Professor Patrick Garry understands that it does not matter if we lose “free speech” as the act of an oppressive regime or by the bullying tactics of the paragons of the politically correct establishment. A review of his new book. 

Cultural Whiplash: The Unforeseen Consequences of America’s Crusade Against Racial Discrimination
By Patrick M. Garry
Published by Cumberland House
Nashville, Tennessee
Hdbk, 205 pgs., notes,
ISBN: 10:1-58182-569-2

“HE HAD BEEN OPPRESSED FOR CENTURIES, BUT THE FEW YEARS IN WHICH HE
WAS USED AS AN INSTRUMENT OF OPPRESSION SOLVED NOTHING.”
– Robert Penn Warren, The Briar Patch

Paleoconservatism, the last bastion of the old Right, was successfully driven from Washington, D.C. very early in the Reagan Administration when Professor Mel Bradford, staunch Southerner and Lincoln debunker, was turned down as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in favor of Neoconservative William Bennett. And, while the neos and the paleos battled across intellectual lines, the Left joined in the fray by assaulting the paleos' flank with allegations of “racism,” predicated in part on their advocacy of state’s rights.

Those of us who peruse this website have recently enjoyed the rather spirited albeit somewhat tendentious and disjointed debate concerning the charge of “racism” once again hurled against the long-suffering paleos. It should be mentioned, however, that the accuser, while citing the names of the gentlemen committing the offense (Drs. Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver) and quoting the “racist” comments, neglected to cite the work, page, and publisher, which brings into question not only the context of these statements but the veracity of the allegation.

Another point worthy of consideration in the ongoing “race” discussion is that by definition, no neo-Marxist Democrat is a “racist;” it’s just impossible. Take for example the remarks, a couple of years ago, of the long-time senator from the great state of West Virginia, Robert Byrd. Old Bob, the former Ku Klux Klan member, used the “N” word a couple of times while being interviewed on television. Now, you might think that all hell broke loose; that the Washington Post headlined the event with a front-page story (upper half), or that Dan Rather and the CBS News opened their broadcast with Dan tearing his garments in protest. Alas, if you thought that you’d be wrong. You see, Bob Byrd is a neo-Marxist Democrat, and, well, things are just different with those folks, and one of things that are different is that they get a pass when it comes to the charge of “racism,” even when they are “racists.” 

As you know the question of “race” has become the third rail of politics, at least for those on the Right. If you’re a Liberal and you want to win a political argument you merely accuse your opponent of being a “racist” and, bingo-bango, you win! One might argue that the charge of “racism” is one of the few weapons the Liberals have (if you’ll pardon the pun) left. No book better explains this cultural phenomenon then South Dakota law professor Patrick Garry’s latest effort, Cultural Whiplash: The Unforeseen Consequences of America’s Crusade Against Racial Discrimination.

Garry’s style is direct, forthright, and incisive while his exegesis is both skillfully rendered, in-depth, and thorough. A law professor by trade, Garry’s expertise lies with his definitive grasp of the First Amendment, and it is within the concept of free speech that, I think, Garry is most offended by the party epigones who lead the contemporary “civil rights” movement. Professor Garry understands that it truly does not matter if we lose “free speech” as the act of an oppressive regime or by the bullying tactics of the paragons of the politically correct establishment, because silence on issues affecting the polis, caused by fear of retribution, is still the loss of free speech.

The contemporary question of “race” is a question dealing with the derailment of philosophy (and the corresponding decline of morality and ethics) in the postmodern era. It is a question of alienation that many, if not all, of the black ministers Professor Garry often quotes are more than passingly familiar with. It is “alienation” not between black and white, but rather between God and man. The urban black community has, in far too many instances, replaced God with the state and correctly sees the neo-Marxist Democrats as the state party, their ultimate benefactors. (One might also argue that suburban whites have replaced God with materialism, but that’s another essay.)  Their leadership has placed them in a position of subservience to the will of the state party, to be utilized on appropriate occasions to attack the enervated, so-called “conservative” Republican Party as “racist,” a tactic that is almost always successful.

In Professor Garry’s penultimate chapter, "The Shackle of Guilt," he is concerned about “white guilt,” offering as his solution the idea that, “The slate has to be wiped clean. If reparations are the only way to do that, hence allowing society to return to a more vigorous moral life, then so be it.” Well, to be honest with you I don’t feel any guilt, whatsoever! And, as for reparations, I wouldn’t be surprised if the neo-Marxist Democrats don’t push a reparations bill through the Congress with President George Bush signing it with all the vigor and panache of an FDR, thus securing the White House for the neo-Marxist Democrats in 2008.

Aristotle described the central problem of the philosophy of man in the etiological argument: “that is, on the problem that man does not exist out of himself but out of the divine ground of all reality.” The failure to consider and address this question, which is verboten within the Neo-Marxist coda, represents the primary derailment of Western philosophy, resulting in pernicious ideologies that give rise to “the social dominance of opinions that would have been laughed out of court in the late Middle Ages or the Renaissance.”

Cultural Whiplash is available on Amazon.com.