Tom Kratman Puts It All in Perspective

For the latest on the Robert Stacy McCain-Patrick "Patterico" Frey racism debate, check out McCain's "Dear JSF", Patterico's "Must One 'Intend' to be Racist to Say Something That is Racist?", Jeff Goldstein's "'Unintentional Racism' and the failure of formalism", and "Scandal - Why it is Bad" by Enoch_Root at Piece of Work in Progress.

There really isn't much more I can say that I have not already said in my previous two entries, "The McCain Defamation" and "The McCain Mutiny". If anything good comes of this, hopefully it will be an end to the "Robert Stacy McCain is racist" meme and a realization that allegations of racism should not be made cavalierly. A forlorn sentiment, I know, but a man can dream.

As to the title of this entry, last night Tom Kratman - military science fiction writer, author of The Tuloriad (his latest book, reviewed on this blog two months ago), and a regular reader and commenter of mine - posted a comment that succinctly sums up what conservatives face when dealing with the charge of racism:

This is my standard answer to a charge of racism:

The Left's 20 Rules of Racism:

1. If you believe that general intelligence exists, is heritable and at all testable for, you're a racist.

2. If you point out that liberal philosophies and programs intended to have a good impact have had a disproportionately bad impact on the ethnicities targeted by liberals, you're a racist.

3. If you notice that other cultures have some problems, you're a racist.

4. If you notice your own culture has had some successes, you're a racist.

5. If you try to identify subcultural problems, you're a racist. If the problems existed or got worse under liberalism, see item 2, above.

6. If you're mainstream American culture, and don't hate that culture, you're a racist.

7. If you're capable of noting unpleasant facts about subcultures and discussing them without your brain fogging, you're a racist.

8. If you won't kowtow and grovel as soon as someone accuses you of racism for one of the reasons above or below, you're a hopeless racist.

9. If you do not believe that mankind is a tabula rasa for liberals to make whatever they think would be good to make of man, this week, you're a racist.

10. If you don't take personal responsibility for all the evils of slavery, you're a racist. This is true even if you only arrived from Poland last week.

11. If you're white, you're a racist.

12. If you're white and just arrived from Poland last week and don't accept that you're a racist, you're a racist.

13. If you try to interject logical thought into a discussion of culture, you're a racist.

14. If you refuse to admit culture is a racial matter, and a liberal wants to conflate the two, you're a racist.

15. If you believe that race and culture are indistinguishable and a liberal decides that you shouldn't conflate the two, you're a racist.

16. If you believe that black or Hispanic girls who are paid by liberal inspired programs from the age of 13 to have babies will have babies, you're a racist.

17. If you believe that _any_ girls of whatever color who are paid to have babies will then have babies but then, insensitively, observe that a smaller percentage of white girls do, certainly because they haven't been targeted for as much "help" from liberals, you're a racist.

18. If it doesn't bother you that the truth offends liberals, you're a racist.

19. If your name is Tom Kratman and you write and in your writing your heroes and heroines tend to be from minorities while your villains are white liberals, you're still a racist.

20. If you read The Bell Curve, you're a racist. On the other hand, if you didn't read it but wrote a scathing review on Amazon anyway you might not be a racist provided you take personal responsibility for 300 years of slavery even if you just arrived from Poland last week.

The left flings the charge of racism with reckless abandon not because they care about eradicating its existence, but because they want to silence conservative dissent. As conservatives, we must never allow that to happen.

***

In other news, Robert Stacy McCain is asking readers to hit his tip jar so he can do some in-person reporting from the BCS Championship in Pasadena, California next month. I hope he's able to make the trip, though I can't imagine why he's so eager to see the Alabama Crimson Tide get stomped like a roach at a clog dance by the Texas Longhorns...