Morality vs. Privilege--Part I

There's a reason conservatives can't get through to black America, and it's the same reason black America can't catch up to the rest of us. In the name of leftist groupthink, we have seen morality replaced with priviledge, supplanting individual accountability and initiative with standards that depend entirely either on what other people have done to you or how much you identify yourself with the oppressed. Both those who are "saved" by leftist policies and those who do the "saving" by implementing them receive a fundamental satisfaction from this altered ethic. It's about far more than how much we should tax the rich.

The left often criticizes the right for policies they themselves implement selectively. This demonstrates that they don't fundamentally disagree with the effectiveness of the policies in question, they just want them applied differently.

For example, the left often complains that traditional law enforcement methods, namely putting criminals behind bars for a very long time, are simplistic. We need to focus our efforts on addressing the root causes of crime, eliminating poverty and racism, and rehabilitating criminals. Long jail terms don't work as a deterrent.

But, if you attack somebody because of their race or sexual orientation, we need to lock you up indefinitely, because although longer jail terms won't deter the average mugger or gangland murderer, they will somehow prevent hate crimes. Either they believe that harsher sentences actually deter criminals, or they don't and have decided to grandstand. (Perhaps they just care about feelings.)

They often criticize American society for being too judgemental, but when Don Imus or Michael Richards make an ass of themselves it's perfectly appropriate to shame them mercilessly. I could live with this as a societal standard, if they could.

But yesterday, a regular on guest of Opie and Anthony joked about raping Condoleezza Rice, having rough sex with Laura Bush, and the supposed ugliness of Queen Elizabeth II (h/t Captain Ed). If Al Sharpton is asked about this, he will undoubtedly say that he thinks they went over the top, but I doubt he'll launch a crusade to silence them.

I can't read into the minds of our Civil Rights leaders, but I can't help but notice a double standard of sorts. Don Imus is white. Charlie, the guest who joked about "that George Bush bitch," is black (or at the very least he certainly speaks fluent ebonics--I admit I haven't seen a picture). Castigating Imus is of the utmost importance to maintain societal decorum. Castigating Charlie makes sense only if a talk show host calls you on it.

When a genuine hate crime receives publicity, the left spends comparatively little time analyzing the mindset of the perpetrator but instead demonstrates no hesitancy whatsoever to throwing the bastard in jail where he belongs. They quite appropriately subject the Ku Klux Klan and other like-minded groups to ostracism and ridicule. When they truly want something stopped, they become quite conservative in their approach.

This leads me to believe that deep down many of them know we're right about what works, they just want things to work differently. Implementing "an array of taxes" would be a great way to discourage fossil fuel usage, but taxing capital gains has a negligible effect on investment (h/t Jeff Goldstein in an incredible post--in the same article we see the author decry the need for proof before we act against global warming--I wonder if he felt the same way about Iraq's WMD's).

Although much of the left-right debate is over tactics, i.e. how to reduce poverty, maintain security, etc., the real debate is over our fundamental societal vision, for when the left wants something done, it will adopt the policies it decried several minutes ago in a heartbeat. Calling Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the "Axis of Evil" was counterproductive, but calling Bush a Nazi fosters dialogue (or something like that).

This leads me to believe that as much as they want to save us all from themselves, something else is more important. Indeed, the prioritization of motivation is near the heart of the left-right divide, but something else matters more.

I suspect that much of this is a twisted mix of self-congratulation and nihilsim. Whichever it is, it depends entirely on the morality of hierarchy.

UPDATE: Here's the full text of the Opie and Anthony conversation in question. If you found "nappy-headed hos" offensive, you might not want to listen.