Impromptus: The way it ought to be,...the abuse of “civil rights,”.

NRO ^ | 2/24/03 | Jay Nordlinger

[chiller]

Last week, many people asked, How could the mainstream press, and punditry, have gotten the Sami al-Arian case so wrong? How could they have been so far off-base?

Remember, al-Arian was the Florida professor accused of being a terrorist ringleader. (I sort of like the similarity of his name to “Aryan.”) He was finally arrested last week; the indictment against him is devastating (not only of al-Arian, but of his defenders and apologists). Many in the press — most notably New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof — had rallied around al-Arian, claiming that he was being harassed because he was an Arab, because he assailed Israel, and because a scared America needed scapegoats. They said that his was a case of academic freedom — under attack.

Let me attempt an explanation: Liberals want certain things to be true, and even if they aren’t true, they ought to be true, because, in a way, they’re truer than true. They represent some higher truth. So much of liberal thought and liberal commentary is a morality play. Joseph McCarthy is always knocking on the doors of the innocent, and blacks are always one step away from Bull Connor’s fire hoses.

No, Tawana Brawley wasn’t raped and tortured by the white power structure, but it ought to have been true. No, there were no racist burnings of black churches, but it ought to have been true. No, there were no such burnings when Clinton was a child, but there should have been, and he’s entitled to his “memories.” No, Prof. al-Arian wasn’t the victim of a Security State and a Jewish lynch mob, but he should have been — it makes so many people feel so much better.

Anyway, that’s my attempt. Dr. Nordlinger is now out. (excerpt).........

Here in New York, Mayor Bloomberg has opted not to sign on with those who are supporting the University of Michigan in its fight for racial preferences. One of his Democratic opponents said, “The mayor is having problems protecting civil rights because of his alliance with the Bush administration and the Pataki administration.”

Did you catch that? “Civil rights”? This is, of course, the age-old liberal and Democratic tactic. Anything you like, call a “civil right.” Because civil rights are good, you see, and opposition to them is iniquitous. Actually, the civil-rights side is the anti-Michigan, pro-equal opportunity side. But this is not the way it usually works in today’s America, when all the “civil rights” rhetoric is on the left.

(This is why it’s important and wonderful, in my view, that Ward Connerly calls his group the “American Civil Rights Institute.” I take every opportunity to refer to Connerly as a “civil-rights leader.”)

Also, I saw a sign that said, “Save Brown v. Board of Education! Defend Affirmative Action & Integration!”

Notice the brazen linkage of the Brown decision to today’s reverse race discrimination. To be on the left is always to be on the side of the angels, and liberals will always wrap themselves in Brown and other cozy things, even if their ideology and actions are inimical to those things. Brown, of course, had to do with equality of opportunity and colorblindness; the Bollingerized University of Michigan is dedicated to bald racialism.

But the language persists in the mouth of the Left. Whatever you do, it will always be for the sake of Brown; and whatever your opponent does will always be for the sake of Plessy (or worse). This is why Jesse Jackson invokes “Selma” in every other breath — he means it as a perfume to whatever foul thing he happens to be doing at the moment.

Why oh why do they keep doing it? Why do Democrats, and others, keep referring to President Bush’s “unilateral war on Iraq”? And why do the media let them get away with it?

At a recent Democratic conclave, candidate Howard Dean said, “What I want to know is, why is the Democratic Party leadership supporting the president’s unilateral war on Iraq?” Never mind that sly “war on Iraq,” when it’s a war to topple Saddam Hussein and free the people of Iraq. Dean knows that the United States has allies. It has Britain, for one, and Italy and Spain, and a slew of other European countries (over 20 in all), and Australia, and Turkey, Qatar, and so on. He may oppose the war; he may think it’s the most stupid and immoral thing to come down the pike in years. Fine. He’s free to say so. But he is not entitled to say that this war will be “unilateral.”

Does he mean, by unilateral, “not unanimous”? Does he mean that there are governments in the world that do not support the United States?

If he thinks the U.S. should be forbidden to go to war unless the entire world agrees to it (except for the prospectively warred-on party, presumably), he should just say so, outright. Otherwise, to claim that the U.S. is acting “unilaterally” is a clear falsehood. (Not that there would be anything wrong with that, by the way — acting unilaterally, in the American interest.)

[muawiyah]

Sami al-Arian defenders may well have been in on the conspiracy against the security and safety of the American people.

Time to pick them up as well and put them in the brig until the conflict is concluded.