Martin Luther King once told Americans the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That was in the sixties, when liberals held the moral high ground. These days, self-described liberals bend increasingly toward injustice. In just the last month, we have seen the tyranny of the leftist status quo: bogus alt-right charges, women believed at all times, and get-out-of-jail-free cards for “aggrieved” minorities.
How has the arc of the moral universe bent toward justice when a media outlet conflates traditional conservatism with the alt-right? Just two weeks ago, The Economist called Ben Shapiro the “alt-right sage without the rage” in a tweet promoting their interview with the conservative commentator. I know the British magazine is no fan of Brexit-Trump conservatism; so, I suspect this prejudice was the font of their perception of Shapiro, an orthodox Jew who espouses traditional conservative values.
I guess The Economist was too lazy to google “Ben Shapiro” – – because they would have found his condemnation of the alt-right hooligans responsible for the Charlottesville violence in 2017. Shapiro received 7,400 anti-Semitic tweets in 2015 and opposed Trump in 2016, but some witless liberal concocted “alt-right sage.” That is totally absurd, because the alt-right attacked Shapiro in 2016 for being a “liberal Jew” (the ADL reported Shapiro was the alt-right’s top Jewish target for online abuse).
I wonder where Joe Biden thinks the arc of the moral universe is bending (probably not toward justice). Shouldn’t the #MeToo movement give Joe Biden a chance to unseat Donald Trump? And – isn’t it odd that Biden’s tactile affection made seven women (at last count) suffer post-traumatic shock right after he became a serious candidate? Biden says he was just trying “to make a human connection” with Lucy Flores, but she says he was guilty of “a clear violation of my bodily autonomy.”
Biden has promised to be “more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space,” but the 2020 Democratic field has promised they “believe them” or “have no reason to doubt” the seven women, meaning Biden must bow and scrape for his political life. Woman should not experience date rape or inappropriate sexual advances – not now and not ever. Furthermore, they should be encouraged to report un-wanted male behavior. However, society should differentiate between types of “unwelcome” contact.
In my moral universe, there’s a line between Harvey Weinstein’s undue and repeated sexual advances and Joe Biden’s hugs and knee pats. Weinstein is a sexual predator, who should suffer damages and loss of reputation. Biden is an old-school politician, accustomed to demonstrative hugs and knee-pats. As of this writing, no one has suggested Biden is guilty of sexual harassment, and many suspect he is the victim of a political hit-job by a 2020 opponent. A second chance seems appropriate.
I believe the arc of the moral universe has bent toward justice for the LGBTQ and non-white communities – at least since the sixties. To be sure, there are still real victims of racial and LGBTQ discrimination, which makes the Jussie Smollett hoax so un-just. Even though his pleas for victim status were suspicious, the left launched hysterical tweets alleging widespread whitelash and homophobia. Smollett’s hoax (and the blind buy-in on the left) was two steps back on the road to justice.
First, Smollett cried “racist wolf” in claiming two white men in MAGA hats had shouted “racial and homophobic slurs” at Smollett, tied a noose around his neck, and poured “an unknown chemical substance” on him. Second, presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Corey Booker promoted lynch-mob suppositions, and ABC’s Robin Roberts nodded approvingly as Smollett spun his white-supremacy tale: that is, his story would have been believed “if I said it was a Muslim or a Mexican or some black [which] says a lot about the country right now.”
Once the Chicago police found the attack was not by white supremacists (the attackers were Nigerian-Americans), his early unconditional support (including Harris and Booker) evaporated. Chicago now has a political kerfuffle on its hands. However, Smollett’s hoax and well-documented Trump hatred suggest identity politics subverted justice. Smollett is going un-punished for staging crimes to smear those who don’t share his beliefs or identity. That is a shame.
This lapse of justice is an American problem – regardless of one’s political stripe – if we are to remain a good and decent nation. Did The Economist, #MeToo, and Hollywood liberals get it right about widespread hatred? Hard to say, but partisan false claims don’t advance the march to justice. Winston Churchill warned the civilized world, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” He was spot on: smears and falsity are no means to just outcomes.