Needless to say, the Thought Police
are now in charge of any discussion of genetics
on campus.
The Human Genome Project is based
on the ground-breaking research of three scientists.
To prove his political orthodoxy, one of them donated
all his prize money for the project to the Black
Panthers.
Anyone who wants to do genetic research
must first make his declaration of ideological orthodoxy
up front. The Human Genome Project declared that
race does not exist. Otherwise, it would not exist.
Books like "The Bell Curve"
demonstrate the impossibility of liberal -- and
now conservative -- orthodoxy on race. So does real
history. But truth has nothing to do with what is
now allowed on campus, and no one will enforce racial
orthodoxy any more fanatically than respectable
conservatives.
So every conservative discussion begins
with, "I'm not talking about race" and
continues somewhere in the middle with a declaration
of personal orthodoxy on race. They end with a tribute
to the liberal days of the "neocons" and
a salute to Saint Martin Luther the King and all
he stood for.
The neocons are right when they say
that no free society can allow this kind of ideological
Goodthink to be enforced and obeyed. But that orthodoxy
was necessary for their own earlier liberal policies
(which, like all liberal policies, don't WORK) to
be enforced.
Contrary to respectable and "neo"
orthodoxy, this problem did not suddenly appear
yesterday. Liberal policies, even the holy racial
policies, don't WORK. So the only way they can be
enforced is by suppressing serious opposition as
naziswhowantokillsixmillionjews and so forth.
Mr. Botstein, president of Bard College
in New York, said there was another common misperception:
"Anybody who tells you once upon
a time you could say anything you want on campus
is romanticizing the past," he said. "Once
upon a time you were labeled a communist."
Many today say you cannot discuss
racial questions freely today because different
races are on the campus. In other words, a multiracial
society cannot be a free society (though no one
is allowed to put it that way).
But the previous orthodoxy had the
same excuse. Back when Communism and socialism were
deadly epithets, a very small percentage of the
people went to college. Students were from relatively
well-to-do families, or were working to become rich.
Back then, anyone who discussed anything
relating to income distribution was directly insulting
those who paid the bills and the families of most
students. It seemed impossible that such topics
could ever be broached on a college campus.
So what happened to that orthodoxy?
What happened was that mainstream
liberals finally had the guts to say that there
could be no freedom of speech until even Communists
were allowed to share in it.
There was a time when liberals hid
under the table every time income redistribution
was mentioned. They, like respectable conservatives
today, asked only that if the ruling establishment
was lynching heretics, they be allowed to lead the
mob and prove their orthodoxy.
Only when liberals stood up and demanded
free speech for extreme leftists did the old orthodoxy
end.
As long as everything conservatives
say reads like the argument I outlined above, as
long as neoconservatism remains the only position
anyone is allowed to take on the right, you can
forget freedom of speech.
And if you can forget freedom of speech,
you can soon forget all freedom.
If no discussion is allowed unless
it "is not about race," then liberals
know what to do. They inject race into every discussion,
one way or another, and then bring in a black spokesman
to shriek for them and scare off the conservatives.
And they are perfectly right to do
so. Race is central to modern America. No great
issues can be dealt with without race entering somehow
into it. Leftists are going to use that hammer as
long as the so-called opposition keeps hiding under
the table.
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