Of Course, There’s a White' Nationalist Terrorist Threat'!
Back on August 4, 2019 our editorial friends at the New York Times declared that “We Have a White Nationalist Terrorist Problem.” (H/T C.J. Hopkins)
Of course they think that. Bless their hearts.
Just imagine how things look from the New York Times building. Here they were, skimming along as unconcernedly as a seagull, basking in the sunset glow of the First Black President and finally, after 20,000 years of bigotry, gay marriage, and then the roof falls in. Some outer-borough yahoo gets elected President of the United States.
What’s the first thing that the Good People would think? Exactly. It’s a conspiracy.
But the next thing, after the outer-borough yahoo unexpectedly dodges the deep state plot to defenestrate him, is to imagine a terrorist movement. I mean, if Trump is still here after they’ve thrown the book at him, he must represent something more sinister than they thought.
White supremacy, in other words, is a violent, interconnected transnational ideology. Its adherents are gathering in anonymous, online forums to spread their ideas, plotting attacks, and cheering on acts of terrorism.
Boy, oh boy. That sounds ominous. We’d better mobilize all the forces of government to attack and defeat this existential threat. And there is nothing more existential than a threat to the power of the ruling class.
Maybe our educated betters are now ready to understand what we normals felt when Joseph McCarthy saw reds under the bed, back in the day.
When there really was an international Communist conspiracy that was not just a bunch of white nobodies in their parents’ basements, but a real global movement backed by an expansionist totalitarian state that had inspired many of the best and brightest to spy for a foreign power against their government.
When all the best people sneered and named and shamed the folks who said, watch out, there are Communists in the State Department.
But I get it. When things start to go wrong with your project, the easiest thing is to lash out and blame -- the tea lady.
That is why, dear ruling-class liberals, I have created my maxim,
There is no such thing as justice, only injustice.
I created the idea for my own benefit, to remind me that things that I believe are just and proper are considered by many others to be unjust, straight up.
It could be, but don’t quote me on this, that some things that the Editorial Board of the New York Times thinks are just and proper are experienced by millions of Americans as the very polluted source of injustice.
Item: The United States government passed a Civil Rights Act in 1964 that forbade discrimination on the basis of race and sex. Within a few years the U.S. government was forcing employers to discriminate on the basis of race and sex through the policy of Affirmative Action. Later relabeled as Diversity, because Justice Sandra O’Connor. I wonder if some people might experience that as unjust.
Item: In Losing Ground, Charles Murray in the 1980s noted that the Great Society programs that significantly increased government spending on the poor were heavily instrumented so that social scientists could report on the glorious success of these programs. When the results came in and showed that the programs didn’t work, the government did not accept the settled science and did not terminate the unsuccessful programs. I wonder if some people might think that was unjust.
Item: In The Bell Curve, Charles Murray in the 1990s argued that U.S. society was segregating by IQ, and while this was great for the “cognitive elite” it would not be good for groups with IQs below average. Liberals all accused Murray of racism. I wonder if some people might find this to be what Big Daddy once called “mendacity.”
Item: In Coming Apart, Charles Murray in the 2000s showed White America divided like Gaul into three parts. The top 25 percent were doing fine, with great careers and merger marriages. The middle 40 percent were doing so-so. But for the bottom 35 percent things were not good; the men did not work much and the women did not marry much. Sad! I wonder if those folks in the bottom 35 percent might think the system is unjust.
Now, the Southern Poverty Law Center says that,
According to Murray, disadvantaged groups are disadvantaged because, on average, they cannot compete with white men, who are intellectually, psychologically and morally superior.
But I’d say that, according to Murray, the current system of education and credentialism and government programs is perfectly set up to make life delightful for ruling-class liberals, but fiendishly difficult for people with low IQ, whether former slaves or former hillbillies.
Who are you going to believe? The SPLC or Christopher Chantrill? Your choice.
But go ahead, Editorial Board. Keep peddling your “white nationalist terrorist” schtick. There’s a pony in there somewhere, I know it.
Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.