The Boys Who Cry Racism

Will Jimmy Carter and company expose the hollowness of the tired old charge?

by Harry Stein

More than a few on the right are alarmed by the torrent of racism accusations that an all-star cast of liberal luminaries has directed at President Obama’s critics. “When people like Jimmy Carter and Maureen Dowd start saying this kind of thing, we’ve reached a whole new level of ugliness in our political discourse,” as one friend of mine puts it. “No charge in American life is so poisonous.” He’s got a point, of course—especially about the poisonous part. Yet as those on the other side spew the R-word with ever more irresponsible abandon, some of us find new reason for hope. Here’s a chance to lance the boil once and for all.

Genuine racism is a terrible thing, and for far too long it was a virulent strain running through our national life. This is so patently obvious that it scarcely bears repeating. Yet those of us who point out how much our nation has changed for the better invariably feel obliged to repeat it, early and often, lest our very sense of optimism about race relations make us subject to the charge. So while we’re at it, let’s dispense with the other essential pro forma acknowledgment: yes, even in today’s America, traces of the vilest racism persist in some dark hearts and twisted minds.

But those liberals who’ve lately been issuing the racism charge so promiscuously (speaking of aberrant hearts and minds) are aiming it not at skinheads living in their parents’ basements or at would-be Klansmen, but at decent Americans with the temerity to object to presidential policies that they believe would damage both the quality of their lives and the nation itself: in short, at Americans acting in the best tradition of democratic citizenship. This is so preposterous that literally millions who’ve never before given the matter any thought are taking notice...   Read the whole article.

The Art of Corruption

The National Endowment for the Arts violates its founding principle.

by Andrew Klavan

There are all kinds of corruption. Some are pretty easy to identify. You can’t miss it when a congressman sells the public’s vote for money, say, or a husband sets his personal promises at nothing in order to score some extracurricular sex. But the slow rot that enters the soul of individuals when the tendrils of the state overcreep the life of a society—that’s a little tougher to define. It may just be the toadying deference that steals into your behavior with the guard who searches you at the airport. Or it could be the baksheesh you pay the safety inspector to keep your business from being shut down. But as subtle as the effects may be, the rule is ironclad: the more areas of life are funded and regulated by government, the less free you are, and the more corrupt and servile you ultimately become...

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