Don Lemon explained “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men,”

Don Lemon’s Attack On ‘White Men’ Isn’t Just Racist, It’s Incredibly Misleading

OCTOBER 31, 2018 By David Harsanyi

The notion that a person’s race predisposes him to act violently is unequivocally racist. It’s also easily debunked by a cursory reading of history. Then again, in today’s environment, where identity politics often strips Americans of their accomplishments, ideas, and actions so they can be judged by their melanin, it’s an unsurprising thing to hear.

“I keep trying to point out to people and, not to demonize any one group or any one ethnicity,” CNN host Don Lemon explained to his colleague Chris Cuomo, before telling him that “the biggest terror threat in this country is white men,” adding that “there is no travel ban on them”

This isn’t a new accusation. Now, Lemon is right that the vast majority of white shooters are men. He’s also correct that men are more violent than women. The majority of men in the United States are white. So some quick back-of-the-envelope calculation informs us that most shooters are probably going to be white men, just as most murderers in Arab countries are Arab men and most murderers in Asian countries are Asian men and so on.

A terrorist is a person who uses illegal violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. This is not a movement. These white men have no palpable ideological or philosophical connection. They are not part of a concerted effort. They do not idolize the same people or subscribe to the same set of ideas. They do not share a worldview. Most of them do not kill in the name of “whiteness.” Few of them have a coherent message. I have as much to do with the Pittsburgh shooter as Lemon does.

The left-winger who yelled “This is for health care” before attempting to assassinate Republican congressional leadership in 2017 — somehow Lemon overlooked this event in his rant about angry white men — has nothing to do with the man who yelled “All Jews must die” when killing 11 innocent people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. There is no nexus between the person threatening Republicans with ricin letters and the person threatening Democrats with pipe bombs.

Whether travel bans from terror-ravaged nations are effective or necessary is a worthy debate. But unlike Islamic terrorists, who destabilize entire regions, enslave entire communities, and in engage in decades-long campaigns against civilians, white men only share a hue. There is no infrastructure to assist them in their murders. There is no nation-state egging them on and abetting their efforts around the world. There are no big-money donors funding them. There is no movement recruiting them to kill, then rewarding their families afterwards.

Moreover, there is no rational or decent person in America, on either side of the partisan debate, justifying their actions. No matter how hard Democrats try to smear half the country as a party of budding brown-shirts, there is no political base for their violent ideology.

Unlike Islamic terrorism—which is propelled by a set of ideas and beliefs that has been adopted by people of every color in every area of the world—random white shooters do not generate massive numbers of refugees whom other nations are compelled to deal with. Governments don’t have to spend trillions of dollars to protect their citizens from this constant threat.

It’s also true Islamic radicals haven’t been as successful at targeting Americans lately because, after a highly effective day of carnage back in 2001, we became vigilant. The price has been high, in treasure, and sometimes in civil rights—another negative externality of Islamic terrorism.  Does Lemon demand a similar domestic effort aimed at white men for merely being white men?

Radical Islam is an ideology that’s quite popular in the world. White supremacy is a fringe belief that generates outsized coverage because of the horrible actions of some individuals and the political upside some in the media see in giving them attention. Stringing together every act of random violence in the nation—no matter how ambiguous, disconnected, and muddled the political motives of the perpetrators might be—does not make a terror problem. Even if it did, violence is not the monopoly of any group. In the past century, genocides have been perpetrated in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Some people feed off the idea of drumming people they find objectionable out of public discourse. I’m not sure someone who uses hyperbole in the heat of a national debate deserves this fate. But in an environment where people are (ostensibly) thrown off their TV shows for a dumb statement about Halloween costumes, it seems rather extraordinary that others can unambiguously refer to “white men” as terrorists without repercussion.

David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist. He is the author of the new book,First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History with the Gun, From the Revolution to Today. Follow him on Twitter.

Chris Cuomo CNN Democrats domestic terrorism Don LemonIslamism James Hodgkinson mass shootings political violence racismRobert Bowers shooters terrorism Tree of Life white men

Demand an End to Liberal Privilege

PJ MEDIA

Demand an End to Liberal Privilege

 

BY SARAH HOYT OCTOBER 20, 2018

CHAT 91 COMMENTS

First of all, before I start this, let me say I disagree with most of the usages of the word “privilege.”

The left refers to people of “privileged background” for instance, when what they really mean is “rich” or, these days, “middle class and with parents who insisted on education.”

I suppose this makes some sense in the context of a leftist world view, but it makes no sense in reality.

You see, privilege means “private law.” In terms of the past, noblemen were privileged because the law either didn’t apply to them (at all) or they had special laws that applied to them. For instance, in many jurisdictions, noblemen were exempt from the capital penalty. In most “clergy” were exempt from the death penalty. And the benefit of clergy would be given to anyone who could read and write. That was privilege. Private law. “The laws don’t apply to us, and you can’t make us obey them” if you prefer.

So in terms of left-Marxist world view, it makes sense to think that anyone who has more has somehow cheated the existing laws. Or to believe that anyone who has better outcomes than someone else is taking advantage of a “private law,” that is, cheating.

The problem is that this only makes sense if you buy into the leftist world view, in which every human being is a widget, or if you prefer a game piece, with exactly the same qualities as any other game piece.

In actuality, humans can get rich without cheating anyone and outcomes of anything vary a lot depending on the qualities of the human beings involved and, yes, on their level of effort too.

Which brings us to real privilege: the de-facto exertion of a private law.

For instance, take the Kavanaugh hearings when all the liberals were assuring us that we didn’t need to presume innocence until guilt was proven. Did you notice that not only didn’t any of them revise their opinion of the sexual scandals of Bill Clinton – against whom guilt was overwhelmingly proven – but they were also adamant that the same principles they were trying to apply to Kavanaugh didn’t apply to Keith Ellison?

This makes absolutely no sense. If you “believe all women” (and btw, that too is privilege. Where is the “believe all men?”) why not believe Ellison’s battered girlfriend, who has the hospital visit to prove it, or Juanita Broderick before you believe Christine Ford?

The liberals handwavium explanation amounted to a lot of handwavium and what my grandmother used to call “trying to remove the butt from the path of the syringe.” I.e. “it’s a job interview” or “she is credible” or whatever were not so much arguments for believing one person and not believing the other as attempts to make you look elsewhere and forget to argue.

You see, they know the principle but can’t say it aloud – some of them not even to themselves – because that would cause them to admit that they are chock-full of privilege, which their theories force them to view as a sin.

In fact, all their claims of other people’s privilege are to excuse their own establishment of a private law for themselves.

For instance, how many discussions have you seen in which some white man is told to stop talking because he’s full of “white privilege” and should “educate himself.”

And yet, I can honestly say that in my decades in this country and in association with white men (husband, friends) I’ve never seen any of them have recourse to private law that excuses their crimes or gives them an easier time in surviving. In fact, and contra one of my colleagues in science fiction, who claimed that being a white male in America is “life on the easiest setting,” white people in the US (and white men in particular) get fewer opportunities at scholarships, fewer set-asides in either positions in education or employment, and preference in promotion, and in general a rougher path through life, regardless of background. (Of course, those who come from greater wealth have an easier time relatively, and sufficient wealth makes up for all other conditions. That’s just part of being human.)

Then there is the time my son was told he was privileged because we had lots of books in the house and encouraged reading. That particular teacher must have been having a flash back to that “benefit of clergy.” Or something.

And yet, there is one glaring form of privilege in the United States today.

In fact, I think that’s what my colleague was confused about. You see, he’s a vocal liberal, and I think that’s why he’s experienced a meteoric rise through the field, despite a … passable talent and an absolute refusal to work harder or reach higher than strictly needed.

The same could be said about other liberals in the public eye, male and female and of every race: for instance, can anyone imagine a Republican of any race of sex having the meteoric rise Barrack Obama experienced, from Freshman Senator to President?

Did anyone see Sonya Sotomayor, a woman stupid enough to think that being Latina confers special wisdom, being questioned about her obvious racism and sexism? Does anyone think a Republican nominee of any race – remember Clarence Thomas? – would get as easy a ride into the Supreme Court of the United States?

Has anyone noticed that when there’s any reason to call on a speaker to explain a public disaster or event, outside explicitly conservative venues, the “expert” called upon is always leftist?

I’ve been jaw-dropped on more than one occasion to see a freshman colleague of mine called to comment on say space developments when this person might have written one or two books and none of them concerned with space. But, you know, it’s liberal privilege.

Liberal privilege ranges from quite literal private law — anyone see a Republican who left a girl to die in his car go on to become the Lion of Senate? — To an easing of the way, a magic carpet ride to the top for good little boys and girls who express the right (left) position.

Being liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.

And you know why as well as they do: for near on a hundred years, they’ve had control of the bureaucracy, as well as of those fields that shape the narrative, including the news, entertainment, and literature.

Their crimes are excused, while crimes are invented in the account of everyone who opposes them.

All of which would be galling enough without the newest wrinkle.

It started a long time before the Kavanaugh hearings. For a long time, they’ve been trying to deny anyone to the right of Lenin the rights secured to us by the Constitution of the United States. Their attacks on the Second Amendment are legendary, but latel,y they’ve been trying to extend the fight. For instance, we’ve seen them not only declare that certain words should be crimes, but working through those companies they control to prevent the free speech of those they don’t like or consider dangerous (often the same thing.)

And in Kavanaugh’s hearing, they tried to deny that anyone they oppose can have the right to due process and the presumption of innocence.

It’s not just that the left wants their own private law. It’s that the rights they’re arrogating for themselves under that de-facto law are the rights all of us are entitled to.

We are not peasants. We will not get in line. And we will continue to demand equality under the law. It’s the least we’re entitled to as Americans: an end to liberal privilege.