Michael Anton is the Thomas Paine of our times. He is an impassioned neo-pamphleteer on behalf of what conservatives believe is the essential America. His style is very much “take no prisoners” and “damn the redcoats,” although the enemy’s color this time around happens to be blue.
Writing for The American Mind from the Claremont Institute, he points out that blue America cannot permit red America to continue to exist. The “blue view” Anton describes is very much in the flavor of the repudiated-in-1965 Roman Catholic doctrine Error non habet ius, “error has no rights.” He observes:
Part of the practical point seems to be to distinguish what John Derbyshire calls goodwhites from badwhites. Only the latter are infected with “whiteness,” or at least refuse to repudiate it. The former, though still white, feel sufficiently guilty about that and are eager to be good “allies” by making amends.
But none of this matters for present purposes. The point under consideration is: what do badwhites hear? What’s the message of “Critical Race Theory”—which, as we know, (a) doesn’t exist, (b) is only the routine teaching of accurate history, and (c) is absolutely crucial to fairness and justice in contemporary education?
Here’s what they hear: you (and your children) are evil because of your race, because of what your ancestors did or are alleged to have done—and for what you have done and continue to do. Even if you think you’re innocent, at the very least you benefit from a system designed to help you unfairly at the expense of others. And, let’s face it, you’re not innocent. You may not be able to name your specific sins—the guilty always insist they’re innocent—but just ask us; we’ll tell you. There’s no way for you or your progeny to escape this guilt or discharge your debt. You earned none of what you have. Everything you believe you or your ancestors built, you didn’t. Either that, or your “accomplishments” are merely cogs in an oppressive system and must be entirely remade. Your heroes were in fact villains. Their statues must come down and anything memorializing them renamed. There is nothing in your past of which to be proud, only ashamed. Your proper place in the new order is one of permanent penance and subservience. And your refusal to confess is further evidence of your guilt.
Somewhere the ghosts of Torquemada and his fellow inquisitors nod approvingly. They’ve heard this blues song before, they know the lyrics: error has no rights, it must be extirpated.
