of truth-telling.
NOTHING SCANDALIZES a leftist like telling the truth. Point out that women and men are different, that black Americans . . .
. . . commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, that most terrorist acts are committed by Muslims, and the Left leaps to its collective feet in openmouthed shock, like Margaret Dumont after a Groucho Marx wisecrack. This is racism! This is sexism! This is some sort of phobia! I'm shocked, shocked to find facts being spoken in polite company.
No one is shocked, of course. This is simply a form of bullying. The Left has co-opted our good manners and our good will in order to silence our opposition to their bad policies. The idea is to make it seem impolite and immoral to mention the obvious.
This bullying is highly effective and very dangerous. . . . The message is clear: it's just not nice to tell the truth. It's just not done. Don't do it.
Here in the states, the First Amendment has so far allowed old-fashioned American loudmouths to fight the system . . . . But the Empire of Lies is quick to strike back. Google/YouTube now stands charged by multiple accusers of singling out conservative voices for censorship, "fact-checking," and demonetization. Hidden-camera videos released by Project Veritas this week show Twitter employees conspiring to "shadow ban" conservatives on their system. On campus, intelligent conservative speakers of good will like Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and Cristina Hoff-[Sommers] have faced violent protests meant to shut them up.
No person of importance on the right seeks to silence anyone on the left. The Left, on the other hand, is broadly committed to ostracizing, blacklisting, and even criminalizing right-wing speech.
Enter Donald Trump. He is a rude and crude person. He speaks like a Queens real estate guy on a construction site. And because he does not have good manners, he thoughtlessly breaks the rules with which the Left has sought to muzzle those who disagree with them. . . .
. . . .
Let's state the obvious. Some countries are s***holes. To proclaim this is racist is racist. They are not s***holes because of the color of the populace but because of bad ideas, corrupt government, false religion, and broken culture. Further, most of the problems in these countries are generated at the top. Plenty of rank-and-file immigrants from such ruined venues ultimately make good Americans . . . . It takes caution and skill to separate the good from the bad.
For these very reasons, absurd immigration procedures like chain migration, lotteries, and unvetted entries are deeply destructive. . . . Trump's suggestions -- to vet immigrants for pro-American ideas and skills that will help our country -- are smart and reasonable and would clearly make the system better if implemented.
So when it comes to the Great S***hold Controversy of 2018, my feeling is: I do not care, not even a little. I'm sorry that it takes someone like Trump to break the spell of silence the Left is forever weaving around us. I wish a man like Reagan would come along and accomplish the same thing with more wit and grace. But that was another culture. History deals the cards it deals; we just play them. Trump is what we've got.
For all the bad language, for all the loose talk, I would rather hear a man speak as a man without fear of the Nurse Ratcheds in the press and the academy than have him neutered and gagged by a system of good manners that has been misused as a form of oppression. Better impoliteness than silence. Better crudeness than lies.
(Andrew Klavan, "Of Crudeness and Truth: Thoughts on President Trump's latest verbal tempest," City Journal, January 12, 2018)
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