THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

The rise of black militants in the late 1960s changed more than the word "Negro." It also exposed how humiliating the whole liberal approach to integration had been. Please see February 9, 2002 - WHITE ANTIRACISM IS REALLY VERY RACIST.

Militants pointed out that "Negro" just meant a dark white man and blacks only goal was to mix with whites. It has always been true that leftists look upon blacks as more sub-human than Klansmen do, but Stokeley Carmichael and other militant blacks shouted that out for the world to hear.

By the 1960s, when Susan Sontag declared the open and honest liberal position that "the white race is the cancer of history," the blacks she depended on to get rid of whites were showing signs of having some purposes of their own.

The "Abolish Whites" Movement was being threatened by Black Pride.

One secret that liberals are desperate to keep is just how tiny the actual membership of liberal organizations is. The national press refers to the National Organization for Women as "the women's movement," but its membership is tiny compared to that of conservative women's' groups.

If it were not for respectable conservatives, this secret would be out. Keeping this sort of thing secret is one of the major services professional conservatives do for the liberal cause (See May 8 article, "Armed Switzerland and the Colorado Shootings").

One of the best-kept secrets that respectable conservatives help liberals keep is the sheer size of the National Rifle Association. When liberals talk about the power of the "leadership of the National Rifle Association," respectables sit there trying to find some way to apologize. When liberals say that the only thing blocking gun control is the big money of the NRA, respectable conservatives try to think of something irrelevant to say.

Recently, on CNN, I heard a respectable conservative supporting Bush say, "You don't run against the NRA for the Republican presidential nomination." He embraced the liberal characterization of all opposition to gun control as emanating from a small, well-financed conspiracy called "the NRA."

The fight against gun confiscation is the most solidly grassroots movement in this country. It is supported by the millions in the NRA, and by tens of millions who aren't.

It is typical of the Bush camp to dismiss all opposition to gun control in this inside-the-beltway manner.

In the real world, what makes the NRA so powerful is that it is huge. I have been in politics for many years, and there is simply no other organization with the titanic grassroots membership, the paying and active membership, that the NRA has. This fact would be murder if any conservative, including Pat Buchanan, ever mentioned it.

Back when I last looked, the NRA had three million paying members, and membership is expensive. There is simply no other organization to compare to that, and certainly none on the LEFT. If any of the people we pay to represent us ever did the math, they would realize that that means that there is an average of almost SEVEN HUNDRED NRA members in EACH congressional district!

How much difference can seven hundred active people make in a congressional campaign?

The "pressure" that congressmen are bowing to is grassroots pressure. That is exactly the sort of "pressure" an organization called the House of REPRESENTATIVES is supposed to yield to.

And you only read that here.

Respectable conservatives are our real enemies.

Back while the Soviets were still occupying Hungary, I was listening to a tour guide in Budapest.

At that time everybody still remembered that the Soviet Army had brought in troops from the Orient to crush the 1956 Budapest uprising.

No one in Soviet-occupied Budapest dared mention the 1956 slaughter. So I was wondering if Hungarian hatred of the Soviet occupation might come up the way things do come up in totalitarian societies, in an underground joke.

It did. At one point the Hungarian guide pointed across the river where there was an old fortress with a huge hammer and sickle on it.

That place with the hammer and sickle, said our Hungarian guide, had been the Turkish center of power when the Turks occupied the other side of the river. The Turkish cruelty centered in that tower was legendary. It was a strong fort, but none of the many armies who occupied Budapest since then had ever used that fort. The Turks had such a horrible reputation that that hideous site had been left unoccupied.

Then, the guide went on, in the late 1950s the people of Budapest had made that old Turkish fort into a memorial to Soviet troops who died "liberating Budapest." The Soviets were very proud of this touching tribute and Soviet troops visited it regularly.

I caught myself, once again, laughing out loud. As always, everybody else looked at me like I had a tulip growing out of my forehead. The guide didn't laugh either, though I think her look was very friendly.

Everybody in Budapest understood the joke except the Politically Correct ones. The ancient sign of unimaginable tyranny had been reopened by the people of Budapest with a huge hammer and sickle on it. The Politically Correct Soviets saw nothing funny about that. The Politically Correct European and American college graduates around me saw nothing funny about that.

I have never met an intelligent Hungarian who was not in on the joke. Except the Marxists, of course, and I did say "intelligent"?

Dru Sjodin was the lovely young blue-eyed blond who was kidnapped and murdered by the repeat, "Level Three" sex offender recently. He was able to kill her because lawyers and judges put him back on the street.

Radicals like me want people like that executed or at least locked up and not let back on the streets.

The biggest liberal lobby in America is the Trial Lawyers' Association, which wants to stop radicals like me from changing the legal game that killed Dru Sjodin. They make their living off of that legal game. They say I am a radical and an extremist.

So they call me a conservative.

The Soviet Empire never had better friends than American "liberals." But now those in Russia who want to bring Russia back to Communism, the Russian Communist Party, are called "the conservatives."

Respectable conservatives make their living by opposing the political left in ways that the political left approves of. If they are to appear on the media, conservatives must earn that "respectable" label, and they get it by pleasing liberals.

One of the rules every respectable conservative must obey is to say that a debate is fair if it includes someone called a conservative and a leftist. Jess Jackson says that is "Both Sides."

So if you are opposing a person who calls himself a "progressive," you are a "conservative."

But liberals are the ones who insist that things remain exactly as they are right now. They want the tax-deductible foundations they run to remain tax-exempt. They want no change in the legal system. They want colleges to keep their government-sponsored monopoly so university tuitions can go higher and higher and liberal professors can be paid to push their agenda in the name of "academic freedom."

Listen to the debates. You will notice that it is the liberals who are the conservatives, and anyone who wants to change things as they are is called a conservative.