By Selwyn Duke
Although the show was propaganda produced by leftist Norman
Lear, no one could accuse “All in the Family” of not being funny. Its protagonist, blue-collar bigot Archie
Bunker, is one of those legendary television characters, and one of his
uproarious lines is apropos here. It was
uttered during a scene in which his daughter, Gloria, passionately asked him,
“Daddy, did you know that 65 percent of the people murdered in the last ten
years were killed by handguns?” The curmudgeonly
patriarch’s reply was classic: “Would it make you feel any better, little girl,
if they was pushed outta’ windas’?”
While what follows isn’t the conclusion Lear wanted us to draw,
the truth is that many Americans would feel better. People tend to fixate on the boogeyman of
their ideology, and they often don’t trouble much about evil when it’s not
committed in his name.
We see examples of this phenomenon today, and this brings me
to a couple of questions of my own. Can
tyranny be visited in the name of only one particular lie? And would it make you feel any better if
millions were oppressed or murdered to promote a fashionable lie? The truth is, sadly, millions would feel better.
Archie’s characteristic fault, bigotry, is today a very
unfashionable lie. It’s also a very
exaggerated one. Up until just recently,
millions of Americans were absolutely certain a black man could never be
elected president. I had pointed out on
numerous occasions, both at private gatherings and in print (here,
here and here, for
instance), that America is the least “racist” country on Earth and that a black
person could very easily ascend to the White House. So, before we proceed, let’s make something
crystal clear.
I and my philosophical soul mates were right, and the other side was wrong.
Very wrong.
Completely, irrefutably, unambiguously wrong.
How they could be so wrong?
The answer is, they’re in the grip of a false ideology that is
emotionally pleasing to them. And the
cool regions of the head are easily trumped by the raging fires of the heart.
People have always been raised with certain dogmas. In our time, the three r’s of education are
revisionism, relativism, and racism, and we are instilled with the notion that the
last thing is the end-all and be-all, the source of all our woes. In fact, the modern version of that old
biblical admonition would have to be “Racism is the root of all evil.”
This is evident in our culture. In textbooks and documentaries we are bombarded
with gratuitous treatments of slavery and discrimination in America (not
elsewhere, where the former is extant and the latter generally far worse), and
the media report every detectable bigoted word uttered or racial act committed
by white people, no matter how statistically rare it might be, for the purposes
of portraying our nation as ridden with racism and in need of “the fix” (this
is partially why we’ve been fixed like a dog).
Then there is the matter of how communism is viewed kindly relative to
National Socialism (which partially explains why “big C” communism is again
on the rise). We are outraged that 11
million were killed because of a racial agenda, as we should be, yet it seems
that it would make modern man’s inner little girl feel better if they had been
exterminated in the name of an atheistic/economic one. After all, while the communists killed about
ten times as many – 100 million worldwide during the 20th century –
its defenders are never lowered to where they belong, the nadir of pariah
status occupied by a neo-Nazi. But, of
course, godlessness and economic egalitarianism are all the rage in these
enlightened times.
Many will justify such bias, claiming that the demon of
discrimination cannot be exorcised without constant prayer to the god of
government; there must be a bit of over-compensation in much that same way that
a crooked wire cannot be made right unless it’s bent beyond straight in the
other direction. But it is also true
that if you keep bending it in the fashionable direction, it becomes more crooked
than it was before. The yoke of tyranny
isn’t less burdensome just because it’s born of an unfashionable lie’s opposite.
This is why it’s so dangerous when we deceive ourselves
about a problem. To paraphrase C.S.
Lewis’ in The Screwtape Letters, the
demon bent on civilization’s demise reasons that he must convince people to
exaggerate their faults. Thus, we dark
angels must tell the militarist that he is too pacifistic and the pacifist that
he is too militaristic. In light of
this, consider that certain forces in our thoroughly politically-correct
society, where cultural
affirmative action carries the day, continually tell us that we’re too racist.
When you understand this phenomenon whereby man swings from
one extreme to the other and consider what we regard to be our greatest
mistakes of the past, it becomes clear why we are in our current social state
and what dangers may lie on the horizon.
I will elaborate.
Barack Obama’s infamous ex-pastor, friend and confidant,
Reverend Jeremiah Wright, subscribes to “Black Liberation Theology.” He expressed one of its tenets during a fiery
sermon, saying:
“Jesus was a poor black man who lived in a country and who
lived in a culture that was controlled by rich white people.”
Such rhetoric is tolerated by much of society. But not by those, such as authentic
Christians, who understand that Jesus should not be reduced to a racial symbol. After all, such a characterization is as
ridiculous as claiming Jesus was a member of the Nordic race and did battle
with Jews.
Oh, by the way, the latter was claimed – by the National
Socialists – in 1930s Germany. It was
called “positive Christianity,” and it was tolerated by much of society. But not by people, such as authentic
Christians, who understood that Jesus should not be reduced to a racial symbol.
As for citizens who disagreed with National Socialist
doctrine, they were often silenced; I suppose it was very unfashionable to
claim that your Aryan race didn’t enjoy superiority. We have risen beyond this today, of
course. So much so, in fact, that we
have speech codes in colleges and corporations and hate-speech laws in many
countries which ensure that people who disagree with the doctrine of racial
equivalency along every conceivable dimension will often be silenced. It’s a totally different thing.
The National Socialists (and many others) were wrong not
just because they believed in differences among groups that didn’t exist, but,
far more significantly, because they also assumed that a group’s worth was
determined by its characteristic abilities and overall intelligence. They didn’t understand that everyone is
deserving of dignity because he is a child of God; this is an easy mistake to
make when your ideology becomes your god and its tenets your truth. This is why it may be comforting to certain people that our faith is so
strong.
And something happens when your agenda and its truth
supplant God, the Truth. When its tenets conflict with the Truth,
instead of discarding the former, you rationalize away the latter. Thus, when fleet-footed Jesse Owens prevailed
in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and Joe Louis pummeled German Max Schmeling in
their second heavyweight bout, it did nothing to disabuse the National
Socialists of their ideas. The doctrine
that they occupied the highest rung of a racial hierarchy determined by
genetics could not be questioned.
We’re not like that at all.
Instead, we’re diligent enough to ostracize people such as Jimmy “the
Greek” Snyder and renowned scientists William Shockley and James Watson for
suggesting that some group differences could have a genetic basis. The doctrine of comprehensive absolute
genetic racial equivalency cannot be questioned.
In reality, the balanced view of the matter is very simple:
While there are differences among groups, there are also differences within
groups. The latter is why we must judge
everyone as an individual, and the former is why we must judge every individual
group as an individual group.
The National Socialists had a problem with this, as they
were bent on believing that a person’s group identity is destiny; it was a
doctrine that justified discrimination.
We’re not like that at all. We
insist that a group’s group identity is meaningless. Ashkenazi Jews have the highest I.Q. of any
group, blacks tolerate heat better and tend to be more muscular, and I’m sure
every group possesses genetically-based advantages of some kind. Yet this mustn’t be acknowledged, as it
contradicts our doctrine that performance differences among groups must be
attributed to discrimination.
The National Socialists were also gung-ho nationalistic; it
helped greatly to rally Josef Six-pack.
We’re not like that at all. In
fact, we go so far as to criticize flag-wavers and, as Bill Ayers and Ward
Churchill can attest, preach anti-Americanism in academia, the media and
Hollywood. We have moved beyond tribal
loyalties. We are internationalists.
Yes, we are nothing like those racial dogmatists of bygone
days. We can truthfully say, as writer
Ace Walker once pointed out, “We’re not National Socialists, you bloody fool. We’re international
socialists!”
Another characteristic of the National Socialists is that
before they gained the power to impose their agenda through the law, they did
so through the lawless; they used brown-shirted thugs to intimidate and silence
opposition.
We’re not like that at all.
Our mobs don’t wear brown shirts. They just storm stages (Columbia and other
attacks on traditionalists at colleges), intimidate voters, steal
conservative newspapers, attack conservative students
and vandalize their homes, and force-feed students politically-correct ideas
in academia.
Then there are the aspirations, which are sometimes
expressed by readers of left-wing news sites.
For instance, at a very popular site I came across a post to the effect
of (I’m paraphrasing):
“Racists should be beaten and then put in re-education camps
until their thinking is changed.”
This was not an uncommon sentiment at this site and was
unchallenged by the other respondents.
To place this in perspective, remember that things such as
condemning Islamist beliefs, speaking frankly about crime statistics,
criticizing Obama and even opposing welfare have been labeled racist. Why, even Bill Clinton, the former and now
completely white “first black president,” was labeled a racist during the
primary campaign. “Racist” has become
synonymous with “bad guy,” and bad guy has come to mean “someone who disagrees
with our doctrine.” And, you see, the
remedy for doctrinal incorrectness is a re-education camp.
So we exhibit that dreaded pattern, that tendency to go from
one extreme to another. No matter how
far we bend that wire, we’re continually told we’re too racist. We’re ever on the watch for closet National
Socialists, inheritors of a philosophy whose adherents murdered millions under
the banner of racial superiority. But
what will be the result of an ever-intensifying obsession to enforce a
racial-equivalency doctrine whose adherents see enemies around every corner?
Well, whatever. I’m
sure modern man’s inner little girl will feel better as long as people are only
pushed out of windows.
© 2008 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved
selwynduke.com 
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