the acceptance of God. Without God,rnpositive law—ever changing, always relativern—carries the day. They recognizernthat without God all things are possiblernand see not only the Soviet Union butrnthe contemporary West as telling examplesrnof what “all things” can be. Thernczarist system, for all its arbitrary power,rnwas limited to some extent by the moralrnstrictures of Christianity: the gulag wasrnsimply not possible then. These Russianrncritics hope that their people will turn tornthe Ghurch, to the best of old Russia, tornthe culture that spawned not onlyrnproizyol but Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky, tornfind the raw materials for building a newrnRussia. To fail to do so means once againrnto impose an alien system from above,rnfor where else could the WesternizedrnRussia come from? Moreover, even ifrnone accepts the argument that Russianrnculture produced Soviet tyranny, it isrnwrongheaded to assume that is all it producedrnor is capable of producing. Ourrnown civilization, after all, has producedrnSt. Thomas, Shakespeare, and MotherrnTeresa, as well as Hitler, Dr. Kevorkian,rnand Hillary Clinton. One can surely ftndrnmuch to say in favor of a (Russian)rnculture that produces an AleksandrrnSolzhenitsyn as its social conscience.rnThe closest thing that we have is Phil orrnOprah. Our ancestors knew that therngood life is not necessarily one that isrnmaterially comfortable. Russia, assumingrnthere is enough of the best of herrnheritage left to build on and enoughrnpeople who care about doing the building,rnmay never be a democracy or a consumers’rnparadise, but she could still be arnsociety that her people could be proudrnof.rn—Wayne AllensworthrnPurcellville, VArnCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnO . J . SIMPSON IS now the most famousrnhuman being upon the planet.rnThe details of the case can be of no interestrnto anyone intellectual enough tornenjoy a game of “Co Fish,” but the debates,rnprivate as well as public, it hasrnspawned will haunt us for some time.rnFrom fairly early on most whites admittedrnto believing him guilty, while a majorityrnof blacks profess to think him innocent.rnIn fact, what black Americansrnmean when they say that O.J. is an innocentrnvictim of a white conspiracy isrnsomething much simpler and more reasonablernthan is supposed. What theyrnmean is that Mr. Simpson is guilty of arnjustifiable or excusable homicide. Theyrnare not basing their defense on the oldrngrounds of the crime passionelle, since,rnafter all, the Simpsons were divorced,rnand if it were argued that Mr. Simpsonrntook a Christian view of marriage, onernwould have to explain his own divorce, tornsay nothing of his own incessant womanizing.rnNo, it is not as outraged husband thatrnSimpson is to be defended but as a blackrnwho killed a white. Khallid Muhammad,rnamong the many black leaders supportingrnSimpson, had already received arnstanding ovation at Howard Universityrnfor demanding a Colin Ferguson Day torncommemorate the psychopath who shotrnup a train car full of white people, andrnhis opinion seems to be widely sharedrnwithin the community.rnTwo years ago in Chronicles I wrote anrnessay on the return of status to Americanrnlaw. Once upon a time, a man’s statusrndetermined the kind of justice he receivedrnin court, but after several hundredrnyears of reform, the civilized theory ofrnequality before the law had triumphed,rnat least in theory. Today, it is increasinglyrndifficult to sustain that fiction. Affirmativernaction requirements, haterncrimes statutes, sensitivity training, andrnthe double jeopardy inflicted upon thernofficers in the Rodney King case make itrnclear that there is one law for minoritiesrn—however defined—and another forrnthose of us with the misfortune to bernborn straight white males of Europeanrndescent. The entire Simpson case is anrnamusing reductio ad absurdum of thisrnprinciple, since the public debate boilsrndown to a shouting match between feministsrnclamoring for more laws protectingrnwives from abusive husbands and socalledrnblack leaders working hard to persuaderntheir followers that they are victimsrnof discrimination. All we need nowrnis for the ADL—a bigot lobby claimingrnto defend the interests of the most successfulrnethnic group in the history of thernworld, American Jews—to enter the picturernon behalf of Mr. Goldman. I’d lovernthis country, if 1 didn’t have to live here.rnMr. Simpson’s status is defined bothrnby his celebrity and by his race. As a herornto good old American football fansrnwhose minds arc too uncomplicated tornappreciate baseball or soccer, Simpson isrnentitled to special treatment, and as arnrich celebrity he is entitled to be defendedrnby the high-price lawyers thatrnonly rich liberals can afford to hire whenrnthey are trapped by the oppressive legalrnsystem they have created. But even ifrnMr. Simpson had spent all his moneyrnon cocaine, his status as victim wouldrnensure him first-class treatment, and inrnLos Angeles it is going to be very hard tornfind a mixed race jury that will voternunanimously for a verdict of guilty.rnBut suppose by some miracle Mr.rnSimpson is found guilty. He will mostrncertainly not face the death penalty.rnBlack leaders all over the country are alreadyrninsisting that the death penalty isrnselectively used against blacks. The factrnthat blacks are approximately nine timesrnas likely to commit murder as whitesrnmight explain why so many blacks are onrndeath row, but even supposing therernwere bias in the application of the deathrnpenalty, what sane person could possiblyrncare? I happen to believe that in factrnwhites are more likely to be executedrnthan blacks, but so long as some murderersrnare put to death, I cannot complain,rnand if I were black, I should feelrneven more strongly on this point, sincernthe victims of most black murderers arernblack. If a black is more likely to get executedrnfor killing whites than for killingrnblacks, this does not mean that if hernwere returned to the streets he wouldrnnot be more likely to kill members ofrnhis own race.rnThe entire debate over the deathrnpenalty reveals the stupidity and dishonestyrnof America’s media establishment.rnThe worst victims of such disinformationrnare the many otherwiserndecent black men and women who arcrnbeing fed this steady diet of lies and hate.rnIt is poisoning their character today, andrnbefore too long the inevitable whiternbacklash will not distinguish the gange/rnCHRONICLESrnrnrn