An Unsung Legion

I have many problems with the work of Ann Coulter in general, but will readily concede that she can be very good at exposing the vacuousness and malignity of the left. Today, I have to further concede that she has written something much-needed and long overdue. In her latest piece, Coulter considers the army of unsung heroes who have played integral parts in various highly publicized criminal cases, of which the Zimmerman trial is the latest; cases in which leftist media and politicians have been more than happy to fan the flames of what could aptly be called black-on-black bigotry:

One neighbor testified that Jonah [Perry] told him the night of the incident that his brother was shot when they were mugging someone. Another neighbor said Jonah told her that night that he tried to beat up a guy who turned out to be a cop. This was in a courtroom full of rabble-rousers, amen-ing everything defense lawyer Alton Maddox said.

They told the truth knowing they'd have to go back to the neighborhood. Whatever happened to them? Why aren't they the heroes? Where's their Hollywood movie? There was a movie about the Perry case. It was titled: Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story. (The grand jury had no difficulty finding the motive: The cop was being mugged.) [bold added, minor format edits]

I do have one quibble with this otherwise excellent column: I wouldn't say that these witnesses were under pressure to "root for their race". Objectively, rooting for a race would entail generally feeling good will towards the individual members of that race, and wouldn't preclude doing so for members of other races.

Put another way, that phrase lets the zero-sum, collectivist premise behind race-based law off the hook too easily. When individual rights are protected by law, everyone who obeys the law has the opportunity to win, that is, to pursue his own happiness. To root for or against a race in the way Coulter used the phrase is to admit that one does not see others or himself as an individual. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to consider whether something like happiness ever factors in to the thinking of such an individual.

-- CAV