An Important Shade of Prejudice

This afternoon, Ramesh Ponnuru opined:

I didn't much like President Bush's eulogy. The best example of the kind of false note he struck was the following line: "He believed that bigotry and prejudice were the worst things a person could be guilty of." I doubt that Reagan believed that proposition, and if he had, his holding of that view would not have been praiseworthy. I am sure, on the other hand, that Bush believes this proposition, or thinks that he does.

However, in his tribute Lane Core quoted something similar from Reagan's debate with Bobby Kennedy:

Now, I happen to believe that the greatest part of the problem lies in the hearts of men. I think that bigotry and prejudice is probably the worst of all man's ills the hardest to correct. ...

... people in positions like ourselves like the Senator and myself, like the President of the United States, can do a great deal of good, perhaps almost as much as proper legislation, if we take the lead in saying those who operate their businesses or their lives on a basis of practicing discrimination and prejudice are practicing what is an evil sickness.

A couple of hours after the original post, somebody emailed Ponnuru pointing out that President Bush's sentiment was a direct quote from one of Reagan's letters. Personally, I think he put it better in the debate — in subtle, but extremely important ways.

In the formulation from the debate, Reagan's notion of "ills" and the view toward correction makes of prejudice an error to be righted. And that accords with Reagan's subsequent prescription of public pressure. The formulation that Bush quoted puts forward the idea of prejudice as an action worthy of guilt, to be punished. This is the difference between culture-honing argument and hate-crime legislation, which ends specific discussion and encroaches on the next point and the next, until it's a crime to disagree on tangentially related matters.

I like to think that, had the question been put this way to Ronald Reagan, he'd have clarified in the direction of his debate statement. But then, I'm biased.