Systemic Democratic Racism

Democrats from President Joe Biden on down claim that America is suffering from systematic racism. Systemic means that racism pervades the whole of American society, except for Blacks who by definition cannot be racists despite the fact that they lead the nation in assaults on Asians. Racism is all pervasive only among Whites even though many of them don’t realize it. Progressives call it "unconscious racism."

 

If that is the case, then racism must also pervade White Democratic politicians like the ones who govern most of America’s blue states and cities. Old White Joe, despite his pronouncements, must be an unconscious white supremacist at heart. 

Here are three examples of systemic racism among Democrats.

 

Georgia Election Reform:

 

The reaction to the election reform bill recently passed by the Georgia Legislature  is a good case in point. President Biden led the charge by calling the election reforms a revival of the old Jim Crow laws that effectively kept blacks from the polls over 50 years ago. However, even the liberal Washington Post admitted that the President lied about the provisions of the bill.

 

 CEOs from Atlanta based Delta Airlines, and Coca Cola were quick to jump on the bandwagon and denounce the reform legislation. Also, the Commissioner of Major League baseball decided to move the All-Star game from Atlanta to Colorado apparently unaware that Colorado’s election laws were more restrictive than Georgia’s reform measures. 

 

Why are these responses not just foolish but racist? Democrats object strenuously to any attempt to require identification cards at polling places. Why is opposition to ID cards racist?

 

In effect, Democrats are buying into the old racial stereotypes. They must think that blacks are too ignorant to apply for ID cards. Or do they think they are too lazy, or shiftless? Do they think Blacks have no sense of civic pride and duty? Practically everyone in the country already has some kind of government issued identity card. You can’t even get on a Delta plane without one.

 

Gun Control:

Some recent shootings have led President Joe Biden to propose more gun control regulations. I won’t say laws because he is just planning to do it by executive orders. 

 

Everyone knows that Democratic controlled states and cities already have the most stringent gun control laws in the country. However, these laws have never prevented criminal gang members from possessing and using all sorts of firearms. Shootings in cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit have always been high, and have only increased with the lawlessness tolerated by Democratic politicians last year.

 

Democrat controlled cities lead the nation in shooting deaths and the great majority of the shooters and victims have been young black men. In the past year more that 500 young black men have been gunned down in Chicago. Shootings have increased during the protests and violence of the past summer, but the death toll has been high for decades.

 

Why can’t the Democratic politicians in those cities stop it? Are they just ignorant, or unconcerned, or are they racists who believe those black lives don’t matter? Where there is a will, there’s a way. But it appears that there is no will or desire to stop it. Maybe the lives of these black victims only matter when they are killed by a white policeman and fit a racist narrative. 

 

Actually, Democratic politicians have led the campaign to abolish the “stop and frisk” policy that has kept guns off the streets, saved thousands of lives, and made crime infested neighborhoods safe. Even former Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York City admitted as much before his political ambitions led him to abjectly apologize last year.

 

Disparate Abortion Results:

 

As part of his sweeping new economic proposals, President Biden plans to insist on Federal funding of abortions. No matter how you feel about abortion, you have to admit that for years the abortion rate among Blacks has been significantly higher than among Whites. Blacks make up less than 15% of the population but statistics show that the number of abortions among Blacks equals that among Whites.

 

Protestors complain of a disparate proportion of Blacks in prison, but never point to the disparate proportion of Blacks aborted. Given the figures you would think that White Supremacists are the strongest advocates of Federal abortion funding. But no, it is the Democratic party.

 

Some day in the future historians or sociologists might look back and conclude that the USA during our time was involved in genocide given the number  of Black abortions since Roe v. Wade. After all, the stated intention of Margaret Sanger, the founder and patron saint of Planned Parenthood was to keep down the population of what she considered to be inferior and undesirable  races.

 

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Orlando Massacre

It is hard to write about anything else this week than the shocking and tragic massacre of 49 patrons in gay bar by a heavily armed homophobic young Islamic man in Orlando, Florida. Three years ago I wrote about the massacre of children and teachers by a heavily armed mentally ill young man in nearby Newtown, Connecticut. Then I suggested that it presented an opportunity for people to come together and compromise in order to prevent future disasters.

Even though I know that it will be futile in today’s heavily charged political atmosphere, I would like to again suggest some other areas of compromise in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando. So far the responses on the right and left have been predictable. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democrat candidate for President, has called for more and stricter gun control measures. Democrats in the House of Representatives pressing for gun control shouted down Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House, after he called for a moment of silence to remember the dead in Orlando.

On the right, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate for President, renewed his call for a pause in all Moslem immigration into the United States. He castigated Hillary Clinton and President Obama for their failure to use the term “radical Islam” as the source of the terrorist attacks on the USA since 911. The shooter in Orlando was apparently born in the USA of Moslem immigrant parents from Afghanistan. Trump blamed the Obama administration for its ineptitude in vetting immigrants from Moslem countries.

After the massacre in Newtown I argued that both sides might be right and that if they would only listen to each other and try to deal with each other’s legitimate complaints, they might find a common ground. If you really want to achieve your goals and not just make points, it is never good to demonize your opponents or just shove your solutions down their throats.

For example, people on the left should refrain from characterizing gun owners as hillbilly rednecks. They should understand that people on the right not only love their guns but that they also fear, with good reason, that if they are forced to give up their guns, then only criminals will have guns. The incredibly high murder rates in cities like Chicago demonstrate that despite strict gun control laws, we have not been able to keep guns out of the hands of criminal gangs. People on the right also believe that politicians and activists on the left are increasingly hamstringing police from doing their work. Those on the left might want to reconsider their opposition to stop and frisk laws that proved so effective in lowering the murder rate in New York City.

On the other hand, those on the right could offer compromises on the right to bear arms like the semi-automatic AR-15, the weapon of choice for terrorists. We banned the use of machine guns in the 1930s and the AR-15 is practically a machine gun in its ease of use, and firing capacity. I fail to understand why a hunter or sportsman would need to fire off 30 rounds in less than a minute. Rather than a complete ban, why couldn’t the manufacturer limit the magazine to six bullets, and make it not so easy to reload?

In the case of Islamic extremism, why is it hard for President Obama and other people on the left to recognize its existence and call it what it is. Late night television hosts and Hollywood films routinely insult and condemn Christians and Christianity, but rarely say a word about Islamic extremism. Why has it been so hard for the liberal media to notice the thousands of Christians brutally murdered, raped, and enslaved by ISIS Moslem militants in Iraq and Syria? Members of the homosexual community have regularly participated in public displays of ridicule directed against Christianity. Some have been known to disrupt services in Catholic churches but never in mosques. But is Christianity the real enemy?

In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a woman who herself was forced to flee to the USA to escape threats from Islamic fanatics, argued that “homophobia is an integral part of Islamic extremism.” Here is just one example she cited from a Moslem cleric speaking at the Husseini Islamic Center outside Orlando in 2013.

Farrokh Sekaleshfar, a Shiite cleric educated in London, declared of homosexuality in 2013: “death is the sentence. We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence.”

On the other hand, people on the right should understand that Islamic radicals represent a very small percentage of the Moslems already in this country, or of those who wish to come. Here is part of a statement from a Moslem group in Meriden, Connecticut.

As Muslim Americans who believe in the Messiah Ahmad of Qadian, we sincerely advocate how our faith condemns the tragic shooting in Orlando that affected so many innocent lives and fellow Americans. We wholeheartedly join Muslims and Americans, domestic and abroad, in offering sincere prayers for the victims and their families, especially during Ramadan. This terrorist attack was not only inhumane and disturbing but wholly un-Islamic and un-American. Neither the Holy Quran nor the U.S. Constitution call for violence in any shape or form towards homosexuals or any community unjustly. On the contrary, both the Holy Quran and the U.S. Constitution teach sanctity of each and every life irrespective of their orientation. The Quran actually equates the murder of one innocent life as the slaughter of all humanity. It further declares the Holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as "a mercy to all people," not just straight people, and Allah as “the Lord of all the worlds,” not just who we deem worthy. That's how we live by our motto "love for all hatred for none," the true essence of Islam. *

It is good to see Moslems speaking out against terrorism. I think that it would be a good idea if all churches, synagogues, and mosques in this country were required to issue such a condemnation of terrorism or else lose their tax-exempt status. The government that can put a bakery out of business for refusing to make wedding cakes for homosexual marriages should rather direct its attention to radical imams spouting hate speech in mosques.

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*Here is a link to the full statement by the Meriden Moslems.

San Bernardino, Newtown, and Violence

The recent mass shooting by a husband and wife team of Islamic terrorists in San Bernardino has once again led to the same kind of debate that followed the terrible massacre of 20 children and six teachers in a kindergarten classroom in Newtown three years ago. Once again, the inevitable voices are heard. On the one hand, President Obama has led the pack in calling for increased gun control. On the other hand, many criticize the President's reluctance to even use the term "Islamic terrorist", and some like Donald Trump have even called for a ban on future Moslem immigration to the USA. 

Islamic radicalism was not an issue in Newtown three years ago but in the aftermath of that tragedy similar lines were drawn. The governor of Connecticut led the charge for stricter gun control laws but others argued that the focus should be on the mentally ill young killer who wielded the weapons. Three years ago I wondered why people on both sides of the issue preferred to "demonize" each other instead of working together. I still feel the same way and reprint my Newtown article below since the response to San Bernardino has been much the same. 

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I know that violent acts are going on all over the world but the massacre of twenty innocent children and six school staff in Newtown hit so close to home that it broke through our psychological firewall.

Since the tragedy innumerable words have been written and by now the newspapers are full of articles and letters offering solutions to the problem. Inevitably, most take a one sided view. Some writers call for stricter gun control laws. Others decry the violence in our entertainment media and overall culture. Finally, others call for reforms in treatment of the so-called violent mentally ill.

I would like to suggest all of the above. It seems striking to me that most advocates of stricter gun control are also ardent defenders of Hollywood’s right to do whatever it pleases in depicting violence. At the same time, opponents of violence in the media are often strong supporters of gun ownership. It seems that it is time for those on both the left and the right to come together and adopt each other’s solutions.

I have never owned a gun and never plan to own one, but I know very good people who do. Two beloved uncles were avid hunters, and so is my younger brother, a retired NYPD officer who also happens to be a fanatic about gun safety.

 

Even before the massacre of the children and their teachers in Newtown, it was hard for me to understand the intransigence of some people on both sides of the issue of gun control. On the one hand, I have never been able to understand why a hunter might require an assault rifle or a handgun that is just about the modern equivalent of the machine guns that were banned in the 1930s.

On the other hand, I am aware that even states like Connecticut that have the most stringent gun-control laws are among those with the most violent crime rates. Bridgeport, Connecticut is usually among the Nation’s leaders in firearm related murders. Frankly, I believe that the possibility that a one of my neighbors might actually own a revolver is a real deterrent to crime in my neighborhood.

Still, I don’t believe that the right to bear arms allows me or my neighbor to assemble an arsenal fit for a SWAT team. We have banned especially lethal firearms in the past and we can do it again. I know that criminals will probably find ways to get their hands on assault rifles, but the supply could be limited at the source.

While we are at it, I think that there is another so-called right that needs to be somewhat restricted. Why is it that proponents of stricter gun control laws never seem to oppose the acts of violence that appear daily in films, video games, and on TV?  The release of a new film this Christmas season was delayed because of the massacre in Newtown. Was it perhaps because the film begins with a rooftop sniper looking through his scope at a young girl? You could be watching “Miracle on 34^th St.” this season only to see it interrupted by commercials for films full of bloodshed. I can’t imagine the violence that my grandchildren see on their video games where they themselves become the shooter.

Maybe, most of us wouldn’t be led to commit acts of violence by witnessing violence, but what about the mentally ill? Some will say that exposure to this violence does no harm. Some also argue that it limits free speech and stifles artistic creativity.   If what people see on TV does not influence behavior, why do advertisers spend so much money promoting their wares, or politicians buy so much ad-time to get elected?

As far as artistic creativity is concerned, I believe that I can make a very strong case for censorship. During the 1930s the film industry adopted the now infamous “Production Code.” Faced with the threat of government censorship resulting from a public outcry, Hollywood agreed to police itself. Any new film would have to be reviewed and modified it if failed to meet certain set standards. The Production code was abandoned decades ago but modern filmmakers and critics still bemoan the censorship that gripped Hollywood.

Recently, Turner Classic Movies released DVD sets of some of the pre-code films and a reviewer in the Wall St. Journal thought that the Code had been a great tragedy. However, in his own review he could only point to one or two films of even limited value from the pre-Code era. He failed to mention that the adoption of the infamous Code coincided with what most critics regard as the Golden Age of film.

For example, 1939 is regarded as one of the greatest years in Hollywood history. “Gone with the Wind” swept most of the Oscars, but moviegoers that year also saw: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; Wuthering Heights; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Stagecoach; the Wizard of Oz; Ninotchka; Of Mice and Men; and Dark Victory. The next two years saw the likes of Citizen Kane and Casablanca—two of the greatest films of all time. Restrictions on the so-called creativity of producers, directors, and artists only forced them to greater heights of excellence.

The  Newtown massacre occurred right in the midst of the Christmas season. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people on both sides of the political spectrum could come together next year to make America a more peaceful society? 

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