Justice Served

There has been a lot of recent whining about the death penalty, based on a couple cases. But today we saw the death penalty serve its primary purpose: justice. The state of Texas executed Lawrence Russell Brewer for the incredibly vicious torture and murder of James Byrd back in 1998. In case you've forgotten, here's an account of the crime.

On June 7, 1998, Byrd, age 49, accepted a ride from Shawn Berry (age 24), Lawrence Brewer (age 31), and John King (age 23). Berry, who was driving, was acquainted with Byrd from around town. Instead of taking Byrd home, the three men took Byrd to a remote county road out of town, beat him with anything they could find, urinated on his unconscious body, chained him by his ankles to their pickup truck dragging him for three miles. Brewer later claimed that Byrd's throat had been slashed by Berry before he was dragged. However, forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up while being dragged, and an autopsy suggested that Byrd was alive during much of the dragging. Byrd died after his right arm and head were severed after his body hit a culvert. His body had caught the culvert on the side of the road, resulting in Byrd's decapitation.

Berry, Brewer, and King dumped their victim's mutilated remains in front of an African-American cemetery on Huff Creek Road; the three men then went to a barbecue.

Death penalty opponents often call execution "barbaric." In my opinion it is barbaric to allow those who would commit such a crime to go on living. It took a ridiculously long 13 years to execute just one of the murderers, but better late than never.

Weak Argument Against the Death Penalty

One of the weaker arguments against the death penalty is that it is applied unfairly, therefore it should be abolished. This is the line taken in a New York Times editorial on the military version of the death penalty. Here's the crux of the argument.

Minority service members are more than twice as likely as whites — after accounting for the crimes’ circumstances and the victims’ race — to be sentenced to death, according to a forthcoming study co-written by David Baldus, an eminent death-penalty scholar, who died in June.

The analysis is so disturbing because the military has made sustained, often successful efforts to rid its ranks of discrimination. But even with this record, its failure to apply the death penalty fairly is more proof that capital punishment cannot be free of racism’s taint. It is capricious, barbaric and discriminatory, and should be abolished.

First of all, this type of study proves nothing. It is impossible to say with certainty that a white service member would not have gotten the death penalty in the cases where a minority received it, because a white person was not on trial. We are dealing with hypotheticals. Second, it is quite possible that there are factors more important than supposed racial bias that influenced the death sentences, and that they involve the individual circumstances of each case. And most importantly, even if minorities are more likely to get the death penalty because of racism, that doesn't mean we have to throw out the death penalty. Why not take measures to ensure that sentences are fair and not based on a defendant's race? In other words, why not fix the military death penalty rather than eliminate it?

If we have something that works or is beneficial but is tainted in its operation by racism, we don't just scrap it. We fix it. For example, if a corporation discriminates against minority workers we don't close it down. We bring lawsuits and legal judgments which force it to alter its practices. Now you can certainly argue that the death penalty doesn't work and isn't beneficial, but that's a different argument. Saying we should simply do away with the military death penalty because some statistics correlate with apparent racial bias is a weak argument, the kind made by those already biased against the penalty and looking for any plausible excuse to do away with it.

Bigotry Against White Supremacists

After the news today that Kevin William Harpham has been arrested in conjunction with a plot to detonate an explosive device along the route of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade route in Spokane, I've seen quite a bit of bigotry directed at innocent white supremacists. As of now there's no evidence that Harpham was working with any sort of group. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center even points out that,

it is "extremely unlikely" the attempted bombing was carried out by a group. ..."What we see are lone wolf attacks," Potok said, possibly with one or two confederates.

The vast majority of white supremacists do not commit acts of terrorism. Sure they have an ideology that's out of the mainstream and repulsive to most Americans, but only a few of them actually resort to terrorist violence. We shouldn't jump to the conclusion that white supremacist ideology is connected to terrorism. That's horribly unfair to the majority of law-abiding white supremacists. Why should we single them out for surveillance and special attention just because of the actions of a few extremists?

It's Not Racism It's Religion

That's the argument of a group of Israeli municipal rabbis who signed a religious ruling barring renting or selling apartments to non-Jews.

The rabbis defend their ruling. It's not racism, it's halacha -- Jewish law -- that prohibits allowing Gentiles a foothold, Rabbi Eliyahu told Israel Radio: "We've seen what happens in mixed towns, our girls are tempted and this leads to assimilation." "We don't want this happening in Safed or anywhere else," he said. Rabbi Dov Volpe was blunter. "State laws contravening halacha count as dust," he said, making clear that the Torah trumps democracy.

This type of discrimination, along with the idea that religion is the highest law, is common in many Muslim countries. But the Jewish state isn't immune either. It's always worth pointing out that religious fanatics of any stripe, whether Jewish, Muslim, Christian or otherwise, tend to share some similar beliefs. Their religious beliefs trump the law and rules of the society they live in. If their actions and statements appear bigoted, they aren't. They are just following their religion. Does that mean that their religion itself is partially based on bigotry? They tend to avoid that logical progression. And if you point it out they'll accuse you of being the bigot instead, or of trying to repress their religious freedom.

Fortunately, unlike some Muslim countries where far worse, such as killing people who convert from Islam, is the right and proper thing to do, many Israelis are not happy with religious leaders promoting discrimination. 

others want more than just pens taken from the rabbis -- they want their jobs. Many of those who signed the decree serve as municipal rabbis, their salaries funded by taxpayers. The Haaretz editorial calling for their dismissal was only one of many. "Racism at the expense of Israeli citizens," its headline said.

The Left & False Accusations of Racism - Again

As I have repeatedly pointed out, the use of false accusations of racism is a standard left-wing tactic against political opponents.  It's so prevalent that there are probably leftists smearing people as I write this sentence. It was no surprise to read the latest story going through the blogosphere, showing how this smear tactic was employed during the Reverend Wright crisis phase of Obama's presidential campaign.

I sometimes refer to various prominent liberal bloggers as "left-wing hacks," and for good reason. Consider the case of Spencer Ackerman, a shameless, intellectually dishonest propagandist masquerading as an opinion journalist for the Washington Independent.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Advocating a smear campaign against a random conservative pundit for political reasons -- yeah, that's journalism. 

The U.S. has made tremendous progress in race relations, but obviously racism is still a significant problem. There are many instances of real racism taking place all the time. The constant false accusations of racism coming from the left trivialize a serious issue, and make it easier to dismiss real instances. It's bad enough when false smears of racism come from the ignorant fools who make up much of the left-wing blogosphere. But it would be nice if those actually pretending to be journalists held themselves to a higher standard.

Religion and Racism

A new study finds a significant correlation between religion and racism.  

A meta-analysis of 55 independent studies carried out in the United States with more than 20,000 mostly Christian participants has found that members of religious congregations tend to harbor prejudiced views of other races. ...In general, the more devout the community, the greater the racism

Although the study mainly involved Christians, Wendy Wood, the lead author of the study, speculates that religion in general, rather than anything specific to Christianity, is the primary factor.

“Religious groups distinguish between believers and non-believers and moral people and immoral ones,” ... “All religions offer a moral group identity, and so across world religions — including Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim, Judaism and Christianity — the religious ingroup is valued over outgroups.”

So basically her theory holds that religion promotes group thinking. Members of some religions tend to see themselves as part of a group that knows the truth, while everyone not of the religion is at the very least ignorant, or at worst damned. If you view the world from this sort of us & them perspective, it seems reasonable that you might be prone to group thinking in other matters, such as race.

Wood's conclusions may apply to certain religions such as Christianity and Islam, which sharply divide people into groups, but I'm not sure it holds for religion in general. What about religions that recognize multiple paths to enlightenment or salvation? I'm always wary of drawing sweeping conclusions from studies. But there is one finding that isn't at all surprising.

Her analysis found significantly less racism among people without strong religious beliefs.

Racism Against Birds

Wildlife experts in Britain have upped the ante in the ongoing effort to render the word "racism" meaningless. Just when you thought misuse of the term couldn't get more ridiculous than the constant attempts by Obama supporters to label any criticism of the president racist, comes Dr. Ian Rotherham, Director of the Environmental Change Research Unit at Sheffield Hallam University and his fellow experts. Reacting to an official designation of the ring-necked parakeet as a "pest" species, Rotherham had this to say,

"If there is a problem - for example with the birds taking fruit - then we have to take steps to deal with it. If you start to label it as alien then that is some sort of racism. Eco-xenophobia is the label I would use.

Since it's a foreign bird, labeling it as a pest, or actually noting that it is an alien species is a type of racism according to Rotherham. With this in mind it might be necessary to start an affirmative action program for the ring-necked parakeet and all other birds that are victims of racist discrimination. According to the report, it is now "possible to shoot the birds without a licence." This is an outrage! Because of racial profiling these parakeets are now subject to summary execution. It sounds like someone needs to bring a lawsuit against the UK on behalf of the oppressed and persecuted parakeets.

Obama Tells the Left to Shut Up About Racism

Well, not directly, but he does emphatically reject their ridiculous notion that almost all criticism of his administration is based on racism. And he directly refuted that claim by Jimmy "America's Worst ex-President" Carter. Here are a couple of excerpts from the New York Times (which for some reason buried the story on the "health" tab of their "Money & Policy" section).

“Are there people out there who don’t like me because of race? I’m sure there are,” Mr. Obama told CNN. “That’s not the overriding issue here.”

Obama understands that race isn't the main issue.

he did not believe his race was the cause of fierce criticism aimed at his administration in the contentious national debate over health care, but rather that the cause was a sense of suspicion and distrust many Americans have in their government.

Unlike most of his clueless left-wing supporters, Obama apparently understands that his policies would be under major attack if he were the whitest white person in America. The president may be naive and weak on foreign policy, and ignorant of economics, but he knows a political loser when he sees one. The left-wing screams of racism have been so constant, and so ridiculous, that most of America can't possibly take them seriously. No doubt Obama also understands that massive overuse of the race card not only diminishes its effectiveness as a weapon, but also raises racial tensions and makes it more likely that real instances of racism will be downplayed.

Ever since Obama was elected, it seems that whenever I criticize him for some action,  he turns right around and does something I have to praise him for -- and vice versa. The president deserves serious credit for speaking out on this issue and repudiating the poisonous nonsense of his race-obsessed followers.

Rush Limbaugh -- Not Helping

Since Barack Obama became a serious candidate for president, we've been subjected to constant screams of racism from the left. Any time there is opposition to the president, anytime he comes under criticism, any time he is caricatured or made fun of in any way, any time he is treated with disrespect, his supporters have whined about racism. It's just an automatic reflex. It doesn't matter how ridiculous or illogical the charge of racism may be, it will be made if Obama is attacked. In my opinion, no one has done more lately to raise racial tension and poison the atmosphere than Obama supporters and the left in general.

But now here comes Rush Limbaugh acting just like the race-obsessed left. As everyone probably knows by now, there was an incident yesterday where three black high school kids beat up a white kid on a school bus. It's not even clear if race was the main motivating force behind the attack. But Limbaugh seized on the incident to blame President Obama, as if he had anything to do with it. Rush has concocted a crazy theory that goes something like this: All the false accusations about racism from the left, combined with Obama's actions regarding race have created a climate in which white people are seen as the enemy of all that is good in America, and therefore black kids feel justified in beating up white kids. Think I'm exaggerating? Let's go to the transcript.

It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white.  [AND]...  today it's all based in racism, the criticism of Obama's health care plan or whatever, it's all based in racism and so, if he's going to apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. It was white Americans that ran off Van Jones.

This is one of the stupidest and craziest Limbaugh rants ever. He's created a grand conspiracy theory about how white America is under attack because of Obama. He sounds like a mirror image of someone like Reverend Wright. That's right, President Obama is now responsible for a white kid getting beat up by black kids on a school bus. And the sheer illogic of Limbaugh's conspiracy theory actually feeds the left's race obsession. Now they can point to Limbaugh and say, "look, he's so upset by having a black person in the Whitehouse that he thinks the president is responsible for kids beating each other up." However, just because Limbaugh did something idiotic doesn't mean left-wingers shouldn't be called for their hypocritical outrage. 

Here's one example from Obsidian Wings, normally one of the more rational left-wing sites.

This incident is not a run-of-the-mill "Limbaugh said something ridiculous today" story. This is a big deal. Limbaugh was unambiguously racist

If that's the criteria for racism, there are a huge number of racists on the left -- since they do exactly the same thing on a regular basis. Starting well before the election we had people on the left parsing every campaign commercial and trying to concoct charges of racism. Many of the cries of racism were and are every bit as ludicrous as Limbaugh's conspiracy theory.

there's nothing ambiguous about this. It's straight-up George Wallace-style race-baiting. It's an intentional attempt to stir racial prejudices.

But left-wing attempts to smear critics of Obama as racist are just fine.  Yesterday imbecile Congressman Hank Wilson (D of course) said,

people will be putting on "white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he says were subtly supported by Wilson, are not rebuked. He said Wilson must be disciplined as an example.

That's every bit as crazy and inflammatory as anything Limbaugh said. But you don't see the guy at Obsidian Wings hyperventilating about it, do you? Of course not. It's not even mentioned on his site. Race-baiting and stirring up racial prejudices are just fine when done on the left.

But the fact that the left in general is comprised of shameless hypocrites doesn't excuse Limbaugh's idiocy. Everyone on the right should condemn his attempt at conspiracy theory building.  There are all sorts of legitimate attacks to be made on Obama. Blaming the president for school children beating each other up, regardless of their races, is not only stupid, it's downright crazy. Far from helping, Rush Limbaugh is just assisting the left in painting conservatives as deranged, racist lunatics. Thanks a lot Rush.

Libertarians Also Getting Tired of the Left's Constant False Accusations of Racism

There's an excellent article at Cato by David Boaz called, "The Boys Who Cried Racism." As I've written before, false accusations of racism are a standard left-wing tactic, used over and over against Republicans, particularly conservatives. Since we now have a black president, this tactic has been used even more frequently to paint any sort of criticism of the president or his policies as race-based. Cries of racism are seen everywhere on the left, from the lowliest anonymous blogger, to prominent hacks like Paul Krugman. In response to Krugman's latest idiocy, Boaz notes,

Paul Krugman can’t understand why people would oppose government control of health care — or skyrocketing deficits, or a federal takeover of education, energy, and finance along with health care — unless they’re driven by racism. But he’s not the only one who sees racists under every bed.

As Boaz points out,

The classical liberal ideas of individualism, individual rights, property rights, “negative liberties,” and limited government date back hundreds, even thousands, of years

They aren't based on racism, and neither is opposition to Obama and his policies. If we had the whitest of white presidents instead of Obama -- say John Kerry -- and he was pursuing the same policies, there would be the same outrage and opposition on the right, and among libertarians. Attempts to pretend opposition is based on racism are nothing more than smears used in a typical leftist attempt to silence opposition. But they won't work, since most people recognize baseless slurs when they see them.

False Accusations of Racism

Smearing political opponents with false accusations of racism has long been a left-wing staple. The leftist base of the Democratic party simply assumes that conservatives are racists. Any Republican tactic or statement that could possibly be interpreted as racist -- no matter how implausibly -- is pounced upon and condemned as racism. We saw this during the last election, when every anti-Obama GOP ad was scrutinized, and hidden "racist" elements were pointed out by race-obsessed leftists -- even though the supposed racism was invisible to normal, rational people. Today, master of shallow thinking Matt Yglesias has an article in the Daily Beast called, of all things, "Here Come the Racists." 

If you read through Yglesias' article expecting to find actual examples of racism on the right you'll be disappointed -- well, unless you are a leftist, since you know that conservative criticism of Obama is race-based. Here's one of Yglesias' hysterical overstatements,

The Gates affair was the opening right-wingers used to pummel Obama with race-based attacks—to prove that America’s first post-racial presidency was anything but

In Yglesias world, criticizing Obama for how he handles racial topics is itself inherently racist. Isn't that convenient? Here's an example of one of these supposed "race-based attacks," most of which exist only in Yglesias' imagination.

Brit Hume whined on air that "to be labeled a racist" in today's America is very bad

Obviously Hume meant being falsely labeled, but Yglesias, with typical intellectual dishonesty, pretends that Hume is against "the existence of social opprobrium against racists." When you have to reach that far to find "race-based attacks," you know your case is pretty weak.

Basically anyone that brings up reverse racism, or otherwise doesn't toe the left-wing line on race, or of course dares to criticize Obama in anyway related to race, must be a racist. That's the entire substance of Yglesias' "thinking." Unlike what he apparently assumes, accusing the president of being a "racial opportunist," or even labeling Judge Sotomeyer a racist, are not necessarily racist attacks -- any more than are incorrect or false accusations of racism by people like Yglesias. When Yglesias falsely accuses people on the right of racism, it isn't necessarily because he's a racist himself. It could just be that he's wrong, being intellectually dishonest, stupid, or otherwise clueless and incapable of determining what constitutes racism.