or imagined.
Taking offense for somebody else assumes that the person supposedly being defended cannot judge for himself when offense has been given, or that he is unable to speak up for himself, being either too ignorant or inarticulate -- too childlike.
I suppose a more generous assessment of these self-righteous liberals is that they have so fully identified with the minority groups that they truly do take offense at some careless word or phrase, feeling personally wounded by it. Even if that is the case, however, it's still unnatural and rather weird. There is a significant sub-group of (mostly young) white people who seem to have convinced themselves that they are non-white, adopting the styles, speech habits, and tastes of non-whites, usually blacks. I have always found that behavior somewhat embarrassing; I feel embarrassed for the whites who try their best to appear non-white. There are many manifestations of this; we see a lot of it on college campuses with young liberals sporting dreadlocks, piercings, and tribal tattoos, who get involved in drumming or other multiculti 'arts'. And there are those who dress in thug style and listen only to rap or other black styles of music. There are those who wear kaffiyehs, in solidarity with Palestinians.
It's not a new phenomenon; back when I was in college, however, whites who wanted to be non-white usually chose to be 'Native American' but apparently that has fallen from popularity somewhat, although Ward Churchill has stayed true to his calling to white Indianhood all these years.
In the 1970s there was a comedy movie, 'Made For Each Other,' in which actor Joseph Bologna, playing a confused young Italian-American man, goes to college and takes up black militancy, and harangues his baffled Italian-American parents about the wrongs done by 'whitey.'
I found that scene especially laughable in the context of today, wherein such attitudes among liberal young people are not as incredible as they appeared when the movie was first shown. There are plenty of young liberal whites who have been convinced by years of indoctrination at school, by the media, and by their deluded peers, that whiteness is a mark of Cain. It's these young people who are out marching alongside illegal Latinos, throwing projectiles at their white elders and calling them names. It's these who are trying to assuage their guilt and attain redemption from the stain of whiteness by swooning over Obama, listening to rap music, dating interracially -- and excoriating anybody who utters a politically incorrect word.
These people are not so much something to be laughed at or about; they are the scourge of anyone who wishes to practice free speech and to utter truth. We all complain about the controlled, PC media, and about our one-world, globalist ideologue politicians, but a bigger part of our problem is that the professional offense-takers, those who have made it their personal crusade to censure and vilify those they disagree with. This 'democratic censorship' only makes the job of the thought police that much easier. At this point, people are more or less being kept in line by these PC vigilantes who will make a citizen's arrest, as it were, of those who utter heresies. The result is a much more cautious conversation among people in general; many of us have to censor our speech closely or risk having someone publicly condemn any forbidden thought we express out loud.
The offense-takers are a plague in our society.
Yet they are our own people -- aren't they? Or by their willful choice to side with everybody but their own, have they in effect renounced their citizenship among whites? These days I am inclined to say the latter. They won't own any connection with people like me because they see us as the enemy; so be it.
Maybe interracial adoption isn't such a bad thing; those who have chosen to identify with others, and only with others, should be adopted into their chosen group and make their home there, instead of staying behind to antagonize and work against their biological kin.

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Ethnic Identity, Ethnic Solidarity, Free Speech, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness, Treason

David Thompson gives us his take, as always interesting, on the recent controversies over 'hate speech,' for example in the Islamic Awareness Week at Tufts University.
Fear and Hate
It should, I think, be unnecessary to point out that claims of being offended don�t, in themselves, entitle one to anything in particular, and certainly not rights of unilateral censorship. But we live in strange times and some repetition may be in order. As I wrote back in May 2005:
In this fashionable rush to condemn those who cause offence, we are in danger of overlooking something important. All grievances are not of equal merit. Nor are they deserving of equal sensitivity or accommodation. Whether or not a person is offended may not depend on what is actually said or written, which may be perfectly coherent, measured in tone and serious in intent. The perceived offence may depend on the dishonesty and hypocrisy of the supposedly aggrieved party... Very civil and inarguable comments can, for instance, cause "offence" to someone who is determined to be offended for political gain and determined to exploit the pretence of being hurt. Indeed, the pantomime of being conspicuously aggrieved can be a form of passive-aggressivism - a way to express hostility or dominance while hiding being the role of victim. This tactic is widely employed by the morally incontinent and by bullies of all kinds.
In light of those comments, the following may be of interest. Mike Adams has developed a similar line of thinking and arrived at an interesting, and quite helpful, definition of "hate speech":
Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener�s inability to offer an intelligent response. Because this inability to offer an intelligent response is due to one of two reasons, there are really two different types of hate speech: (1) Speech that is too dumb to merit an intelligent response, and (2) Speech for which the listener is too dumb to offer an intelligent response.''
Good commentary from both Thompson and Mike Adams.
Thompson says, of Adams' ideas:
If, as Adams suggests, "hate speech" is defined by the listener�s inability to tolerate dissent or formulate an intelligent response, then advantage is given to those who least deserve it. Those who resort to threats and howls of impropriety gain leverage over people who are prepared to listen and rebut with argument and evidence. Thus, moral incontinence, idiocy and bullying prevail.''
All in all, it's an interesting piece. The entire thing should be read, and please do read the discussion thread, which, sadly, illustrates yet another example of neocon/right-liberal political correctness, in which the bogeymen assume the usual guise of 'racists and bigots.' The Klan are invoked, and poor old James Watson is again given a drubbing for his comments. I notice however that as usual nobody has a cogent argument with which to refute anything Watson has said, but I guess you don't need one if you have noble motives such as defending the downtrodden victims.
Is there any hope of disabusing the 'conservative' apostles of political correctness? They seem quite convinced that they are the epitome of 'conservative' righteousness. They seem to have no inkling that they are following along two steps behind their left counterparts, as regards their adherence to PC.
Somebody coined the term 'the righteous Right' to describe conservative Christians, but I am inclined to use that term for the PC adherents on the 'right' who get the vapors when somebody says something politically incorrect. Get the smelling salts. Maybe they are the 'self-righteous right.' Or maybe some of the commenters are actually liberals of the garden variety. It's getting so hard to tell these days.

Labels: Conservatives, First Amendment, Free Speech, Hate Speech, Political Parties

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the
principle of free thought�not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate. .
. . We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expressions of opinions that we loathe. '' -Supreme
Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
My regular readers may want to skip this entry; it's meant for the self-righteous visitors who felt themselves to be 'victimized' or offended by words I wrote here the other day. This is meant for those who think that I and those who think as I do are their personal enemies. So please, indulge me in a little venting.
I want to clarify, first, what I said in the blog entry about Richard Nixon's politically incorrect conversations, which have caused some stir recently. In regard to abortion, I do not support abortion, at all. I was not suggesting I agreed with Nixon's views on the appropriateness of abortion in certain situations.
I did say that his politically incorrect views regarding interracial unions represented the prevailing majority opinion at the time he expressed them. And this is factually true. In fact, those views seem to be the prevailing consensus now, at least in practice, as statistics show that even in this politically correct, ''race-transcending'', colorblind age, the vast majority of people marry within their race.
That's fact, which can be supported by statistics, as well as by impartial observation of real life.
Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America�s 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970.''
In other words, about 93 percent of America's married couples are of the same race. This indicates that preference for one's own race in marriage is still the norm, still the preference of the great majority.
That this fact bothers some people, or hurts their feelings, is not the issue, and it is certainly not my fault, much less my problem. The facts are what they are. Human beings are what they are, and racial cohesion (as well as racial loyalty, until recently) are simply intrinsic to human nature.
The fact that such a substantial majority of people marry those of their own race says something, especially in the face of a half-century or so of nonstop propaganda meant to break down racial consciousness and intra-racial loyalty and cohesion.
My comments about the majority opinion was not meant to express approval of abortion in whatever circumstance, nor to claim that the majority of Americans believed abortion permissible, then or now. My comment was merely to indicate that today's politically correct received opinions on race were not popular opinions back then. And that's fact, even though some like to call facts they dislike ''hate''.
What is really at issue here is not facts, but 'feelings'. A commenter bemoaned that there is 'so much evil in the world', meaning that certain politically incorrect ideas are not merely mistaken or wrong, but ''evil'', and possibly a threat or a danger to others. And not only that, but I myself and perhaps the people who agree with me are 'evil' as individuals. Collectively, ''evil'' people with ''evil'' ideas constitute a dangerous group to the emotional forces of the left.
My recent entries on the subject of 'hate and extremism' touched on that idea: the attempt to make thought-criminals of all those who disagree with the PC regime which dominates all thought and discourse in public. It does not matter to the fearmongers on the left that these 'extremist' opinons are nothing more than your parents' or grandparents' ideas, and certainly the ideas of our Founding Fathers and past generations in general.
Suddenly, traditional, widely-held, time-honored ideas are 'evil.' What kind of mind looks at their own history and their own people, seeing only 'evil' and threats lurking around every corner?
Ultimately, I've found that it's a waste of time and breath to argue with the indoctrinated and the PC pharisees of the left, most especially where racial matters are concerned. I believe I've said that one in 1,000 liberals might be willing to be honest and listen to the other side. I take that back. I now think it's more like 1 in 10,000 or in 100,000.
For liberals, it's all about their feelings, and if you hurt their feelings with an idea or opinion, you are evil and should be silenced, or rounded up, as Bonnie Erbe and her ilk propose.
I've had people on the Internet literally wish me dead because of my opinions. How's that ''stop the hate'' thing going for you liberals? It looks to me as though the hate is mostly one-way, coming from your side towards ours.
Liberals, and all politically correct censors and self-designated vigilantes, remove the plank from your own eye first, rather than searching for the mote in your conservative brother's eye.
Here's an idea: try arguing ideas or facts when you disagree with someone. Implying that your interlocutor is 'evil' because you disagree with his ideas is immature, childish, and unworthy of a thinking adult. I will not engage in any kind of debate with those who attack my character because they hate my ideas, and therefore hate me.
Should it not be possible for a grown-up to dislike someone's ideas or opinions without calling that person 'evil'?
Please know that your ideas are as odious to me as mine seem to be to you, the difference between us being that I do not troll liberal/leftist/minority blogs looking for a fight, or for a chance to verbally assail those I differ with. Nor do I try to silence them, as they would love to silence those to their right.
One more thing which needs to be said: liberals tend to loathe conservatives and particularly Christians because they think Christians ''want to impose their morality'' on everyone. Hello? All that liberals do involves ''imposing their morality'' on the rest of us. A prime example is the subject at hand, the subject that so offended my delicate commenter yesterday: race and freedom of association. Because liberals deem it a good and moral and high-minded and 'enlightened' thing to pretend that race does not exist, or to condescend to associate with people of differing races, nothing will do but to force everybody to partake in that association. No one is to be allowed to refrain from associating with others, and no one is to be allowed to be left alone. The government must, by use of force and coercion, compel association with all and sundry, regardless of the wishes of those involved.
What on earth is this but imposing your morality on someone else?
I mean, it's nice for you that you have this enlightened 'egalitarian' religious faith, which enjoins you to pretend there is no such thing as race, ethnicity, or gender, but must you impose that religion or ideology on me and mine? What gives you that right? And under what Constitutional principle is the government to force people to associate with any given group, or to forbid people to assemble with others of their free choosing?
Even if you find some Constitutional justification for this, it is not ethical or moral.
Liberals relish calling conservatives ''judgmental'', and yet you liberals reserve all judgment to yourselves, judging and condemning willy-nilly, as if you are the voice of God himself. And isn't it you who claim that there are no moral absolutes? Then your absolutism about equality is meaningless and arbitrary. If there are no absolutes, then my views are just as valid and just as moral as yours are.
Your self-righteous, often self-pitying moralizing has no legitimacy, especially coming from those who say everything is relative, there are no absolutes.
The kinds of comments I get from the left, from their various offended'' victim-clients, and from the 'mainstream respectable conservatives' only serve to convince me that this country cannot endure under one government; we are far too polarized, not only along racial, ethnic, and religious lines, but also across philosophical and ethical lines. If my good (racial loyalty, love for my own and my fathers) is someone else's ''evil'', then what hope is there of sustaining such a society?

Labels: Cultural Marxism, Ethnic Solidarity, Free Speech, Freedom Of Association, Leftism, Leftist Hypocrisy, Political Correctness, Racial Division, Racial Guilt

PC won't permit illegal immigration opponent to speak
The 'PC' alluded to in the headline is Providence College, by the way:
PROVIDENCE -- Tom Tancredo, former congressman from Colorado, Republican presidential candidate and outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, is scheduled to speak in Rhode Island Wednesday. But he will not be addressing students at Providence College as he had originally planned, after college officials rejected a request from a student group to invite him to campus.
[...]
Student group Youth for Western Civilization asked PC officials if they could also host Tancredo, but the request was denied, said PC spokeswoman Pat Vieira. "They are not an officially recognized group," Vieira said. "They asked very late in the semester when there was not enough time for the request to go through the usual channels." Just as important, Vieira said, were Bishop Thomas J. Tobin's views on immigration and how immigrants -- whether here legally or illegally -- should be treated, which contrast sharply with Tancredo's.''
Happily, another venue has been found for Tancredo's speech, under the sponsorship of another group.
What is going on with this treatment of Tancredo? He has had a long record of opposing illegal immigration, but I don't remember him being shut down as much as he as been in recent times. Why, now, are his views intolerable, or more so than they used to be to the PC 'tolerance tyrants'?
I realize the Catholic Church is not a democracy, nor is it meant to be, so the Church leadership is not accountable to church members for their political stances -- but it seems a little separation of church and state is in order here.
I also understand, though, that Providence is a Catholic college, but as the article notes, the college has not prevented pro-abortion politicians like Ted Kennedy from speaking, though abortion is against Catholic teaching. It would seem that immigration, legal or not, is a more 'sacred' principle than life to some of these liberal theological types.

Labels: Academia, Church-State Separation, Free Speech, Freedom Of Expression, Illegal Immigration, Liberal Christianity, Liberal Intolerance, Political Correctness, Tom Tancredo

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.'' - David Hume, "Of the First Principles of Government," in Essays, Literary, Moral and Political.
Some further thoughts on Political Correctness:
When Hume wrote the words above some centuries ago, he was obviously not writing about Political Correctness or what some call Cultural Marxism, but the words are very much applicable to our present situation.
The tyrannical opinion of our day is exemplified in what we term Political Correctness.
Political Correctness, of course, is just one aspect of the leftist/liberal conquest of our society. Some conservatives disagree on the importance of 'PC', seeing it as merely a symptom or a secondary enemy.
But Political Correctness, this onerous set of unwritten laws which constrain the free exchange of ideas, opinions, and truths, limits our thoughts as it confines our speech.
When I wrote my post yesterday on PC and Capitulation, my purpose wasn't to promote the use of inflammatory language for the sake of it. Suppose the truth itself is considered 'inflammatory'? In Britain, Nick Griffin of the near-outlaw party BNP, said in a private meeting, that 'Islam is a wicked and vicious faith.' I would suspect that most Moslems would consider that opinion 'inflammatory' or 'hate speech,' and thus would support Mr.Griffin's prosecution and potential imprisonment for uttering those words. We have often heard the saying that free speech does not allow us to shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre. But as one wry commenter said, suppose there IS a fire in a crowded theatre? And suppose Islam IS a wicked and vicious faith? It surely isn't flattering to say that, but I could cite supporting evidence for the viciousness of Islam, in the form of quotes from the Koran, the Hadiths, the sayings of Mohammed, and from the words and deeds of contemporary practitioners of Islam. So would I be guilty of hate speech if I had truth on my side? And if that truth might alert my hearers to some danger to themselves? Just as crying 'fire' in a crowded building might save some lives, sometimes unpleasant and unflattering truths serve a needed purpose. Yet we prefer to avoid offending rather than speak uncomplimentary words, and in doing so, we are failing to warn those who might suffer harm from a clear and present danger.
I sometimes despair of being able to awaken people from their slumber; we have all, including me, been influenced by this dissimulating spirit of liberalism, in which truth is relative,and in which there is a hierarchy of people about whom truth may or may not be spoken, depending on who they are. This dissimulating spirit will be the death of us in the West, as we close our eyes to impolitic truths, and engage in games of 'let's pretend.' Let's pretend Islam is The Religion of Peace, and pretend there are only a 'tiny minority of extremists' who have 'hijacked a noble religion' and misunderstood it. And let's pretend that our Latino invaders are 'hardworking people who are natural conservatives, good Christians, wanting to do the jobs that lazy Americans won't do.'
Let's pretend that the Latinos will all assimilate and vote GOP. Let's pretend that we can have hundreds of different nationalities,ethnicities, religions, sects, and races in the same space, and that we can all Just Get Along because We Are All The Same Under The Skin. Let's pretend we are a Nation of Immigrants. Let's pretend that women are just as good in combat as men, and that they differ only in plumbing. Let's pretend that little old American ladies are just as likely to be terrorists as young Middle Eastern men.
And let's pretend that the Space Brothers from the Pleiades are going to land and lead us all to an age of harmony. What the heck? It's as plausible as all the other beliefs above. They are all based on wishful thinking or self-deception, and on wanting to avoid difficult choices and conflicts.
I realize that my readers, even my regular readers who have borne with me since I began this blog, don't necessarily agree with me; I am aware of the fact that my thinking strays outside the established and respectable bounds. So be it; I am compelled to call things as I see them. If I am going to pull my punches, why blog? Life is too short, and our situation here in America and the West overall is so urgent that taking the slow and subtle approach is a luxury that we don't have the time for. And obviously, not all of us agree that such is the case. Not everyone feels the same urgency that I feel. I honestly hope that I am overreacting, and I hope I will be proven wrong, and that our Republic and the West will survive and prevail. I was just talking with someone about this situation, and she said that the country is being lost just gradually enough that most of us will accommodate to it, unwilling to disturb our everyday lives, and so we slouch toward oblivion. I am afraid this is just what will happen, what is happening. I feel sometimes as if I am watching a sleepwalker about to stumble off a cliff, or into oncoming traffic, and that all my efforts to awaken the sleepwalker are useless.
What gives me hope is that I encounter a lot of people who, when in a one-to-one, private conversation, will admit to feeling great trepidations about what is happening to our country; they are disturbed and chagrined, but few people feel free to discuss it. When I introduce the subject people often seem curiously relieved, as if they are glad someone else notices it, and glad that they can speak openly about what is generally ignored. There are people out there who are waiting for a chance to talk about what is happening to our country, and who just don't know how to articulate their dread or uneasiness. That much is a positive sign; many people are aware that the media don't tell them the whole truth, but those who are not internet-savvy don't know where to look for the facts that the MSM don't touch. Word-of-mouth is the only way some people can be reached. In my sleepy little corner of the country, the wave of invaders is only just now beginning to appear, and many people have so far been insulated from the vast changes taking place in our country. Reality, however, won't leave us undisturbed in our idyllic little world forever.
There are signs that the hold of the PC empire is weakening, and that the facade is crumbling. I think the facade needs just a little tremor to bring it down altogether. My feeling is that many people are hungry for some other points of view, because they sense that there is an edifice of lies, like a flimsy Hollywood backdrop, posing as reality.
There is a school of thought that posits that we should always prefer gentle persuasion and reason, attempting to be non-offensive so as to win over as many as possible. If that works, then by all means, be nonconfrontational. Believe it or not, in person I am nonconfrontational, being as mild-mannered as Clark Kent. I am not, despite my strong opinions, a rude or blunt-spoken person.
'For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak.'' II Corinthians 10:10
could have been written about me, although I am not in the same league with the man about whom it was written.
If genteel persuasion works, great. I prefer sweet reason to tussles, either verbal or physical. But sometimes, in my opinion, sweet reason does not move people; sometimes strong words are necessary to stir them, and to reach them on an emotional or visceral level. Yes, conservatives generally rely on reason, unlike liberals and leftists, who appeal primarily to various emotions. But there is a place for appeal to emotion, as long as it is to higher emotions like love of country, or yes, even righteous indignation. Think about Patrick Henry's famous speech, wherein he declaimed 'give me liberty or give me death!' Emotion? Yes. Our Founding Fathers were not averse to appealing to emotion. The great Oriana Fallaci, the strongest voice against the Islamic threat in our generation, spoke and wrote with intense emotion. In an age of postmodern ennui and detachment, she shone like a supernova in the darkness. And she was full of passion, emotion -- and strong language. The weak of heart couldn't endure what she said; she shocked the respectable folk. The same with Ann Coulter, whom the nice 'conservatives' recoil from. (I don't, however, equate Coulter to Fallaci; they are not in the same league.) But I admire Coulter's take-no-prisoners attitude. Does it scare off the 'moderates'? Or does it simply show us who is potentially on our side and who is more concerned with respectability?
Bloodless intellectual arguments almost never stir people to action. I regularly read some conservative blogs where interesting discussions take place, and in the most refined fashion, but the discussion is often too rarefied for me. I come from a long line of orators, men of action, judges, preachers and ministers, warriors, and warriors of words: writers. Discussing abstract ideas means little to me; I want to know how an idea applies to the real, concrete world I live in.
I confess to being impatient; as I said, I think time is short for America and the West. Soon the die will be cast, and we may be beyond the point of no return. So from where I stand, I believe we may have to 'triage'; pick those who are saveable, and focus on them, because we lack the time and resources to try to work on the lost causes. Among the 'lost causes' I count the 'moderate Muslims', who may or may not exist, and the 'mushy middle' moderate Americans who can't get het up about much of anything except American Idol, or their latest toys and gadgets, or even the latest partisan dust-up, which means about as much as a pro-wrestling match. These people often don't care about the country at large, or anything beyond their immediate life. I hold that we have to try to reach those who are halfway to realization: half-awake, not those who are sound asleep, even comatose.
I maintain that if someone is upset by a politically-incorrect word (and no, I am not talking about hardcore fighting words or insults) they will be just as appalled by politically incorrect ideas and thoughts. They can't be helped, unless they help themselves, or unless some experience jolts them out of the PC stupor. If someone can listen to non-PC ideas without getting the vapors or calling the thought-police, then they might be won over. Otherwise I don't waste my breath or my time and their time in trying to woo them. I 'shake the dust off my shoes' and move on. Time is short, from where I sit, and we have to know who is who.
Why disturb people with those troubling Politically Incorrect ideas? Because it is only by rejecting PC that we can see our way out of this impossible situation we are in. The facile slogans and the cant, which some of us laugh at, (Religion of Peace, Nation of Immigrants, Hardworking Folks, and so on) are the very notions that prevent us from seeing the reality of our situation, which keep many people down on the plantation, so to speak. It's easier to mouth platitudes and cant phrases than to examine things that may distress us.
I don't advocate alienating people knowingly; I don't propose insulting or offending anyone purposely, Those who know me in person would find that notion laughable. I treat others civilly, insofar as it's possible to do so.
But I think that as long as we are prisoners of PC, we are on the path to capitulation. A free people must have freedom of speech, and freedom to think and believe what we will, freedom to follow the truth wherever it leads. Freedom and PC can never coexist, and as long as we submit to speech constraints and thought constraints, we are no longer free people. Fear is the main thing which keeps people subservient to PC, or maybe it is more often habit and indifference? Thomas Paine said
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance."
And centuries ago, French philosopher Etienne de la Boetie, in the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude said
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces."
Our tyrant and Colossus is the PC emperor. And he is only as invincible as we let him be.

Labels: Free Speech, Political Correctness

Peter Hitchins blogs about 'Conservative liberty and left wing liberty' in Britain.
...What is the difference between conservative liberty and left-wing liberty? Does it matter? (Yes) Can they be reconciled? (Not for long.) I'm grateful to Lord Hoffmann for an interesting and clever speech last week, which made this much clearer than before. Leonard Hoffmann is no fool. He knows his stuff. A lot of the speech, which you can find on the web by Googling "Universality of Human Rights" and "Hoffmann" is perceptive and clever. I am specially grateful to him for quoting Jeremy Bentham's enjoyable savaging of the ghastly French 'Declaration of the Rights of Man', the founding scripture of several gory tyrannies.
This vicious document, a series of foggy statements of the obvious, qualified with sub-clauses making them useless when most needed, actually contained one rather clear section (article 27) which would eventually allow its own authors to have their heads sliced off by the Guillotine they had themselves set up. Should we be sorry about Robespierre and the rest of them being devoured by their own revolution? In my case, not very - though nobody ever seems to learn from these events, and the Russian Bolsheviks ended up in the same fix, devoured by their own revolution.
Otherwise the French declaration was more or less like all the other scrolls of atheistical, grandiose blethers about 'rights' which have been endorsed, acclaimed and adopted all over the world since then, culminating in the United Nations Universal Declaration and the European Convention - and now rivalled by the EU's own Charter of 'fundamental' rights, soon to be used to interfere still more in our lives. Some might also draw attention to the Soviet constitution of 1936, acclaimed by many Western leftists as the finest ever drawn up, just in time for the mass purges and the Moscow Show trials.
The problem with these declarations, with their 'rights' to private life and their 'rights' to a fair trial and their 'rights' to everything else is that it all depends what you mean by private, and fair, and so forth. And what if these 'rights' come into conflict with each other? Who decides which is supreme? ''
This ties in somewhat with my post of the other day about the different kinds of revolutions, the restorationist, the Lockean, and the Jacobin kind. What Hitchins is discussing under the heading of left wing liberty is of the Jacobin variety, which always ends in tears and bloodshed, as history has shown.
As for his questions above about the definitions of ''fair', and so on, in arbitrating these liberties, the answer, as he says, is that the answers are left intentionally vague and open -- so as to give the authors of these documents the power to interpret them.
"Human Rights" have in effect become a replacement for religion. Why is that? I think it is because their supporters see that the problem of deciding what they mean will give them power. The elite increases its power by keeping the right to interpret and enforce these vague laws. It becomes the replacement for God, which is what it has always wanted to be.
Just look at the bizarre constructions placed even on the relatively clear bits of the US Bill of Rights by the American Supreme Court, which manufactured an abortion right out of nothing, drove prayer out of the schools on spurious grounds and for a while abolished the death penalty on an equally feeble pretext, then decided the penalty was all right after all. It is really hard to see how the same document can be read to say that execution is right one year, and wrong the next. It's clear that the real power comes not from the document, but from the court - and of course from those who appoint it.
[...]
That is why left-wing rights increase the power of the state. Conservative rights, as expressed in the hard, cool, terse language of the 1689 Bill of Rights, and its Scottish Equivalent the Claim of Right, and in the grand simplicity of the 1628 Petition of Right, concentrate on saying quite clearly what government cannot do. And in the space that is left, when the ruler is restrained by such things, free men can live, write, speak and think.''
What Hitchins is saying in the above passage illustrates the difference between 'negative rights' and positive rights, which is a kind of dividing line between the left-wing and conservative views of liberty which I've touched on here before in the past.
Under the theory of positive and negative rights, a negative right is a right not to be subjected to an action of another human being, or group of people, such as a state, usually in the form of abuse or coercion. A positive right is a right to be provided with something through the action of another person or the state. In theory a negative right proscribes or forbids certain actions, while a positive right prescribes or requires certain actions.''
The idea of positive liberty is generally associated with the Jacobin-style political philosophies, and because the proponents of such thought always see themselves as being the champions of all that is good and right, and as having the blueprint for utopia, they feel constrained to impose measures on people 'for their own good' or in the service of their ideals. This is the situation we are in now in the West, wherein today's leftist ideologues believe that things like 'hate speech laws' or political correctness in general are justified, thus leading to a net loss of liberty among the population.
This piece which appeared in The Australian tells of the increase in 'thought police' activity in the UK.
''BRITAIN appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state. As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely.
There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.
Nikolai Bukharin claimed one of the Bolshevik Revolution's principal tasks was "to alter people's actual psychology". Britain is not Bolshevik, but a campaign to alter people's psychology and create a new Homo britannicus is under way without even a fig leaf of disguise.
The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalise politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out. It was Straw who previously called for a redefinition of Englishness and suggested the "global baggage of empire" was linked to soccer violence by "racist and xenophobic white males". He claimed the English "propensity for violence" was used to subjugate Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and that the English as a race were "potentially very aggressive".
In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness.''
In this related piece by Ed West in the UK Telegraph, we read similar reports of how even private conversations are being reported to the 'thought police' by self-selected informers. This is an ominous twist to things: the government does not even have to do the monitoring; the populace have become so indoctrinated, in many cases, that they themselves will voluntarily tattle to the authorities.
On the Hitchens blog, there are some good comments, like this one:
...We must ask ourselves some searching questions about why we did this. Did we really want our country to turn into a free-loader's paradise, a place where drunks rule the streets and hospitals double up as abortion clinics? Did we want cameras on every corner, our most private details held on Government computers and to be forced to carry ID cards? Did we want to complicate our lives with regulations and red tape for everythng from selling houses to starting a business? Did we want to subsidise the pensions of millions of beaurocrats from our taxes? Did we want to take in a few million immigrants, many of whom hate our way of life and want us dead? Did we want to surrender our sovereignty to Brussels or remove Brittania from our devalued coinage?
Unfortunately, asking these questions is simple. Putting right the wrong is going to be much harder.''
We in America can ask ourselves similar questions.
Another comment from the Hitchens blog:
Contributor S. Deol writes:
"If you live in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, India or the U.S.A., consider yourself lucky that you live in a nation of English liberty." adding later that " All men can think, say, write and do whatever they please with reasonable restrictions."
Aye, there's the rub, as Shakespeare might have put it. I was waiting for that "with reasonable restrictions" or some such get-out expression. It is precisely the scope and definition of that adjective "reasonable" that is the crux of the whole matter.
People must have laws and laws are there to forbid things but when a nation comes under the control of rulers determined to solve all natural inequalities by piling laws upon laws - an enterprise doomed from the outset to failure in any case, that nation soon finds that it can do very little without requesting official permission or submitting to official supervision.
[...]
A modern Briton's freedom to say or write what he pleases is -as anyone knows - nowadays severely restricted by arbitrary rules of verbal expression sanctioned by no tribunal elected for the purpose and imposed on a law-abiding populace by now cowed into submission both by threat of threat of judicial punishment and by its own intellectual inability to discern the imposture by which one of its time-honoured liberties is being quietly removed.
The extent of our people's gullibility becomes plain when realises the incredible audacity of the imposition of the so-called 'political correction'. Its authors have pulled off a trick with which it would have been impossible to hoodwink our people even a couple of decades ago.
It is well known that bad language - in some cases even obscene language - eventually suffers the fate of all metaphor and loses its power to shock and what is unspeakable in one era can become only mildly distasteful or even totally anodyne in another. However, until someone decided that the British people were so habituated to buying their opinions along with their groceries that they were were ripe, so to speak, for being PC-swindled, the semantic traffic had, as far as I know, never gone in the opposite direction.
Bad words had sometimes become good but I can think of no good words which had before PC gone bad. And most of our gullible, tele-spoon-fed fellow-citizens have bought it hook, line and sinker.
And you talk about English liberty, sir! Don't make me laugh!''
English liberty is in fact the idea on which our American ideas of liberty are based; our Founding Fathers said that they desired 'only the rights of Englishmen.' We Americans too often imagine that we invented our idea of liberty from whole cloth, and that it is based on no antecedents, when in fact it draws from longstanding English traditions, going back at least to Magna Carta and English common law.
So it is especially sad to me to see that in Britain, the fount of many of our ideas and traditions, freedom and liberty and 'the rights of Englishmen' are under attack, if not moribund.
And as the first comment above says, 'putting right the wrong is going to be much harder', and that applies to us as well as to our cousins in the UK.
Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
William Wordsworth, 'London 1802'

Labels: Free Speech, Freedom, Jacobinism, Leftism, Liberty, Political Correctness, Rights, Totalitarianism, United Kingdom

I suspect we're all tired of reading and hearing about this story, but we turn away from it at our peril. It's indicative of how bad things have become here in the former United States between blacks and Whites.
The woman who called the police to report a possible crime in progress is now distraught because she has been accused ''unfairly'' of being a racist.
I suppose I sympathize with her because she is the target of the loathsome PC vigilantes, most probably White, who take it upon themselves to sniff out any political incorrectness and to bring the 'offender' into line, by threats and harassment if need be. On the other hand, her reaction to the (no doubt unpleasant) treatment she's gotten illustrates that she, too, is a believer in political correctness and all its works and pomps.
Her reaction reminds me somewhat of the response by an arch-liberal friend who reported troublesome neighbors in her apartment building, and was accused by said neighbors of 'racism.' She was mortified and aggrieved because she has spent her entire adult life doing and saying everything 'right', playing by the rules of PC, being so careful not to utter a wrong word or offend anyone of a victim group. This friend never dreamt she would be called 'racist' one day; I can only think she imagined that somehow, minorities could divine that she was ''on their side'' and that she was one of the 'good' Whites, not to be confused with those evil racist Whites who lurk around every corner in America. I think she was quite indignant that she was not immediately recognizable as 'friend' and not 'foe.'
I don't know Mrs. Whelan, but her statement seems to show that she is very much a liberal.
When I was called racist and I was a target of scorn and ridicule because of the things I never said, the criticisms hurt me as a person, but it also hurt the community of Cambridge," Whalen said. "Now that the tapes are out, I hope people can see that I tried to be careful and honest with my words," she said.''
Bless her heart, I am sure she is an honest and decent woman, and she was doing a citizen's duty in calling police, but she does not seem to understand the rules of PC. Under those rules, the minority is always the victim, the White always the guilty party. Always. No exceptions.
Whites, in these interracial situations, are to be presumed guilty until proven otherwise, contrary to our general 'innocent until proven guilty' principle. Of course most of us who think at all about these things know that there is literally no way to disprove one's ''racism'', when one has been accused by an offended 'victim.' Guilty. Off with his head, is the instant verdict.
Will James Crowley stand his ground, or will he become another 'typical White person' who is used as an object lesson?
It is through incidents like this, ''teachable moments'' so-called, that the politically correct dogma is reinforced and further driven home to Whites. The fact that a woman can be driven to tears by name-calling and 'unfair' accusations of something called 'racism' is proof that the PC vigilantes are far too powerful.
And yet, how much power do they have, if we no longer react to their threats and their name-calling? They have only the power we accord them. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in getting more 'hate' legislation passed, which will potentially give authorities power to prosecute people for their thought crimes or 'hate speech', but for now, we still have the ability to stand up to these bullies and petty tyrants, and to stop their coercion.
As to the ''unfair'' accusation of racism, I have a big problem with Whites who go on the defensive in cases like this, protesting that they are not 'racists'. I would instead love to see Whites stand up and reject the whole category of thoughtcrimes called 'racism' or 'prejudice.' I would like to see more people simply shrug off the label, or better yet, to challenge it, to dismiss it as an invented 'crime'.
There was no word 'racism' or 'racist' in the English language before the World War II era, at least. We did just fine without an invented word to describe the various and sundry behaviors that are now lumped together as 'racism.' When the word did enter our vocabulary, it meant more strictly acts of violence or physical harm, based on the race of the victim. The word 'racism' is one of the most elastic words in the English language, expanding to include any number of behaviors, thoughts, acts, and words, or even looks. The word has been rendered absurd by its overuse and its increasingly arbitrary and subjective use.
Maybe this is why some well-intentioned liberal Whites get caught in their own trap: it has become increasingly likely, given the expanding definition of 'racism', that every White will be accused/convicted of it at some point. It's almost reached those absurd, almost comic, proportions now. But I think very few liberals realize that they will unwittingly transgress the constantly-changing PC codes, and be hauled before the PC police for it. Even then, they don't seem to get it.
So is there such a thing as a 'fair' accusation of racism? Mrs. Whelan apparently did not violate the unwritten rule 'thou shalt not mention the race of a suspect unless he be White.' She did not refer to Gates and his unnamed companion (what happened to the second man, anyway?) in her 911 call. But if she had, would she then be a 'racist'? No, she would just be doing what a citizen should do: giving a description of the people in question.
I think what bothers me the most about situations like this is that too many Whites have no instinct to stick together and defend their own; even worse, there are too many who will actually point at another White while proclaiming their own ideologically pure views on race.
Even on the right this happens. Just read any thread on a rightwing forum on the issue of slavery or reparations. Most will protest their innocence: ''my ancestors didn't own slaves! I'm not from the South! My ancestors were still over in Europe then! My ancestors fought for the Union to free the slaves! Not guilty!' The implicit message is ''not me! That other guy over there is the one who's guilty.''
Why do so many Whites feel the compulsion to essentially throw some of our own to the wolves as a kind of sacrifice, and expiation for our (subjective) guilt? Why not show some solidarity? Yes, that too would be called racism, but then it's unavoidable. You will be called that at some time or another, and in fact, you've already been tried and found guilty simply by heredity.
Once we realize that we're considered guilty anyway by virtue of who we are, and who our ancestors were, that should free us considerably from the ''need'' to prove our moral rectitude and PC bonafides.

Labels: Ethnic Division, Free Speech, Liberal Intolerance, Media Bias, Political Correctness, Race Card, Race-Baiting