Death by Liberalism

Dunn’s Done Well
A review of J. R. Dunn’s Death by Liberalism:
 The Fatal Outcome of Well-Meaning Liberal Policies (New York: 2011)
Reviewed by Hugh Murray

            J. R. Dunn has written a wide-ranging indictment of liberalism, contending that it is murderous.  He notes that American liberals showed that malice is NOT necessary for democide (government-sponsored killing), just carelessness, arrogance, and ineptitude.  However, Dunn provides sufficient evidence to demonstrate that liberals are indeed motivated by malice, along with guilt/shame, anti-white racism.

            It is easier to view Dunn’s larger picture of liberalism by analyzing his final chapters first.  Dunn provides excellent quotations from environmentalists who have concluded that the main cause of the earth’s problems is over population.  Their solution is simple: depopulation.  So one environmentalist concludes that the problem is a “plague of people.”(p. 244)  We must systematically reduce the world’s population from 7 billion down to about 2 billion.  Objections?  One was disappointed because the AIDS epidemic had killed so few.   Another responded, “Who misses all those who died in the Second World War?...the 20 million executed by Stalin?...Hitler’s six million Jews?”(245)  Who indeed?  Surely such environmentalists reveal a malice toward 5 billion living humans and millions of the dead.  Dunn concludes that with such environmentalists “the human race has been downgraded to the status of universal pest.”(246) 

            It is not liberal “compassion,” but liberal malice that is its major modern attribute.  This can be illustrated by the liberal war against the generally harmless, effective DDT.  It is the best insecticide for exterminating disease-infecting mosquitoes.  After DDT was banned, about 500,000 Third Worlders died due to malaria.  Most would have lived had DDT killed the mosquitoes.  Instead, sick and dying humans who had been infected by mosquitoes caused decades of deadly “silent summers” in the Third World.  Blame the compassionate liberals for these mass deaths.  And in America today we experience the resurgence of the bed bug, a pest nearly wiped from our shores by earlier, effective use of DDT.  As bed bugs return, people suffer not only from bites, but possibly some revived epidemic because of the new bed bug infestations.

            The malice of the liberal government is displayed in other areas too.  For asthma sufferers, the best medication has been a small, light-weight inhaler that the afflicted may personally apply when necessary.  Because these inhalers contain a miniscule amount of fluorocarbons, the US Government demands their prohibition in order to prevent expansion of the ozone hole.  (The science that these inhalers affect the ozone hole is questionable, and even whether the hole simply waxes and wanes with the seasons.)  However, there is little question that denying asthmatics these inhalers will cause suffering and possibly deaths.  That a person who is suffocating and cannot breathe should be denied assistance from the inhaler is another example of liberal “compassion.”  I call it malice.  Malice and murder.

            In order to reduce reliance on oil during the shortage of the 1970s, the government encouraged and then required American automakers to produce smaller, lighter cars.  The policy did save gasoline, but for those involved in accidents, they paid with their lives.  The liberal government traded gas for lives.  President Obama now expands of this policy.  Ironically, some of the same crowd who shouted no lives for oil in wars in the Middle East, may be causing more American deaths by requiring fuel-efficient, lighter automobiles that can be deadly in accidents.  Unfortunately, in the US there is little discussion of this crash policy.

            Some types of asbestos are quite toxic, but most are not so dangerous.  Yet, the asbestos scare, and the hurried removal of the insulation from so many schools, offices, and public buildings probably left more asbestos in the vicinity and in the air to be inhaled.  Dunn believes it would have been safer, and less expensive, if most asbestos buildings had been left intact.

            Liberals are intent upon shoving America into a new Dark Age with the upcoming prohibition of incandescent light bulbs.  If one of the recommended mercury bulbs breaks, the instructions on the removal of the toxic mercury are so complex that television host Glenn Beck made a comedy routine by trying to follow their directions.  Meanwhile, America will pay higher prices for dimmer lights.

            Some liberal environmentalists, viewing humans as pests, responded by unleashing real pests upon us.  Bring back the grizzly bears, restore the coyotes, reintroduce the cougars, wolves, alligators, etc.  Encourage them to do what they naturally do.  And ignore the cries of angry people when they report the killing of their pet dogs or cats, the death of their infants, the mauling of their daughters.  Compassionate liberalism must not yield to such emotions.

            The liberals, including those like Republican Governor Rockefeller of New York, sought to close those “horrible” insane asylums.  Despite the romanticizing of the crazies in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and the demonizing of Nurse Ratchet and those others who sought to restrict the mentally ill, the great liberal experiment of releasing the unstable has failed.  It is such a flop that many of the homeless (who even have no flop-houses) and many in prisons are simply the thousands of refugees who lost asylums when mental institutions closed.  Groups like the ACLU have prevented the sick from receiving mental treatment while unleashing and inflicting the crazies on to every public spot in urban America.  Life in America has become intolerable for the poor, honest, and sane who cannot afford to reside in gated communities and posh suburbs.  The poor must endure the loss of their parks, trains stations, and sidewalks, or share them with shouting crazies who may turn violent at any moment.  Meanwhile, the mentally sick suffer the loss of their space while they seek to survive in a hostile world.  No wonder, some of the sanest among them choose to go to jail.

            Dunn has a terrific chapter in simple English on the major problems of Britain’s National Health Service, Canada’s Medicare, and Australia’s Medicare.  His point is that the compassionate liberals who enacted Obamacare are leading us down the same unhealthy, socialist path.  For example, in the UK in 1948, at the onset of the NHS, Britain had 480,000 hospital beds and a staff of 350,000.  By 2008 there were only 160,000 beds and a staff of 1,368,000!  Will Obamacare work any better in the US?

            Dunn has chapters on other topics, like abortion, medically assisted suicides, and other topics, too.

            His weakest chapter is that on crime.  Dunn does mention race here and there, but he fails to understand race as the core reason that brought about America’s change in attitudes toward crime, criminals, and the right to defend oneself.

            First, in the early 1960s the newly expanded television news programs pictured a new type of criminal: the well-dressed, well-behaved individuals who openly defied certain laws they deemed wrong and immoral.  The lunch-counter sit-ins occurred almost daily somewhere and were seen on the nightly newscasts.  Sometimes cameras also presented scenes of those opposed  as they spat, cursed, yelled, and even beat the peaceful protestors.  True, the Montgomery bus boycott occurred earlier in the 1950s, but the story lacked emotion because there were no cameras when Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat.  Moreover, the pictures of bus stops where no one enters the bus are hardly exciting television.  The crowds screaming in Little Rock at the few Blacks who sought to integrate Central High in 1957 was riveting news fare, but the story came and went.  It was the sit-ins that sparked a nation-wide movement, and one in which most of the viewing public sympathized with the “criminals.”  Indeed, by the end of the 60s, the media had portrayed sheriffs of the South as sinister villains, criminals worse than those who had violated the law.

            Meanwhile, the non-violent protests at lunch-counters were followed in 1961 by non-violent Freedom Riders, and non-violent marchers, and children attempting to attend integrated schools.  Much of America was becoming more sympathetic to the “criminals,” and more critical of both the law and the law-enforcers.

            First, then, one had the change in the images of the “criminals,” and of law-enforcement, and indeed of the law itself.  In 1963 the large, non-violent March on Washington sought to pressure the government to pass civil rights legislation.  A few months later, following the shocking assassination of President Kennedy, pressure increased, and in July 1964 the Civil Rights Act was enacted, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission created to enforce it.  Equal opportunity was the name of the game.

            But it soon became clear; most Blacks were not equal to the task.  When objective standards were used, few Blacks could compete with whites for jobs, promotions, university admissions, or scholarships.  Many Blacks believed they were being discriminated against even after passage of the Civil Rights Act.  Their anger rose as riots raged.

            These race riots of the mid-to-late 1960s included sacking of stores, setting ablaze trash cans, autos, buildings.  It also meant beating whites or anyone who sought to thwart the mob.  Police now were targeted as “pigs,” and some were killed trying to keep order.  Government responded with blue-ribbon panels like the Kerner Commission, which blamed the violence – not on the rioters - but on “underlying factors” like insufficient numbers of Black police, insufficient numbers of Black reporters, and more generally, white racism.

            The elites, now fully aware that equal opportunity would not help that many Blacks move up, behind the scenes colluded with the EEOC, The media, and the courts to destroy the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by turning it on its head: Equal Opportunity now meant preferences for Blacks (and later, other pet groups) and the denial of Equal Opportunity of white men; no hiring for racial balance was now to mean hire for racial balance; and the CR Act that had banned quotas was now used to require quotas – only calling them goals and timetables, or later diversity.  While most Americans had accepted the notion of equal opportunity for all embedded in the CR Act, few were aware of the maneuvers behind the scenes, that were destroying this policy, and in an Orwellian manner, requiring the opposite of what the act proclaimed.(For more on this process, see my "White Male Privilege: A Social Construct for Political Oppression").  Republican President Nixon essentially made affirmative action and racial balance national policy.

            The underlying principle upon which the new policies were framed was that of proportionalism, racial balance, and quotas.  If Blacks did not have a certain percentage on the police force, it must be due to racism.  Testing, in which few Blacks could compete, had to be abandoned or so watered down that almost all taking the test could be declared “qualified,” and then the administrators would hire by quota among the “qualified.”  Similarly, physical testing, in which few women could compete to be firefighters, had to be abandoned or so watered down that almost all taking the test could be declared “qualified,” and then the administrators would hire by quota.  And this process extended throughout society.  The current fashionable term for this proportionalism is diversity.

            The notion of proportionalism, diversity, has been absorbed into the liberal idea of justice.  If Blacks did not have the same percentage in college as whites, the cause of the disparity must be racism.  If women were underrepresented in the sciences, it was due to sexism.  If Hispanics were underrepresented among bank CEO’s; racism.  Even today the media, using statistics of underrepresentation of this group or that, expose “racism” and “sexism” almost weekly.

            So why are Blacks so overrepresented in jails?  It must be racism.

            I worked in a court and people would come to my window.  I would ask, ”Why are you here.”  “Driving while Black” was the quick retort, shouted so all could hear.  Their response implied that the only reason they were in court was because of the racism of the patrolmen.  Some years ago liberals in New Jersey charged the state police with ticketing more Blacks than whites because of racism.  Statistics verified that a higher percentage of Blacks were issued tickets.  However, cameras were installed at many major traffic stops, and the photos showed a much higher percentage of the violators were dark-skinned.

            In Cincinnati and from time to time other areas reports surface of alleged racism in schools because the percentage of Blacks expelled, suspended, or reprimanded is higher than that of whites.  What if a higher percentage of Blacks are disruptive in schools?  Expel more innocent whites?  Lower the standards so fewer disruptive Blacks are expelled, thereby making classroom teaching impossible?  The courts have less interest in teaching quality than in avoiding charges of racism.  The government's chosen policy is evident by the fact that now many public schools have metal detectors.

            Though some Americans may oppose the death penalty on religious or ethical grounds, I doubt if this is the case for liberals.  They oppose it because most of the accused are Blacks.  Surely, a higher percentage of Blacks than whites are convicted of murder.  Dunn includes the 1972 decision of the US Supreme Court banning the death penalty as “cruel and inhuman” punishment.  (Note that all of the justices swear to uphold the Constitution of the US, and the Constitution itself prescribes the death penalty for certain crimes.  But to liberals, a Constitution can mean anything the justices decide it to mean.  Just like “equal opportunity” now means preferences for favored minorities and a majority, women, and discrimination against white men.)  The high court later permitted the death penalty, but only after many expenditures had been made by the prosecution.  In 1987 liberals sought to disrupt things again by claiming there was disparity in treatment of those who had murdered whites and those who had murdered Blacks.  This time, a slightly more conservative court rejected the liberals’ charge of racism by a slim 5-4 margin.  If murderers of Blacks (mainly Black) were to receive the death penalty at the same rate as those who murder whites, then death rows would be overwhelmingly Black, and new charges of racism about the penalty would ensue.

            While Dunn places much of the change in attitudes toward crime in the 1960s on the theories of sociologists, social workers, and Karl Menninger, in stressing treatment and rehabilitation for the criminal, I would suggest the theories were less important than the media’s changing depiction of race in the 1960s

            1) Some “criminals” like Martin Luther King, Jr. and civil rights activists were really heroes; conversely, come sheriffs and police were sinister, brutal racists.

            2) Urban ghettos were like colonies with few rights.  The white police were like an occupation army.  Blacks had a right to seek power in their communities (like Gold Coast, Nigeria, and other African colonies were doing in the 1950s and 60s in achieving independence from Britain.)  Making the comparisons, Blacks had a right to seek power in their American communities, even if it meant destroying white-owned shops, firing white autos, and firing on white police and civilians.  Therefore, riots were justified, and crimes (riots in slow motion) were justified also.

            3) Because the crimes were justified, if caught, and if prosecuted (two big ifs, after the Miranda and similar help-the-perpetrator rulings), criminals should received the lightest possible sentencing.  Prisons lost population, while those in community service, on parole, and in rehab of some sort rose.  Of course, crime was skyrocketing.

            Dunn is good at showing the change of view as to the “victim.”  The violent criminal (if Black) was now seen as a victim: of society, poverty, racism.  Meanwhile the victim of that criminal (often white) was dismissed as an oppressor, deserving of the broken arm, the cut eye, or whatever damage the perpetrator had inflected.  It became ever more dangerous to be around Blacks.  If whites lived near them and moved out, they were judged racists, fleeing to the suburbs.  If too poor to move, and continued to reside near Blacks, they might be beaten, burgled, and some in the family killed.  (See some of Jack Cashill’s writings about growing up in his integrated neighborhood in Newark, and what happened in the late 1960s.  But he is a poor white, so the elites of both parties can dismiss his approach.  Of course, the liberals have made Newark what it is today – and Detroit, and …)

            Dunn asserts that Blacks suffered most from the pro-crime policies of the liberals.  I dispute that.  True, poor and honest Blacks left in ghettos dominated by drug-dealing gangs did duffer.  But white refugees from liberal Urbania, who earned little and had suffered physical or mental scars, would receive no special preferences, no special scholarships, for minorities, no affirmative action admissions, no pro-minority jobs, no…no.

            Dunn estimates that the cost of liberal crime reforms is 265,000 deaths.  I suspect the figure is higher.  I also urge readers to look again at Jared Taylor’s Paved with Good Intentions, especially his chapters on crime.  Also check the internet work, The Color of Crime to evaluate the role of race and crime.  I suspect if Dunn had stressed the importance of race, his book might not have been published by an imprint of Harper Collins.

            Despite my quibbling here and there, Dunn has written a book with a wide scope.  It is easy to read, and provokes thought.  It should be widely read.