WUI (Writing under the influence)

Or "Why is America so delicate with the enemy?" The enemy could be anything: illegal aliens, mostly those from countries that would like to see parts of the US return to their "rightful" owners; or so called insurgents in Iraq. In any case when I said that our attitudes are guided by white guilt I only considered why the lefties act that way. Shelby Steele claims that some conservatives can also be affected by white guilt.

I call this white guilt not because it is a guilt of conscience but because people stigmatized with moral crimes--here racism and imperialism--lack moral authority and so act guiltily whether they feel guilt or not.

So even if our majority widens we are in risk of losing some important battles.

Whether the problem is race relations, education, immigration or war, white guilt imposes so much minimalism and restraint that our worst problems tend to linger and deepen. Our leaders work within a double bind. If they do what is truly necessary to solve a problem--win a war, fix immigration--they lose legitimacy.

To maintain their legitimacy, they practice the minimalism that makes problems linger. What but minimalism is left when you are running from stigmatization as a "unilateralist cowboy"? And where is the will to truly regulate the southern border when those who ask for this are slimed as bigots? This is how white guilt defines what is possible in America. You go at a problem until you meet stigmatization, then you retreat into minimalism.

And all of this even though the US is the most just society there is notwithstanding its past and many present imperfections.

Possibly white guilt's worst effect is that it does not permit whites--and nonwhites--to appreciate something extraordinary: the fact that whites in America, and even elsewhere in the West, have achieved a truly remarkable moral transformation. One is forbidden to speak thus, but it is simply true. There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant. If there is still the odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities.

This is a fact that must be integrated into our public life--absorbed as new history--so that America can once again feel the moral authority to seriously tackle its most profound problems. Then, if we decide to go to war, it can be with enough ferocity to win.

This is why I at least try not to be affected by the virulent hate, derangement and accusations of various -isms hurled in my directions to shut me up. There are still many people who will listen to rational arguments. And there are my four children who, as long as I can help it, will not be brainwashed into submission by public schools. There is still hope.