A Moral Universe Torn Apart

by Ben Shapiro

  And none of it mattered. The riots went forward as planned; the media steadfastly distributed its prewritten narrative of evil racist white cop murdering innocent young black man. President Obama stepped to the microphones to denounce American racism. He did not recapitulate the evidence; he did not condemn rioters and pledge that law enforcement would crack down on them. Instead, he said that protesters and rioters — all of them ignoring the fact that a white police officer had not murdered an innocent black man in cold blood — were justified in their rage.

  Indeed, the president said, they had feelings. And those feelings were legitimate, all evidence to the contrary. "There are Americans who agree with it, and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed, even angry. It's an understandable reaction," Obama said. What made disappointment and anger over an evidence-based verdict "understandable"? Obama explained: "There are still problems and communities of color aren't just making these problems up. Separating that from this particular decision, there are issues in which the law too often feels as if it is being applied in a discriminatory fashion."

  The key word: feels. Obama did not cite a single instance of the law being applied in a discriminatory fashion — because in Ferguson it was not. Instead, he made a general statement, of the sort leftists often make, that broad feelings of discontent must be inherently legitimate — because, after all, if people feel, those feelings must have a basis.

  Now, there are certainly individual instances of racism by law enforcement in American society. All such instances should be investigated and prosecuted. But to suggest, as President Obama and the media do, that such instances provide the basis for a justifiable and generalized feeling of discontent is to declare the war on racist activity unwinnable. We cannot fight a shadow-enemy. We can never overcome feelings on a public policy level.

  That is why President Obama and the left love discussing feelings. Talking about feelings avoids more difficult conversations about prosecuting individual cases or fighting crime. Feelingstalk means evidence becomes irrelevant because we need no evidence for our feelings — they are legitimized by virtue of their very being. Self-definition becomes societal definition: if I feel there's a social problem, there's a social problem. In fact, in Feelingstown, facts become insults: If facts debunk feelings, it is the facts that must lose.

  Truth is the first casualty of the feelings society; morality is the second.

  Civilization is the third. If feelings require no justification in order to receive the presidential seal of approval, we have moved beyond rational political debate. If those feelings require social change, problems become inherently unsolvable.

  And so, on to the next Ferguson. Feelings required. No evidence necessary.

  The Real Racist Conspiracy In Ferguson

  December 3, 2014

  After a grand jury in St. Louis, Missouri, voted against the indictment of Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of 18-year-old black man Michael Brown, President Obama gave a short address to the nation. In it, he said he understood why some would feel disappointed at the verdict — an odd statement, given that all available evidence showed that Brown had robbed a convenience store, attacked Wilson in his vehicle, attempted to grab his gun and charged Wilson before Wilson shot him.

  Then Obama dropped a doozy: "We need to recognize that this is not just an issue in Ferguson, this is an issue for America ... there are problems and communities of color aren't just making these problems up."

  Obama did not specify what problems he wanted to discuss. Nor did he explain why Ferguson's issues were America's. But the largest lie was the notion that "communities of color" don't make problems up.

  Because in Ferguson, that's precisely what a community of color did.

  In the immediate aftermath of the Brown shooting, grand jury documents show, witness intimidation and lying became the order of the day. Witness after witness told police that local thugs were intimidating those who had seen the events. One witness told police, according to the St. Louis Police Investigative Report, that threats "had been made to the residents of Canfield Green Apartment Complex." This witness said that "notes had been posted on various apartment buildings threatening people not to talk to the police, and gunshots were still being fired every night."

  The witness wasn't alone. Other witnesses stated that supposed witnesses were lying to the media about events, that others who had seen the events were "embellishing their stories" in order to convict Wilson. One witness stated, "You have to understand the mentality of some of these young guys they have nothing to do. When they can latch on the something they embellish it because they want something to do."

  Some 16 witnesses testified that Brown's hands were up when he was shot, which was factually false according to the autopsy. Another 12 witnesses said that Wilson shot Brown from behind — again, false according to the autopsy. One witness testified that Wilson used both a Taser and a gun — false. Another said that Brown had kneeled before Wilson shot him. When confronted with the fact that the physical evidence made such an account impossible, the witness acknowledged he hadn't seen the event, and then asked if he could leave the grand jury because he was "uncomfortable."

  In 1964, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment complex in New York. The entire nation gasped in horror when it learned that supposed witnesses had not called the police.

  Fifty years later, the nation completely ignores the fact that an entire community apparently lied, facilitated lying or intimidated witnesses in order to put an innocent man behind bars, because he happened to be white. At least Kitty Genovese's neighbors didn't actually murder her. Members of the Ferguson community tried to murder Darren Wilson by putting him on death row. Meanwhile, President Obama and those in the media who played up the original narrative cheered them on.

  To The Left, Lying About Rape Is Just Dandy

  December 10, 2014

  This week, Rolling Stone printed an editor's note retracting one of the most highly praised pieces of investigative journalism in its history. That piece, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, alleged that several members of the University of Virginia fraternity Phi Kappa Psi, had raped a 19-year-old student named Jackie, including with foreign objects, as she lay on a floor covered with broken glass. The article resulted in the university suspending the fraternity's activities, and national outrage over the so-called "rape culture" on campus.

  That rape culture supposedly leads to one in five women being sexually assaulted on campus — a faulty statistic from a poll that didn't even ask women if they were raped or sexually assaulted, and instead defined sex while inebriated at any level as rape. With regard to reported rape, the federal government reports a rate of just 1.3 per 1,000 Americans. That is, of course, far too high. But it is not a rape culture by any plausible definition.

  Nonetheless, the narrative of women as victims of brutish male society must be forwarded at all costs, for political purposes. If Americans are brutish sexists waiting to rape unsuspecting women, bigger government becomes a necessity. That's why President Obama has cited that one-in-five statistic, and suggested that America experiences "quiet tolerance of sexual assault."

  In order to forward that narrative, all rape stories are treated as fact sans investigation of any kind. And so Jackie's story of gang rape received plaudits across the media landscape.

  Then it fell apart.

  The Washington Post quickly debunked the story. According to the Post, the fraternity says there was no event the night Jackie was allegedly raped, Jackie's friends "have not been able to verify key points in recent days," and one of the men named in Jackie's report stated that "he never met Jackie in person and never took her out on a date."

  As the Rolling Stone report collapsed, members of the left jumped to defend Jackie. Sally Kohn of CNN.com tweeted that people should stop questioning Jackie's story: "While aspects of UVA rape story now in question, still unsettles me that pouncing by skeptics mirrored sort of doubt rape victims often
face." Feminist Melissa McEwan wrote, "If Jackie's story is partially or wholly untrue, it doesn't validate the reasons for disbelieving her."

  Under this logic, Atticus Finch was the villain in "To Kill a Mockingbird." After all, how dare he question the rape allegations of a victimized woman and defend Tom Robinson?

  But for the left, it's narrative first, facts second.

  The same holds true regarding allegations made by HBO star Lena Dunham, who wrote of her own alleged rape at the hands of an Oberlin "college Republican" named Barry. When it turned out that Barry, a readily identifiable person from Dunham's days at Oberlin, did not rape her, the media largely went silent; Dunham still has not spoken on the issue.

  Narrative first. Facts second.

  Here is the reality: All decent human beings believe that rape is evil. They also believe that false allegations of rape are wrong. These two positions are not mutually exclusive. They complement one another. False rape allegations do actual rape victims a tremendous disservice: to lump in false accusations of rape with true accusations of rape makes people more skeptical of rape victims generally, a horrible result. Rape should be taken seriously; rape accusations should be taken seriously. That means taking factual questions seriously, not merely throwing the word "rape" around casually, without evidence, and without regard for truth.

  The Suicidal Hashtags of the West

  December 17, 2014

  On Monday, Australian police stormed the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Sydney, where an Islamist terrorist named Man Haron Monis had taken dozens of hostages and held them for 17 hours. Three people were killed, including Monis, and several others were wounded. Monis, an Iranian immigrant, had a long criminal record, including 40 charges for indecent and sexual assault, as well as an outstanding charge for accessory to murder in the killing of his ex-wife. Before his death, Monis requested an ISIS flag, and forced hostages to hold up the so-called Shahada flag, which proclaims in Arabic, "There Is No God But Allah, and Muhammad Is His Messenger."

  In response to this Islamist terror attack on a civilian hub in the center of their city, Australians all over the country took action: They tweeted with the hashtag #illridewithyou. This hashtag came from the mind of one Rachel Jacobs, who witnessed a Muslim woman removing her hijab on the local train after the news of the hostage situation broke. Jacobs tweeted, "I ran after her at the train station. I said 'put it back on. I'll walk with u'. She started to cry and hugged me for about a minute — then walked off alone." Soon, the hashtag had been launched, and quickly trended globally.

  Australia's race discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, added, "Let's not allow fear, hatred and division to triumph."

  Yes, Australia has a race commissioner, but nobody who thinks it's a bad idea to let Islamist fanatics immigrate, or to keep those same Islamist fanatics in jail after they're charged in the stabbing of their ex-wives.

  Priorities!

  Never mind that nobody had said a word to the woman in the hijab — pre-emptive anti-Islamophobia was the first response to an Islamist taking Western hostages in a Western capital.

  Across the globe, in the United States, two dueling hashtags debated the relative guilt of American law enforcement. After New York City man Eric Garner resisted arrest, and then died thanks to his pre-existing health conditions after being taken down by police, the hashtag #ICantBreathe went viral. That hashtag fought for prominence with one dedicated to Michael Brown, the 18-year-old black man who was shot to death after attempting to take a gun from a police officer and charging the police officer: #HandsUpDontShoot. Never mind that the first hashtag was taken wildly out of context — Garner was not choked to death — and that the second was completely fictitious — autopsy showed Brown did not have his hands up when he was shot.

  These hashtags aren't just the work of lazy activists with nothing better to do. They're signifiers of a suicidal west that believes it bears bloodguilt. No real allegations of Islamophobia or racism are necessary — those can be assumed. We immediately go into preliminary disassociation mode, attempting to demonstrate to our friends and neighbors that while our civilization may be Islamophobic and racist, we are not. After all, we even tweeted using the day's popular hashtag!

  Here's the problem: Islamists don't care about hashtags when they can take hostages and earn the sympathetic hashtags of others. Those who resist law enforcement or attack police officers outright are happy to do so when they become causes celebre, no matter what they do wrong.

  The West has its evils. There are instances of racism and Islamophobia. Nobody with a brain would deny that. But to slander the West with a sort of communal guilt for an Original Sin, even as the West is under fire from those who would seek to destroy its civilizational foundations, is nothing less than barbaric.

  Jeb Bush Vs. Ted Cruz

  December 24, 2014

  Last week, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced his intention to "actively explore" a run for president. That announcement spurred spasms of joy in some segments of the Republican Party who have been itching for an effective counter to the enthusiasm of the grassroots right. Those Republicans — largely coastal donors who scorn social conservatives as rubes, and shun the supposed fiscal extremism of the tea party — have been searching for a candidate who will buck the base on immigration, who doesn't mind hand-in-glove corporatism, and who, most of all, feels the same way they do about the grassroots.

  And Jeb Bush promises to fulfill all these criteria. He says he feels "a little out of step with my party" on immigration and recently said that illegal immigration wasn't a "felony" but an "act of love"; his support for Common Core has more than a whiff of cronyism to it; just weeks ago, he told The Wall Street Journal that he would be willing to "lose the primary to win the general without violating [his] principles."

  This is the dirty secret of the modern Republican Party: For all the talk about grassroots exasperation with the Republican elites, it is the Republican elites who despise the grassroots. Republican elites do not believe in the dismantling of the welfare state; they believe in its maintenance. They do not believe in the unsophisticated free marketeering of the tea party; they believe in a strong government hand on the economic tiller, so long as that hand is benevolent toward their friends. They do not believe in small government; they believe in large government that serves their ends. If given the choice, a few would even select Hillary Clinton as president over Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

  They stake their claim to leadership of the Republican Party on the nonsensical notion that they have a record of victory. Pointing to the dramatic implosions of candidates like Delaware's Christine O'Donnell, who primaried Mike Castle only to be blown out by Chris Coons in her Senatorial race, and Sharron Angle, who lost to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, establishment Republicans state that they — and only they — know how to win elections. They abide by "The Price Is Right" strategy for electoral victory: campaign just to the right of the Democratic candidate in the hopes that you will win everyone to that candidate's right. The magical middle, in this view, is where victory lies.

  And so, in 2008, in an election in which Americans resonated to the theme of war weariness, Republicans establishment geniuses touted a Senator most famous for his foreign policy interventionism. In 2012, coming off an election in which Republicans won a stunning victory thanks to popular hatred of Obamacare, Republicans ran the only man in America outside of Barack Obama to implement Obamacare. Grassroots conservatives reluctantly went along with these nominees after failing to unify around an alternative.

  Now, in 2016, when Americans have reacted with outrage to President Obama's executive amnesty, and when Hillary Clinton is likely to be the Democratic nominee, establishment Republicans want to run a man whose most famous position is warmth for illegal immigration and is famously chummy with the Clintons (he gave Hillary an award in 2013 for public service).

  Why nominate this man? The most common explanation: His widely perceived alternative, grass
roots favorite, Ted Cruz, cannot win. Cruz, establishment Republicans say, polarizes instead of unifying; he alienates rather than attracting. But that notion springs, once again, from "The Price Is Right" strategy: If the middle voter is your target, Cruz isn't your man. But the middle voter was Mitt Romney's target in 2012, and he got him — Romney won independents 50-45, but lost the election by five million votes. The middle voter was John McCain's target, too — so much so that McCain considered naming Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate. He lost decisively, too.

  Will Ted Cruz lose more decisively than either of his predecessors? That's a possibility. But margin of loss is significantly less important than the direction of the political narrative. Party insiders see the 1964 nomination of right-wing Barry Goldwater as a massive defeat. Those outside the party infrastructure see it for what it was: a ground shift in Republican politics that led to the rise of Ronald Reagan. Better to nominate someone who will change the conversation and lose than someone who will reinforce that the parties stand for the same tired politics of failure.

  Or, perhaps, Cruz doesn't lose at all. Perhaps it turns out that voters are driven by vision and passion rather than bromides from the Yorks and Lancasters of American politics. Perhaps Ted Cruz, or someone like him, actually animates people rather than treating them like widgets to be manipulated by those born to the purple. Perhaps politics isn't "The Price Is Right."

  Return of the 1960s

  December 31, 2014

  In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama signified that he represented a sea-change in the nature of American politics. Obama proclaimed that as a member of the younger generation — born in 1961, at the tail end of the baby boom — he no longer wanted to participate in the stale and tired politics of the 1960s. Instead, he wanted to thrust America forward into a "different kind of politics," one beyond the "psychodrama of the baby-boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage."