Those who paid attention to the 2013 CPAC conference this past weekend on March 14-16 undoubtedly saw the kerfuffle surrounding Scott Terry, a 30 year old white man from North Carolina. While attending a meeting CPAC put on that discussed how the conservative movement can reach out to minorities, Terry made politically incorrect comments.
Nothing Terry said was inaccurate, and he didn’t use racist or vile language. Nonetheless, he was not only falsely smeared by the radical left wing group Think Progress for supposedly wanting whites to rule over blacks, but he was also viciously attacked by two mainstream conservative organizations: Twitchy and The Blaze (the latter of which was founded by Glenn Beck).
Twitchy claimed that Terry is a “troll” and isn’t a “real conservative.” They linked to Jason Howerton’s article at The Blaze in which Howerton describes Terry’s comments as “stunningly outrageous.” Howerton also absurdly attacked Terry for “openly detest[ing] the GOP ‘establishment’ and the annual conservative conference.” (Memo to Howerton: Both the GOP establishment and CPAC deserve to be detested for their decadence).
I reached out to Terry on his website, and he kindly granted me this interview. Here’s what he had to say about the attacks against him by conservative outlets, the false smear by Think Progress, and the failed strategy of reaching out to minorities:
Q. It's obviously no surprise that Think Progress and the Huffington Post would jump at any possible opportunity to scream "racism," but what do you make of conservative outlets like The Blaze calling you a plant and a troll?
A. I don't know what they're thinking, really. If I had to guess, I'd say they're trying to wrest the narrative away from the lefitsts, who look at my performance as a portal into the supposed racist psyche of conservatives. I think The Blaze hoped to paint me as a lone nut, unrelated to mainline interests.
I do acknowledge though, that as the weekend progressed, The Blaze article began focusing less on me, and more on the left-wing nuts at Think Progress, who presented the entire thing in the most unflattering light possible – which is much closer to the actual truth.
Q. Apparently Think Progress took you out of context in order to smear you for supposedly believing that blacks should be "permanently subservient to whites." Would you like to clarify what you actually said?
A. I don't even know which statement they're referring to when they make that claim. I'm hoping (since it's so incendiary) they publish the recording so I can interact with my words in context. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it anywhere on the net.
But regardless: Do I really think blacks should be “permanently subservient to whites?” Not at all. This may sound naive to modernist ears, but I believe God created all the diverse people groups, each with a unique purpose. Blacks have a role to play in creation, just like whites, just like Asians, and all the others. We'll best fulfill this Godly "telos" if we're in an environment where we can flourish and grow freely.
Q. Would it be correct to describe you as a Southern nationalist? Or would you describe yourself as something else?
A. It's accurate to call me a Southern Nationalist, sure, but I am only marginally affiliated with that crowd. Really, I describe myself as a “Kinist” – which means: I rely on an underlying Calvinist theology to support my racial realism and ethnic nationalism. Calling me a white nationalist, or a southern nationalist, would be too narrow, then, as I think "nationalism" itself is the normative social order for all men, not just whites or southerners.
Were I black, I'd be a "black nationalist," were I Jewish, I'd be a "Jewish nationalist," and were I Asian, I'd be an "Asian Nationalist" and so on. We all have unique interests, goals, plans, hopes and dreams. Let's respect that diverse range of interests, instead of trying to merge it all together, or claim there is no such thing as different groups. That's really disingenuous.
Q. Why do you think the GOP and Conservatism Inc. have such an obsession with reaching out to people who will never vote for them or support them? Why do they ignore and lambaste the Sailer Strategy and the NPI's Majority Strategy?
A. A lot of my friends are into conspiracy theories and a phrase I hear often is “follow the money.” Well, I'm not into speculating about things of that sort, nor can I say what's in the hearts and minds of the GOP establishment. There does seem to be an accurate joke about conservatives, though: That they're 10 years behind liberals. They're fighting a rear-guard action so that a liberal of today, is the conservative of tomorrow.
Why is that? Well, I think it has to do with a lack of religious passion on the part of the GOP establishment. Leftists are religiously devoted to their positions and have a motivating passion that guides them. The Right, usually, does not – or works to stamp Christian passions out of the political discourse. Until that changes, until conservatives burn with a holy hell-fire of righteous indignation, they'll always be yesterday's liberals.
Q. This is a bit of a broad question, but in summary, what do you stand for?
A. I'm just a blue-collar Southern guy, who loves his people and his ancestors and his God. “Kinism,” I've found, provides the intellectual, spiritual, and even poetic support for all these things.
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In case you’re wondering what Kinism is, Terry himself provides a full breakdown on his website. Terry also wrote a post on March 16 in which he gives his side of the CPAC story, including an explanation of his politically incorrect comment about slavery:
It’s true, as the economists who advocate for a subjective theory of value have noted, that the entrepreneur’s risks, technology, and managing ability, are indispensable parts of the business enterprise, and it’s no different for the plantation. It’s not as if slaves formed their own logistical infrastructure and took financial risks. So, they were provided with housing, food, medical care, etc. That’s not even a controversial point. We all know it’s true.
Unfortunately, truth isn’t very popular in the GOP at the moment.
Chuck Swindoll once said that "life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it." Applied to this context, conservatives are in control of how they react to the non-stop liberal screeches of “racism.”
Unfortunately, mainstream conservatism has chosen to react to the latest accusation of “racism” by throwing Scott Terry under the bus. This is par for the course with mainstream conservatism. The left’s modern day Salem witch hunt only works to the extent that conservatives internalize it. As The League of the South said:
“The League of the South will not respond to what we consider as an anti-white and anti-Southern appellation designed to demonize us and inculcate "white guilt" in our people. If you call us "racists," our response will be "so what?"
Hopefully one day groups like Twitchy and The Blaze will realize that liberals make no distinctions whatsoever between Scott Terry and everyone else who attended CPAC. Case in point: “The issue is one of dress and language, but not one of substance. The Tea Party and the Republican base are no different in substance than the KKK or the early Nazi party.”
Ergo, it’s futile for conservatives to castigate Americans like Terry. Even if you disagree with him, just ignore him, don’t demonize him. No amount of groveling or purging will satiate the left’s bloodlust. Liberals see Klansman and Nazis behind every conservative, without fail. It is thus with a touch of irony that I rephrase Martin Niemöller:
First they came for the “racists,”
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a racist.
Then they came for the immigration restrictionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I’m fine with “legal” immigration.
Then they came for the “misogynists,”
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a misogynist.
Then they came for the “homophobes,”
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a homophobe.
Then they came for the Tea Party,
and I only spoke out when they defended tax cuts.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
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