I believe that the primary point of agreement among Tea Party adherents is a commitment to limited government. Is limited government a racist idea per se? Is it a racist idea in a country with a history of slavery and racism and therefore with much to correct? Is it possible that the desire for limited government is mainly motivated by the racial animus of self identified Tea Partiers? Does the existence of racism in a person or an institution require the existence of racial animus? If so, can it be demonstrated that it is Tea Partiers’ racial animus which causes them to desire limited government? Likewise, if racism requires animus, is it even possible to disprove the charge that the desire for limited government is motivated by racial animus? Motivations being such slippery things, how would you demonstrate this? Therefore, the party which has the burden of proof on the issue of animus and therefore racism, either in the affirmative or negative, will necessarily fail. If the burden is upon the Tea Partiers to prove pure motives then the limited government movement can never be rid of the label “racist.” Limited government Tea Party types must consequently accept the label of racist and understand that they can only overcome it in the eyes of their opponents by renouncing their limited government ideas.
Next question. Is it morally wrong to advocate the definitionally “racist” policy of limited government? If there is no burden of proof on those asserting racial animus as the motivating factor in the limited government movement, then the very term “racist” loses much if not all of its moral opprobium. If racism is not a matter of morality but only of policy, then being accused of racism should lose its painful sting and disqualifying connotation. If there is no evidence of racial animus but only evidence of racially disparate impact of limited government policies, then a Tea Partier can simultaneously be a racist and a good person.
The following exchange between Keith Olbermann and a Princeton professor points out the distinction between racism based upon disparate racial impact and racism based upon racial animus [Unfortunately the link to this Olberman interview with Princeton Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, which perfectly makes my point, has been removed and is no longer on the net, I will continue searching for it. I am adding a link to an Olberman interview with NAACP Ben Jealous who himself, around the last minute and a half of the interview, concedes that there is a difference between Selma/Birmingham racism and the “racism” which is espoused by people other than David Duke.]:
It appears to me that the divide between the NAACP and the Tea Parties is their respective worldviews. A worldview is neither a fact or an opinion but a context or point of view? If someone disagrees with your worldview they are not necessarily, by this fact, liars or morons. Substantial evidence should be required to damn them as morally defective!
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a democratic US Senator from New York, famously observed that:
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
At first blush Moynihan seems right but upon reflection I’m not so sure. To what extent is our worldview based upon accepted and demonstrable facts and to what extent upon our own life experience and our own emotions? Can one worldview be deemed right and the other wrong by application of facts and logic? Certainly the rightness and wrongness of worldviews are in the eyes of the holders of those worldviews since it is so much based upon each personal history and upbringing. The human ability to rationalize all contrary facts is unlimited and this is particularly true when one’s view of himself and his life is intimately affected by his assessment of the factual evidence. Therefore, there are very few statements which are indisputable enough to be referred to as the “facts” in Moynihan’s quote. We must be careful about labelling our opponents as anything other than as opponents.
As to the dominance of worldviews in regard to this issue, this blog returns to a poll reported by Rasmussen on June 24, 2010 in an article titled, 48 Percent See Government Today as a Threat to Individual Rights. It yields the following :
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.
Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.
What are we talking about? Is one side or the other lying about how they see the proper role of government? Can both be right and both wrong simultaneously? That this Rasmussen poll gives profound insight into the worldviews of the two sides seems inescapable. There is a fault line that runs through American politics which is based upon the view of whether government is a threat or an ally. This fault line is too deep to overcome by mere factual evidence.
The NAACP perceives Tea Party people as racists because they advocate policies which are not specially advantageous to members of racial minorities but are targeted at making the playing field level for all, a situation which in their worldview is the ultimate in correctness. Generally speaking, however, the average white is economically and institutionally better off than the average black or hispanic so whites begin the game with a head start. That there is “institutional racism” in our world is inescapable given the disparate impacts of existing structures on differently situated people. Therefore in the worldview of the typical black or hispanic citizen this may be viewed as a matter of racism since they start out with less institutional and economic power than most whites. The typical response of the white worldview to the worldview which holds these institutional advantages to be forms of racism is likely to be that their own ancestors started off with nothing when they came to this country and that wasn’t racist, it was just a fact of life which their respective immigrant groups overcame. The alternative worldview holder argues in response that they and their ancestors have been in this country for hundreds of years and that if their race were different they would certainly be economically and institutionally “equal” by now. The reason that they are not equal by now, they conclude, is that racism and its vestiges hold them down. Therefore, they say, they’re still entitled to the head start government intervention gives them. To which the typical Tea Party response is something like, I don’t care what happened hundreds of years ago, just start out on our level playing field and you and your children will get the economic benefits of existing institutions in due course. To do otherwise, they argue, the governmentally instituted advantages for minorities will effectively become permanent which may actually inhibit the disadvantaged from ever “catching up.” And so the argument goes on ad infinitum.
The point of this blog is that NAACP-style “outcomes racism” or “institutional racism” is not actively and causally connected with a demonstrable racial animus. This type of “racism” only requires proof of disparate racial impact for existence not proof of racially based feelings of superiority or inferiority. With this type of “definitional” racism what is really being talked about is political maneuvering for advantage and it cannot be properly considered a moral label. As such “racism” is a label which has everything to do with differences in worldview and little to do with human moral values. Remember that Majority Leader Reid was absolved of a charge of racism by reason of statements about President Obama’s “light skin” and lack of “Negro dialect” essentially because Reid had the right voting record. Apparently no visible moral taint on Reid’s moral character or reputation remains.
Contests between worldviews have always been the province of politics in this country, ever since the federalists and anti federalists squared off over the constitution more than 220 years ago, and so it goes.
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