Our “Free” Republic

A few days ago, the indispensable Jared Taylor was interviewed by the Washington Examiner. The interview was fair and objective. Taylor was described, accurately, as a “race realist,” not as a Nazi, or a white supremacist, or a Holocaust denier. It should be pointed out that the interviewer was a black woman.

Of course, the fact that this interview is even unusual tells you something. It also is significant that the only person who felt like they could publish such an interview was a black woman. God knows, Bryon York, or Tim Carney, or any of the other “conservatives” who write for the Examiner would run screaming from Jared Taylor.

In any event, this morning, I go on to check a couple internet sites before I start my work for the day. One of the sites is FreeRepublic.com, a huge conservative news forum. There I notice this–

“Huh,” I think. I should take care to mention I did not post this, nor did I comment on it (I “lurk” at Freerepublic but never comment.) So I click on it and read it. There are about nine comments, all of which are either neutral or positive with two exceptions. One, by “Zionist Conspirator” asks if Jared Taylor is an “evolutionist” (I don’t know what he is getting at here.) Another, by someone whose name I didn’t catch, wonders if Jared Taylor is advocating segregation and posts, “Danger, danger Will Robinson!” Uh oh, non-kosher conservatism detected!

Whatever, I think. I look at some other things, come back. Of course, then I see this–

Literally, within minutes, the moderators spring into action and remove the thread. I clicked back a few times to capture what I could, but the first image above is all I could grab to prove this actually happened.

Now, we all know what Freerepublic is and isn’t. Until the grassroots pressure was simply overwhelming, articles on illegal immigration were simply forbidden. You can threaten to nuke or even exterminate foreigners, but to suggest caution in letting those same people into the country is far more politically incorrect.

We all know conservative opinion leaders are cowardly. There might even be strategic reasons they feel they can’t link to sites like Vdare.com or Amren.com. I don’t have to like it but I get the reasons why and I accept that. Again, like I said the other day, we can complain about it, or attack them, or think of complicated reasons why they behave this way, but that won’t make a difference. Save the comments about how “CONSERVATIVES ARE COWARDS AND DON’T REALLY CARE ABOUT WHITES”–we know, we know.

However, I have to admit I was surprised here. This article here contained nothing that could be construed as crude or racist. The source was totally mainstream–it wasn’t even Amren.com. It was a moderate conservative newspaper that tens of thousands of commuters read every day. Nor were there any real complaints–even the negative reactions expressed disagreement not “Jared Taylor is an EVIL NAZI.” And again, most of the reactions were positive, not in terms of white racial awareness, but in terms of “how is this controversial when you look at how everything nonwhites do is centered on race.” There was nothing here that could really hurt Freerepublic.com in any way whatsoever, even by today’s PC standards.

Nonetheless, into the memory hole it goes. The entire implicit base of the modern conservative movement is white racial identity. The entire mission of the conservative gatekeepers seems to be preventing that from becoming explicit, even if that would guarantee victory for all the things conservatives claim to believe. Breaking through these gatekeepers while taking at least some of the conservative base and Tea Party types with us will be our hardest challenge.

[Editor’s Note: The Examiner interview referred to in the text above can be read here.]