Friends, tonight I bring you an outstanding article by a conservastive of my acquaintance. He argues that we all go through the motions of opposing oppression, racism, and bigotry, but we don't necessarily confront these menaces when they rear their ugly heads in our daily lives. Thanks to the Left's identity politics, we know that whites, men, Christians, Southerners, and other groups are often categorically condemned and despised, and by respected authorities like journalists, professors, and corporate executives, too. Many of us don't like this, but do we openly refute it, even at great personal cost, and in company where our own views are likely to be repudiated? And -- let's face it -- even when we do dare to reject the Left's characterization of these maligned groups, don't we often play along, by, say, hiding behind voices of reason that belong to people in "protected categories"? As an example, as conservatives, don't we often shove figures like Tim Scott, or Nikki Haley, or Marco Rubio, to the fore, because they, as blacks, or women, or Hispanics, have inherent "credibility" in the eyes of the public? In other words, aren't we tacitly endorsing the notion that whites, and men, and Christians, and Southerners, and gun-owners, and police officers, and military veterans, etc. etc. truly are tainted and "deplorable"? Think about it. And think too about how much you would be willing to risk, willing to lose, to uphold the principle that "all men are created equal"...
https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/10/do-you-have-schindlers-courage/
In other news, California is trying to mandate that toys be sold by major retailers without regard to the gender of children. That is, no more army men for boys, and no more Barbies for girls. Now it's gender-neutral SJW action figures for boys, girls, goys, birls, and every other gender that comes to mind. Thanks, California! This is the news we've all been waiting for...
Finally, employees are starting to push back against vaccine mandates, flexing their muscles and bringing commerce to a grinding halt. Southwest Airlines is feeling the pinch. Who will be next?
Dr.Waddy from Jack: You are right; we often do look with special favor and a desire to advance their political fortunes, on women and/or minority members who share our views. We do see political advantage in supporting them as we see them as antidotes to vicious, poisonous woke antipathy and presumption. But I think at work also, is much admiration for their fortitude in facing leftist calumny, which is markedly ferocious when directed at them for their "apostasy". EG! Justice Thomas! Such fortitude strongly suggests constancy when in decision and policy making positions, as he has, courageously and with high, high principle, in his tenure.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: " Why your fear of we leftists is misplaced! We stand for 'equity', democratically tranformed into affirmative policy! That's what we say and that's what we will do! California? Well perhaps they have misinterpreted our intent, much as all the leftist regimes of the 20th century did, yes! Stick with us, oh do! We'll get it right in the future because the future is ideal and WE are the future. Pay no mind to Calfornia's continuing micromanaged totalitarian 'evolution'. You won't believe what goodies we have in store but, as our Madame Pelosi so wisely said, 'you'll have to wait until we pass them to see them' ( Eg. regulation which will make politically correct dolls seem innocuous indeed and enforcement unprecedented in America that is). But do not fear. . . "
ReplyDeleteJack, you're absolutely right that minority and female conservatives deserve a lot of credit for braving the acid remarks of the Left (and sometimes, I suppose, actual acid). They aren't "antidotes" for anything, though. The "antipathy" you cite will always be there. In fact, the more we attract minority and female support, the worse it will get!
ReplyDeleteJack, I wonder how the Stalin regime dealt with the issue of children's toys... Probably not as absurdly as we do.
Dr.Waddy from Jack:: Probably in the Soviet archives is a prospective and prolix strategy for manufacturing dolls which never made it past Comrade Deputy Assistant Promulgator of Projects Rated as of Tertiary Priority to the Broad Masses. Hell, they had trouble producing lightbulbs!
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy from Jack: You raise very germane issues in your opening paragraph. We conservatives do bend over backwards at times to avoid the appearance of endorsing the past oppression of certain groups in our society, out of our sincere regret for past evil and conviction that our country MUST live up to the expressed principles upon which our seriously flawed but on balance, just,country was founded and defended in both blood and devotion to principle. Only among those members of those once directly wronged groups who are possessed of sometimes self effacing objectivity, courageous principle and , yes, generosity (I think Dr King was an exemplar of these virtues),is there willingness to recognize our effort to be frank about past wrongs and to refrain from playing power games enabled by our regret over those disgraceful historical realities. Re: Shelby Steele's The Content of Our Character. Perhaps the persistence of those who would use arbitrarily leftist dictated political correctness ( and the, yes, very considerable vindictive power it yet retains and exercises with dispatch) have created an ever increasing perception among those pariah groups you cited, that there is no use in accomodating anymore, those who have sought relief from much past injustices and who see in present unequal results a mandate for forced "equity" (ie equality of results plus consummate revenge), requiring payback from those who did not enact historic wrongs. Our position may be hardening to this: Consummate equal opportunity, most certainly yes! Dictated equal results and perceived equity, no thank you. Dr. Waddy: Are conservatives willing to enact this conviction? Its why we elected Donald Trump and make his return ever more possible and why we celebrate a lawful Scotus. Equality before the law and disdain for the leftist onslaught on our painfully but creditably evolved law;let that be our battle cry since the left presents us with NO LESS a totalitarian challenge!
ReplyDeleteJack, I bet the Soviets produced dolls inefficiently, and probably a lot of the dolls strangled their spritely owners, but I guarantee they devoted some thought to the "messaging" their dolls would convey.
ReplyDeleteSure, conservatives favor equality before the law and equal treatment of all races IN THEORY. So do leftists, or at least they would make that claim. Seems to me, though, that we right-wingers practice "affirmative action" in some contexts with scarcely less zeal than the Left itself. Even Trump played the identity politics game at times -- signing executive orders designed to benefit certain protected groups, or praising to the nth degree such groups (since criticizing them certainly isn't permissible). If even Trump plays the game, seems to me that, arguably, the Left has already won the day. And I say that with mortification in my heart.
Dr.Waddy from Jack: Well argued again. That the left has already won is a plausible view, which I hope will not be realized. I look to those times in our history when the outlook was bleak. Pre both Trenton battles and Princeton and of course Valley Forge and Monmouth! Between Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Oh yes, this is political combat far less immediately discernable than corporally obvious military confrontation. But Washington faced odds little less terrifying in fighting one of the then premier powers! A triumphant left may not seek to decorate gallows but it would work the public and probably professional death of all who insolently opposed it. And it would certainly enslave America in all aspects of public and "private" life. It has shown no misgivings about manifesting such totalitarian conviction already in those aspectes of American civilization in which it does, or thinks it does, dominate!
ReplyDeleteJack, facing long odds in a military conflict is indeed dispiriting. I'm not sure, though, that losing control over every major cultural institution isn't worse... I mean, who, if anyone, has ever come back from THAT? Eek!
ReplyDeleteDr .Waddy from Jack: I'd suggest those countries which have shucked totalitarian Marxism have done so. Then again, our degradation has not (yet) been imposed by violence as was theirs.Perhaps it is better able to soak into our civilization that way!
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