Separatists
Ol' Remus

DC increasingly stands alone, and if we rely on what they do rather than what they say, it's no unintended side effect. But pulling up the drawbridge and manning the parapets has consequences. Insular command from above falsifies the notion of unity, it replaces "we're all in this together" with "you're all in this together." DC no longer pretends their window on the nation is the freely expressed will of the people, rather it's surveillance of the kind once deployed against kidnap-murder suspects or, further back in time, of the kind feudal kings used to repress their subjects.

The absence of a constitutionally legitimate central government warranting the trust and support of the people, and DC's us-versus-them internal realignment which decouples it from the people, and DC's sponsorship and protection of groups hostile to elementary civic duties, have encouraged and enabled fragmentation on a scale not seen since the 1850s. There are those who see this as an intentional unraveling of the republic by DC so their power may be nearer to absolute. A compelling case can be made neither for nor against such a proposition so we'll let it be for the moment. Here's what we do know.

Some Hispanics are busily constructing a breakaway confederacy called Aztlán, to consist of the southwestern states and southern California. The goal is to evict Asians, whites, blacks and all others not of La Raza—The Race—which goal they declare at street gatherings large and small. Spanish language radio and television promote this goal nationwide, often in the crudest terms possible lest any nuance confuse the troops. The National Council of La Raza, the storefront Cloward-Piven face of the larger la raze movement, disavows Reconquista and exclusionary rhetoric—on the record. They even supply a dewey-eyed definition of the term La Raza only a law school sophomore could love. Unsurprisingly, the National Council of La Raza is federally funded.

Elsewhere, some of the native population of Hawaii are building a parallel government which excludes Asians, whites, blacks, Hispanics and all others not of the race. The goal is to model all of Hawaii after the mainland's Tribal Nations, use everybody else as a revenue stream, withdraw from treaties, declare an independent nation—a monarchy actually, and get foreign recognition. It's suggested all or some of this is derived from factions within the Lakota Sioux. Incidentally, the similarities of the Hawaiian separatists's rhetoric with the narrative of early Christianity is too obvious to miss.

The Congressional Black Caucus, The National Conference of Black Mayors, The National Association of Black Journalists and many other organizations also pursue overtly racial ends. The goals of black activists are not easy to summarize, they're ever-shifting and difficult to reconcile. Supremacist outfits like the Black Panthers and the Black Moslems are straightforward enough, they advocate zero-sum plunder—taking the country by force and exterminating everybody else. Oddly, their rhetoric is cribbed from paleo-socialist screeds already antique when Hoover was president.

While they recite some supremacist cant, street level politicos and pseudo-academic community organizers opt instead for urban-based, de facto separatist enclaves, to be supported by everybody else. Still others choose to dress for success, lose the preacher cadence and work within the establishment to promote a general system of mandatory privilege and preferences. The latter two deploy a pastiche of diversity blather and White Privilege dogma—which is a parody of nineteenth century notions about White Man's Burden. The militants don't much care how they're thought of by outsiders, while the "privilege and preference" activists have made adulation obligatory. This has been up and running for so long it's too familiar to belabor. Unsurprisingly, again, it's federally funded.

Islamic racism, like their oeuvre generally, is a matter of repudiation by violence. They have a long history of extermination, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, but they're careful to use force against populations smaller or less cohesive than their own. Sectarian coreligionists are particularly favored targets, it more convincingly presents aggression in other terms. In the west where pogroms aren't currently practical, they rely on renouncing the norms of the host society and incrementally collapsing it from within. Even here the impulse toward mass murder isn't entirely repressed, it shows itself in occasional pogromettes, perhaps to provide an outlet for their more impatient subalterns and refresh their street credibility.

Moslem associations in America have adopted the off-the-shelf American victimhood template so we can spare ourselves the tedium of itemization here. They're particularly fond of "lawfare"—nuisance suits designed to intimidate onlookers—but rely mainly on the tried-and-true to grow their enclaves, namely, physical confrontations and credible threats of worse. Professional diversity enforcers, rootless thrill seekers, Big Time journalists and other witless bottom feeders have attached themselves to the Islamic cause with barely restrained enthusiasm. It may be only coincidental Islam seems particularly attractive to pedophiles, misogynists and homicidal sadists. The goal is plainly stated: bring ever-expanding areas under Islam until the former United States is a full caliphate in a Moslem world.

Under Islam, infidels have no rights a believer is bound to observe, the subsumed population must choose between absolute fealty or death. The Koran demands it. Their flagship storefront, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is generously supported by DC, no surprise. Domestic Islam needn't apologize for its excesses, not even its outrages, some of those responsible for federal policy are tasked with little else. At present, effectively impeding CAIR's goals is a punishable offense, often enough under DC's anti-terrorism laws.

By their own narratives these organizations are committed to separatist goals. To them, civic affairs are legitimate and material only to the extent it advances their agenda and, however prettified, their agenda is about race and racial advantage. Not sometimes. Not mostly. Always. Oddly, we're not only to pretend we don't notice but to assure others by word and deed how very deeply we don't notice. It's an entertaining farce. Those who fail to not notice may be admonished to ratchet down their noticing to a level equivalent to not noticing. But even to acknowledge the noticing is risky. It's safer to not notice the lack of sufficient not noticing. And so they do. Or is it don't?

The working definition of racism is "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin," so we can dispense with the "color of their skin" bromide. By this measure the only difference between these outfits and the olde tymme night riders is middle America's remarkable ability to imagine it ain't so. Middle America is told what to think , what to say and how to say it. And they do. There are those who say they deserve all that has befallen them and all that will befall them. With no persuasive evidence otherwise, refutation is a hard prospect.

Pretending these organizations protect the vulnerable from ongoing oppression, or pretending they serve some common good reveals contempt for both common sense and the common good. A nation survives only if enough citizens respect the common good. For that reason there is no Congressional White Caucus or National Association of White Journalists, nor is there likely to be. There is a crucial difference between preserving one's heritage and seeking influence and benefit from it. It's a bizarre foundation for racial pride. Their contention that race supremacy is the default motive for everybody else merely reveals an unhealthy obsession with it. Nor is it convincing to reprove the putative origins of racism itself if it's merely to be the foundation for a different racism.

So much for the bright side.

The dark side is this: we are some ways down the road to the Balkanization. If the law of intended consequences still holds, and if everybody gets what they say they want, the disunited states will be a patchwork of territories run by the same kind of demagogues that are advocating for it now. And the aggressive, no-quarters hostility of these organizations suggests the nature of their hoped-for autonomy.

Their enablers will be shocked to learn that paranoid, unstable fiefdoms won't worry overmuch about endangered species or gay rights or carbon footprints if, say, basic utilities are not functioning. Desperate people aren't known for demanding anything they can't eat, drink or wear. And separatist romantics don't often think about such things as water rights or preventing epidemics or commercial agreements, or anything else that relies on cooperation and competency. If it's not a deliverable they assume somebody's taking care of it. There won't be a somebody taking care of it.

Further, race-based outfits seem to think outside support is a condition of nature, that it just happens and would continue to just happen should they withdraw. They see separatism as something in addition to, not instead of, "full funding"-for-nothing-in-return. In other words, they assume an America willing and able to see to their needs unconditionally. Unpoliced political correctness has a half-life of about two days. If nationhood ends it will do so in a fit of animosity and, likely, violence. Middle America is stupid but not suicidal, they're not likely to continue offering up their own viability on behalf of newly-remote and openly hostile others.

Nor does it occur to them a Sovereign Aztlán wouldn't feel obligated to provide for a Magube-style regime in Mississippi, or that a People's Revolutionary Detroit is unlikely to inconvenience themselves over the connecting sewer system to a Southfield Caliphate. For the rest of us, we're already used to the idea of being more welcome and secure in, say, Latvia than in Camden. Even now it's more remarkable to know somebody who's voluntarily visited East St. Louis than San Luis Potosí. The system of state-supported reservations, Detroit for one, would come to an end with secession. The Detroit bailouts thus far are not easily distinguishable from foreign aid.

Fortunately, enough Hispanics and blacks and Moslems have vested their lives in America as-is that formal fracturing into territories is unlikely. However, secession is the endpoint of a certain understanding of diversity, in the sense of being diverse from. Activists have no problem accepting the full benefits of citizenship, yet they believe the responsibilities of citizenship conflict fatally with their heritage and so they've made their choice. Worse, they're convinced by experience this is a viable arrangement with room for expansion. And nobody, least of all the, formerly: our, schools, is speaking with much conviction for the other side. Relying on their stated intent, these organizations will continue to press for it, and why not, so far it's been a sweet deal for them. DC imagines they have it under control. They only may be right.

If we can rely on their own words, many Hispanics and blacks and Moslems and even nativist Hawaiians believe autonomy is preferable to integration with the larger America. How the rest stand won't really be clear until a decision is forced. Whatever happens probably won't happen as a showdown, there are few actual showdowns in history. More likely we'll see a series of sharp nudges that, while unpleasant, aren't immediately catastrophic. At this point we don't know which reality, civics or racial supremacy, is the more compelling should a choice be imposed. For the present, something near enough to civility holds the field, but civility has been only lightly tested thus far.

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