I commented on this post at National Review and the commnet was quickly removed by their moderators. I made the point that pretentious people like Michael Potemra live in a city where it is official policy to hassle brown people on the streets. The intent of stop and frisk is to let the black know he is not welcome. Since the court struck down Bloomberg’s stop and frisk rules, the city’s chattering classes have been wringing their hands about New York becoming Detroit. Now word and deed are one as the official policy of driving out the blacks is matched by the public rhetoric.

Despite this, we still hear the lectures from the smugly self-righteous over race. The same people demanding their cops stop every black guy wandering into Manhattan, will scream about Paula Deen and George Zimmerman. None of this is shocking as most of the people doing this are Progressives and they need bogeymen men to exist. The result is a stunning lack of self-awareness. Liberals, almost always, reserve their harshest venom for the crimes they routinely commit. It’s the sort of thing that goes on in a cult.

Now, I used to be a regular in the National Review comment section. I stopped when Rich Lowry hired someone to moderate the site. Instantly 90% of the commenters disappeared and Lowry had to spend a month begging people to return. I gave it another shot, but quit again when the same nonsense started anew. The only reason to read the site nowadays is to read the comments. There at least you see that there are still people with an awareness of what’s happening in the country. It’s somewhat encouraging, frankly.

Lowry and the editorial staff at National Review are strivers, not all that interested in raising uncomfortable observations. They are the definition of careerist. The only guy at National Review worth reading is Kevin Williamson and I strongly suspect he is a complete phony. Otherwise National Review is, at best, a souvenir program for the museum of late-20th century conservatism. At worst is is a platform for hollow men like Lowry to curry favor with the ruling class.

If National Review were actually trying to oppose the left, as they like to claim in their funding drives, they would love the issue of race. Instead, they are doing everything they can to insulate the Left from the growing number of whites wondering if they should not embrace identity politics for their own sake. It’s not just National Review. Dan McCarthy at The American Conservative is following the same path. Buckley conservatism is pretty much just pear clutching and purges now. It has nothing else to offer.

The reason behind these moves is the claim that it is bad for business. They say the donors don’t like it, but they fail to mention that many of their donors also support Progressive publications. Of course, all of these writers dream of landing a TV gig at a Progressive cable channel, so they make sure to never write anything that will truly vex Lefty. That means the Left lectures the Right on race and the Right forever apologizes for things it never did or said, because in the end, they are all at the same trough.

The whole point of being in the opposition is to oppose the prevailing orthodoxy. To do that you have to let a thousand flowers bloom. That means putting up with some weirdos and cranks, but it also means getting interesting perspective from guys like Unz, Sailer, Derbyshire and so forth. They have their own quirks and get things wrong, but they get a lot right too. When you’re the underdog, you need to be creative and take risks.

Instead, the dying husks of American conservatism are purging themselves of non-conformists and begging the majority to allow them to surrender. National Review has simply become the primary outlet of the collaborationist wing of the GOP. In fact, it was always just the outer limit of what was allowable within the prevailing Progressive orthodoxy. Buckley was a right-wing Progressive with expensive tastes. The thing is, people are starting to notice that it was always part of the long con.