The modern liberal will never forgive America for slavery. The stain can never be washed away. That’s one reason progressives are continually striving to “progress” America away from its founding values, its Constitution, and in the words of our current president “fundamentally transform” our country. That’s not working out so well, but that’s another story.

The liberal obsession with slavery and race is one reason liberals love movies that show the base wickedness of the institution of slavery and many of its proponents and practitioners. We can see this in the response of Jonathan Chait, quintessential liberal that he is, to the recent movie 12 Years a Slave. Overwrought is word that doesn’t quite capture his reaction to the movie.

I read his visceral outpouring and was going to write about it, but came across another piece about it titled, “12 Years a Slave Is Driving People Batty.”   As you’ll see there, Chait isn’t the only liberal driven to hyperbolic despair by the movie. Modern liberals see racism everywhere because although slavery was abolished 150 years ago nothing can change the fundamentally racist nature of the American experiment. Americans be they racist or not partake of the imputation of America’s original sin for which they can never be redeemed. We must be reminded over and over again lest we think we can escape condemnation; perpetual repentance must be our lot. Hollywood is only too eager to help.