Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Cloaca of Conservative Rhetoric

Andy McCarthy:
Linda is actually advancing progressive notions under the cloak of conservative rhetoric. "We conservatives can’t have it both ways," she says, "either we’re for race-neutral justice or we’re not." That turns “race-neutral justice” into a phrase as vaporously promiscuous as “social justice.” The conservative case is for common sense not sloganeering. "Race-neutral justice" is not an abstract ideal divorced from all factual context. We are for race-neutral justice when considerations of race have no proper place in the matter at hand. But I can’t imagine that Linda would prevent a prosecutor in a mafia case from proving that "membership" in a Cosa Nostra "family" requires Italian heritage. And based on our many conversations about national security, I’m betting she does not support purging terms like "jihadist" and "Islamist terror" in favor of "violent extremist" and "man-caused disaster" on the rationale that our commitment to "race-neutral justice" requires us to ignore the ideology that inspires modern terrorism.
I think I'd point out here that the Italians mentioned are probably in court because they've been arrested for an actual crime - and the crime would exist outside racial identity - and also that "jihadist" is not a racial category.

5 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

The conservative case is for common sense not sloganeering.

We laugh.

And point all you want, but it's somehow become a "racial" category.

Also, "Italian" is not a race neither, no how.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

The conservative case is for common sense not sloganeering.

Did Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow McCarthy have that phrase focus group tested by Frank Luntz before spewing it out his pie hole?
~

mikey said...

When your easy, facile solution is to collectively hate everyone from the middle east or south asia or anyone from anywhere else who is a muslim, then bam! just like that "Jihadist" becomes a race, a collective identifier used to demonize a vast swath of humanity.

See, it works because it's simple, it prevents one from having to actually, you know, THINK, and it solves any underlying complexities such as guilt or causation, and you can move on to NASCAR untroubled...

Another Kiwi said...

Reminds me of a post a guy made on an old forum I used to frequent. This guy was at College and was in a car with others in his class. They got to talking about terrorism etc. and one kid apparently said "I dont' know why those people keep living there, they should get out" The guy telling the story asked "living where?, what country". "Islam" replied his classmate.

tigris said...

But I can’t imagine that Linda would prevent a prosecutor in a mafia case from proving that "membership" in a Cosa Nostra "family" requires Italian heritage.

A prosecutor can use evidence and testimony to prove a defendant is involved in the mob, or he can just point out that the defendant is Italian and therefore obviously a mafioso, because you know, wevs.