Townhall Review | Commentaries

To mainstream media, the designation “Black conservative” represents a contradiction in terms. Conventional wisdom insists African Americans must automatically identify as progressive, or even radical, to be true to their racial identity, But a bold new film explodes that patronizing assumption with passion, wit and a series of admirable examples.

“Uncle Tom” features Black leaders like Allen West, Herman Cain, Robert Woodson, Candace Owens and my talk radio colleague Larry Elder—who’s also one of the film’s producers.

Without narration or an overarching storyline, the film provides insightful, sometimes intimate observations in vivid black and white, so the contemporary comments blend seamlessly with stunning historical footage.

Along with eloquent vintage photographs, these clips bring to life great figures from Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington to Dr. King himself. “Uncle Tom” is perfectly timed, making a much-needed contribution to the quest for justice and understanding at a moment of accusatory hysteria in race relations.

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By embracing the slogan “Defund the Police,” prominent Democrats undermine one of their central arguments for stringent gun control. For decades, the left has argued that law-abiding citizens shouldn’t rely on firearms to protect their families but should count instead on police professionals to guarantee their safety. 

But now progressives seek to disarm the cops at the same time they hope to disarm private citizens, ignoring the dangers posed by well-armed criminals who have no intention of surrendering their guns. 

It’s already illegal for chronic lawbreakers to own guns, but who’s supposed to take those guns away if police forces are cut back? If the left is serious about reducing the presence of firearms in our big cities, then crippling police departments is exactly the wrong way to do it, pushing citizens to arm themselves, and generating a toxic new sense of insecurity. 

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Irving Kristol famously defined a neo-conservative as “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” Philosophical commitments crumble when the hardness of everyday life in a fallen world intrudes.

Recently a couple in St. Louis made headlines when they brandished guns against a mob that broke the gate to their private community. Such instances reveal an ironic cultural moment in which talking heads and moralizing activists tell us it is bad for the police to defend us even as they menace public property, cops, and even peaceful citizens.

Law enforcement is not perfect, and every institution must be accountable to the people. Yet we cannot miss today that too often the same people who are telling us the cops are bad are the people who want to do bad things.

Here’s expecting many around us today to be mugged by reality—to watch their ideas give way before hard truths and human depravity.

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The Trump Administration is going after public corporations for playing politics. After years of ideologues dominating everything from social media companies to investment banks, our government is now putting them under scrutiny.

The SEC is reviewing so called environmental, social, governance funds, which often participate in ideological activism as a form of “risk-management.” The Justice Department is on-board too, having recently proposed a substantial revision to the legal code that has protected social media companies since 1996.

Corporate leaders have responsibilities to their shareholders—namely: providing a reasonable return on their investment as stewards of their money. Corporate activists have been selling their politics under the guise of “risk management”—thus pushing corporations to the left with no consequences. There was a time when kowtowing to pet causes of the left seemed like it was a safe option. That certainly isn’t true anymore.

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The riots cascading across the world have included many strange scenes, but few stranger than this: a Washington, D. C. plaque honoring Fredrick Douglass spray-painted with an expletive. The plaque celebrates Douglass’s heroic efforts to lead a bank for freed slaves.

Like statues of abolitionists John Greenleaf Whittier, Ulysses Grant, and Matthias Baldwin, “anti-racist” rioters treated Douglass’s memorial as if he was complicit in racism simply for living in the past. This erasing of history may have played well in the moment, when the police staggered, and the windows cracked, but it will not play well in the long term. History can be attacked, but it cannot be deleted.

Long ago, Douglass said this: “The soul that is within me no man can degrade.” What is true of his soul is true of his legacy. Anarchist rioters may have tried to degrade Douglass’s contributions, but no one can deface his memory.

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Alex Berenson, a former reporter for the New York Times, garnered a following for straying from the prevailing wisdom of the press regarding coronavirus. His criticism of the shutdowns sparked an inordinate backlash from elite media.

And then he was censored by Amazon.

After he self-published a booklet critical of the lockdowns through Amazon, they took it upon themselves to prevent the public from reading it. As if to add insult to injury, they delivered Berenson a notice implying that his book would be accepted if he removed the references to COVID-19. In a book about COVID-19.

It was only after Elon Musk criticized their censorship that Amazon allowed the book’s publication. Then it hit number one on the Kindle store.

If Amazon continues to limit dissent, the result won’t be conformity with the established order: it will be more consumer revolts against imposed ideology.

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It was heartwarming to see: many of the planet’s toughest and best athletes telling their children on social media how much they love them. In short videos, fathers played games with their kids, bearhugged them, and told them jokes—all in a tribute to dads on Father’s Day.

In a society that does little to encourage fathers, the NBA’s efforts did not go unnoticed. Families are the essential building block of society, and fathers are the essential building block of the family. A home led by a father, especially a father with a spiritual focus and strong character, places flourishing within reach.

Gender-neutral children do not need gender-neutral parents. Boys and girls need fathers and mothers bound by lifelong commitment. This isn’t a prejudicial belief. Downplaying fatherhood sets us all up for disaster.

Social-media support is great. But we need more: we need a society that celebrates, honors and ennobles fathers.

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Recent surveys show public opinion closely divided over local and federal decisions to remove Confederate memorials, but no one has polled reaction to violent vandals who topple monuments on their own in spurts of wanton destruction.

In Portland, Oregon, thugs tore down statues of both Washington and Jefferson, while San Francisco radicals trashed a bust of General Grant, the commander whose Civil War victories meant the end of slavery. Decent people may disagree over proper disposition of various commemorations, but there’s no defense for vicious vigilantes who assault public places and property, generally without consequences for their destruction.

Black Lives Matter, along with leaders of the left from Biden to Bernie, ought to speak out clearly and unequivocally against such rampant mobs, or else the public will spurn their other aspirations with appropriate indignation.

Rule of law, and orderly consensus must prevail in coming to terms with America’s past—and our future.

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Black lives matter.

We need to affirm that sentence, but not the movement.

“Black lives matter,” taken as a sentence, is profoundly true. God made every human being in his image, which means every life on the planet—every human life, at every stage, matters.

Yet that sentence is understood today—nearly universally—as expressing approval of a movement rooted in critical race theory, which is grounded in destructive Marxist ideology.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network adopts and promotes the entire worldview of the sexual revolution and seeks to liberate humanity from the oppressive chains of biological gender. The movement also seeks to put an end to the traditional nuclear family.

While we should affirm the sentence “black lives matter,” period—without hesitation and with full enthusiasm, we simply cannot use the sentence as it is now, because it will be heard, nearly universally, as a movement, not as a sentence. The movement has an agenda of revolution that is destructive to God’s creational order.

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We all long to return to normal but the big question is whether government will. Our nation has a history of government taking on special powers and more spending during emergencies and never returning to normal.

Two periods in history illustrate the difference. In the 1920s, following a pandemic and World War I, President Warren Harding called for “a return to normalcy.” A decade of conservative presidents, especially Calvin Coolidge, worked tirelessly to bring government spending back to pre-war levels.

But following the Great Depression and World War II, there was no return to normalcy. Instead, the bigger government and higher spending led by President Franklin Roosevelt became the new normal.

Now we ask, will government give up its emergency powers? Will the federal government ever reduce spending? That’s the leadership question facing conservatives now.

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