'Civil Rights' And Totalitarianism | The American Conservative

'Civil Rights' And Totalitarianism | The American Conservative

Rod Dreher quotes form Christopher Caldwell's new book, The Age of Entitlement:

"Not just excluded and exploited Southern blacks but all aggrieved minorities now sought to press their claims under this new model of progressive governance. The civil rights model of executive orders, litigation, and court-ordered redress eventually became the basis for resolving every question pitting a newly emergent idea of fairness against old traditions: the persistence of different roles for men and women, the moral standing of homosexuality, the welcome that is due to immigrants, the consideration befitting wheelchair-bound people. Civil rights gradually turned into a license for government to do what the Constitution would not previously have permitted. It moved beyond the context of Jim Crow laws almost immediately, winning what its apostles saw as liberation after liberation.

"The civil rights movement was a template. The new system for overthrowing the traditions that hindered black people became the model for overthrowing every tradition in American life, starting with the roles of men and women....

"In the quarter-century after Reagan, conservatives lost every battle against the substance of political correctness. ... Political correctness was not a joke after all. It was the most comprehensive ideological capture of institutional power in the history of the United States.

"... This language of '-bashing' and '-phobia' and 'bigotry' and 'lies' was new. No longer was the irreconcilability of individuals' and society's sexual priorities a tragedy or a disagreement. Recast in the categories of civil rights law, it was a crime, a crime that was being committed against a whole class of people. The customs and traditions in the name of which it was being committed were mere alibis.

"... Once social issues could be cast as battles over civil rights, Republicans would lose 100 percent of the time. The agenda of 'diversity' advanced when its proponents won elections and when they lost them. Voters had not yet figured that out. As soon as they did, the old style of democratic politics would be dead."