Extremism exemplified
(UPDATE, 6 p.m.: Brian J. has indicated that I have a point and that he did not mean literally all blacks. I’ve told him that I no longer think he’s crazy. A revised version of his original comment will be posted soon.)
A reader named Brian J. sent a comment which began as follows:
I want to implore you and your readers once again to not only get armed and legal to carry as soon as humanly possible but to take that next, crucial step, acquiring the proper attitude when living among the savages. I said it before but I will repeat: whenever I am confronted by a Black person, any Black person, my hand is on the butt of my pistol. My pistol has a bullet in the chamber and all I have to do is remove it from the holster to be ready to fire.
I wrote back to him:
You wrote:
“whenever I am confronted by a Black person, any Black person, my hand is on the butt of my pistol.”
ANY black person? A 60 year old black lady? A 12 year old black girl wearing a Catholic school uniform? A black UPS delivery man? A black doorman? You have a point about taking proper measures of self defense. But when you indicate that you simply and automatically regard ALL black people as dangerous savages, you come across as a crazy person and utterly discredit yourself.
- end of initial entry -
Mike P. writes:
Here is an item from Minneapolis in August 2002:
Officer Melissa Schmidt was shot and killed after she and her partner responded to a call shortly after 7:00 pm reporting a woman with a gun at a public housing complex.
Contact was made with the 60-year-old female suspect and while the officers were questioning her, she said she needed to go to the bathroom. Officer Schmidt escorted the woman to the public restroom in the lobby of the building. While in the restroom, the woman produced a handgun and opened fire, striking Officer Schmidt in the abdomen below her vest. Officer Schmidt was able to return fire and killed the suspect.
Officer Schmidt was a United States Marine Corps veteran and had served with the Minneapolis Police Department for over 6 years. She was assigned to the Public Housing Unit. Officer Schmidt is survived by her parents and brother.
Doesn’t make Brian J. sound so crazy. The cops patted her down but forgot the rubber glove search up the derrière. Cost the gal cop her life. She keeps thinking 60 year old women must be like her grandmother. I started carrying six years ago when I noticed a distinct change in the behavior of the black race. They began to remind me of The Lord of the Flies. A bunch of feral children, and with parents not prohibiting the feral behavior but promoting it. I see the return of Jim Crow in less than 20 years.
LA replies:
Of course, if we’re dealing with some low-class Negro woman in the projects who, moreover, was already reported as carrying a gun, then obviously all the precautions reply. If we’re dealing with a nicely dressed black lady, those precautions obviously don’t apply. Someone who says that he puts his hand on the handle of his gun when he is speaking to ANY black person, period, sounds like a crazy man.
“I see the return of Jim Crow in less than 20 years.”
I have said many times that I support the return of reasonable and necessary forms of racial segregation at the local level. Precisely what those forms should be is something to be discussed and to be determined voluntarily by local communities. The condition of such a return of local self-government is, conceptually, simple: the repeal of most federal anti-discrimination laws.
July 13
Porter writes
It is wise to avoid blacks period. I don’t think your correspondent was out seeking new black contacts. The point, as I took it, was what mindset whites should adopt when avoidance is not possible.
And your invocation of “extremism” as a pejorative is as rote as squawking “racist” or “anti-semite.” The question is one of prudence through experience, not “extremism.” Is there something about conventional public sentiment on race that you would like to defend? But more importantly, a great many more whites would be breathing today if they and their forefathers had adopted more “extreme” views on race.
LA replies:
You write:
And your invocation of “extremism” as a pejorative is as rote as squawking “racist” or “anti-semite.”
So, according to you, it’s impossible to state reasonably that a particular thing is extremist, or racist, or anti-Semitic. Any person who uses the words extremist, or racist, or anti-Semitic is only “squawking” a “pejorative.”
Which means that you believe that there is no such thing as extremism, or racism, or anti-Semitism. Which means, for example, that if a some people do evil things to another group of people for no other reason than their race, something that actually does happen in the world, we cannot call that racism, because racism, according to you, doesn’t exist.
When people go beyond protesting the illegitimate uses of the word “racism,” which are so rife today and which control our society, and instead claim that there is no such thing as racism, they do it because they want to eliminate all standards by which their own racism can be judged.
The same with anti-Semitism. People who deny the reality of anti-Semism are, without exception, either anti-Semites themselves or fellow travelers of anti-Semites.
And as for the advice that people put their hand on their gun whenever they are speaking to any black person, if we cannot call such advice extremist, what can we call it?
When you deny the existence of extremism, you deny the basis of Western morality, dating from Aristotle, who said that with regard to any good thing, such as self-defense, there is a deficiency of that good thing; a moderate or right amount of that good thing; and an excess of that good thing. The moderate amount is good. The deficiency and the excess are bad. And another word for excess is extremism.
But all this is alien to you, because, as you make so clear, you deny the very existence of moral or ethical principles.
Mike P. writes:
Just an update of more personal encounters. 11 year old black girl (next door neighbor) sets fire to my bushes. I have a shake shingled home. No arrests. No apologies from parents. Then she attempts break-in with her 12 year old cousin. Destroys window to basement. No arrests. No apologies from parents. Girl again splashes orange paint on my blue house. Ditto. A neighbor was blind-sided with a punch just walking down the street. I had a middle school student throw a shoulder block into me while I was walking down the sidewalk. Not to mention the overtly armed drug dealers at the park. (Only for one summer did they ruin our neighborhood.)
Common denominator: they were black. They weren’t wearing Catholic school uniforms, but here is a scary anecdote: I worked for federal security outfit, was relating a story about how someone was beaten into a coma by blacks. Then a black female co-worker pops out with a “maybe he deserved it” comment. You know he might have “dissed” them. Wow. I carry everywhere and I don’t put myself in any situation where I’d need to have my hand on the gun. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen someday. Especially after reading about that poor lady in Mobile.
Anyway, I used to be liberal. You have shown me how terrible that can be. I am in the process of downloading all your archives. Maybe by the time I’m a grandparent I will have learned to be a traditionalist. Maybe I will also improve my writing skills. You’ve got me doing some English homework. My son is way ahead of me, but I hope to have the time. I pray for people like you. Without you making what seems obscure, clear, most of us would be going in circles. I hope you live a very long time to come. Thank you.
Diana M. writes:
I notice that you use word “Negro,” which I thought was made verboten by the ’60s revolution in speech. I like it. You are the only Internet personage who uses it, to my knowledge. If we are to save ourselves, we have to begin by reclaiming language, the opinions of liberals be damned.
Negro is a great word. It indicates a distinction. It describes a distinct people. Sandwiched between the words “remorseless” and “thug,” no word is more descriptive.
Keep it up!
James N. writes:
Not to speak up for Brian J., but I suspect he would make more of the words “confronted by” than you did in your response.
The nicely dressed older lady and the schoolchild would be unlikely to “confront” Brian J., if I am correct.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 12, 2012 01:18 PM | Send