CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-The Democrats’ Identity Politics makes a person’s race, religion, ethnicity, and gender of paramount importance. For decades the Dems promoted quotas in schools and in employment, while casting aside the individual’s needs or abilities.
Martin Luther King gave the strongest rebuke to Group Rights during his “I Have a Dream” Speech where he spoke of a day when a person would be judged by the content of his/her character and not by the color of his/her skin. MLK reiterated the essence of the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that every individual has certain inalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Nonetheless, certain political factions believed that their path to power has been based on Group Rights. They put together a coalition of the aggrieved who would parade around under the victimization banner. In the 1970s the GOP selected White Christians as their group, i.e. the Moral Majority. Recently, Dem Group Rights have adopted the name of Identity Politics. The group with which you identify is of transcendent importance.
Evil Begets Evil
The Dems’ passion for Group Rights of the aggrieved sprang from invidious discrimination against Blacks. Jews, Hispanics, Gays, and anyone else who did not fit the WASP mold. America was not a Jeffersonian paradise where every individual was treated according to his/her character and where his/her hard work brought its just rewards. Some states forbade Blacks and Whites to marry each other. Could there be a greater intrusion in one’s personal life than being told you cannot marry a partner who belongs to the wrong group? The Dems’ Identity Politics was a reaction to Right Wing racism and bigotry. Evil begets evil.
Group Rights Demands Falsehoods
Whether it’s Nazis marching in Charlottesville chanting “Jews shall not replace us,” or the Democratic leadership promising to “do in” the Whites as soon as minority voters become the majority, the qualities of the individual human being becomes irrelevant. In war, all that matters is winning.
Admitting that your side is flawed, and your Supreme Court nominee is a liar and possibly still a drunk is beyond consideration. All his flaws will be ignored and denied. An FBI investigation was limited to persons who had nothing negative to say about Kavanaugh. All that mattered was getting a champion of the White Group on the Supreme Court. The nation is left with the hope that Kavanaugh’s past is not a harbinger of the Court’s future.
Obama and Fake News
In 2009, the GOP announced its opposition to everything and anything the Democratic Obama Administration would propose. Could the gauntlet be thrown down more fully than to announce obstructionism with no regard to the individual merits of anything or anyone? Once that position has been declared, there is no room for honesty. The GOP could not then say, “Obama is correct that the pre-existing conditions exclusion should be outlawed.” After McConnell’s announcement, the GOP could not tolerate objective news reporting that would show the GOP was dead wrong on certain issues.
When Under Attack Retaliate
Just as right-wing group rights claims result in left-wing group rights claims which then result in more right-wing group right claims, fake news on the right or left justifies fake news from the other side. The difference between the GOP’s fake news and Democrat’s fake news is that the GOP brand is more like hardcore porn, while the Dem’s fakery is akin to soft core porn. The GOP specializes in outrageous lies and has elected as President the most egregious liar in American history, while the Dems specialize in fakery by omission.
Fakery by Omission
The Dems and their mouth pieces such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times are great at presenting false narratives painting a picture of the good life while concealing the rot beneath the surface. While Americans were becoming poorer and the 1%’s power was rapidly escalating to levels not seen since the days of the robber barons in the late 19th century, the NY Times and LA Times only saw the good in the Democratic administrations. Ironically, a false narrative had been successfully employed by the South after the Civil War with its false Noble Cause (aka Lost Cause) narrative. The Confederate statues had been erected to cleanse the evils of slavery and the Civil War.
Since the modern media have chose not to tell the actual story about the false Noble Cause narrative, people today believe that it was 100% Southern racists who supported the distorted view of slavery. But non-racist Northerners also supported it. For the nation to heal after the Civil War, many people in the North and South firmly believed that the nation could not forever castigate the South. Thus, the re-writing of history was seen as helping to “form a more perfect Union.” Abraham Lincoln himself had said that preserving the Union was of paramount importance, even more than condemning the evil of slavery itself. Acquiescence to the Noble Cause myth seemed reasonable.
For the most part, current day Democrat media has wanted no part of real story. Most supported the Group Rights approach to tear down all statues without having any dialogue with other Americans. Some cities such as Charlottesville, however, proposed re-purposing the statues as a means of publicly presenting the complexity of the situation so that future generations could have a visual reminder. It is important for future generations to learn not only about the evils of slavery and the destruction brought by the Civil War but also how men can allow their minds to play tricks on themselves and create false narratives. Anyone who thinks that Charlottesville is over does not understand the persistent evil of group rights.
The Unity of MLK and the Declaration
MLK and the Declaration are unified in presenting another America, where truth, justice and the American way make the inalienable rights of each person the basis of law and politics. Today, Jefferson and King, watching from their graves, must feel abandoned as they see the nation divide into warring factions.
A Conundrum Turned into a Dilemma
When one group has been under attack (i.e., women) by another group (i.e., men) for eons, how can the women fight back but as a group? The group rights claim of predators like Brett Kavanaugh that he may not only attack women but has the inherent privilege to lie about it screams for a counterattack by the group of women. That is one of the evils of group rights: it provokes retaliation by the victims. If the U.S. Senate had had the moral fortitude to adhere to the Declaration and the principles of MLK, the Kavanaugh hearings would not have deteriorated into such a confrontation over group rights.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.