National Review On Line has just fired columnist John Derbyshire for racist assertions he's made in several posts and essays.
From what I've seen of the posts, Derbyshire deserves to go. Whatever the anecdotal or statistical justifications he can muster for his assertions, there is a very clear consistent tone of racial denigration that is not acceptable. It is one thing to speak honestly about social problems that beset blacks or whites or whomever. It is quite another to hammer at these issues in a way that makes personal animosity based on race quite obvious.
The irony of course is that the fair standards applied by conservatives to Derbyshire will not be applied by liberals to their own much more numerous bigots and race-mongers. Conservatives who stoke racial division get fired. Liberals who stoke racial hate get their own show on MSNBC. Jesse Jackson and Louis Farakhan and Jeremiah Wright still get tons of mainstream gigs. Whole disciplines of leftie academia peddle racial resentment and division, and some leading legal theories are based on the assumption of the inherent venality and racism of whites.
There's a lot of hate on all sides. It's sad. I keep having this crazy thought, something about judging people on the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.
It's a beautiful dream, because it is based on the truth about man. We are all created in God's image, and we are all created equal before God, and we are all endowed by God with certain unalienable rights...
I note parenthetically that most of my attention directed at Derbyshire in the past was related to his atheism and his palpable hatred for intelligent design and anything that smacks of criticism of Darwinism. He famously described the pro-I.D. movie Expelled as "... creationist porn, propaganda for ignorance and obscurantism."
Does his embrace of racial categorization of human beings derive in part from his Darwinist understanding of man? If man has no soul and is not created in God's image, what basis is there to claim equality of all men? How can we be created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights if we have no creator?
Is atheism a gateway to denial of human equality and human rights?
Of course it is.
From what I've seen of the posts, Derbyshire deserves to go. Whatever the anecdotal or statistical justifications he can muster for his assertions, there is a very clear consistent tone of racial denigration that is not acceptable. It is one thing to speak honestly about social problems that beset blacks or whites or whomever. It is quite another to hammer at these issues in a way that makes personal animosity based on race quite obvious.
The irony of course is that the fair standards applied by conservatives to Derbyshire will not be applied by liberals to their own much more numerous bigots and race-mongers. Conservatives who stoke racial division get fired. Liberals who stoke racial hate get their own show on MSNBC. Jesse Jackson and Louis Farakhan and Jeremiah Wright still get tons of mainstream gigs. Whole disciplines of leftie academia peddle racial resentment and division, and some leading legal theories are based on the assumption of the inherent venality and racism of whites.
There's a lot of hate on all sides. It's sad. I keep having this crazy thought, something about judging people on the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.
It's a beautiful dream, because it is based on the truth about man. We are all created in God's image, and we are all created equal before God, and we are all endowed by God with certain unalienable rights...
I note parenthetically that most of my attention directed at Derbyshire in the past was related to his atheism and his palpable hatred for intelligent design and anything that smacks of criticism of Darwinism. He famously described the pro-I.D. movie Expelled as "... creationist porn, propaganda for ignorance and obscurantism."
Does his embrace of racial categorization of human beings derive in part from his Darwinist understanding of man? If man has no soul and is not created in God's image, what basis is there to claim equality of all men? How can we be created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights if we have no creator?
Is atheism a gateway to denial of human equality and human rights?
Of course it is.
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