December
17, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Lifting
the Racial Siege
The Republicans
and race.
By Bryan Preston
n
1798 Napoleon Bonaparte laid siege to an impregnable fortress on the island
of Malta. Three centuries earlier, the warrior monks who held that fortress
as their international capital defended it against the Ottoman Turks,
outlasting a brutal five-month siege. Those knights, the Knights of the
Hospital of Saint John, had by Napoleon's time been one of Christendom's
most formidable military forces for seven centuries, second only perhaps
to the Templars in their reputation for martial excellence. The Hospitaller
knights facing Napoleon on that day in 1809 occupied one of the world's
great fortresses, and owned one of the world's great traditions. Yet they
fell to the Corsican dictator after just one day's siege. Imposing, impregnable
Valetta fell so quickly, said Napoleon, because "the place certainly
possessed immense physical means of resistance, but no moral means whatsoever."
By 1809, the once proud Hospitallers had atrophied to a shocking state,
due mostly to inaction and a failed sense of duty. Of the 332 knights
in Valetta that day, 50 were simply too old to fight.
On the subject of
race relations in America, the Republican party has become like the Hospitallers
who surrendered to Napoleon: Lacking a sense of their own proud history
and traditions, they have lost the moral will to move. Founded with the
purpose of abolishing slavery in the United States, and having achieved
many of the first real steps toward racial equality, the Republican party
today is seen by many as either indifferent to race relations or openly
hostile to minority voters. For the past generation, the GOP's racial
efforts have atrophied as the liberal Democratic opposition mounted its
great effort to capture and secure the black vote. Rewriting history to
cast themselves in the role of liberators, the Democrats have knocked
Republicans on our heels, and after a quick siege brought on by the now
infamous comments of incoming Senate majority leader Trent Lott, we seem
to have fallen.
But it does not have
to be this way. The GOP has put forward issues that speak from its core
values, and that resonate with minority voters, and particularly black
voters. By seizing the initiative on these issues, the Republicans can
take back the moral will to resist Democrat efforts to expand government
at the expense of freedom, and expand the welfare state at the expense
of those its intent is to serve. The GOP can move beyond its own walls
and put the forces laying siege on the defensive.
The first and most
important of these issues is school choice. School choice, the granting
of vouchers to needy students enabling them to pay for tuition in private
and parochial schools, would allow those students to escape the crumbling
schools which current circumstances force them to attend. School choice
empowers parents to use their tax dollars to pay for schools capable of
delivering a quality education, and while wildly popular within the black
community, school choice is vigorously opposed by the liberal elite in
the Democrat party. By forcing a national discussion of school choice,
the Republicans could force that Democrat elite to explain why Americans
with lesser means should not have as much say in where their children
attend school, especially when so many prominent Democrats send their
own children to the kind of private schools most people cannot afford.
In time, the black parents who favor school choice would see the Democrat
party as a party favoring the teachers' union over parents, and will shift
their allegiance to the party that will give them control of their child's
education.
The second is national
defense, but not in the traditional sense. In addition to its main mission
of protecting the United States and projecting its power globally, the
U.S. military is one of our society's great equalizers. Anyone of any
race can volunteer for service, and entering the services brings many
privileges and responsibilities. In a sense the young man or woman entering
military service establishes a deal with the nation: The military member
gets a free education, free health care, and top-quality job training
in exchange for defending the nation in time of war. The Republican party
has always strongly supported not only the military's core mission but
its benefits package as well, and often against liberal Democrat efforts
to cut both. For many Americans, particularly minorities from poorer backgrounds,
the military may be the only way to achieve higher education and get necessary
job training. Reinforcing our support for this secondary military mission
highlight both our core value of maintaining a strong national defense
as well as our values of hard work and equality of opportunity.
Tax policy is the
third major issue the GOP can carry forward as proof that it believes
in equality for all Americans. Enterprise zones, tax-free or highly reduced
areas within cities, are effective at luring businesses to locate in the
urban areas that industry has been fleeing as crime rates and local taxes
soared in the past few decades. Like school vouchers, enterprise zones
enjoy strong support from conservative Republicans and black voters who
traditionally vote Democrat, while the elite of the Democrat party opposes
them. Enterprise zones should become a centerpiece issue for the GOP,
as a way to revitalize depressed urban areas. They would also carry a
side benefit of showing the GOP to black voters in a new light , and many
would logically conclude that while the Democrats talk a good game on
racial equality and opportunity, it's the Republicans who actually do
something to make a difference.
Several other issues,
from welfare reform to faith-based initiatives, could help the Republican
party voice its core values of free enterprise, individual and economic
freedom, strong families and strong communities, while attracting black
voters who have for several decades voted for the Democrats. On the subject
of racial equality, it's time for the GOP to reclaim its lost heritage
of freedom and liberty, and put the Democrats on the defensive.
—
Bryan Preston is a writer and television producer. He is also the author
of Junkyardblog.
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n
1798 Napoleon Bonaparte laid siege to an impregnable fortress on the island
of Malta. Three centuries earlier, the warrior monks who held that fortress
as their international capital defended it against the Ottoman Turks,
outlasting a brutal five-month siege. Those knights, the Knights of the
Hospital of Saint John, had by Napoleon's time been one of Christendom's
most formidable military forces for seven centuries, second only perhaps
to the Templars in their reputation for martial excellence. The Hospitaller
knights facing Napoleon on that day in 1809 occupied one of the world's
great fortresses, and owned one of the world's great traditions. Yet they
fell to the Corsican dictator after just one day's siege. Imposing, impregnable
Valetta fell so quickly, said Napoleon, because "the place certainly
possessed immense physical means of resistance, but no moral means whatsoever."
By 1809, the once proud Hospitallers had atrophied to a shocking state,
due mostly to inaction and a failed sense of duty. Of the 332 knights
in Valetta that day, 50 were simply too old to fight.
