whites<\/em> of the working and middle classes.\u00a0<\/p>\nBy speaking to issues like so-called \u201caffirmative action,\u201d racially-charged policies that have proven to be to the detriment of just such whites, Republicans can promote the individualism for which they claim to stand while simultaneously relating to whites who would otherwise view them\u2014as over six million whites who stayed home on Election Day viewed Mitt Romney\u2014as hopelessly \u201cout of touch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even more importantly, Republicans\u2014and all decent people\u2014should labor to abolish \u201caffirmative action\u201d and the like because, hyperbole aside, all such policies are the instruments by which racial warfare is waged.<\/p>\n
Whether your average American, black, white, or other, recognizes it or not, there is indeed a cold racial war of a sort transpiring in America.\u00a0 Evidence of the war, however, is not to be sought in mere interracial hostilities or distrust.\u00a0 That, say, individual blacks and whites dislike one another or even openly fight with one another does not a war make. Nor even would large-scale interracial conflict suffice to establish that there is a racial war in the sense in which I mean it.<\/p>\n
Rather, that it is without exaggeration that we can speak of a racial war in America is born out by the fact that the federal government systematically\u2014through policies like \u201caffirmative action\u201d\u2014promotes the interests, or what are claimed to be in the interest, of various non-white groups at the cost of undercutting the interests of whites.<\/p>\n
Yet in siding with some citizens over and against others, the government abandons its role as a neutral arbiter of conflicts in favor of assuming the role of participant in those conflicts.\u00a0 What this in turn means is that if it was ever a reality, the peace for the sake of which the government exists to guarantee is no more.<\/p>\n
But as the great philosopher Thomas Hobbes observed way back in the seventeenth century, the only alternative to peace is war. <\/em><\/p>\nIn his quest to supply an account of the authority of government, Hobbes invoked the philosophically distinguished concept of \u201cthe state of nature.\u201d\u00a0 The latter refers to life prior to the formation of government.\u00a0 And for Hobbes, such life is \u201csolitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,\u201d for in the absence of government, the absence of a commonly recognized authority to determine the conditions of just conduct, each person possesses absolute sovereignty over his life.\u00a0 However, this unconditional <\/em>right on the part of each person to do whatever he thinks needs to be done to preserve his existence casts each in a perpetual contest for survival with all others.<\/p>\nThe state of nature, that is, is a war of all against all.\u00a0 Hobbes writes that when \u201cmen live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man, against every man.\u201d\u00a0 It isn\u2019t that men are always literally at each other\u2019s throats where there is no \u201ccommon power to keep them all in awe.\u201d\u00a0 But war \u201cconsisteth not in battle only, or act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known [.]\u201d<\/p>\n
To end this war, each person consents to give up his absolute right to everything on the condition that every other person makes the same concession. The only way for this to occur, though, is for the parties to this \u201ccovenant\u201d to give rise to a \u201ccommon power\u201d\u2014government, or \u201cthe Sovereign,\u201d as Hobbes refers to it\u2014that will secure peace by functioning as a kind of umpire or referee.\u00a0 The Sovereign is the custodian of law and, hence, an impartial adjudicator of all conflicts that arise with respect to it.<\/p>\n
Once the Sovereign relinquishes its role, though, then the state of nature\u2014the state of war\u2014resumes.<\/p>\n
It is my contention that there is a racial war<\/em> only in the sense that our government has abdicated the neutrality and impartiality that it is supposed to maintain in regard to the citizenry over which it presides.\u00a0 Insofar as our government shows partiality toward Americans of one race and against those of another\u2014regardless of the races in question\u2014it in effect prosecutes a kind of racial war.<\/p>\nThis<\/em> is why it is imperative that policies like \u201caffirmative action\u201d and the like be abolished.<\/p>\nAnd this is why it is imperative that Republicans, and all who are concerned with justice and peace, work toward that end.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The conventional wisdom notwithstanding, if Republicans are to stand a chance of winning any more national elections, it is not to Hispanics to whom they must turn. As some of us have been arguing for quite some time, their salvation is to be found in whites of the working and middle classes.\u00a0 By speaking to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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As some of us have been arguing for quite some time, their salvation is to be found in whites of the working and middle classes.\u00a0 By speaking to…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/racial-warfare.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2012-11-30T02:19:56+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/racial-warfare.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/racial-warfare.html","name":"Racial Warfare","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-11-30T02:19:56+00:00","dateModified":"2012-11-30T02:19:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/racial-warfare.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/racial-warfare.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/11\/racial-warfare.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Racial Warfare"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}