In this article recently posted elsewhere on the site regarding the psychology of the conservative voter, a reply by Sam Harris summarizes a moral thought experiment conducted on left and right wing voters. Participants were given the old dilemma of whether to kill one person to save a hundred elsewhere. Hints were dropped as to the ethnicity of the hundred people to be saved, and it was shown that (presumably white) liberals were more likely to sacrifice white people to save non-whites, but not vice-versa; while conservatives showed no preference. Perhaps the liberals were moral relativists, and felt that whites would share their own perspectives on self-sacrifice, whereas it would be an imposition on another culture (assuming the non-whites in question are culturally different). Or perhaps the liberals were just scared to make a presumption on another race; one more slight, however rhetorical, in a long series of slights against the brown people by the whites. As much as I'm in agreement with the idea that much of white western civilization should make an effort to learn from its long and ugly history of aggression toward much of the world, this sort of knee-jerk self-effacement only weakens all us liberals in the eyes of the real monsters, the conservatives. Throw away your Dalai Llama posters, and stop apologizing like it helps anything.

The United States is better because of liberal progress; it's stronger because pluralism inspires greater unity than forced assimilation and racial stratification. Because gender equality doubles active participation and inclusion. If it wasn't for us, this country would have collapsed under its own benighted idiocy. We are the only line of defense. While we may not get everything right, we're at least willing to try to pull this country forward, rather than into the Lovecraftian depths.

BE PROUD. NO APOLOGIES.