Gillespie Hadiths

Tim Cavanaugh | February 28, 2005

Proving that the Chris Farley interview style is not dead, Luke Ford takes Reason's editor on an extended tour of his own mind. The Ford/Gillespie Q&A is guaranteed to leave you wanting less, though I still managed to be disappointed that Ford left his most interesting questions unasked. (So we'll never know, for example, how Gillespie felt about the way the Hutus massacred the "Tutus" at the Hotel Rwanda.) As it stands, there's a heaping helping of the topic that seems to occupy an uncomfortably large portion of Luke Ford's mind: the depravity of black people.

Of course, wherever black depravity is the topic, The National Review can't be far away. Ford's voluminous quotations from NR on this subject may or may not whet your appetite for this review by Eric Pfeiffer of Gillespie's performance at the recent Conservatives and Libertarians debate. The money quote (and trust me, we're not talking about a lot of money) is here:

Though I disagreed with several of his points, Gillespie clearly was the most comfortable on stage in delivering his argument. He certainly surpassed the Pabst Blue Ribbon swilling, Death Cab for Cutie loving, hipster circa 2001 image I had going in.

I can say with confidence that the Atkins-loyal, carb-phobic, hopelessly sanpaku Gillespie hasn't had a sip of PBR, or for that matter any other beer, for a long time. As for the rest of Pfeiffer's overheated imagery, only in Hollywood for ugly people could a magazine editor inspire such a froth of free-associating panic through the supremely transgressive act of wearing a leather jacket.

Comments

|2.28.05 @ 10:13PM|#

Hoo Boy, I think Nick did remarkably well given the circumstances. This Like Ford guy sounds like he was born in a Adam Sandler movie.

|2.28.05 @ 10:14PM|#

"an Adam Sandler movie"

|2.28.05 @ 11:45PM|#

Favorite quotes from this nut bucket:

Hedonists Welch and Gillespie hit the bottle hard.
Debbie Gendel introduces her screenwriter husband to Morgan to Gillespie and they chat about the absurdity of criminalizing drugs. I bet they've each tried more than their fair share in their time.

Adam Smith points out in his 1776 book The Wealth of Nations that there are vices the middle class can get away with that would destroy someone of an inferior class.

The Lonewacko Blog|2.28.05 @ 11:50PM|#

I keep Luke Ford's card in my wallet just in case.

|3.1.05 @ 12:27AM|#

"Hadiths" huh? I wonder how many of these words from the GWOT are going to stick. (assuming the GWOT will end)

|3.1.05 @ 7:11AM|#

Discuss: Is there really "a fundamental difference between buying Skittles and committing murder or having sex", or are these activities a lot more similar than Nick would have us believe?

Gary Gunnels|3.1.05 @ 7:32AM|#

*snore*

Luke Ford|3.1.05 @ 8:17AM|#

I understand Tim how shocking it must've been for you to read some honest questions about race. Very different stuff from the Panglossian "race doesn't exist" approach of your boss. Good for you for being a good soldier, falling into line behind Nick, and refusing to consider difficult questions by dismissing them as motivated by racism. I'm sure your approach is going to work wonders for Reason and for America. While violent crime and illegitimacy destroy much of the black community, Americans should feel reassured by you that to even ask about these matters is verboten. You're a gutsy man. Way to tackle the tough issues. I'm sure they'll get better just by ignoring them.

Luke Ford|3.1.05 @ 8:25AM|#

Tim, I take it that you are arguing that a 70% black illegitimacy rate only exists in my mind? That more young black men are in prison than college is purely a figment of my imagination? That statistics quoted from National Review must inherently be false?
I greatly look forward, Tim, to your disproving these widely known statistics. We will all sleep better at night after we review your evidence. You do have evidence, right Tim? You weren't just taking some cheap shots? You weren't just crying "racism" to avoid facing parts of reality that you don't like?

|3.1.05 @ 8:40AM|#

You go, Luke. Forget Hunter Thompson, you're my favorite gonzo journalist.

As for issues of race, my favorite source of information is Steve Sailer (www.isteve.com), a smart guy who cuts through loads of p.c. bullshit.

The interview was hilarious, btw.

|3.1.05 @ 9:43AM|#

The phrase "Death Cab for Cutie loving, hipster circa 2001" clearly indicates that the author is ill-informed about Death Cab's career and the evolution of the hipster, both issues on which I assume Mr. Mxyzptlk could set him straight.

Anon

pococurante|3.1.05 @ 9:56AM|#

Oh, the joys of Trackback.

Nick, that looked like a lengthy interview. Why're you wasting time with this jagoff with a badly designed web page (where's Home?) and who can't spell Friedrich? You're smart, handsome, a TV-panel staple*, and you have a leather jacket besides!

*(Have you been on Bill Maher, whether Real Time or PI? That would be good. Just don't appear with Robin Williams.)

|3.1.05 @ 9:58AM|#

More tough questions for Nick and Tim that Luke Ford left out, presented here in service of saving the children & also America.

1. Is it a good idea to allow Tiger Woods to play golf ? Crime on golf courses increased by 64.327 % after he won that year (insert link to NR here).

2. Why aren't there any black models on Reason's staff ? Does the thought tingle it for the anglo-saxons on the staff ? (insert link to NR here).

3. Isn't it a good idea for black people to play golf with a hockey stick ? (insert link here)

4. Why do anglo-saxon lacrosse players have hardier genes than hispanic ones ? (Link to article that alludes to "poisson distribution" because it sounds scientific and shit)

God bless America. Didn't you hear what I said. I said, God bless America.

Nick Gillespie|3.1.05 @ 10:06AM|#

Hey Luke,

At the risk of prolonging your probing of me, let me suggest a couple of corrections to your characterizations of my comments. First and foremost, I pointed out that violent crime rates have been declining for a decade or more now--after being relatively stable since the early '70s, when the first truly national stats became available. Here's a chart that shows that (and note that the surveys of actual victims show the decline while those dictated by police show a different trend, one that I would argue are misleading and self-interested by law enforcement). If illegitimacy per se is the issue, it's hard to see why crime would decline if illegitimacy rates either increase or stay steady.

Furthermore, I didn't say that crime isn't in many cases concentrated in inner-city areas with large minority--especially black--populations. I did point out that a huge part of that had to do with government polices such as the war on drugs that work to amp up violence and contain it in economically marginal areas.

I do reject categorically your various implications that there is some sort of genetic or ethnic determinism at work regarding criminal behavior. As someone of Italian and Irish descent--two "races" that were identified as criminal orders a century ago by your beloved "Anglo-Saxons"--I'm not interested in perpetuating or even entertaining pseudo-scientific, socially divisive explanations of human behavior that participate in a long and baleful discourse about such matters in America.

|3.1.05 @ 10:22AM|#

Pfeiffer was clearly thinking of Sanchez!

|3.1.05 @ 11:17AM|#

Luke,
What is your preoccupation with race? There has to be a point where we can just get past it, doesn't there?

I don't know what sort of answers you were looking for, and I've seen stories regarding inner city crime, and illegitimacy rates before.

Are you suggesting that blacks should be forced into marriages, and issued licenses to reproduce? Or maybe that women who bear children out of wedlock should be ostracized and stigmatized by society?

|3.1.05 @ 11:55AM|#

"I do reject categorically your various implications that there is some sort of genetic or ethnic determinism at work regarding criminal behavior."

Genetic, certainly not.

Ethnic, that's certainly up for debate.

|3.1.05 @ 12:27PM|#

Nick, you have the *audacity* to not think a lot about bestiality and get tingly when you see a white woman with a black man? What kind of sick pervert are you?

Nick: "Yes. The last time I checked, it was non-Anglo-Saxons [the Greeks] who invented democracy."

Yea well you also invented homos.

The Lonewacko Blog|3.1.05 @ 12:37PM|#

If Luke Ford interviewed Duncan B. Black, about the only thing different on this whole page would be that the post would be from Leah, Corrante, or The Farmer.

|3.1.05 @ 1:22PM|#

Guys, give Luke a break. He rarely meets anyone who thinks about things aside from clashing nail polish and lipgloss or what LA trade publication parasite is linking to his friends' blogs. Luke, in a nutshell, you're suffering from premature ejaculation. You're so concerned with asking "provocative" questions that you've completely stopped asking interesting or thought-provoking ones. You might think it makes you sound like a brave intellectual cosmonaut, charting forbidden seas of taboo thought, but in reality, you just sound like a prick.

Luk3F4|\||3.1.05 @ 2:22PM|#

Luk3 ru135. ||i(k dr0015.

carter|3.1.05 @ 3:00PM|#

I don't understand how drug laws cause the disparities in the rate of rapes comitted by different racial groups. Maybe it only makes sense if you're high.

"I'm not interested in perpetuating or even entertaining pseudo-scientific, socially divisive explanations of human behavior "

So is the Reason slogan going to be changed to 'Non-socially divisive minds, free markets" any time soon?

Luke Ford|3.1.05 @ 11:01PM|#

I never suggested there was a genetic or ethnic cause for crime.

I asked questions about race because the existential reality as reflected by the statistics I linked to show that race remains a major factor in American life, even if that makes Nick, Tim, David and company uncomfortable.

Alex|3.2.05 @ 3:02AM|#

Blacks have disastrous rates of illegitamacy and crime because of their culture. Government programs massively exacerbated this problem in the last few decades, but presumably it won't go away simply by eliminating the welfare state. Somehow the cultural problem needs to be addressed.

Libertarians are about government or lack of government, but I don't know what they've got on the issue of culture.

So that's the wall here, right?

Luke Ford|3.2.05 @ 8:04AM|#

My friend Chaim points out: "There is one genetic marker that absolutely correlates with crime: having a Y chromosome. People with Y chromosomes commit vastly more crime than those without, and those who have two such chromosomes (XYY) commit more still."

s.m. koppelman|3.2.05 @ 12:12PM|#

It's noit just the leather jacket. In that same publicity still, he also sports Lou Reed's haircut circa Mistrial, the record where the self-reflection that worked so well on New Sensations started to curdle. Which is to say it prefigured Death Cab for Cutie.

|3.2.05 @ 4:24PM|#

Many of those issues that Luke Ford believes to be racial are in this day and age class issues rather than racial issues. As America has become less racially divided, it has become far more divided by class. The societal ills that Luke mentioned are ills of the underclass, which may be disproportionately black but hardly exclusively nor predominately black. Nick is correct that many of those ills are caused by the War on Drugs, but those which are not are related to class inequality which Steve Sailor's article did not even touch upon.

|3.2.05 @ 4:56PM|#

Crime may be a problem of the underclass, but poor blacks commit crimes at far greater rates than poor whites.

ron|3.3.05 @ 5:12AM|#

jesus fucking christ this Luke Ford guy is a tool.