RUTHFULLY YOURS

Charles Murray’s most recent book, Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America has dropped from sight. In Facing Reality, Murray discusses at great length group differences in violence (I leave this to the side) and intelligence. Murray believes that group differences in intelligence explain differences in group outcomes. I am neither knowledgeable enough nor inclined to comment. This topic is at the top of the modern-day list of taboos, and for good reason. It ought to remain at the top. (In fairness to Murray, he is a scientist, and as such has an obligation not to yield to taboos.)

But Murray did not write Facing Reality to talk about differences in group intelligence; indeed, he wrote it in spite of having to talk about them. He is on the shady side of life and would have preferred to sit under his own vines and fig tree. He knew perfectly well that even touching the subject would cause spears of hate and discontent to rain down upon him. But he believes his fellow citizens are exposed to an existential threat of which they are only dimly aware. And so, the patriot he is, he donned his rusty armor and returned to battle. The spears came.

I use Murray’s controversial book as a jumping-off point because I believe Murray’s warning is prescient and unique, and because he has a long record of being right on important social issues. There is an old advertisement for a long-ago swallowed-up Wall Street firm, E.F. Hutton: “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” I am not at all certain Hutton’s clients ought to have listened, but I am quite certain people ought to listen to Charles Murray.

The threat of which Murray is warning? The charge by woke radicals that America is “systemically racist.” Murray believes — rightly I think — that if we allow ourselves to be suckered by this charge, we shall be led down the road to group outcome quotas and from there to totalitarianism.

If you express the opinion that, say, black Americans are overrepresented in prison not because of racism but because they commit more crimes, they call you a racist. Object to open borders, they call you a racist. Praise the nuclear family, express the belief that America began in 1776, or defend Trump, they call you a racist. Calling you a racist is their go-to weapon.

But it is not always enough. If calling you a racist does not shut you up, then they will censor you, investigate you, libel, intimidate, fire, de-bank, sometimes even jail you. These are the guns of a totalitarian regime. In order to fire these guns, the group quota regime must control the media, the security apparatus and military, education, and parts of the private sector. We have already gone a long way down this road.

So, the regime operates as follows: The woke radicals say America, or some aspect of it, is racist. You object. They say you are racist. You continue to object, and then they bring out their totalitarian guns. Here is the connection between the charge that America is racist and our emerging totalitarianism: The charge of racism is driving totalitarianism.

How should politicians respond? For starters, they must amplify Murray’s warning. Americans must be made to understand that the charge of systemic racism, if unrebutted, will lead, as Murray says, to the destruction of America as we know it. As I am fond of saying, and politicians are fond of ignoring, “You can’t win a war if you don’t know you are in one.” Politicians do sometimes use the word “war,” but only as a metaphor. You can’t win a war with a metaphor. We don’t need guns, but we need anger, protests, and organization — and politicians who get it.

The Left protests, the Right expatiates. The America First truckers’ protest against the ridiculous New York court’s judgment against Trump was an exception. The protest was aborted, but it showed the sort of spirit that we so desperately need.

How to rebut the charge that we are systemically racist? Our political leaders must begin by simply asserting it’s not true. To the charge of racism, politicians might say “nonsense;” better still, “horse manure.” Most people know it’s not true; they don’t need it proven. But it is helpful for their leaders to affirm it. Citizens need to know that their views are shared by many others.

Our politicians must explain that for the woke radicals “systemic racism” means, among other things, that hard work, self-reliance, intelligence, patriotism, perseverance, even excellence, are all racist. It means there are racists hiding behind every tree, and that racism has seeped into every nook and cranny of the American way of life. If Americans understood this nonsense, most would reject it out of hand. But they won’t understand it until politicians explain it.

Politicians also must explain how particular woke policies serve the group quota regime: that is, they must put particular woke policies into a larger regime contest. Take defunding the police, decriminalizing certain existing crimes, failing to prosecute others, and lowering or eliminating bail. These are not just a bunch of independent dangerous policies; rather they are a coordinated bunch of dangerous policies all designed to bring the black prison population (now 37%) in line with black Americans’ share of the overall population (13%). In other words, they all are in the service of the group quota regime.

If these policies aren’t enough — and doubtless they won’t be — what next? Different punishments for black and white offenders for the same crime? What next? That’s the question we must always be asking if we are going to head the woke radicals off at the pass.

Most of us know that a totalitarian regime must, from an early age, brainwash its citizens. The group quota regime is no different. Today, K-12 education is the great battle between the forces of good and evil. It is our Battle of the Bulge, a battle that may well decide the war. We are being asked to surrender. We must respond defiantly, as did the commander of the 101^st Airborne when he responded to the German commander’s demand that America surrender. Our guy had a one-word answer: “Nuts.” We won that battle; we can win the current one, but only if we fight as though we mean it. Most will have to be done at the local level, but we need rhetoric from national politicians to help energize local folks.

We also need a return to the America of colorblindness. As Judge Harlan wrote in Plessy v. Ferguson, “Our constitution is color-blind.” And in the shadow of Lincoln’s authority, MLK Jr. said the same thing in his I have a dream speech. Unfortunately, we no longer aspire to color-blindness; indeed, we are going in the opposite direction, and in the process undoing much of the extraordinary progress we have made over the last 60 or more years. Murray pleads with us to turn back to our old bearings. Why in God’s name, he asks, would we want to risk a race war? In this moment of self-immolation our politicians must stop throwing guilt gas on the body politic; instead, they must extol our progress.

Politicians must make it clear that quotas in the military, medicine, flight training school and elsewhere are a direct threat to the well-being of all of us. They should give us examples such as the affirmative action medical resident who could not identify a major artery during surgery. Imagine it were you under the knife.

And it is very important to remember that quotas are not just racist, but may well deprive us of the best of the best, which all societies depend on.

Although politicians must explain these things, they must distill their explanations into a simple binary choice. I suggest they tell their constituents that they must choose between merit and group quotas. This, I think, is a powerful framing device because Americans believe, and have believed for a long time, that group quotas (affirmative action) are unfair, unwise, and un-American.

There are other rhetorical strategies, likely better ones. We must develop them. because before we can talk about the dangers associated with the charge of systemic racism, we must figure out how to talk about them. The survival of the country depends on it. Although Murray does not give us a rhetorical strategy, he deserves our ever-lasting gratitude for identifying, and encouraging us to confront, the major threat of our time. For this reason, I believe Charles Murray is today America’s most important public intellectual. Thus, we cannot let Murray drop out of sight. We must hear and then heed his warning.