One of the political left’s favorite tactics is to assume as settled fact something that has not been proven, demonstrated, or generally agreed upon by knowledgeable observers and then to erect upon this false premise an elaborate scaffolding of rhetoric designed to advance their agenda. Leading examples include the deeply flawed global warming hypothesis and the “fact” that water-boarding (to which our own military subjects members of its special forces in the course of their training) amounts to torture, even leaving aside the problem that Geneva Conventions apply only to uniformed soldiers representing a sovereign nation.

Of particular local interest is the claim that raising the subject of crime is really only a covert way of raising the subject of race in an inflammatory fashion. In fact, the left increasingly identifies any subject it does not want examined as a surrogate for racial animus. Witness the characterizations of the recent “tea parties” protesting outrageous government taxation and spending as really being thinly camouflaged attacks on black people. Our politics apparently has entered the era of paranoid delusion.

Thus it unfolded that, when some of us who support Marshand Crisler in the current race for mayor formed a PAC (Political Action Committee) to campaign in support of our candidate, in part by pointing out the shortcomings of his opponent during the latter’s previous sojourn in office, we inevitably ran afoul of the local keepers of the mantra that any mention of crime constitutes an attack on black people in general. Chief among the local keepers of the leftist orthodoxy is a tabloid and on-line publication called the Jackson Free Press. Our PAC sent a mailer to parts of the city where crime is a salient issue, pointing out that our opponent failed to hire a police chief for 15 months, while crime ran rampant in our city. The mailer also cited quotes from the Clarion Ledger referencing a study by an outfit called Morgan Quitno that ranked Jackson as one of the country’s most dangerous cities during that period when our opponent was mayor.

A commonly employed device at the JFP is to attack any document or publication it does not like by obsessively chanting that it is “taken out of context” or “misused,” without ever disproving any of its substantive conclusions. Thus, the Morgan Quitno study is definitively dismissed as “discredited,” much in the same way that the global warming hypothesis is enshrined as a “scientific consensus” even while thousands of scientists dispute it. Further proof – as if it were needed – that our PAC is contaminated by conspiratorial malice is that it includes one of the JFP’s leading bête noires, local lawyer Wilson Carroll, who had the effrontery to run for district attorney against (Gasp!) a black woman supported by the JFP. The JFP “discovered” and trumpeted this damning connection between Carroll and our PAC, as if some attempt had been made to conceal it.

Perhaps a word about PACs is in order at this point. Political action committees are governed by state law. They are described in the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Campaign Finance Handbook (in which they are referred to simply as “political committees”) as “associations, clubs, committees, political action committees or political parties.” They are loose, informal associations of persons who raise contributions to support or oppose a political candidate. They are not part of the candidate’s official campaign. They are not corporations, which have shareholders, or LLCs, which have members, or partnerships, which have partners. A PAC is required to have a treasurer and a director. Otherwise, it is hard to say who is a “member” or is “involved” with any particular PAC. Certainly Wilson and I are in the thick of it. Some others may have attended a meeting, participated in a phone call, passed through the room, served coffee, offered a suggestion, or otherwise come into contact with our nefarious conjuring. I will leave to any of them who consider themselves to have been a member of our Pac to self-identify if they wish. We filed a Statement of Organization, as required by the statute, with the Jackson city clerk. We will continue to file all required reports so long as the PAC continues in existence. Big scandal, huh?

The political left does not undertake to rebut its opponents’ arguments but to delegitimize the opponents entirely by casting their positions as beyond the pale of allowable political discourse. Merely voicing the names “Cheney” or “Halliburton” is thought to convey some deep condemnation, even though no illegality or impropriety on the part of either has ever been established (unless one considers Cheney’s accidental shooting of a hunting buddy some sort of deep moral failing). Likewise, the folks at the JFP seem to think they have made some decisive, game-changing point merely by “revealing” that white people in northeast Jackson are talking about crime. From my 18 years as president of our neighborhood association, I have first-hand knowledge that crime is the single issue most on the minds of people in northeast Jackson. It is not an irrational fixation: one of my neighbors on his daily pre-dawn walk recently had a car stop beside him, from which alit a young entrepreneur of crime who pressed a pistol to my neighbor’s temple and demanded valuables. My neighbor considers himself fortunate that he was not shot for failure to maintain on his person at all times an amount of money sufficient to relieve the financial distress of an indigent criminal.

So, after the high drama of the Melton years, we thought that the memory of the good ol’ Harvey Johnson days may have faded somewhat. So we set about to remind folks of that halcyon time, when we had a police chief who spent most of his time and energy arguing that the people he was selected to protect had overblown “perceptions” of crime and should just chill. And yes, we sent the mailer to areas where we thought that the message would resonate. (Our deviousness knows no bounds!) By election day (I am writing this on Sunday before the election) we will have also dispatched “robo-calls,” recorded messages urging recipients to go vote for our candidate. And, get this: we will run radio spots on Monday and Tuesday urging people to get out and vote. (The horror!) But that’s not all – we will run these spots on stations that we think will be heard by more people likely to vote for our candidate than for his opponent. (The inhumanity!)

And if it hadn’t been for the dastardly Jackson Free Press, we would have gotten away with all of this scandalous behavior right under everyone’s noses. How could we anticipate that they had such advanced skills as using the Internet to check an address? Curses!

The editor of the JFP some years ago began referring to people of Wilson’s and my political persuasion as the North Jackson Angry Men’s Club. (A consistent tactic of the left, always angry about almost everything, is to characterize everyone else as being angry.) The first rule of political correctness is that white guys cannot be insulted by anything. Accordingly, we have embraced the epithet NJAM as a high encomium. We don’t have a letterhead, but we’re thinking about it. Ours is a legitimate political position, and we represent people who have legitimate and reasonable political objectives. There is nothing racist about concern over crime. My neighbor would not feel better about having a pistol at his temple if the hand holding it were white.

Jackson, in my view, has a better racial climate than most other places. This arises in part from the division of political and economic power. Blacks have virtually all of the political power in Jackson and Hinds County, while whites still have a disproportionate share of the economic power. Each wants some of what the other has, which leads to trade-offs and bargaining, which leads to real relationships. Just as trade among nations generally produces peace and prosperity, so it is among groups of people. Jackson will probably have black mayors for as long as anyone can see into the future, or until such time as race truly no longer matters. That does not mean that white voters do not have a stake in matters or that their voice should not be heard. The JFP can indulge in all the flatulence its readers can stand about the “creative class” and other leftist fantasies. The people Wilson and I represent have equally legitimate political and social objectives. This is our city, too. Deal with it.

David Sanders is a Northsider.