Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Monday, May 3, 2010

Maxims for American Intellectuals


(good for putting down right-wing bigots at cocktail parties or in the classroom)

From Chronicles
By Clyde N. Wilson

Taking off your shoes at the airport is patriotic and makes you safer.

If college athletes fail academically it is obviously society’s fault.

HIV is an unfortunate virus and not caused by human behaviour.

Presidents are good and do what is best for us, except Nixon.

Poverty causes crime and if we eliminate poverty we can eliminate crime.

America has always been a nation of immigrants.

Diversity is a wonderful thing. Everybody should be required to accept it.

Excellence in education and equality in education are the same thing.

We are bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. We ought to be, and soon will be, doing the same for Iran.

Freedom means that all forms of non-coercive sexual activity are equally acceptable, as is declared in the Constitution.

In our Constitution, the Founding Fathers established for all time that “all men are created equal.”

Our Constitution demands a “wall of separation” between church and state. Churches should never interfere in politics unless it is to support progressive causes.

There is no such thing as race, but some races deserve special advantages.

Crime and social dysfunction in Northern metropolises are caused by slavery in the South that ended a century and a half ago.

Slavery in the South was the greatest atrocity in history except for Hitler’s killing of the Jews.

People oppose Obama only because he is black.

Bigotry is totally unacceptable except anti-Catholicism and anti-Arabism.

Terrorism mostly is to be feared from right-wing bigots.

The volcano eruption in Iceland was caused by rising right-wing extremism.


Clyde N. Wilson is a contributing editor to Chronicles. A retired professor of history at the University of South Carolina, he is the author of numerous books, including Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew and Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture. He is the editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun.

1 comment:

kkollwitz said...

Clyde Wilson....I don't see enough of him on the Net.