Going beyond the “what if” question on Sonia So-So-Minor

Concerning Sonia Sotomayor’s 2001 remark that she as a “wise Latina” would be a better judge of constitutional law than a “white male,” I’m sure that no end of mainstream conservatives have already said, “What if a white man had said that?” Conservatives ALWAYS ask this rhetorical question and leave it hanging there, as though the rhetorical question alone were enough to win the argument, which of course it is not.

So, let’s not ask that hackneyed rhetorical question. Instead, let’s make a declaratory statement on the matter, and draw definite conclusions from it:

Any white man who had said the equivalent of what Judge Sotomayor said, that he as a white man would be a better judge than a black or a Hispanic, would have had his name automatically removed from any list for the U.S. Supreme Court.

And if such a man had been nominated, and such a statement in his past had then come out, his nomination would have been instantly withdrawn.

Therefore Sonia Sotomayor is disqualified from the U.S. Supreme Court and her nomination must be withdrawn.

If the Democrats approve her nomination, they are saying that there are two sets of rules in America, one for whites and one for nonwhites, and that what is prohibited to whites, is freely allowed to nonwhites. Which means that the real purpose of the movement for racial equality and racial inclusion in this country has not been the ending of racial discrimination, but the inauguration of a pro-nonwhite, anti-white regime.

Republicans and conservatives should draw an absolute line on this. They must not whine impotently, “What if a white male had said this?” They must say loud and clear, and keep saying it, that the nomination of Sotomayor is totally unacceptable.

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Bill Carpenter writes:

Agreed. If Democrats can strenuously, even violently oppose Clarence Thomas, Janice Rogers Brown, and Miguel Estrada for ideological reasons regardless of their minority “advantages,” there is no reason Republicans cannot do the same to Judge Sotomayor.

Richard H. writes:

You’re absolutely right. I sometimes complain about AA or anti-white racial consciousness among nonwhites to whites, and most of the time the response is agreement, but a very tentative and ashamed agreement. People sense something is unfair here and feel the need to speak up but don’t want to be caught explicitly defending white people. Then they’d be Hitler.

The rhetorical question way of making their point is how white people express bitterness but without having to provide meat to what they say. It’s the equivalent to mumbling under your breath to express dissatisfaction because you don’t have the guts to stand up to the boss. Even the dullest realize that anti-racism is the dominant ideology of the West and they feel powerless to resist it.

LA replies:

That’s a very good summing up of the white psychology. The rhetorical question is the whites’ way of vaguely expressing their disapproval, without actually taking a position. It is the behavior of beaten, whipped people.

And now that I’ve said that, let us recall that this impotent rhetorical question is the strongest response that is ever shown by today’s “conservatives” to any manifestation of the anti-white double standard. Every time you see a conservative columnist or a radio host say, “What would happen if a white said that”?, “What would happen if a conservative/Republican said that?”, you’re seeing the unconscious confession of a beaten, whipped conservative who is going through the motions of opposing the left. He may be sounding off on a national radio program for hours each day, he may have his columns appearing in hundreds of newspapers, he may be speaking at well funded conservative conferences where he is adulated as a hero of the conservative cause—and yet, in reality, he’s a beaten, whipped man going through the motions of opposing the left.

But there’s a further angle on this that you’re brought out. Given that many whites today, including “conservatives,” think that it is racist even to think of oneself as a white person, how can whites be expected to defend themselves, even when they are being subjected to blatantly anti-white treatment? They can’t. For a white person to say, “This is anti-white,” is to say (a) that white people exist, and (b) that one is a white person defending white people. All that has become impossible for anyone living inside the mental orbit of liberalism—which means virtually all conservatives. This is why I say that race-blind conservatism spells ruin for white people, and for our entire civilization. The white liberals and the nonwhites are consciously carrying on a war against white America and white civilization, but white conservatives refuse to recognize that this war is being waged, because that would be racist.

You wrote:

“Even the dullest realize that anti-racism is the dominant ideology of the West and they feel powerless to resist it.”

I would change that to:

“Even the dullest realize that anti-white racism is the dominant ideology of the West and they feel powerless to resist it.”

Tim W. writes:

Exactly! They should have said the same thing about Barack Obama’s membership in Jeremiah Wright’s hate church. A white presidential candidate would have been forced out of the race for a twenty year membership in an equivalent white supremacist church. Not only that, but he’d have been forced to resign his Senate seat. Trent Lott was demoted from his leadership position merely for saying that America would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948, a statement he made largely offhand on Thurmond’s 100th birthday. He then had to make the rounds to all the black interest groups and talk shows and grovel for forgiveness. But Hussein walked away from Wright unscathed because no one on the Republican side dared challenge him. By the end of the campaign, anyone who even mentioned Wright was considered a racist, because the left has no qualms about throwing around a racism charge even if it isn’t true.

In addition to the general conservative cowardice on race, look at the long list of Republicans who have pandered to La Raza. They’ve compromised themselves on these issues. Sotomayor’s statements may be a bit more vulgar but how is she any different than Bush or McCain on Latino racial issues?

It may be time to let the GOP die like the Whigs and start a new party that isn’t morally castrated on cultural issues.

LA replies:

The significance of the system’s covering up and shoving aside of the Wright issue cannot be overstated, and should never be forgotten.

A quibble. The Whig party died because a new, nationally divisive issue had risen to the fore—the spread of slavery—that the Whig Party, devoted to national unity, economic progress, and personal morality, couldn’t handle, so people simply left the Whig Party and joined other parties or formed new parties that were oriented around that issue. By contrast, the Republican Party today still has a passionate, if besieged, identity. For something to happen to the Republican Party analogous to what happened to the Whig party, an issue would have to rise to the fore that the Republican party was unequipped by its very nature to handle. Well, the issue we’re discussing here, the construction of an openly pro-minority, anti-white regime in this country, is such an issue. But the great mass of Republicans and conservatives are still very far from perceiving it in those terms. The situation would have to reach a boiling point—just as the spread-of-slavery issue had reached a boiling point with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854—in order for the great mass of Republicans to start looking for a new party.

May 30

Paul Gottfried writes:

Although I fully agree with your comment, you are attributing a life force and conscience to GOP politicians that for most of them are entirely missing. They do what they think the media won’t beat them up for doing, which is moving in the direction of the social left, albeit one step behind the Dems.

Lisa writes:

Unfortunately, that won’t happen. Republicans are spineless Hispanic vote whores.

The fact is, the Democratic party needs to be put out of business. We also need a new alternative to the Republicans, who are totally useless.

Robert B. writes:

You are so right on this. I recognized this movement for what it was back in the early 80s when I was finishing my studies in Poly-Sci. I had to take a few “ethnic studies” courses and it was all about what an evil entity whitey is—absolutely no real, concrete history.

Richard Hoste writes:

A couple days ago you called the left a collection of anti-white tribes. As the non-Asian minority population grows I can only see the double standards and discrimination becoming more and more absurd. In the end, is there any option besides whites standing up for themselves as whites? Steve Sailer has this fantasy that eventually everybody will give up their racial identity. He calls it “citizenism.” He never explains why non-Asian minorities would agree to give up on affirmative action and other forms of anti-white discrimination. It doesn’t make sense and anyone who tries to argue against anti-white bigotry like the whole “diversity” racket by saying that it really hurts minorities (by reinforcing stereotypes or whatever) is just like those rhetorical questions Republicans(trying to avoid explicitly defending white people). Mexicans and blacks will never buy it. People collectivize by race because they understand that in a multi-racial society sometimes the interests of their group diverge from the interests of society as a whole. America’s minorities understand that and every racial group, minority and majority, outside the Western world understands that too.

The problem with Sailerism and other race blind conservatives is that they don’t understand that we shouldn’t be shocked at the behavior of blacks and Mexicans in our society. They’re doing what is normal for all people at all times. It’s white cowardice and self-hatred that’s the problem. And an understanding of human nature and how politics works should tell anyone that things are going to continue to get worse and worse until whites stand up for themselves.

LA replies:

I agree completely on the fatuousness of Sailer on this issue. I’ve written about his citizenism idea before. Be sure to see the last paragraph of my article where I show how Sailer, pre-occupied with his jejune and reductive notion of status competition as the main operative principle in human affairs, is incapable of grasping the issue of racial and cultural survival.

Here is a further response by me to Sailer’s idea that whites are too individualistic to survive as a racial/cultural entity. Naturally, since Sailer can see no human reality beyond individualistic status competition and cross-racial match-making, he fits reality to his premises. He doesn’t care about the white race and the white West, so he concludes that it can’t survive.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 29, 2009 09:12 PM | Send