Although his analysis of the Republican party is flawed - he doesn't even mention libertarians, who hated Jim Crow because it violated the liberties of both whites and blacks - his basic point is valid. The Republican Party has to be a "big tent" and build a coalition big enough to get majorities. Some people are going to be brought into that tent that other people in the tent don't like. I don't like Lott one bit. I welcome him as a member of the party, but he can't possibly serve as party leader. His public sentiments are offensive to 80% of Republicans and he's proven incompetent at building a 'bigger tent.' Leaders are made by their followers, and Lott ain't got none.

But Krauthammer's point is that there is a significant portion of the Party that is uniquely racist and follows not just Lott, but the unfortunate statements he made. While, on the other hand, the neocons are uniquely pure on racial issues. Which is a bunch of crap.

Not at all. Krauthammer's point is that a party "leader" has to articulate principles and ideas that the party rank-and-file believe in and can rally behind. Lott articulated a sentiment that is directly contrary to the principles of his party, indeed to the very "Spirit of 1776" that is the animating spirit conservatives are trying to conserve. Then, when numerous conservatives pled with Lott to come out with a vigorous rejection of segregation and defense of liberty and equality under the law, he refused (see John McWhorter's article - I'll search for a link). In doing so Lott rejected the whole philosophical basis for the Republican coalition. I saw nothing in Krauthammer's article accusing rank-and-file Republicans of racism. I see him accusing Lott of articulating views that contradict Republican principles and offend Republicans.

Sorry, it was Shelby Steele
I was thinking of:



I was approached by people close to the senator for advice on an appropriate apology. There was real desperation in their voices . . .



They asked for language, so I gave them what I wanted to hear: "I loathe segregation and racism with everything in me. This loathing is, for me, the starting point of human decency." "He won't do all this," one of them said. "Then he should go down," I said.

"neoconservatives were particularly appalled by Lott's endorsement"



He's claiming all goodness for neocons. But the funniest part is his explanation of how the parting of the ways between neocons and blacks came with affirmative action, but for exclusively ideological reasons. In point of fact, affirmative action has an especially negative impact on Jews, by limiting their openings available to them in elite educational institutions in favor of other minorities. Now, there is an ideological component to their opposition, but there's also a racial/ethnic component. Odd that he feels comfortable tarring everybody except for neocons with the latter.

As Schopenhauer said, "Every man takes the limits of his own field of

vision for the limits of the world." I'm willing to cut Krauthammer some slack for being egocentric. Similarly it doesn't bother me if Jewish neocons re-examined their positions when they became hurt by them. It's not surprising that people may awake to an injustice that strikes millions when it strikes themselves. What's important is not what prodded them awake, but what they do once they recognize it. Krauthammer is fighting for justice for everyone.

So long as Israel remains a distinctively Jewish state.

pj:



Please use paragraphs.



Eyes hurt.

Well, is there any realistic prospect that Israeli Jews would be treated justly under Palestinian rule? Isn't, then, preserving the Zionist state a prerequisite for justice?

Yes, just as preserving a white Rhodesia and South Africa were prerequisites and just as Southern whites may have felt that preserving a white South was a prerequisite. I'm just suggesting that the neocons hands aren't clean here.

I don't think a beliefs-test for immigration is the same as a skin-color-test for employment, taxation, and rights of citizens. Israel is composed of people of all racial and ethnic groups, and Israeli citizens are free to be atheists, Muslims, or hold whatever beliefs they want. What's wrong with Israel limiting the right to naturalize to Jews? The United States requires immigrants to pass a civics test and to pledge support for the Constitution, no one compares this to apartheid.

pj:





Except that Jewish clerics restrict Judaism to those born of Jewish mothers, so conversion is not a possibility.

Conversion is entirely possible and, although there is constant talk about changing it, the last I checked the law of return took a very broad view of who is a Jew, including non-orthodox converts.

It appears to be an open question as to whether they are Jews: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/convert.html

No one doubts that conversion is possible, the only question is whether non-orthodox conversions should be recognized in Israel. At the moment, non-orthodox converts qualify under the law of return, as do many non-Jews, and they can also be registered as a Jew on their identity cards.

"at the moment..."



And it still brings us back to the core question: would neocons support the concept of Israel becoming a majority Arab state, as uniting Palestine and Israel and then allowing demographics and immigration to run their course would make inevitable?



I know I wouldn't.

According to the Federalist Papers, in small states there is grave danger of some faction taking over. That is one reason for objecting to an Israel the same size and place as now but both democratic and with open borders (one or the other is possible). There is the strong possibility of Arabs taking over in that case.



That was not a problem in Release 1.0 of Zionism, which was based on a Jewish homeland in a small corner of the Ottoman Empire. (Herzl was from Austria--Hungary and might have regarded multinational empires as the natural way of doing things.) That even explains such oddities as the Jewish National Fund or the Histadrut which make sense in a Jewish corner but not in a Jewish state. On the other hand, the Ottoman Empire collapsed and its successor the British Empire proved unreliable. (After considering British policies in Ireland, India, and Israel, I decided that the British have used colonial administration as a form of occupational therapy for the mentally retarded.)



Maybe the best solution is for Israel to become a U.S. state. (The Jewish nature of the area could be guaranteed by the Jewish National Fund.) It will, of course, be necessary to have a religion-friendly Supreme Court.



This entire problem may be rendered moot by the declining birth rates among Arabs or even the possibility that they will convert back to Judaism.

oj, don't tell me you're joining the "Israel = Apartheid" crowd. There is a difference between border control and segregation. Or do you think American attempts to control immigration over the Mexican border are racist? The idea of uniting Israel and the territories is as absurd as considering uniting the US with Mexico. If the Palestinians demand the right to citizenship in Israel they will not get it because they have no right to citizenship, not because of racism.

"But Krauthammer's point is that there is a significant portion of the Party that is uniquely racist and follows not just Lott, but the unfortunate statements he made. "



And that's exactly the problem. The Repubicans need to purge the party of the likes of Lott and his adherents. President Bush was real clear about this in what he said about Sen. Lott's speech and what it meant. If the Rev. King were alive today, he'd shake the President's hand.

scott:



Yes, I do think maintaining a distinctly Jewish state is similar to apartheid, but I still favor it. I think it's perfectly acceptable for Israel to make Judaism the focus of the state.



I also think much of the anti-Mexican fervor is racist, and that the desire to keep them out is far more problematic in the U.S., because our foundational principles are much different than Israel's.

Brooks:



Purge? Why do they have to pay for their nostalgia for the past, even if it was a racist past, yet those who advocate equally (or more) abominable cultural practices are welcome? After all, one side or another is wrong (in the sense that societal consensus will solidify closer to 80% than to 50% down the road) on issues like homosexuality, pederasty, treatment of animals, abortion, cloning, etc? Ten years from now it be necessary to drive out of the party those who look back longingly at the U.S. in its pre-Roe v. Wade era, because they ended up on the wrong side of women's rights?

Brooks - People like Lott have to be purged from leadership
positions, but not from the party. The Republican Party is a coalition to achieve political ends, just as the war against terror is a coalition against Islamofascists. Should the US purge Germany from the coalition against Iraq for its arms dealing with Saddam, purge France for its anti-Semitism, purge Turkey for its corruption, purge Kuwait and Jordan for being dictatorships, purge Pakistan for its support of terrorists? In the same way Lott is not the least bit objectionable as a member of the Republican coalition, though he is unfit to be leader.

There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart, a desire of distinction, which inclines every man to hope, and then to believe, that nature has given

himself something peculiar to himself.

-Samuel Johnson