You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at Jkfitz42@cs.com. This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.
There is a pattern. A commentator or public figure argues that affirmative action programs are unfair to whites and damage the moral fiber of the black underclass – and he is called a racist. And he backs off by advancing schemes that continue affirmative action under some other name. Another example: religious parents, who protest the idea that homosexual scoutmasters should be permitted to take their young boys on overnight camping trips, are called “homophobes,” the moral equivalent of skinhead gay bashers. And school boards deny the scouts access to local schools.
More: someone advances the idea that the time has come to reform the Social Security before retiring baby boomers bankrupt the system, and he is accused to wanting to starve senior citizens and throw them into the street. So Social Security reform gets pushed from the agenda in Washington. Farmers and loggers protest that they should not be denied their livelihoods to protect spotted owls and suckerfish and they are cast as materialistic and heartless despoilers of the environment. Congress and the President look the other way.
And what about Christian conservatives, who protest that it is unjust to permit menorahs in public areas at Christmas, while at the same time prohibiting the display of Christmas crèches? They get labeled anti-Semites. Those who call for reasonable limits on immigration to preserve the national culture are labeled neo-Fascists. The Republican response? They bloviate about the need for being “inclusive” and offering a “big tent” to potential voters.
Republican politicians proceed as if their foremost goal is to escape being called “insensitive” to the needs of the poor, the elderly, minorities; to make sure that no Democratic spinmeister will link their views with those of the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, corporate polluters, jingoists, sexists, gay bashers. Thus the left’s agenda advances, with Republicans providing little more than a slight drag.
But isn’t it true that fair-minded Christian politicians would not want to find themselves sharing the views of these anti-social elements of society? No.
I repeat: No. Since I am never going to run for public office, I can say this: It is likely that I would vote in a referendum on key public issues the same way as members of the aforementioned groups. I would vote the way a Montana militia member would vote on immigration reform. I would vote the same way as a neo-Nazi on affirmative action and displaying a crèche in a public space during the Christmas season. I would vote the same as some skinhead with swastika tattoos on his forehead on the question of homosexual marriage (at least those skinheads who are not looking to enter such a marriages themselves). There is nothing wrong with a confluence of one’s views with those of repugnant individuals. You have no reason to be ashamed of being a vegetarian because Hitler was one too. You can go on loving Wagner’s music, even though he was also an enthusiast of the composer’s work. The reasons for your policy preferences are what matters, and the objectives you seek to achieve, not the identity of the people who share your views.
My vote against affirmative action would be based not on any hatred for blacks, but on my conviction that modern whites who were not responsible for the evils of slavery are subjected to a reverse racism through these programs. My vote to limit immigration in the manner suggested by Pat Buchanan would not be based on a hatred of foreigners, but on my conviction that Americans are entitled to demand a rate of immigration that will allow for the assimilation of immigrants and the preservation of our national culture.
My opposition to homosexual marriages is not be based on a hatred of homosexuals, but on the Biblical understanding of sex and marriage that was near-universal in Western society until the homosexual revolution made its inroads just a few years ago.
These things should be obvious, but they are not; and they will not become part of the public consciousness until traditionalists stand up and defend themselves, instead of meekly conceding the moral high-ground to those who seek to smear them by linking them to despicable anti-social extremists.
We have to learn from the left. They didn’t back away from their efforts to create socialized medicine just because Stalin wanted the same thing. They didn’t disown their pro-abortion beliefs because Hitler instituted abortion as part of his eugenics campaign. They didn’t shrink from their one-world advocacy because the end of the nation-state system is central to Marxist theory. Instead, they reared up and accused those who made these connections of being “McCarthyites.” That was back in the days when guilt by association was understood to be a cheap shot.
