THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

John McCain was on CNN, continuing his campaign to be the liberals' favorite conservative. McCain has begun to abandon his Western conservative, pro-gun position.

But McCain went further. He said that the solution to gun violence wasn't ONLY the suppression of gun ownership. McCain said that gun restrictions were not enough. He wants to push another, deadlier liberal initiative.

Another thing that is to blame for gun violence, says McCain, is the fact that "Hate" sites are allowed on the Internet. What liberal could possibly disagree with that? Liberals say they favor freedom of speech, but not if it promotes "HATE."

Liberals want to ban "Hate" sites, but they would not ban pornography sites. Why? Liberals say we cannot ban pornographic sites because my definition of pornography is different from yours. So, they say, who's to judge what is pornographic?

So if this is true, then who is to judge what "Hate" is?

Liberals, of course.

Liberals routinely refer to Rush Limbaugh and Gordon Liddy as Hate Radio. By using the same word as liberals, McCain infers that he will join them in banning these "Hate" sites, too. How exactly are we to limit what liberals can ban?

Do you think any respectable conservative is going to have brains or guts enough to demand that a liberal DEFINE what Hate is?

No way, Jose.

Respectable conservatives are always agreeing with liberals that "racism" must be stamped out totally, no matter what the cost. As I have repeatedly pointed out, NO CONSERVATIVE HAS EVER HAD THE COURAGE TO DEMAND THAT A LIBERAL DEFINE EXACTLY WHAT HE MEANS BY "RACISM"!

All liberals have to do is use a word and respectable conservatives will give them anything they want. Leftists just declare they are stamping out anything they choose to call Hate, and that they are for Love and Brotherhood, and no respectable conservative dares to question them.

After all, if you ask for definitions or any other reality check, you are labeled anaziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews. Labels are more important than anything else to respectable conservatives.

Respectable conservatives are desperate to be accepted by liberals. They want to believe whatever will make them acceptable to liberals. Here we have the essence of Wordism.

Wordism is the opposite of nationalism. A Wordist believes that people can be united only if they believe the right thing, if they accept the right words as the Only True Faith. A Communist is a Wordist. A fanatical Catholic or a fanatical Protestant is a Wordist. A Politically Correct person is a Wordist. A Wordist is a person who believes he has The Only True Belief, and that you must believe in his words to belong to his nation (See May 15 article, "Wordism").

There are tens of THOUSANDS of forms of Wordism. There are thousands of religions, and each religion has its Wordists, people whose only serious loyalty is to that religion. They are the opposite of nationalists. There are thousands of secular philosophies. Every philosophy has its Wordists. There are thousands of political philosophies. Every political philosophy has its Wordists. And every one of those Wordists believes that he has The Only True, Universal Faith.

Nationalism is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of birth. Wordism is a matter of OPINION. If you say that America is nothing but some words in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, you are saying America is just a matter of opinion (Please see October 31, 1998, "Five Words and Emma Lazarus").

If America is a matter of opinion, then it must insist on Political Correctness. A country that is based on nothing but opinion cannot allow a diversity of opinions.

Nationalism is just the opposite. A nation does not require everybody to have a common opinion. People are part of a nation because of their birth -- the word "nation" is based on the Latin word for "birth." There may be immigrants, some adoptions into the family, but there is no such thing as "a nation of immigrants" (Please see July 3 article, "Why Wordists Love to Say 'That's What America Is All About'").

Because nationalism does not depend on opinion for its unity, a real nation can allow diversity of opinion. Unlike its exact opposite, Wordism, nationalism allows diversity of opinion within and variety without.

It never occurs to the people of a real nation that they are The Only True Nation. The fact that one is a nationalist presupposes that there are OTHER nations. My nationalism presupposes that mine is one of a number of legitimate nations into which the world is naturally divided.

People who recognize each other as fellow citizens of the same nation can accept enormous differences in religion. They can tolerate huge differences in every kind of belief and still work together as parts of the same nation. In the Confederate Army, the strongly Catholic French population of New Orleans fought side-by-side with the strongly Calvinist descendants of the Huguenots. We were all loyal to the Confederate States of America, and that was enough.

The bottom line is that a Wordist cannot allow serious dissent. If your unity is only based on a form of Wordism, no REAL disagreement can be allowed. Wordism means that everyone has to AGREE, or Wordist "unity" collapses. As leftism takes over America, you cannot be an American unless you are Politically Correct. Liberals keep saying that some form of Political Correctness is "what America is all about." As leftist Wordism takes over, they are perfectly correct. As people like McCain insist, America is no longer about freedom. It is all about Fighting Hate.

You cannot have Wordism or Universalism unless you are willing to use words like Hate and Racism to crush all serious disagreement.

To the Wordist, Love and Brotherhood means, "You agree with me." To liberals and to Senator John McCain, Hate means you disagree with Political Correctness. Liberals and respectable conservatives talk endlessly about "diversity." But the fact is that any real diversity, any diversity of THOUGHT, will eventually be labeled Hate, as in "Hate Radio."

The fact that nations can tolerate diverse opinions and the existence of other nations has been the basis of Western society. The slaughter and oppression of the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries only ended when the nation-state took over. In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Europe was almost destroyed. Wordist Catholics and Wordist Protestants tried to force The Only True Faith on each other, and TENS OF MILLIONS of people were slaughtered!

It is estimated that a quarter of the population of Germany died in the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, alone! If you represent the Only True Faith, you cannot tolerate the very existence of other opinions. Until the True Faiths lost power, and the nation-state took over, there could be no tolerance of other opinions.

Finally, the nation-states took over Europe, and the slaughter ended.

In the Middle East, the only form of identity is still religious identity. In the Middle East, the massacre of Sunni by Shiite, of Moslem by Christian, the life and death struggle of Jew and Islam, all continue. Nowhere on earth is there a more desperate need to get rid of the Wordist evil than in the Middle East. They need nations, and they need them desperately.

Whenever nationalism goes wrong, it is because nationalism has been perverted into Wordism. Hitler's "nationalism" was actually a Wordist philosophy. Like all forms of Universalism, like all forms of Wordism, it eventually had to rest on brute force. Hitler's National Socialism was The Only True Faith, so it could not tolerate other opinions.

In the Middle East, all the self-styled "nationalist" rulers claim to represent The Only True Faith, whatever form of Islam the dictator happens to favor. Whenever you find an evil form of nationalism, you will find it is actually some kind of Wordism.

The first thing any decent form of nationalism must do is to DUMP THE POLITICAL POPES. God be praised, Western nationalism outgrew this Political Papacy insanity over three centuries ago. It should be permanently banished to the Middle East where it belongs. Every decent person will pray that the Middle East, too, will grow out of it.