What I and VFR are not about

Because I speak so often and with such intensity about black anti-white violence and society’s failure to respond to it or even to identify it, it is perhaps inevitable that some readers would take this to mean that I favor violence against blacks, in the form of vengeance or lynchings or cruel and unusual punishments. Nothing could be further from the truth. My criticisms of whites for their passivity have concerned white silence about and acceptance of black-on-white violence and their failure to warn their fellow whites of the dangers they face and to enforce the law and protect society in a meaningful way; my criticisms have not concerned a failure of whites to commit illegal or extreme acts of violence. Yet from time to time I will receive an e-mail in which a correspondent indulges, perhaps regretfully, in thoughts of lynchings or even murder. I tell such correspondents in no uncertain terms that that is not what I am about and that I never want to hear them speak that way to me again.

For example, in a recent exchange, a reader wrote to me:

I know I should be ashamed of what I’m about to write.

I’ve always believed that capital punishment should be as quick, merciful, and dignified as possible—that it is essential for a decent society not to inflict unnecessary pain in the process. I swear to God this is how I’ve always felt.

Now, I think of these beautiful children, how their parents, their families, their friends, must have felt happiness every day, just because they were alive. And I want to take the murderers out and burn them alive. I want to bind them, soak them in gasoline, and set them on fire.

I want to make a statement. I want to send notice. I want to give a wakeup call to the savages, in language they will understand.

I replied to him:

I understand your feelings, but, in all seriousness, I must ask you not to send me e-mails of this nature. I cannot encourage your entertaining such thoughts. If you want to entertain them, that is your business, but I don’t want you to share them with me.

Remember that there are three stages of wrongdoing. The first is thought, the second is speech, the third is action. You have already entered the second stage, by sharing your thoughts with me.

Perhaps it seems I am being too stern about this, but, from experience with other commenters, I know what I’m talking about. If I don’t stop you right now and tell you that I don’t want to hear this kind of thing from you, then there is a good chance you will send me more such thoughts, and that they will become more graphic and expansive.

I’m not writing this in anger or even in criticism. I am simply telling you in the clearest terms that I do not want to receive such messages.

No apology is needed. All that’s needed is that you do not send me any more messages of this nature.

[end of excerpt of e-mail exchange.]

The reader accepted without ill-will what I said and he continues to read and comment at VFR.

- end of initial entry -

Ed H. writes:

It doesn’t require too much discernment to see that VFR is not about race at all. You have said that you personally rarely think about race, and I believe you. What I do think you do think about a great deal is the collapse of our civilization and more specifically how our country is now embarked on destroying every intellectual and spiritual means by which the human mind touches the higher realms of experience. This movement is Satanic in its origins and goals. It is the deliberate destruction of all the boundaries and distinctions which make any peaceful and intellectual life possible that bothers you most about what is going on. You could blithely go through your day with no thought of blacks or black culture except that they are a weapon used to destroy everything in the name of “equality.” Who is wielding this weapon and why are the real questions. And so whether the attack is being carried out using black gangsta street culture or the insipid idea-set of the half-witted prep-schooled faux conservatives at National Review makes no difference to you. In that regard you are truly “race blind.” You are accused of hatred. But this fight does not elicit physical hatred from you, it elicits intellectual indignation. The distinction is tremendous. It is nothing less than the same antagonism that inspires every act of the imagination against the “dark Satanic Mills.” William Blake’s breath-taking poem “Jerusalem” contains the phrase “I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,” which sounds a great deal like something Lawrence Auster has said in one context or another. The fight is the same, the enemy is the same, only the names of the personnel change.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold!
Bring me my Arrows of desire!
Bring me my Spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant Land

Dean Ericson writes:

You wrote: “The reader accepted without ill-will what I said and he continues to read and comment at VFR.”

Would that all will do so.

LA writes:

The reader whose e-mail I quoted at the beginning of this entry tells me that he’s delighted that I quoted it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 28, 2012 01:00 PM | Send