There is, again, an amusing disconnect on the Left between diagnosis and prescription for what ails American race relations. Last year, the outrage prompted by supposedly entrenched racism and the asserted brutality of our police led to a passionate demand for … fewer traffic tickets and less vigorous enforcement of our drug laws. Now, the murderous racism that allegedly permeates all White Amerikkka must be remedied by … fewer Confederate flags.
What’s going on here, of course, is that the amount of racism that remains in America is being exaggerated by the Left in order to advance its political agenda. Let no tragedy go to waste.
The trouble is, though, that the Left can’t ask for an end to slavery or Jim Crow or for laws that make racial discrimination in any public transaction illegal, because that’s all been done. It can’t even ask for the popular culture to be changed to vilify racists or for racism to become socially unacceptable, because that’s all been done, too. It can’t ask for an African American president, or Attorney General, or mayor of Baltimore either. There are still and will always be racists (of all colors), but the amount of actual racism that can be addressed by any serious government program is small — and that’s actually a good thing.
There is a long game here, though. If the public and, especially, our politicians are sufficiently intimidated, then it helps the Left to push, and even to expand, its agenda so long as a race card can be stapled to it. Limiting early voting or requiring voter ID is said to be racist, opposing racial preferences is racist, punishing unruly students is racist, discriminating against felons in hiring or enfranchising is racist, and — someday, in the Left’s dreams — opposing reparations and making anything (except racism and smoking) illegal will be attacked as racist, too.
Conservatives can’t actually believe that free markets, intact families, following the law, and high moral, social, and educational standards are the best ways to pursue happiness and prosperity for all, can they? Well, we do — but the Left will never admit it.
But there I go again, lacking the charity that the Charleston congregation has inspiringly shown us when it forgave the deranged killer. Fewer traffic tickets and Confederate flags are probably a good idea, after all. And the shrill accusations on the Left are perhaps best answered by measured if amused reassurance from the Right, congratulating us all on the beloved community that America is becoming.
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Some Congressional Democrats have introduced a bill amending the Voting Rights Act, and the new bill is even more extreme than an earlier bill that has failed to gain any traction in either house. The new bill would, for example, not exempt voter ID, and it would cover more jurisdictions than the earlier bill — indeed, more jurisdictions than the original Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. So we are to believe that there are now more racist jurisdictions in 2015 than there were in 1965 — comprising half the country’s population. Even The Nation (see first link above) seems to be astonished.
It’s hard to believe that the bill’s sponsors expect the bill to be taken seriously. More likely it is a bone being tossed to the more extreme parts of their base, who thought the earlier bill — though bad in the extreme — was not bad enough.
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We at the Center for Equal Opportunity hope you and yours had a Glorious Fourth of July Weekend!
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TESTIMONY OF ROGER CLEGG, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY BEFORE THE U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS REGARDING THE PROPOSED EMPLOYMENT NON-DISCRIMINATION ACT
Should the feds require U.S. ballots to be printed in foreign languages?
50th anniversary of the Voting Rights ActThe Immigration Impasse