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The Company You Keep
Over at The Corner, anti-immigration campaigner (both legal and illegal, according to the subtitle of his book) Mark Krikorian is horrified to learn that Sarah Palin isn't sufficiently hostile to the idea of "amnesty." Nothing surprising there. What's interesting, though, is that Krikorian apparently gleaned this information while reading the website of one Lawrence Auster, to whom he approvingly links and "hat tips." And who, exactly, is Lawrence Auster? Put it this way: this is a guy whose conservatism was too extreme for David Horowitz and Frontpagemag.com; the site cut ties with Auster after the Huffington Post published a piece detailing his history of, umm, racial insensitivity.
A few bons mots from Auster, who has published in the racist magazines The Occidental Quarterly and American Renaissance: "What really convinced me of an inherent, dangerous weakness in black ways of thought, however, was their widespread belief in Afrocentrism and the notion that whites were committing ‘genocide' against blacks." Blacks "seem to have much less interest in knowledge or beauty for its own sake" and they "are in fact less endowed with the qualities that make civilization possible, particularly Western civilization." Or how about this fascinating explication of whether or not women should be allowed to vote (Auster says they shouldn't, because while "Women are the natural care-givers and are naturally focused on the home and the family and its protection. But those same priorities, when expressed through the political sphere as distinct from the private sphere, inevitably lead a society in the direction of socialism.")
So a tip to Krikorian: If you don't want people to think that you support immigration restrictions because of some sort of animus towards Mexicans, you should probably avoid linking to the websites of white nationalists like Auster. (And for the record, as far as I can tell, Krikorian has never written about phrenology, eugenics, and bell curves before, though it is troubling that he seems to be a reader of Auster's site. In fairness, I peruse quite a few crackpot websites too—for the purposes of seeing what the mad fringes are reading, I promise—though I wouldn't think of "hat tipping" such nonsense, especially without adding a strenuous caveat.)
For those of you who suggest that immigrants simply "get in line," perhaps it's time to go over reason's helpful immigration flow chart. And don't miss Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia in combat with Krikorian on Bloggingheads.
UPDATE: I missed this post. After reading Krikorian's attempt to blame the collapse of WaMu on the company's affirmative action policies, Professor Bainbridge confessed that such nonsense makes him "embarrassed to be a conservative."
UPDATE II: Krikorian mails to say that I missed this post too.
|10.24.08 @ 3:33PM|#
I don't get what is so un-libertarian about an opinion that blacks as a group exhibit any of the qualities he attributes to them. Based on the anecdotal evidence, I'd say he has a pretty strong case. Ditto for the comments about women. Check out the gender ratio at any libertarian gathering. It's basically the same as a Star Trek convention. The beauty of libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism is that it DOESN'T MATTER if blacks are inferior, or if women are predisposed to socialism.
a name before submitting the f|10.24.08 @ 3:34PM|#
How does one "approvingly link"? Why the scare quotes on "Hat
tip"?
I guess reason never links out unless they fully endorse the site's
idology.
|10.24.08 @ 3:37PM|#
FatDrunkAndStupid,
There's nothing inherently unlibertarian about prejudice. It is,
however, evidence of a stunning degree of willful ignorance.
"Anecdotal evidence" is a terribly foundation for
generalization.
Jeremy Kareken|10.24.08 @ 3:39PM|#
It took you one measly link for Bainbridge to be embarrassed of Conservatism? I've been embarrassed for some time. And I thought I was a Conservative.
|10.24.08 @ 3:39PM|#
What doe approvingly link mean? How about, linking to someone
while expressing gratitude?
We now know what Gov. Palin thinks about immigration, and the
results are not good (h/t Auster):
Why the scare quotes on "Hat tip"?
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I know: because it's a quote!
|10.24.08 @ 3:42PM|#
There's nothing inherently unlibertarian about
prejudice.
Prejudice is immensely illiberal.
That's why liberals get to have the word now, and not libertarians:
because racial and gender prejudice are not contrary to
libertarianism, and they are contrary to liberalism. All
liberalism, classical or modern.
Les|10.24.08 @ 3:42PM|#
I don't get what is so un-libertarian about an opinion that
blacks as a group exhibit any of the qualities he attributes to
them.
It's got nothing to do with libertarianism. It has to do with
bigotry and willful ignorance.
Not That Michael|10.24.08 @ 3:43PM|#
Please don't give unwarranted credibility and undue attention to any writers that continue utilizing the worn-out and historically inaccurate reference to "drinking the Kool-Aid".
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 3:46PM|#
I am one of the few remaining freakazoids who distinguishes
between legal immigration (good - but have sponsors post bond that
the immigrant will behave well and support himself/herself) and
illegal immigration (bad - use constitutionally-valid methods to
seed out and deport illegals). It seems that the debate is in terms
of Keep-them-all-Out versus
Make-No-Distinction-Between-"Documented"-and-"Undocumented."
Moynihan seems to be going for the neocon trifecta. Bomb foreigners
who didn't have the foresight to move to the United States? Check!
Grant amnesty and benefits to foreigners who illegally immigrate to
the U.S.? Check! Call people racists if they don't swallow whatever
bullshit the neocons are trying to peddle? (If you don't want to
invade Arab countries you hate Arabs! If you think Israel is a
foreign country, with different interests than the U.S., you hate
Jews! If you want immigrants to obey the law, you're a white
nationalist!) Check!
|10.24.08 @ 3:48PM|#
Max,
I'm curious. What exactly is the justification for immigration
laws, again?
|10.24.08 @ 3:48PM|#
Should I feel like a bigoted piece of shit because I wonder whether there really is something to the idea that women's policy preferences are different from men's, and perhaps that's why the domestic programs in our federal government have grown so rapidly since the 19th Amendment came into effect in 1920?
Mister DNA|10.24.08 @ 3:52PM|#
There's nothing inherently unlibertarian about prejudice. It is, however, evidence of a stunning degree of willful ignorance. "Anecdotal evidence" is a terribly foundation for generalization.
I would agree there is nothing inherently unlibertarian about
prejudice, but racism - whether it's white supremacy or
afrocentrism - is one of the lowest forms of collectivism.
|10.24.08 @ 3:52PM|#
"Should I feel like a bigoted piece of shit because I wonder
whether there really is something to the idea that women's policy
preferences are different from men's, and perhaps that's why the
domestic programs in our federal government have grown so rapidly
since the 19th Amendment came into effect in 1920?"
No. You should feel like a piece of shit if you think this
justifies stripping women of their civil liberties. Or if you, like
Auster, flat out deny historical oppression.
|10.24.08 @ 3:53PM|#
I knew that, Mike. Libertarianism is silent on a lot of things
that individual libertarians denounce.
There's nothing in what you wrote to suggest that you approve;
quite the opposite.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 3:54PM|#
"I'm curious. What exactly is the justification for immigration
laws, again?"
Repeal the laws, let anyone come into the country and become
eligible for government benefits, and find out for yourself what
the justification is!
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 3:55PM|#
(In the old days, of course, immigrants were welcome but had to make their own way. That was cool. If we could go back to the old days, that would be great.)
|10.24.08 @ 4:00PM|#
Isn't that more of a justification for repealing government benefits than outlawing immigration? Couldn't that very same justification be used to restrict all sorts of voluntary, non-aggressive activities on the grounds that "it may cause more people to become eligible for government benefits"?
dhex|10.24.08 @ 4:02PM|#
"In the old days, of course, immigrants were welcome"
hokay.
and the nativist parties of the 19th and early 20th centuries
were?
we got a catholic school system somehow. it had something to do
with prejudice against irish catholic immigrants. something...
|10.24.08 @ 4:04PM|#
Isn't that more of a justification for repealing government
benefits than outlawing immigration?
Immigration laws are a temporary necessity during the transition
period before the withering away of the state.
|10.24.08 @ 4:06PM|#
Prejudice is immensely illiberal.
That's why liberals get to have the word now, and not libertarians:
because racial and gender prejudice are not contrary to
libertarianism, and they are contrary to liberalism. All
liberalism, classical or modern.
Surely you are not suggessting that liberalism, whatever the hell
that means in your vocabulary, lacks racial and gender prejudice.
Or that it is not displayed in it's policy recommendations.
Are you?
|10.24.08 @ 4:11PM|#
"Immigration laws are a temporary necessity during the
transition period before the withering away of the state."
Is that your opinion, or your reading of the libertarian
opinion?
|10.24.08 @ 4:11PM|#
because racial and gender prejudice are not contrary to
libertarianism, and they are contrary to liberalism.
Hence your angry support or affirmative action...
yawn.
|10.24.08 @ 4:11PM|#
J sub D,
Liberalism is opposed to racial and gender prejudice, in all of its
forms. Opposition to those prejudices is as fundemental an element
in liberal thought as opposition to economic redistribution is to
libertarianism.
There are no none zip zero nada liberal policy recommendations that
display, approve of, or endorse racial or genderal prejudice.
Zeb|10.24.08 @ 4:12PM|#
I am so confused about what Liberal and Conservative mean. My
best attempt at definitions now:
Conservative: clinging to a past that never existed.
Liberal: rushing toward a future that is impossible to realize.
|10.24.08 @ 4:13PM|#
Hence your angry support or affirmative action...
Precisely. Liberals are so hostile to gender and racial prejudice,
and the lasting results of past racism, that we strive to wrench
them out, root and branch.
ignorant troll|10.24.08 @ 4:15PM|#
I've found that liberals tend to be willfully ignorant and
biased against the white man's intrinsic need to rule the
world.
In fact, they seem to endorse such prejudice
against...um..prejudice.
|10.24.08 @ 4:15PM|#
Prejudice is immensely illiberal.
Zoning is prejudice. You are not a liberal joe...so you do not get
to use it.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:16PM|#
"we got a catholic school system somehow. it had something to do
with prejudice against irish catholic immigrants.
something..."
Let us give props to the 19th-century nativists - sure, they
whipped up the public into a frenzy about the Catholic Menace, sure
they wanted to limit the right of Catholic and other immigrants to
become naturalized citizens, sure they rioted and killed some
Catholics, sure they wanted to amend the U.S. Constitution to
prohibit government assistance to Catholic schools (lacking the
enlightenment of the modern U.S. Supreme Court, which achieved the
same result by judicial decree, without benefit of constitutional
amendment). . . . But the nativists didn't forbid immigration from
Catholic countries the way other nativists banned immigration from
China. The nativists simply wanted the Catholic immigrants to be
second-class citizens, or non-citizens, *subsequent* to their
immigration. And they failed.
The Catholic schools were not some Irish Pride thing - at least,
not exclusively. It was just that the Catholics had this paranoid
idea that the government schools would be teaching doctrines at
odds with Catholicism, so Catholic children would be better off in
Catholic schools. In those days, there was no sex ed - but the
government schools had readings from the Protestant Bible, and gave
what we might call a Protestant-slanted view of the Catholic
Church's role in history.
|10.24.08 @ 4:16PM|#
"In fact, they seem to endorse such prejudice
against...um..prejudice."
To be fair, I do to. I just don't want to legislate it.
|10.24.08 @ 4:17PM|#
I've found that liberals tend to be willfully ignorant and
biased against the white man's intrinsic need to rule the
world.
Oh, come now, i.t. Minorities are much more racist than white
people.
That's why we're better than them.*
*H/T to whomever I stole this from. I love that joke.
|10.24.08 @ 4:18PM|#
Precisely. Liberals are so hostile to gender and racial
prejudice, and the lasting results of past racism, that we strive
to wrench them out, root and branch.
Striving to remove prejudice and actually removing it are two
different things. Affirmative action has failed. If you were a
liberal you would admit it and look for another way.
|10.24.08 @ 4:20PM|#
Zoning is prejudice.
Um....
prej⋅u⋅dice /ˈprɛdʒədɪs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [prej-uh-dis]
Show IPA Pronunciation
noun, verb, -diced, -dic⋅ing.
-noun 1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or
without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or
unfavorable.
3. unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, esp. of a hostile
nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national group.
zon⋅ing /ˈzoʊnɪŋ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [zoh-ning] Show IPA
Pronunciation
-adjective (esp. in city planning) of or pertaining to the division
of an area into zones, as to restrict the number and types of
buildings and their uses: zoning laws.
Not seein' it.
4. such attitudes considered collectively: The war against
prejudice is never-ending.
|10.24.08 @ 4:20PM|#
"Striving to remove prejudice and actually removing it are two
different things. Affirmative action has failed. If you were a
liberal you would admit it and look for another way."
There's nothing wrong with affirmative action in the private
sector. Private colleges use it as a way to ensure diversity and
create a richer learning experience.
Once again, it shouldn't be legislated, but that's not to say it's
always harmful.
|10.24.08 @ 4:21PM|#
Joe,
You are a smart guy and I am glad you post here. I mean that
sincerely.
It baffles me though how you can simultaneously contain these
thoughts inside your skull:
Precisely. Liberals are so hostile to gender and racial
prejudice, and the lasting results of past racism, that we strive
to wrench them out, root and branch.
and,
because racial and gender prejudice... are contrary to
liberalism.
|10.24.08 @ 4:21PM|#
joe | October 24, 2008, 4:11pm | #
J sub D,
Liberalism is opposed to racial and gender prejudice, in all of its
forms. Opposition to those prejudices is as fundemental an element
in liberal thought as opposition to economic redistribution is to
libertarianism.
There are no none zip zero nada liberal policy recommendations that
display, approve of, or endorse racial or genderal prejudice.
I think the difference here is that libertarian policy
prescriptions absolutely demand that the government treat everyone
as equal under the law, with equal rights and equal
responsibilities, and thus sy any government policy that privileges
any racial group as utterly wrong. Liberalism sees racial prejudice
as a wrong that must be addressed, and sees government action as an
appropriate way of addressing it. Thus libertarians see liberal
support for affirmative action as prejudicial, because it's about
treating people differently because of race, whereas liberals see
affirmative action as a proper response to racism.
racist troll|10.24.08 @ 4:22PM|#
I was listening to npr today and I heard some overt
racism.
A woman from Pennsylvania was describing (and I paraphrase)
Some thirty years ago a black man would have to step off the
sidewalk to let a white man pass, now, I think it's gonna be the
other way around.
Surely statements like that allow scared, willfully ignorant folks
to stir themselves up a frenzy, yeah?
EJM|10.24.08 @ 4:22PM|#
I am so confused about what Liberal and Conservative mean.
My best attempt at definitions now:
Conservative: clinging to a past that never existed.
Liberal: rushing toward a future that is impossible to
realize.
Those are definitions are pretty good, Zeb.
Affirmative Action|10.24.08 @ 4:22PM|#
Liberalism is opposed to racial and gender prejudice, in all
of its forms.
Except when the government does it, then it's shiny and wonderful
and just and good.
|10.24.08 @ 4:22PM|#
Striving to remove prejudice and actually removing it are
two different things. Affirmative action has failed.
Well, the merits of your argument aside, there is certainly room
for argument about the best methods of rooting out racism and
prejudice root and branch, but that's a pragmatic concern, not one
definition to any political philosophy.
If you were a liberal you would admit it and look for another
way. Hey, now, there's nothing in the definition of liberalism
that requires us to be effective or wise.
;-)
|10.24.08 @ 4:24PM|#
wayne,
What's the problem? We're opposed to X. We're really, really
opposed to X. We're so gosh-darn opposed to X, that we do Y and Z
to get rid of it.
What's the problem?
|10.24.08 @ 4:24PM|#
J sub D,
Liberalism is opposed to racial and gender prejudice, in all of its
forms. Opposition to those prejudices is as fundemental an element
in liberal thought as opposition to economic redistribution is to
libertarianism.
Liberalism supports identical physical fitness requirements for
both sexes in police departments? In the Army?
If not, why not?
Asharak|10.24.08 @ 4:25PM|#
If Palin is soft on amnesty, then what will lonewacko do with himself now?
|10.24.08 @ 4:25PM|#
"What's the problem? We're opposed to X. We're really, really
opposed to X. We're so gosh-darn opposed to X, that we do Y and Z
to get rid of it."
joe,
It's one thing to say "Y and Z, unfair as they may be to some, are
necessary evils to address X." It's another to say "what's the
problem with Y and Z?"
Child Custody Hearings|10.24.08 @ 4:26PM|#
And don't forget me!
Let's be honest: liberalism views racism and gender as a struggle,
with whites (sometimes Asians) and/or men as the enemy where
appropriate. They don't want a colorblind or genderblind society,
they want THEIR gender/color to come out on top, and support
massive government intervention to make that happen.
Libertarians, otoh, just want you to all just shut up already about
your stupid race/gender.
|10.24.08 @ 4:26PM|#
"Liberalism supports identical physical fitness requirements for
both sexes in police departments? In the Army?"
Does anybody actually make an argument against this? I think this
is a strawman, J.
|10.24.08 @ 4:26PM|#
Jorgen,
Look at the definitions of prejudice.
Whatever one may say about affirmative action, in neither practice
nor philosophy is it based upon preconcpetions uninformed by
knowledge, or upon hostility to people based on their race or
gender.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:28PM|#
"racial and gender prejudice are not contrary to libertarianism,
and they are contrary to liberalism. All liberalism, classical or
modern."
Absolutely! Woodrow Wilson was not a True Liberal (TM), because he
supported racial segregation. Nor was FDR a True Liberal, because
he supported the evacuation and internment of the
Japanese-Americans. The German liberals of the 19th century, the
ones who supported and egged on Bismarck's Kulturkampf against the
Catholic Church, were not True Liberals, either.
The supporters of eugenics, of course, were not True Liberals,
despite the reluctant concession by Elof Axel Carlson in
|10.24.08 @ 4:28PM|#
Each of the following terms has its own meaning:
prejudice
racism
discrimination
hatred
|10.24.08 @ 4:29PM|#
What's the problem? We're opposed to X. We're really, really
opposed to X. We're so gosh-darn opposed to X, that we do Y and Z
to get rid of it.
Let X=whitey
Let Y=oppression of whitey
Let Z=more oppression of whitey
Hmmm... Nothing at all wrong with it, I guess, as long as you are
not whitey and as long you are not at all concerned with equal
treatment of all.
|10.24.08 @ 4:30PM|#
Liberalism is opposed to racial and gender prejudice, in all
of its forms.
Liberalism is opposed to prejudice.
"Racial and gender prejudice" are small circles found within the
big circle of "prejudice".
What joe is attempting to do is make prejudice OK in general but
only bad in regards to race and gender. Once again Joe is no
liberal.
prejudice|10.24.08 @ 4:30PM|#
noun - Oprah's kids getting extra points on their SATS while refugees from Burma get points off for being "Asian"
|10.24.08 @ 4:30PM|#
Let's be honest: liberalism views racism and gender as a
struggle, with whites (sometimes Asians) and/or men as the enemy
where appropriate. They don't want a colorblind or genderblind
society, they want THEIR gender/color to come out on top, and
support massive government intervention to make that
happen.
You got me. What I really want is for white males to rule the
world. Hence, my liberalism and support for desegregation efforts
like affirmative action.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:30PM|#
Even if they *were* liberals, they were not motivated by prejudice against any race or sex when they practiced racial segregation, because that was what was best for both races. They weren't motivated by prejudice when they interned the Japanese-Americans, because they were upholding national security. They weren't motivated by prejudice when they forcibly sterilized the unfit, because they simply supported race-neutral measures to purify the gene pool.
|10.24.08 @ 4:31PM|#
And who, exactly, is Lawrence Auster? Put it this way: this
is a guy whose conservatism was too extreme for David Horowitz and
Frontpagemag.com; the site cut ties with Auster after the
Huffington Post published a piece detailing his history of, umm,
racial insensitivity.
Is Lawrence Auster his real name? Or is it just one of lonewacko's
many alias's?
-|10.24.08 @ 4:32PM|#
Does anybody actually make an argument against this? I think
this is a strawman, J.
Of course they don't, that was the point. "Liberals" don't want
equality except where it benefits them.
You don't see the NAACP demanding racial quotas for the NBA, do
you?
|10.24.08 @ 4:33PM|#
I predict that this discussion of affirmative action is going to be productive, acrimony-free and full of facts and well-developed critiques.
|10.24.08 @ 4:33PM|#
Mad Max,
Liberalism is a political philosophy. It is not defined as
"whatever any liberal might believe at any given time."
Liberals have believed all sorts of things throughout
history.
Unlike conservatism, liberalism's reach often exceeds its grasp;
that's what makes it a progressive philosophy.
gmatts|10.24.08 @ 4:33PM|#
I guess now that William Buckley is dead, those at National Review are welcoming back with open arms the once vanquished members of the John Birch Society.
|10.24.08 @ 4:34PM|#
I predict that this discussion of affirmative action is
going to be productive, acrimony-free and full of facts and
well-developed critiques.
Damn funny....
|10.24.08 @ 4:34PM|#
Let X=whitey
Let Y=oppression of whitey
Let Z=more oppression of whitey
No. I've already used those terms, and they don't mean that. If you
wish to make some argument about "whitey," you need to use
different letters, or somebody might confuse your unrelated point
with mine.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:36PM|#
joe,
You claimed that ""racial and gender prejudice . . . are contrary
to liberalism. All liberalism, classical or modern." You thus
opened up the issue of the historic stance of liberals on these
subjects. Unless, of course, you hold that people in history who
hold such views are *by definition* not liberals, because no true
Scotsman, etc.
|10.24.08 @ 4:36PM|#
Damn, it's easy to make goons crawl out the woodwork and man the
barricades for the race war.
Some of them have the stones to put their names on their words, but
most don't.
Good. You should be embarrassed.
|10.24.08 @ 4:37PM|#
"Liberalism supports identical physical fitness requirements
for both sexes in police departments? In the Army?"
Does anybody actually make an argument against this? I think this
is a strawman, J.
If your question is "Does anyone make an argument against having
differing physical fitness standards based on gender for soldiers
and LEOs?", the answer is yes. Mostly soldiers and cops.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:39PM|#
Also, few of the people I've listed would have claimed to be
motivated by prejudice, even when they supported racial or sex
discrimination. FDR, when he supported internment, thought he was
upholding national security, not that he was acting on prejudice
against people of Japanese descent.
And, yes, even the supportes of Jim Crow claimed not to be acting
on prejudice, but on what was best for all races.
|10.24.08 @ 4:39PM|#
Damn, it's easy to make goons crawl out the woodwork and man
the barricades for the race war.
Amen, Joe... Amen
Kolohe|10.24.08 @ 4:40PM|#
Zeb | October 24, 2008, 4:12pm | #
I am so confused about what Liberal and Conservative mean. My best attempt at definitions now:
Conservative: clinging to a past that never existed.
Liberal: rushing toward a future that is impossible to realize.
I liked this so much I felt it just had to be posted again.
Child Custody Hearings|10.24.08 @ 4:40PM|#
You got me. What I really want is for white males to rule
the world. Hence, my liberalism and support for desegregation
efforts like affirmative action.
No, you're just a gullible socialist who buys into the
minorities-are-all-victims-of-racism (except Asians!!) narrative,
and because politically it dovetails nicely with the whole gov't
redistribution of wealth agenda that allows you to seize more
wealth from the productive people (who tend to be the ones
penalized in both cases).
zoltan|10.24.08 @ 4:41PM|#
It's nice to see liberals are still racists pretending to be better than the other racists.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:41PM|#
"Unlike conservatism, liberalism's reach often exceeds its
grasp"
I see this as a bug; you see it, apparently as a feature.
|10.24.08 @ 4:42PM|#
Mad Max,
LiberalISM. LiberalS.
Two different things.
Look upthread - "Mike" explains that libertarianism is silent on
prejudice, but he personally (a libertarian) despises it.
Historically, individual liberals have believed all sorts of things
at odds with liberal ideals. So have conservatives about
conservative ideals, and Christians about Christian ideals.
I'm talking about a political philosophy. Particular beliefs by
individuals, especially if they are the common or default positions
of people in society, and are thus unquestioned by all or most
people in a certain time or place, have little to do with the
different political philosophies (such as liberalism, socialism,
communism, or libertarianism) that those people adhere to.
Many Russian communists were anti-semites. That tells us nothing
about communism, but about Russians. In fact, commuinism explicitly
repudiates ethnic discrimination as being a false-consciousness
intended to keep the workers from uniting.
Many American liberals, especially from the south, in earlier times
harbored prejudice towards black people. Many people in th early
20th century, including liberals, believed in eugenics.
It's rare to find a person who has nothing going on in his head
except the tenets of a defined political ideology.
|10.24.08 @ 4:44PM|#
No, you're just a gullible socialist who buys into the
minorities-are-all-victims-of-racism (except Asians!!) narrative,
and because politically it dovetails nicely with the whole gov't
redistribution of wealth agenda that allows you to seize more
wealth from the productive people (who tend to be the ones
penalized in both cases).
I find your ideas interesting, and would like to subscribe to your
newsletter.
Socialism, you say? How fascinating.
Backing away slowly towards the subway station exit now.
|10.24.08 @ 4:45PM|#
MCM,
Being a Motown denizen, the names Kerkorian and Kavorkian are
constantly in the news and my head. Adding Krikorian to the mix
just ain't fair.
oldshady|10.24.08 @ 4:45PM|#
joe,
What's the problem? We're opposed to X. We're really, really
opposed to X. We're so gosh-darn opposed to X, that we do Y and Z
to get rid of it.
What's the problem?
The problem is you're not doing y and z, you're doing x to a
different group.
|10.24.08 @ 4:46PM|#
joe | October 24, 2008, 4:26pm | #
Jorgen,
Look at the definitions of prejudice.
Whatever one may say about affirmative action, in neither practice
nor philosophy is it based upon preconcpetions uninformed by
knowledge, or upon hostility to people based on their race or
gender.
It is, though. It is based on the preconception that a person's
race is a good predictor of the hurdles they have had to overcome
to get to where they are. Affirmative action advocates giving
preferential treatment to a black male over a white male with
similar qualifications, for instance, based on the assumption that
getting those qualifications was more difficult for the black male
due to racial prejudice. This is a preconception based on race
rather than the particular history of these two individuals.
The other justification would simply be that it's good in and of
itself to have the same proportion of every race be educated, but
that's not an argument concerned with eliminating prejudice.
Kolohe|10.24.08 @ 4:46PM|#
TAO @ 4:33-
Making predictions that are contrary to both all prior experience
and contemporary data?
You can be a federal reserve board chairman!
|10.24.08 @ 4:47PM|#
A pacifist would say the same thing about any soldier going to
any war, oldshady.
I find that there can be meaningful distinctions made, based on
circumstances.
|10.24.08 @ 4:50PM|#
Damn, it's easy to make goons crawl out the woodwork and man
the barricades for the race war.
Some of them have the stones to put their names on their words, but
most don't.
Good. You should be embarrassed.
And so joe goes off swinging at the trolls into a canyon never to
return. Go get em slugger.
insipid troll|10.24.08 @ 4:50PM|#
A pacifist would say the same thing about any soldier going
to any war
So, you're not a pacifist joe, which then makes you...
joe the liberal race-warrior
|10.24.08 @ 4:51PM|#
Affirmative action advocates giving preferential treatment
to a black male over a white male with similar
qualifications,
Well, no, not really. AA gives preferential treatment to black
males regardless of the qualifications of their white
competitors.
That is what all those successful lawsuits were about: Bakey, Univ
of Texas Law, U of M Law...
|10.24.08 @ 4:52PM|#
There is nothing un-libertarian about not wanting women or
blacks to vote if women and blacks voting tends to promote
socialism. The purest form of libertarianism doesn't believe anyone
has the right to vote because Democracy itself violates the
non-aggression principle.
I just don't see a problem with anything he wrote from a
libertarian perspective. He thinks blacks are dumber and more
primitive than whites. I think the evidence to conclusively prove
that is non-existent, but the reality is if you put a gun to my
head and said my life depended on answering that question
correctly, I'd agree with him. That's not because of "racism". It's
because of an objective analysis of a lifetime of experience.
The idea that we are all "equal" is irrelevant from a libertarian
perspective. Hysteria over the idea whites might be smarter than
blacks is the province of liberals, not libertarians. Liberals are
obsessed with propagating the equality myth because of their
adherence to collectivist doctrine. If blacks really are inferior,
there are all sorts of morally horrible consequences that could
logically follow. They don't want to face those consequences, so
anybody who questions the completely unfounded idea that we are all
equally smart or advanced is branded a "racist".
Mister DNA|10.24.08 @ 4:54PM|#
Many American liberals, especially from the south, in earlier times harbored prejudice towards black people. Many people in th early 20th century, including liberals, believed in eugenics.
And American liberals of the late 20th/Early 21st centuries
supported affirmative action.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 4:54PM|#
joe,
Where can I find out about the tenets of this True Liberalsm, and
how can I distinguish the True Liberalism from the fake stuff which
others (who claim to be liberals) try to peddle?
Also, which forms of racial and sex discrimination *not* motivated
by prejudice? Only affirmative action? Or other types? How can we
tell if prejudice is the motive? If the discriminators are not
prejudiced, by what standards do we decide whether the
discrimination is justified or not?
|10.24.08 @ 4:55PM|#
"wayne | October 24, 2008, 4:51pm | #
Affirmative action advocates giving preferential treatment to a
black male over a white male with similar qualifications,
Well, no, not really. AA gives preferential treatment to black
males regardless of the qualifications of their white
competitors.
That is what all those successful lawsuits were about: Bakey, Univ
of Texas Law, U of M Law..."
You're right; systems based on racial quotas don't make as much
sense in terms of adjusting for the perceived extra hurdles that
being black or hispanic involve, than do systems that award extra
points based on race. They seem much more tailored toward trying to
get the upper levels of society to be a certain color. I was trying
to focus on the versions of affirmative action that are most
related to fighting prejudice.
|10.24.08 @ 4:59PM|#
"I don't get what is so un-libertarian about an opinion that
blacks as a group exhibit any of the qualities he attributes to
them. Based on the anecdotal evidence, I'd say he has a pretty
strong case."
My neighborhood is diverse and yet if one reads the precinct police
report, the overwhelming number (90%+) of shootings, stabbings and
assaults are perpetrated upon black people by black people.
Granted, these crimes are committed by a very small percentage of
the black population (I'm guessing less that 1%), but why is it so
disproportional to the general population?
http://4thprecinctcare.org/article/read/4th_precinct_highlights_week_559_october_7_october_13_2008
|10.24.08 @ 4:59PM|#
Well, no, not really. AA gives preferential treatment to
black males regardless of the qualifications of their white
competitors.
Thus falsifying the statement that affirmative action is, or
demonstrates, prejudice.
Affirmative action relies upon not making judgements about people's
qualifications or merit. Affirmative action doesn't involve passing
judgement, on declaring its beneficiaries to be superior to anyone.
That isn't the basis for it, practically or theoretically.
Affirmative actions proponents don't assume minorities to be
superior or white males to be inferior; its based around granting
benefits to accomplish social or political or economic ends, not on
judgements about individual applicants.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 5:01PM|#
"Many Russian communists were anti-semites. That tells us
nothing about communism, but about Russians."
Have you read Marx's
Marx's essay on the so-called Jewish Question? Some
excerpts:
"Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let
us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.
"What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need,
self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew?
Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.
"Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money,
consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the
self-emancipation of our time."
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 5:02PM|#
Also,
"Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of
Judaism - huckstering and its preconditions - the Jew will have
become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an
object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need,
has been humanized, and because the conflict between man's
individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been
abolished.
"The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society
from Judaism."
Pedro|10.24.08 @ 5:02PM|#
"I'm curious. What exactly is the justification for immigration
laws, again?"
La Raza.
|10.24.08 @ 5:03PM|#
Mad Max,
If you wanted to make a good-faith effort to understand what
liberalism is, there is no shortage of places to start. There's a
liberalism page on wikipedia.
But, of course, you don't. You're just snarking away, because you
really can't formulate an answer to my point about the distinction
between a political philosophy and the assorted beliefs of
individuals who, in addition to other inspirations, subscribe to
that philosophy.
I could no doubt find a libertarian who likes Toyotas. Where, oh
where, can I find a definition of TRUE LIBERTARIANISM, unpolluted
by the beliefs of actual libertarians?
A lot places, actually, as I can admit pretty easily, seeing as how
I have no need to make an asshole of myself by pretending not to
grasp rather simple concepts.
Conservationist|10.24.08 @ 5:05PM|#
The Crowd hates certain ideas, on both right and left, and
denies them, despite nods from science and great empires of the
past.
No wonder the Crowd runs societies into the ground every chance it
gets.
I am disappointed in the writer of the original post for playing to
the Crowd, and not refuting these ideas with science or reason.
|10.24.08 @ 5:06PM|#
Mad Max,
Certainly, I'm familiar with that. I'm also familiar with the fact
that communism, as it was proclaimed and practiced in Russia, was
avowedly opposed to ethnic discrimination, to the point of drawing
support for a significant minority of Russian Jews.
Which is whay I wrote about Russian communism.
Might it be a better idea to try to talk about ideas than play
"Gotcha joe?"
Actually, it probably wouldn't be.
|10.24.08 @ 5:08PM|#
joe | October 24, 2008, 4:59pm | #
"Affirmative action relies upon not making judgements about
people's qualifications or merit. Affirmative action doesn't
involve passing judgement, on declaring its beneficiaries to be
superior to anyone. That isn't the basis for it, practically or
theoretically.
Affirmative actions proponents don't assume minorities to be
superior or white males to be inferior; its based around granting
benefits to accomplish social or political or economic ends, not on
judgements about individual applicants."
Joe, do you consider Affirmative Action a program intended to
address prejudice? If so, then it is making judgments about
individual applicants, by seeking to determine whether they have
been victims of discrimination. If not, than it represents Liberal
willingness to use racial discrimination for purposes other than
addressing or resolving racial prejudice. If that's the case, I
really can't see the argument that Liberalism is, at its core,
against prejudice, racism or discrimination.
|10.24.08 @ 5:09PM|#
Carter Holmes, were you not aware that the white man invented
black on black violence?
and aids
Paul|10.24.08 @ 5:09PM|#
"are in fact less endowed with the qualities that make civilization possible
That's not what I've heard.
Now I'm gonna get banned for sure.
Pedro|10.24.08 @ 5:10PM|#
"What's the problem? We're opposed to X. We're really, really
opposed to X. We're so gosh-darn opposed to X, that we do Y and Z
to get rid of it.
What's the problem?"
Using X to get rid of X.
|10.24.08 @ 5:17PM|#
Mad Max | October 24, 2008, 5:01pm | #
"Many Russian communists were anti-semites. That tells us nothing
about communism, but about Russians."
Have you read Marx's Marx's essay on the so-called Jewish Question?
Some excerpts:
"Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let
us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.
"What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need,
self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew?
Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.
"Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money,
consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the
self-emancipation of our time."
Mad Max | October 24, 2008, 5:02pm | #
Also,
"Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of
Judaism - huckstering and its preconditions - the Jew will have
become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an
object, because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need,
has been humanized, and because the conflict between man's
individual-sensuous existence and his species-existence has been
abolished.
"The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society
from Judaism."
Well it seems pretty obvious now where Hitler got his ideas....the
same place where joe gets his ideas.
Alexandria C|10.24.08 @ 5:19PM|#
Scientific research tends to trending towards the conclusion
that Mr. Auster already has. That isn't to say that it isn't
distasteful or even that Auster has overstated the case... it
shouldn't matter.
If it ends up that IQ and personality traits are primarily genetic,
and measureable along racial lines, then that is something that we
as a society will have to deal with.
It is absurd to simply characterize anyone who holds those views as
a white nationalist or horrible bigot. Both of those terms suggest
an implicit malice which isn't necessarily true. One can hold the
view that the races and sexes differ without also being malicious,
hostile, or angry.
This is supposed to be REASON magazine and we, more than anyone
should embrace where legitimate science takes us - the truth.
Now, is that view legitimate? That is an entirely different
question... one that I, nor Lawrence Auster should feel entirely
comfortable answering yes to.
|10.24.08 @ 5:20PM|#
"Carter Holmes, were you not aware that the white man invented
black on black violence?
What makes it all so strange to me, is that the bulk of the
perpetrators are teens. No one is oppressing these kids. No one is
forcing them to shoot indiscriminately into a crowd of black kids
celebrating some kids birthday. No one is forcing a 16-year-old kid
to shoot another kid (e.g., Courtney Brown) for his throwback
jersey. For some reason, these kids, and again it's a very small
percentage glorify violence. Identifying the root cause is what
interests me. I have no answers.
|10.24.08 @ 5:20PM|#
Might it be a better idea to try to talk about ideas than play
"Gotcha joe?"
Your ideas were proven dead wrong...why should we continue to talk
about them?
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 5:26PM|#
joe the neo-Platonist says,
"you really can't formulate an answer to my point about the
distinction between a political philosophy and the assorted beliefs
of individuals who, in addition to other inspirations, subscribe to
that philosophy."
Then you refer me to Wikipedia's article on Liberalism, which is
here.
Despite one reference to historical "pure forms of liberalism," the
Wikipedia entry is top-heavy on actual historical events and actual
historical personages. The article isn't helpful if you're looking
for a Platonic "pure forms" of liberalism, divorced from historical
experience and the actions and beliefs of actual liberals. Specific
people mentioned in the article include Thomas Jefferson (who
speculated about possible natural inferiority of black people),
John Stuart Mill (who supported the idea of civilized countries
ruling over less-civilized peoples who weren't prepared for
self-government), John Locke (whose theories of religious freedom
did not apply to Catholics because they were a subversive element),
not to mention racists like Herbert Spencer and Adam Smith (racist
because they didn't call for the government to wipe out private
discrimination), and Maximilien Robespierre (not a racist, to be
sure, because he chopped of people's heads regardless of race or
sex).
FDR (he of the Japanese-American internment) is described as one of
the "[k]ey liberals" who rejected laissez-faire in the Great
Depression.
It must have been exhausting, putting their liberal hats on and off
as they worked on different issues.
Pedro|10.24.08 @ 5:27PM|#
"It is absurd to simply characterize anyone who holds those
views as a white nationalist or horrible bigot. Both of those terms
suggest an implicit malice which isn't necessarily true. One can
hold the view that the races and sexes differ without also being
malicious, hostile, or angry."
No. Diversity teaches us that we are all the same. Only different
in food and customs.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 5:29PM|#
I suppose I need to add the usual disclaimers.
Yes, lots of liberals were fierce warriors against racial
discrimination. Some even oppose affirmative action.
Yes, there are racist non-liberals.
No, I didn't shoot Bambi's mother.
|10.24.08 @ 5:31PM|#
Affirmative actions proponents don't assume minorities to be
superior or white males to be inferior; its based around granting
benefits to accomplish social or political or economic ends, not on
judgements about individual applicants.
Oh, OK. Now I get it.
AA oppresses caucasians and asians because they are not black and
rewards blacks because they are black...
You're right, nothing racist about that!
Scott66|10.24.08 @ 5:34PM|#
"What's the problem? We're opposed to X. We're really, really
opposed to X. We're so gosh-darn opposed to X, that we do Y and Z
to get rid of it."
The problem is with the idea that you, or anyone for that matter,
is wise enough to balance that equation.
Just the same if there are indeed genetic differences between
races, law should not differentiate because individuals are not
statistics.
Pedro|10.24.08 @ 5:39PM|#
"Identifying the root cause is what interests me. I have no
answers."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUkpR2Q6Oy8
I'm at work so I can't access YouTube. But if you can open the link
above, there is an easily accessed interview with the
creator/producer of "D'Mite - Read a Book" that is quite intersting
and insightful.
|10.24.08 @ 5:42PM|#
law should not differentiate because individuals are not statistics.
This always rings true to me.
PFJO|10.24.08 @ 5:49PM|#
The law should not differentiate due to race because the law
should only be protecting violations of property and those have
nothing whatsoever to do with race.
But Joe-schmoe can do whatever he wants and "discriminating" is an
important part of making decisions. What's wrong with someone being
racist?
I would say nothing if his views were true.
He still wouldn't have the right to violate another persons rights
which is what happens everyday in this country with
wealth-distribution and hate-laws.
Orange Line Special|10.24.08 @ 5:54PM|#
ZOMG! Someone linked to a bad person. That makes them a bad
person too!
I didn't look at the links, but SP recently gave an interview on
this topic to Univision. Read my commentary
on the interview here, and you'll learn something.
Bonus: why exactly is
the Kochtopus so supportive of loose borders?
|10.24.08 @ 5:58PM|#
Jorgen,
Affirmative action is sometimes intended to address individual
prejudice - when a court order a company with an established
history of discrimination to implement a hiring program.
But more commonly, it's used as a desegregation measure, intended
to address the ongoing consequences of historic racial injustice
which manifest themselves through geographic, social, and economic
segregation.
Personal prejudice certainly played a significant role in that
historic racial injustice.
|10.24.08 @ 6:03PM|#
Mad Max,
I'll try to explain this to you again. I didn't think the Toyota
example would go so far over your head, so I'll make an effort to
dumb it down further.
The psyche of individual human beings consists of more than their
political philosophies, and an individual's overall political
philosophy can consist of more than one influence.
You brought up Karl Marx. Karl Marx was a German living in Germany
in the mid-19th century. He had a communist ideology. He was also
an anti-semite. Now, maybe you can make a case that his
anti-semitism was part and parcel of his communism, but it would
probably be a better idea to look at the role of Jews, and opinions
about them, among Germans in Germany in the mid-19th century.
Elemenope|10.24.08 @ 6:03PM|#
It's rare to find a person who has nothing going on in his
head except the tenets of a defined political ideology.
I met one once. He was *fucked up*.
Seward|10.24.08 @ 6:03PM|#
Mad Max,
Locke actually equivocated somewhat on Catholics (and Atheists). As
something of an aside he makes a point about "Mahumetans" being
loyal first to the "Mufti of Constantinople" forgoing any right to
toleration via that allegiance, something which obviously would
also encompass Catholics who are loyal first to the Pope. However,
that does leave room for Catholics (or "Mahumetans") who don't hold
their primary allegiance to the Pope (or the Mufti). For Locke
toleration depends on what your religion does vis a vis the health
of the commonwealth (particularly with regard to individual safety
or the safety of an individual's property), but he makes the
argument that mere disagreement over matters of religious faith is
no danger to such. It has to be something like one of the examples
he uses: human sacrifice.
|10.24.08 @ 6:03PM|#
"joe | October 24, 2008, 5:58pm | #
Jorgen,
Affirmative action is sometimes intended to address individual
prejudice - when a court order a company with an established
history of discrimination to implement a hiring program.
But more commonly, it's used as a desegregation measure, intended
to address the ongoing consequences of historic racial injustice
which manifest themselves through geographic, social, and economic
segregation.
Personal prejudice certainly played a significant role in that
historic racial injustice."
Agreed. The issue though, is whether the idea is that each
particular black, hispanic, etc person deserves a boost to
compensate for the ill effects that prejudice, both contemporary
and historical, have had on them, or whether it is seen as a
societal good for black and Hispanic people in general, whether
they've gained or been hurt by historical injustice, to gain
admission, or be hired, or whatever it is that is being
affirmatively actioned. In other words, does affirmative action try
to use race as a proxy for injustice, and then address that
injustice, or does it try to change where different colored people
reside in society with no view towards doing right or wrong by
individual people?
|10.24.08 @ 6:05PM|#
You're right, nothing racist about that!
The subject of my statement, wayne, is prejudice. I'm not
addressing the issue of racism.
Once again, and again, and again (because repetition has been found
to be an effective teaching tool when training an animal), the
subject is prejudice. Not racism. Prejudice.
Do I need to repost the definition of prejudice for you again?
|10.24.08 @ 6:06PM|#
"Once again, and again, and again (because repetition has been
found to be an effective teaching tool when training an animal),
the subject is prejudice. Not racism. Prejudice.
Do I need to repost the definition of prejudice for you
again?"
Joe, I appreciate that you post here as a liberal, because it makes
the place more interesting, but it bothers me that you have to be
such an asshole.
|10.24.08 @ 6:07PM|#
Jorgen,
Affirmative action done for the purpose of desegregation is
uninterested in individual desert, just as the removal of racial
covenants over homeownership is unconcerned with whether any
individual member of a minority group "deserves" to live in a
certain subdivision.
Seward|10.24.08 @ 6:08PM|#
joe,
FYI: Marx spent over half of his life outside of Germany. The work
in question was probably written in Paris.
|10.24.08 @ 6:09PM|#
Jorgen, I do unto others as they do unto me.
I'll treat Max like someone worthy of respect when extends the same
courtesy to me. Though I'm not holding my breath.
|10.24.08 @ 6:12PM|#
And now, my favorite part of any affirmative action argument,
the Platonic God-King of All Appeals to Authority:
Martin Luther King endorsed affirmative action.
Why We Can't Wait: "Whenever the issue of compensatory
treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in
horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he
should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable,
but it is not realistic."
I suppose it's possible to argue that MLK was racist, or
prejudiced, but it's not likely. A better explanation would
probably be that, unlike affirmative action opponents, he was more
concerned with accomplishing an actual state of racial equality
than in the mere accomplishment of race-neutral laws.
Seward|10.24.08 @ 6:15PM|#
If desegregation was the primary purpose of AA, then it has been a manifest failure. Self or voluntary segregation is the norm in the U.S.
|10.24.08 @ 6:16PM|#
"joe | October 24, 2008, 6:07pm | #
Jorgen,
Affirmative action done for the purpose of desegregation is
uninterested in individual desert, just as the removal of racial
covenants over homeownership is unconcerned with whether any
individual member of a minority group "deserves" to live in a
certain subdivision."
But it is! The reason to remove racial covenants over home
ownership is because every member of a minority group is being done
an injustice when they are denied the privilege to bid on a piece
of property due to their race. There is no member of a minority
that gets anything he or she doesn't deserve when racial covenants
are removed.
If Affirmative Action, in your eyes, is about changing the ethnic
mix of a given institution with no regard for the justice or
injustice of the approach for the individuals involved, then, even
if it's not prejudiced, it is racist. It is about granting special
dispensation to some people over other due to race. If liberalism
is ardently opposed to prejudice, but indifferent to racism, then
liberalism doesn't particularly appeal to me.
|10.24.08 @ 6:17PM|#
The most prominent libertarian in American history published
"The Ron Paul Political Report."
What does the racial agenda of those newsletters tell us about
libertarianism as a political philosophy?
Very, very little. It tells us that there were some people from a
certain time and place, with a certain set of ideas about black
people, who were libertarians.
|10.24.08 @ 6:17PM|#
"joe | October 24, 2008, 6:09pm | #
Jorgen, I do unto others as they do unto me.
I'll treat Max like someone worthy of respect when extends the same
courtesy to me. Though I'm not holding my breath."
Especially if he takes the same view.
Kolohe|10.24.08 @ 6:19PM|#
Update 2 reminds of the punchline to the joke that goes
like:
"I meant to say 'Please pass the salt' but it came out as 'You
ruined my life you f****** bitch!'"
|10.24.08 @ 6:19PM|#
If desegregation was the primary purpose of AA, then it has
been a manifest failure.
What evidence do you have for this statement?
On the other side of the scale is the fact that the professions and
academia have desegregated, and integrated economic and
professional networks grown up in place of the old, segregated
ones, exactly as affirmative action intended to happen, during the
period that affirmative action has been in place.
|10.24.08 @ 6:23PM|#
Jorgen,
The reason to remove racial covenants over home ownership is
because every member of a minority group is being done an injustice
when they are denied the privilege to bid on a piece of property
due to their race.
OK, that is one reason, but not the only reason. The desire to
accomplish an equitable, integrated community and society is
another.
If Affirmative Action, in your eyes, is about changing the
ethnic mix of a given institution with no regard for the justice or
injustice of the approach for the individuals involved, then, even
if it's not prejudiced, it is racist. I tend to agree more
with Martin Luther King than you on this subject; that's not
racism. You could make a case for "discrimination," but as
affirmative action neither promotes racial inequality, nor holds
anyone to be inferior because of their race, nor seeks to keep
races divided, but in fact seeks precisely the opposite of those
things, and to undo them where they have been done, it doesn't make
sense to describe it as "racism."
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 6:26PM|#
joe,
Sorry that the Wikipedia link which *you* suggested I follow didn't
pan out for you - in fact, it harmed your case because it discussed
liberalism in the context of actual, real-world events and persons,
not in the Platonic, ahistorical context you prefer. Of course, in
your defense, the Platonic, ahistorical context is the only context
in which you can justify your silly position about liberalism and
racism.
Bear in mind that the statement you are defending is "racial and
gender prejudice are not contrary to libertarianism, and they are
contrary to liberalism. All liberalism, classical or modern." You
yourself referenced history, in a context suggesting that liberism
is more free from racism than libertarianism. I'm not libertarian,
but I can see how any libertarian could disavow racist statements
and acts by other libertarians as easily as you could disavow
racist statements and acts by liberals.
Taking your ideas to self-parodic lengths, you add this about Karl
Marx's anti-semitism:
"Karl Marx was a German living in Germany in the mid-19th century.
He had a communist ideology. He was also an anti-semite."
The founder of communism happened to be anti-Jewish. But never
mind, that's an irrelevant biographical detail, like his beard.
It's not as Marx's views of the Jews were ever taken seriously by
Marxists. (Bear in mind that you started out arguing that communism
shouldn't be blamed for the anti-semitism of Russian
communists).
|10.24.08 @ 6:27PM|#
I can see your point, Joe, and I suppose I can agree with you that it is discriminatory rather than racist. I guess the basic issue is whether you care more about equality between people or equality between races. If you care about equality between people, than a system that privileges some people over others, whether because of race, gender, religion, height, etc, should make you deeply uncomfortable, even if it helps promote equality between races.
|10.24.08 @ 6:31PM|#
Joe,
Your citation of MLK's endorsement of AA is uninspiring. It was a
different time when he uttered those words fifty years ago. Maybe
AA was legitimate then, not now.
I don't understand your tangential rant about "prejudice vs
racism". "The subject" is determined by content of the conversation
and it vaires accordingly. I was never talking about "prejudice",
although prejudice and racism seem inseparable.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 6:39PM|#
"The most prominent libertarian in American history published
'The Ron Paul Political Report.'
"What does the racial agenda of those newsletters tell us about
libertarianism as a political philosophy?
"Very, very little. It tells us that there were some people from a
certain time and place, with a certain set of ideas about black
people, who were libertarians."
It tells us that libertarianism, because of what this prominent
libertarian said, has something of a race problem. Dr. Paul
insulted 95% of black people (or maybe even all of them). I do not
wish to consider libertarianism Platonically, as if it wasn't a
predominantly-white movement with prominent people who make
statements like this.
So, in fact, it says a great deal. It says stuff I don't like, but
it does say something.
Now, Dr. Paul could have gone on to the next level, and proposed to
implement policies reflecting these unfavorable views. He could
have advocated that the U.S. rule over brown "uncivilized" people,
as advocated by J.S. Mill.
(Note - Dr. Paul can be considered as a conservative libertarian or
as a libertarian conservative. I am discussing him as a libertarian
because of his numerous libertarian supporters).
"I'll treat Max like someone worthy of respect when extends the
same courtesy to me. Though I'm not holding my breath."
Oh, I'm sowwy, joe, did I huwt your widdle feewings?
Seward|10.24.08 @ 6:41PM|#
joe,
From Wikipedia:
According
to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, the
desegregation of U.S. public schools peaked in 1988; since then,
schools have become more segregated. As of 2005, the proportion of
Black students at majority white schools was at "a level lower than
in any year since 1968." [5]
Anecdotally I would note that there appears to be plenty of
voluntary segregation in America's neighborhoods.
On the other side of the scale is the fact that the professions
and academia have desegregated...
One thing I hear often in the media on the medical profession is
discussions about how few black doctors are produced by that
profession every year. Indeed, if I recall correctly, today blacks
make up a smaller percentage of the medical profession than they
did in the 1930s. Now, I'm not suggesting that black people are on
average incapable of becoming doctors; I am suggesting that
affirmative action (at least as it has historically been
constituted) has done little to deal with whatever issues are
associated with phenomenon. Then again, I'm also rather suspicious
of aggregating people this way in the first place.
|10.24.08 @ 6:45PM|#
Well, Mad Max, maybe you'd have better luck finding out what
liberalism is from a more specialized web site, rather than a
general interest one.
Good luck.
|10.24.08 @ 6:46PM|#
While your searching, maybe you can detour into some history about anti-Semitism in Russia. I have the niggling feeling you could stand to familiarize yourself with it.
|10.24.08 @ 6:48PM|#
I googled "content of his character" intending to refresh my
memory about MLK's speech and I came across this:
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2008/10/content-of-his-character.html
interesting editorial.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 6:49PM|#
"Well, Mad Max, maybe you'd have better luck finding out what
liberalism is from a more specialized web site, rather than a
general interest one."
Perhaps you could have referred me to a Web page which backed up
your views rather than refuting them.
Here's what you said: "If you wanted to make a good-faith effort to
understand what liberalism is, there is no shortage of places to
start. There's a liberalism page on wikipedia."
You probably should have examined that page to see whether it
confirmed or refuted your prejudices. Whoops.
Seward|10.24.08 @ 6:52PM|#
Mad Max,
It is fair to say that there are a number of different and probably
contradictory (yet valid) definitions of liberalism. The term takes
in a very wide swath of thinkers, movements, etc. historically and
ideologically.
|10.24.08 @ 6:55PM|#
Jorgen,
I guess the basic issue is whether you care more about equality
between people or equality between races.
Races are made up of people. When there is racial inequality, there
is inequality for the people within those races.
C'mon, you know this. You know history, you know how the
"inequality of races" manifested itself in individuals'
lives.
wayne,
If affirmative action was appropriate at one time, are you saying
that racism was once appropriate?
That's how I know that this "AA is racism" line of argument can't
be taken seriously.
In practical terms, I think things have changed considerably since
the mid-60s, owing to desegregation efforts including affirmative
action, and other (dare I say?) liberal efforts to remove barriers
and promote integration. Affirmative action itself is changing,
moving its focus more to class than race, and I think that's how it
should be.
BTW, that's another reason why I can't take the "affirmative action
is disgusting racism" argument seriously - because the people
making it always talk about how it should be based on
socio-economic status instead of race. Either they're big ol' class
warriors, promoting discrimination based on economic group, or
they're not really being serious when they claim that affirmative
action is the equivalent of racism.
I don't understand your tangential rant about "prejudice vs
racism". "The subject" is determined by content of the conversation
and it vaires accordingly. I made a comment about prejudice,
in response to someone else bringing up the subject of prejudice,
and it was that statement that people disputed.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 6:56PM|#
Seward,
Precisely so. Liberalism does not rule out racism.
And thank you for the clarification on John Locke.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 6:57PM|#
Racism in not inherently part of liberalism, or foreign to it, any more than with, say, libertarianism. It depends on the liberal. Anything else is True-Scotsmanism.
|10.24.08 @ 6:59PM|#
Mad Max,
It tells us that libertarianism, because of what this prominent
libertarian said, has something of a race problem.
It tells us that about libertarianism as a movement, but not about
libertarianism as a political philosophy.
Now, relate this to me being a liberal, being an advocate of
liberalism, and how that ties in to the history of liberals being
racists. The liberal movement of the past had a race problem, like
every other political movement, but I'm not part of the liberal
movement of 90 years ago. I am also an advocate of liberalism, the
political philosophy, and the fact that there were liberals in the
30s who believed in eugenics is meaningless to what the liberal
political philosophy I endorse is.
Maybe I am a neo-Platonist. I think there is this philosophy called
"libertarianism" that is distinct from the actions, and even the
non-libertarian thoughts, of actual libertarians.
Oh, I'm sowwy, joe, did I huwt your widdle feewings? No.
Jorgen asked, so I answered him.
|10.24.08 @ 7:01PM|#
Seward,
Interestingly, 1988 was a few years into the Reagan era, when
affirmative action was increasingly being called into
disrepute.
Though I think it's significant that school integration peaked just
about exactly one generation after the invention of affirmative
action.
|10.24.08 @ 7:04PM|#
When you find yourself doing a touchdown dance because the first reference someone tossed off while trying to get you to go away isn't the best source on the subject, the argument probably isn't going very well for you.
|10.24.08 @ 7:09PM|#
joe
I don't think AA is based on "racism" in that the people who
propose it don't hate white people and want to see them do worse,
they instead just want to see black people do better.
However, I oppose affirmative action. It's simply unfair to
sacrifice some individual's opportunities to rectify wrongs they
never perpetrated or to promote some social engineering (wanting a
certain portion of college grads or whatever to be black or
whatever). And to do it on an ascribed criteria makes it even more
smelly.
Another problem is that it is such a blunt instrument. It's a tired
cliche, but is does seem rather silly to give Bill Cosby's kid a
preference over an Appalachian farmer's kid because of all the
"disadvantages" the former has had to face in his life because he's
black.
|10.24.08 @ 7:12PM|#
I'd like to see the races think better of each other. I'm not
willing to support a built in disadvantage for my kid, or hell for
me, to do that.
Socio-economic based preferences are in theory available to all
people if, there but for the Grace of God, they fall into that
category one day, so to accept that I'm not disavantaging myself or
my kid.
|10.24.08 @ 7:15PM|#
If your boss came to you and said "joe, we know you've won this
job outright and earned it by your hard work and qualifications,
but we've got this minority person here, and you know if he had
your job it would make more people think highly of his race and it
would allow him to mix with other professionals so that everyone
could see that they are fundamentally alike, so we are asking you
to step aside for such racial gains, and hell, you can always take
a job somewhere else doing something else" would you say "well of
course sir!"
If not, how can you ask other people to do this?
Carter|10.24.08 @ 8:23PM|#
"[Blacks] are in fact less endowed with the qualities that make
civilization possible, particularly Western civilization"
What's Africa like?
"though it is troubling that he seems to be a reader of Auster's
site."
When is Reason going to officially change its slogan to
just "Free Markets"? Or maybe "Moralizing prigs, except when it
comes to heroin and bestiality, and free markets."
Dr. Obvious|10.24.08 @ 8:29PM|#
The idea of "equality" is the silliest, most pervasive myth in
modern society. While liberals continue to insist that we are all
"equal" in our abilities and must all be treated "equally" or else,
science draws ever closer to proving that intelligence and
character are largely inherited, and that there are dramatic
differences based on race. The eugenicists were right, and they're
coming back in a big way.
Joe, if you really wanted a more high-functioning society, wouldn't
you rather acknowledge the truth? Do you really think that Mexicans
are as responsible as Asians, that Arabs are as competent at
business as Jews, or that Hutu tribesmen can assimilate as easily
as Europeans? Or are you only interested in science if it involves
stem cells?
|10.24.08 @ 9:08PM|#
"I'm curious. What exactly is the justification for
immigration laws, again?"
I'm curious, what exactly justifies property rights, again?
|10.24.08 @ 9:27PM|#
If affirmative action was appropriate at one time, are you
saying that racism was once appropriate?
No, I don't think AA was appropriate then either.
In practical terms, I think things have changed considerably
since the mid-60s, owing to desegregation efforts including
affirmative action, and other (dare I say?) liberal efforts to
remove barriers and promote integration. Affirmative action itself
is changing, moving its focus more to class than race, and
I think that's how it should be.
You refute this position in your very next paragraph.
BTW, that's another reason why I can't take the "affirmative
action is disgusting racism" argument seriously - because the
people making it always talk about how it should be based on
socio-economic status instead of race. Either they're big ol' class
warriors, promoting discrimination based on economic group, or
they're not really being serious when they claim that affirmative
action is the equivalent of racism.
Well, it is infuriating to see a poor white/asian kid get the boot
while a middle-class (or higher) black kid gets accepted despite
being less academically qualified.
The reason AA boosters don't want socio-economic status to be the
prime consideration is because it would result in the vast majority
of slots being filled by poor white and asian kids.
I don't understand your tangential rant about "prejudice vs
racism". "The subject" is determined by content of the conversation
and it vaires accordingly. I made a comment about prejudice, in
response to someone else bringing up the subject of prejudice, and
it was that statement that people disputed.
My apologies. I thought the comment was directed at me.
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 9:41PM|#
joe,
Are you even *trying* anymore?
Yes, indeed, you must be winning the debate, as you continue to
emphasize. Repeatedly. Because it might not be obvious to anyone
else unless you kept mentioning it.
I am simply responding to your assertion:
"Prejudice is immensely illiberal.
"That's why liberals get to have the word now, and not
libertarians: because racial and gender prejudice are not contrary
to libertarianism, and they are contrary to liberalism. All
liberalism, classical or modern."
Note that you said *all* liberalism. You didn't say, "all
liberalism, except the liberalism of Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart
Mill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, etc., etc."
Mad Max|10.24.08 @ 9:42PM|#
You also said all liberalism *classical or modern.* This cuts off your usual escape route of denying any association with liberals of the past.
Mike Laursen|10.24.08 @ 9:59PM|#
...because racial and gender prejudice are not contrary to
libertarianism...
Libertarianism advocates dealing with each person as an individual
rather than as a member of some group. This individualist stance
precludes racism.
Mike Laursen|10.24.08 @ 10:26PM|#
Gotta change my answer a bit before joe rightly calls me on
it.
Libertarianism is anti-racist in the aspect I described above. It
advocates individualism before the law.
However, there is the good old purist libertarian argument about a
motel owner having the right to exclude black people from staying
on his property. They are probably libertarianally correct in their
derivation of that right from their libertarianly axioms.
Personally, I solve that conundrum by not being a purist
libertarian.
And by holding suspect all axiomatic reasoning that hasn't been
quality tested in the laboratory that is the real world. Anybody
who makes their living writing software knows that you can be oh so
logical as hell, and still find yourself debugging a piece of code
that turned into a steaming turd when tried out with real
users.
|10.24.08 @ 10:53PM|#
"I'm curious, what exactly justifies property rights,
again?"
I'm curious, what exactly is utilitarianism again?
|10.24.08 @ 11:32PM|#
It is as if most of the commenters here, Moynihan in particular,
are engaged in skating on a sheet of ice consisting of 3" of
repetitive superficialities, libertarian idealism and sophomoric
argument. Kind of like LGF 2.0. Meanwhile the cold water below
represents Truth and you dare not come in contact with it lest you
drown or freeze.
Groups like yours maintain a self-defined, defensible position of
rationality because you stay on your platform, not even looking
over the edge once in a while. Not to see what the fringe elements
are up to *but to search for something meaningful*. A site like
Auster's admittedly exists off the edge somewhere and you deride it
so but do not really not discussed it, a pity as it contains much
that would make a man actually think honestly about his sense of
morality and justice in the midst of contemporary American life.
Difficult subjects usually require difficult destinations.
Moynihan cherry-picks a few VFR topics in a misleading way and
expects, I suppose, that this will suffice to convey its essence
for Reason readers. Why not read it for your self? Tough it out and
visit for a while. There is much thought-provoking material,
especially regarding the nature of liberalism.
Why not graduate from Star Trek conventions and try ice
fishing?
|10.25.08 @ 12:27AM|#
"I'm curious. What exactly is the justification for
immigration laws, again?"
I'm curious, what exactly justifies property rights,
again?
Indeed. Restrictive immigration laws are a massive violation of
property rights, both of prospective immigrants who are prohibited
from access to property in the US, and of present denizens who are
prohibited from employing, housing, and otherwise associating with
whomever they want on or with their property.
|10.25.08 @ 1:15AM|#
Racial egalitarianism requires intentional disregard of the palpable differences between blacks and all other human types. There is no shortage of this.
Mike Laursen|10.25.08 @ 1:21AM|#
Star Trek was that show that had the first inter-racial kiss on TV. That was pretty cool.
Mike Laursen|10.25.08 @ 1:25AM|#
Racial egalitarianism requires intentional disregard of the
palpable differences between blacks and all other human
types.
Most people, racial egalitarian or not, don't go around discerning
the palpable differences between people they don't know very well.
It's a good way to get slapped.
RD|10.25.08 @ 2:06AM|#
"And who, exactly, is Lawrence Auster?"
Author of "The Path to National Suicide"
(http://www.jtl.org/auster/PNS/PNS_Contents.html) and probably one
of the most articulate, intellectually honest conservative pundits
out there.
By the way, since when did wanting to preserve the historic
majority population and culture of the United States make one a
"white nationalist"?
The Japanese restrict immigration on ethnocultural grounds. Does
that make them "yellow nationalists?"
Mike Laursen|10.25.08 @ 3:04AM|#
The Japanese restrict immigration on ethnocultural grounds.
Does that make them "yellow nationalists?"
Well, it makes them Japanese nationalists. They're not really
yellow, you know.
X|10.25.08 @ 4:36AM|#
@RD,
America is, by definition, a culture in flux. It's not about
history, it's about the present. The market is open. If you have an
idea about how to corner it, by all means, build your tent. You'll
quickly find out your objective worth. If you don't like it, move
to France, or some other society that doesn't mind instituting
imperialist metaphysics over logic. In the meantime, fuck off, and
stop staining libertarianism with your racial sour grapes.
|10.25.08 @ 5:51AM|#
Moynihan really disappointed me with this one. Fact-free finger-pointing, blech.
Joe Six|10.25.08 @ 6:51AM|#
A few bons mots from Auster, who has published in the racist
magazines The Occidental Quarterly and American Renaissance: "What
really convinced me of an inherent, dangerous weakness in black
ways of thought, however, was their widespread belief in
Afrocentrism and the notion that whites were committing 'genocide'
against blacks." Blacks "seem to have much less interest in
knowledge or beauty for its own sake" and they "are in fact less
endowed with the qualities that make civilization possible,
particularly Western civilization."
My God! How dare he draw conclusions about black characteristics
and behavior based on observations of their behavior in all places
at all time? Just because blacks commit the most crime in all
Western nations where they are located, no sub-Saharan black people
had ever invented a written language or anything resembling human
civillization and a scary percentage believe in silly Afrocentrism
and the idea that the government that makes their lives possible
through our tax dollars is trying to kill them?
Here's Auster responding to you attack.
"In response to my entry about the attack by Michael Moynihan of
Reason magazine on Mark Krikorian because Krikorian gave a hat tip
to VFR for the transcript of Sarah Palin's interview on
immigration, VFR's Canadian leftist reader Ken Hechtman made this
comment:
In a free country I expect to be called to answer for what I write.
I do not expect to be called to answer for what I read.
Mr. Hechtman's comment opens a window on a new and amazing
possibility which is perhaps not that far off.
In Canada, with its human rights commissions, and in cases like
Mark Steyn's and Ezra Levant's, people are being routinely called
before government bodies-bodies with the power to sue them-to give
an accounting of what they have written and published. Even some
leftist Canadian politicians are starting to be disturbed that
their PC regime has gone so far.
But it can go much farther. Under the regime implied in Michael
Moynihan's attack on Mark Krikorian, people could be called before
the bar of public opinion, or even before a government body, to
give an accounting of what they have read. "
http://amnation.com/vfr/
|10.25.08 @ 8:45AM|#
Why is racism, the taste for certain "races" over others (even if race is itself simply a social construct, justified by privileging certain physical attributes) viewed any differently from other preferences? If a person has a taste for red sweaters over blue ones, then he is assumed to seek satisfaction by offering more in exchange for a red sweater than he would offer for a blue one. If a person has a taste for "white" chauffeurs over "black" chaffeurs then he will be willing to pay a higher price to hire the services of a "white" chaffeur than a "black" one. Is this irrational? Not according to the internal logic of free market economic theory. The consumer of chaffeur services is simply revealing, in his market exchange decisions, underlying racial preferences. His racism is, by definition, rational, so long as he acts consistently
Tom P.|10.25.08 @ 9:17AM|#
Why is racism, the taste for certain "races" over others
(even if race is itself simply a social construct, justified by
privileging certain physical attributes) viewed any differently
from other preferences? If a person has a taste for red sweaters
over blue ones, then he is assumed to seek satisfaction by offering
more in exchange for a red sweater than he would offer for a blue
one. If a person has a taste for "white" chauffeurs over "black"
chaffeurs then he will be willing to pay a higher price to hire the
services of a "white" chaffeur than a "black" one. Is this
irrational? Not according to the internal logic of free market
economic theory. The consumer of chaffeur services is simply
revealing, in his market exchange decisions, underlying racial
preferences. His racism is, by definition, rational, so long as he
acts consistently
You reveal an internal contradiction of politically correct
libertarianism (which Reason supports based on their reaction to
the Ron Paul newsletters). If people are left to their own devices,
they seperate by race.
http://amren.com/ar/2008/02/index.html#cover
http://amren.com/ar/2008/03/index.html#cover
You can like freedom or you can like diversity, but not both. The
latter requires an army of consultants and social engineers working
in conjuction with a regime of PC police, the likes of which
brought down Larry Summers and James Watson.
|10.25.08 @ 10:34AM|#
Larry
Auster replies to this Stalinist behavior by REASON
David Horowitz and Professor BrainDead aren't conservatives.
They're lousy NeoCons. Reason really has hit low point this.
Fluffy|10.25.08 @ 10:56AM|#
no sub-Saharan black people had ever invented a written
language or anything resembling human civillization
This is just false.
Sub-Saharan Africa had any number of politically complex,
metallurgical, agricultural civilizations prior to contact with
Europeans.
Africans were perceived by early explorers to be "uncivilized" for
primarily climatological reasons - Africa's climate made European
norms of clothing and housing inappropriate. To Europeans too
stupid to adapt to local conditions, near-nakedness was an
unforgiveable sign of savagery.
And as far as the alphabet thing goes - no northern European
culture independently invented the alphabet, either. They adopted
writing by diffusion from Semitic cultures. So I guess Germans,
English, Norwegians, Danes, etc. are "naturally" inferior,
right?
By the way, since when did wanting to preserve the historic
majority population and culture of the United States make one a
"white nationalist"?
The Japanese restrict immigration on ethnocultural grounds. Does
that make them "yellow nationalists?"
It definitely makes them Japanese nationalists. They are
nationalists who define the nation by the unifying factor of being
Japanese.
Since "white" Americans span a large number of ethnicities, we
can't tie your nationalism to ethnicity in that way. We have to tie
it to its cross-ethnic unifying factor, whiteness. That means that
if you want "to preserve the historic majority population and
culture of the United States" you are in fact a white nationalist.
Sorry.
Under the regime implied in Michael Moynihan's attack on Mark
Krikorian, people could be called before the bar of public opinion,
or even before a government body, to give an accounting of what
they have read.
Um, leaving aside the "government body" nonsense, since Moynihan is
not an agent of the government, let me point out that -
I can fucking base my opinion of you on whatever I fucking
want.
It's kind of amusing that people who want to defend their freedom
to judge others based on their skin color want to simultaneously
decry my freedom to judge me based on the fact that they employ
such judgments.
Under the "regime" I favor, each individual gets to judge every
other individual based on whatever criteria they want. If some of
you guys want to judge black people based on historical accidents
of minor timeline differences in the adoption of certain
technologies, that's your affair. If I want to judge you to be
douchebags as a result, that's mine. And if Moynihan wants to judge
Auster based on his writing output, and to judge Krikorian on his
fondness for Auster, that's his affair.
Fluffy|10.25.08 @ 10:58AM|#
That should read "...decry my freedom to judge them based on..." etc. Pronoun trouble.
|10.25.08 @ 11:28AM|#
"Women are the natural care-givers and are naturally focused on
the home and the family and its protection. But those same
priorities, when expressed through the political sphere as distinct
from the private sphere, inevitably lead a society in the direction
of socialism."
So, then government didn't have a massive growth in size and scope
post women's suffrage?
He-man Woman Hater|10.25.08 @ 11:31AM|#
So, then government didn't have a massive growth in size and
scope post women's suffrage?
Yup, the USSR and Nazi Germany were all women's fault. Women ran
the whole show and were directly responsible for the growth in
government. Little known fact.
|10.25.08 @ 12:45PM|#
Well, it makes them Japanese nationalists. They're not
really yellow, you know.
This just in. White people aren't white, the red man is not red,
and black folks aren't black.
Film at 11.
zoltan|10.25.08 @ 1:27PM|#
I'm sure all you morons have read the Bell Curve but have not the intellectual fortitude to understand the Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould. Then again, you all love your anecdata, not your biology.
|10.25.08 @ 2:12PM|#
I have the intellectual fortitude to read The Mismeasure of Man. Indeed, I've read most of his books. The Mismeasure of Man is a jumbled mess whose primary purpose seemed to be to shoot down a straw man argument of determinism that exists only in Gould's head.
|10.25.08 @ 2:51PM|#
Restrictive immigration laws are a massive violation of
property rights, both of prospective immigrants who are prohibited
from access to property in the US, and of present denizens who are
prohibited from employing, housing, and otherwise associating with
whomever they want on or with their property.
Maybe if we were back in the feudal times, bud. But were aren't.
Property rights are not God-given -- indeed they couldn't be
because your typical libertarian doesn't believe in God. Nor can
they be 'Reasoned' into existence. My reason tells me that if I can
obtain something by hook or crook, I should do that. Moreover, I
never 'agreed' or 'contracted' with, say, Donald Bren of Irvine
that he should have exclusively use of X his lands.
No, property rights in a democracy are given and enforce by the
community. We don't really ask much in return, but importing vast
numbers of foreigners is something that a lot of us really would
rather you not do. Of course, no one actually pays the full costs
of their imported labor these days, everything from healthcare
costs to 'education' costs are externalized. (Look that one up in
Palgrave's)
And no, we restrictionists aren't violating your liberty. You are
perfectly free to take off to Mexico or Bangladesh in search of
cheap labor.
Tom P.|10.25.08 @ 3:20PM|#
If some of you guys want to judge black people based on
historical accidents of minor timeline differences in the adoption
of certain technologies, that's your affair.
It's a historical accident that in not a single school in America
do blacks do as well as whites.
It's a historical accident that not a single black nation that
wasn't run by whites has ever reached a first world standard of
living.
It's a historical accident that there has NEVER been an IQ test
anywhere, anytime, or any other proxy for intellectual capacity
(like the ACT or SAT) where blacks comes close to doing as well as
whites.
It's a historical accident that blacks have an IQ one standard
deviation lower than whites. It's also a historical accident that
when blacks are adopted into whites homes they are still one SD
behind.
It's a historical accident that blacks are 12% of the US population
but commit 50% of the crime.
It's a historical accident that in London blacks are 12% of the
population and commit 50% of the crime.
It's a historical accident that South Africa once maintained it's
existence as a first world country when run by whites but now that
"social justice" has been achieved it's joining the rest of Africa
in the third world, with the electricity going out and everything
like a scene out of Atlas Shrugged.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/world/africa/31safrica.html)
It's a historical accident that in every country where there are
blacks and on every continent they are the most criminal, lowest
socio-economic group.
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1593680287/reasonmagazineA/
It's a historical accident that out of the 1500 most important
inventions in the history of man according to Issac Asminov, not a
single one came from a person of black descent.
It's a historical accidnet that every group in the world comes to
America and ends up doing better than blacks. Our native blacks
think that their faliure is due to discrimination and want
government help to fix it.
It's a historical accident that blacks in France are faliures
relative to the rest of society and want government intervention to
fix
it.(http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2007/01/in_officially_c.php)
It's a historical accident that blacks in Iraq are faliures
relative to the rest of society and want government intervention to
fix
it.(http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2008/08/iraq_black_iraq.php)
And I suppose the sun coming up every morning is a historical
accident too?
Look at the world. Blacks are told that they are equal to whites.
They look around and see that they are at the bottom in all
societies, everywhere, at all times by any objective measure. Is it
any wonder they hate whites and listen to the rantings of Rev.
Wright?
|10.25.08 @ 4:09PM|#
Property rights are not God-given -- indeed they couldn't be
because your typical libertarian doesn't believe in God. Nor can
they be 'Reasoned' into existence. My reason tells me that if I can
obtain something by hook or crook, I should do that.
Your reason should also tell you that if it the person you are
taking the property from is more committed to holding on to the
property than you are to taking it, then there will be an expensive
conflict that you will lose. That is the natural, constructive
definition of property. The encoding of that concept into societal
norms that avoid continuous and costly conflicts is the definition
of property rights. See David Friedman's "A
Positive Account of Property Rights".
No, property rights in a democracy are given and enforce by the
community.
This, on the other hand, is the foundation of tyranny.
Fluffy|10.25.08 @ 4:40PM|#
It's a historical accident that out of the 1500 most
important inventions in the history of man according to Issac
Asminov, not a single one came from a person of black
descent.
I guess Isaac never heard of fire.
This is a perfect example of what I mean. The history of man
extends back hundreds of thousands of years, and that of "men"
extends millions of years. I hate to break it to you, but no event
that took place in the last couple of centuries is really a large
enough data set to use to measure.
In 200 AD, Nordic people would have "always" been inferior to
Semites, to anyone occupying a literate society and using the
historical records at hand. Residents of, say, southern Anatolia or
the Levantine coast would have been entitled to say, "We had
agriculture, metallurgy, trade, a written language, and everything
that has to do with human culture for centuries while Germans were
still living in huts." And most Germans in civilized areas occupied
the lowest possible social strata as slaves. Tell me, how did that
data set "proving" superiority hold up over time?
Over the span of a human history of hundreds of thousands or
millions of years, a difference of a couple of centuries in
adopting certain inventions or modes of life is a trivial
difference that can't be said to prove anything. Sorry.
Tom P.|10.25.08 @ 4:52PM|#
Over the span of a human history of hundreds of thousands or
millions of years, a difference of a couple of centuries in
adopting certain inventions or modes of life is a trivial
difference that can't be said to prove anything. Sorry.
True. And today we have cross adoption studies, IQ tests done all
over the world, MRI measurements of brain size and test scores from
thousands of schools all over the world. There's more objective
data to be had from one year in today's world then hundereds of
thousands of years before the present era. And all evidence points
in the same direction.
And Semites, at least Jews (IQ 115), are "superior" to Europeans by
the same standard that Europeans (IQ 100) are "superior" to blacks
(IQ 70-85 depending on enviornment and level of white admixture). I
harp on the black/white differences because differences in life
outcomes are seen as evidence of discrimination while current
political climate doesn't see the fact that Jews are 2% of the US
and overrepresented at the top levels of society as something
government should correct. And the influx of Mestizos (IQ 90) are
going to take us to the third world.
Fluffy|10.25.08 @ 5:04PM|#
True. And today we have cross adoption studies, IQ tests
done all over the world, MRI measurements of brain size and test
scores from thousands of schools all over the world.
All of which are pretty brutally demolished by the Flynn
effect.
It sounds like you've read some Charles Murray, but were too stupid
to understand it when it tried to teach you that the apparent
heritability of IQ is not necessarily genetic in origin. And if IQ
is heritable but not genetic, your argument about race is
meaningless. And again, you've now narrowed the data set even
further, to the span of years during which tests of the kind you
describe were systematically employed, which is only a few decades.
I'll bet that if the Romans had devised an IQ test, residents of
Italy would have outscored residents of France for longer than that
- again without proving anything substantial.
And you can spare me the "clever crafty Jews" bit, too, because
Jews were not the only residents of the Mediterranean basin in 200
AD, and you'd have to show the same persistent "superiority" over
Nordics continuing down to the present day for all of those other
groups, too [Arabs, Berbers, Egyptians, etc] - and I don't think
you can.
Tom. P|10.25.08 @ 5:05PM|#
In 200 AD, Nordic people would have "always" been inferior
to Semites, to anyone occupying a literate society and using the
historical records at hand. Residents of, say, southern Anatolia or
the Levantine coast would have been entitled to say, "We had
agriculture, metallurgy, trade, a written language, and everything
that has to do with human culture for centuries while Germans were
still living in huts." And most Germans in civilized areas occupied
the lowest possible social strata as slaves. Tell me, how did that
data set "proving" superiority hold up over time?
Just to add, this is why we invented the scientific method. To test
theories of how the world is. People in Anatolia or Rome could've
tested their theory that Germanic people were inferior by seeing
the life outcomes or IQ test scores of Germanic people who were
adopted into families from the more advanced society. They would've
found that their theory of Germanic inferiority was false.
In today's world, we have cross adoption studies that show that
blacks adopted into white homes in both America and Europe still do
poorly showing that the theory of black inferiority is correct.
Book of the Month Club|10.25.08 @ 5:11PM|#
I'm sure all you morons have read the Bell Curve but have
not the intellectual fortitude to understand the Mismeasure of Man
by Stephen Jay Gould. Then again, you all love your anecdata, not
your biology.
Gould has long been p0wned. Comprehensively, decisively and
finally.
|10.25.08 @ 6:45PM|#
The same racial egalitarians who quickly gainsay any scientific finding -- I mean "finding" -- that is inconsistent with their views are quick to embrace Nineteenth Century anthropologists' supposed reconstruction of the "Semitic" history of the ancient Middle East. The first figurine I ever saw of that area's earliest known civilizers, the Sumerians (who are not classed as "Semites," as far as I know), was that of a young woman -- with eyes of blue stone and, I think, pigtails. She looked like a little Dutch girl.
Tom P.|10.25.08 @ 7:14PM|#
Tom P, I think you touched one of Fluffy's exposed
nerves.
Yes, I put my last response up before seeing his where he resorted
to name calling. That's all people can do on emotional issue where
all the evidence says that they're wrong. Either that or locking
people up for telling the truth, like they're doing in Europe and
Canada.
|10.25.08 @ 7:19PM|#
In the final analysis the relative genetic "intellectual
abilities" of various "races" (however you wish to define those
loaded term) just doesn't matter. The yeah for our side "whites"
posting here this evening are far below the smartest "blacks" I've
known intellectually. Yet I'll still treat them with the respect
that a human deserves.
If you want to run around the internet sceaming in ALL CAPS WITH
BOLD TAGS, "whites" are somehow superior, go right the fuck ahead.
LIfe is easier when the halfwit assholes self identify.
Tom P.|10.25.08 @ 7:51PM|#
In the final analysis the relative genetic "intellectual
abilities" of various "races" (however you wish to define those
loaded term) just doesn't matter.
If quality of life of a country depends on race/IQ, we might want
to discuss the whole whites becoming a minority thing.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail.aspx?id=67006§ionid=3510212
Good luck preaching small government to crime ridden, welfare
dependent blacks and Mexicans who think the whites do well in
school and refrain from crime due to "privillege."
http://vdare.com/taylor/080929_malaysia.htm
What does this suggest about the future of the United States?
Most Americans can hardly imagine preferences for the majority
and-if they even think about it-assume that racial preferences will
fade away as the U.S. becomes more diverse and they become a
minority.
They shouldn't count on it. As Malaysia proves, groups don't have
to be minorities to develop a taste for preferences.
The crucial factor no one talks about-either in Malaysia or in the
United States-is IQ. The average IQ for the Malays and Indians is
about 87 while that of the Chinese is around 103. That is why the
Chinese thrive despite the Bumiputra Program but the Indians
don't.
Preferences for bumis were supposed to be temporary-just as in the
United States-to give them just enough of a boost so they could
compete with the Chinese. The trouble with preferences is that they
don't raise a group's average IQ, and temporary programs become
permanent.
In America, blacks and Hispanics will not lose interest in
preferences just because they become the majority. On the contrary,
once they have enough political power, I suspect they will not
hesitate to legislate in favor of themselves. Racial preferences
may seem to be on the wane now, but when the balance of power
shifts they will be back.
pushpin|10.25.08 @ 9:40PM|#
"LIfe is easier when the halfwit assholes self identify."
Your message made this last bit unneeded, really.
It has been said, and it seems sensible enough, that one finds
individuals in *all* ethnic and racial groups comprising the most
intellectually superior percentile of humans. Maybe that is
dangerous "incomplete" information that could be misused easily.
The larger point is that measurable indicators of *average*
intelligence and behavior in these same groups is something that
should be of genuine concern to us all.
To be unconcerned with these matters makes one a pious egalitarian,
while focusing on what is going on with human diversity makes on a
racist according to some. What makes us wonder about these things
in the first place is living shoulder-to-shoulder and paying
attention. Which is the more "natural" condition-- to be sensitized
to or oblivious to the race of our fellow man-- is a curious
question.
Fluffy|10.25.08 @ 10:39PM|#
Just to add, this is why we invented the scientific method.
To test theories of how the world is. People in Anatolia or Rome
could've tested their theory that Germanic people were inferior by
seeing the life outcomes or IQ test scores of Germanic people who
were adopted into families from the more advanced society. They
would've found that their theory of Germanic inferiority was
false.
No, they wouldn't have.
Because they probably would have conducted the equivalent of the
Minnesota Cross Adoption study: they would have examined the
children of German mothers who had failed in life so completely
that they had to surrender their children for adoption, and when
those children did not perform the same as the children of the most
socially successful and intelligent Romans they would have
concluded that this proved that all Germans were inferior no matter
how they were raised. Oh, and they would have tested a grand total
of 138 subjects. So that dumbasses could go online and push
phrenology-like pseudoscience that they picked up at White Power
meetings.
Nice that you met up with your buddy who has created his own
anthropology and archaeology where the residents of ancient Sumer
were Dutch.
Maybe you guys can go ride off on dinosaur Jesus horses later and
meet up with some scientists who can prove for you that the
Mississippi mound builders were Welsh or something. Or maybe you
can track down the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot and test their
IQ's.
Tom P.|10.25.08 @ 11:01PM|#
Fluffy,
I thought I was done replying to you when you resorted to childish
name calling but I can't help but wonder why you assume someone who
thinks the intelligence of whites is intermediate between Jews and
Asians on one side and Blacks and Native Americans on the other is
a white supremacist.
|10.25.08 @ 11:10PM|#
The mound-builders were Welsh? I wonder. So, in a way, did
Alexis de Tocqueville:
Although we have here traced the character of a primitive people
[the American Indians], yet it cannot be doubted that another
people, more civilized and more advanced in all respects, had
preceded it in the same regions.
An obscure tradition which prevailed among the Indians on the
borders of the Atlantic informs us that these very tribes formerly
dwelt on the west side of the Mississippi. Along the banks of the
Ohio, and throughout the central valley, there are frequently
found, at this day, tumuli raised by the hands of men. On exploring
these heaps of earth to their center, it is usual to meet with
human bones, strange instruments, arms and utensils of all kinds,
made of metal, and destined for purposes unknown to the present
race.
The Indians of our time are unable to give any information relative
to the history of this unknown people. Neither did those who lived
three hundred years ago, when America was first discovered, leave
any accounts from which even a hypothesis could be formed.
Traditions, those perishable yet ever recurrent monuments of the
primitive world, do not provide any light. There, however,
thousands of our fellow men have lived; one cannot doubt that. When
did they go there, what was their origin, their destiny, their
history? When and how did they disappear? No one can possibly
tell.
How strange it appears that nations have existed and afterwards so
completely disappeared from the earth that the memory even of their
names is effaced! Their languages are lost; their glory is vanished
like a sound without an echo; though perhaps there is not one which
has not left behind it some tomb in memory of its passage.
-- Democracy in America: Volume 1, Chapter 1
(http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch01.htm)
Mike Laursen|10.26.08 @ 1:01AM|#
...someone who thinks the intelligence of whites is
intermediate between Jews and Asians on one side and Blacks and
Native Americans...
OK, please explain why you racists are so fixated on dividing
everyone up into groups (black people, white people, left-handed
people, people who can curl their tongue) and rating each groups'
intelligence, crime rates, per-capita ownership of cardigan
sweaters. Do you have some kind of mental block when it comes to
dealing with people as individuals?
Urkobold™|10.26.08 @ 1:26AM|#
You can like freedom or you can like diversity, but not
both.
YOU CAN LIKE BASEBALL OR YOU CAN LIKE HOT DOGS, BUT NOT BOTH.
|10.26.08 @ 1:47AM|#
Yes, Laursen, we have some kind of mental block when it comes to dealing with people as individuals. That's because we're not as good as you.
|10.26.08 @ 1:54AM|#
Is reality optional? Should we not speak about things that are true because they are not pleasant or the preferred utopian viewpoint? Does being a libertarian mean that I must ignore truths that others do not like? If so, why bother at all?
Mike Laursen|10.26.08 @ 1:59AM|#
Yes, Laursen, we have some kind of mental block when it
comes to dealing with people as individuals. That's because we're
not as good as you.
That's true. You're not.
Tom P.|10.26.08 @ 2:02AM|#
OK, please explain why you racists are so fixated on
dividing everyone up into groups (black people, white people,
left-handed people, people who can curl their tongue) and rating
each groups' intelligence, crime rates, per-capita ownership of
cardigan sweaters. Do you have some kind of mental block when it
comes to dealing with people as individuals?
Because the science of group differences allows us to predict what
will happen as this country becomes more and more filled with
Mexicans. While many Hispanics who come here will be intelligent,
law-abiding and hard working, their overall low IQ means we can
expect more crime, more welfare dependency and a lower standard of
living in the future.
Also, if you're a libertarian, you should be concerned that
differences in life outcomes are seen by the left as evidence of
discrimination and used as justification for expanding government
power. There's anti-white and Asian discrimination in the form of
affirmative action, the assault on freedom of association that
comes from "civil rights" laws, the assault on free speech at
universities aimed at stopping anybody from thinking too hard and
finding out that populations are different, the ACLU suing school
districts for not being able to make Mexicans and Blacks as smart
as Whites and Asians, allegations that the criminal justice system
is racist because we end up locking up so many Blacks and Mexicans,
etc.
Mike Laursen|10.26.08 @ 2:21AM|#
OK, why do classify immigrants by ethnic grouping, as opposed to some other grouping: say, level of education, gender, age, household wealth at time of immigration? Was it because of a pre-supposition that ethnicity is the factor that matters more than any of those other possible grouping criteria?
|10.26.08 @ 5:20AM|#
Many libertarians imagine that all economic and political
problems will be solved if only the proper economic and political
framework is established: free enterprise, limited government,
clear recognition of individual rights. But the question is, How
can such a framework, such a "house," be preserved? It can't be
preserved if people must continually be convinced, by the tens of
millions, that liberty is a good idea, better than the welfare
state or some structure of political repression and intolerance. It
can be preserved only by a culture in which the vast majority of
people assume that individual liberty and responsibility are the
ultimate political good. Not every culture makes these
assumptions.
It would not be difficult for a few million representative citizens
of, say, the Arab countries to take up residence in the United
States and seriously disrupt or even destroy the American political
economy. The cost of immigration is now the lowest in history. For
just a few hundred dollars, you can get to the United States from
any country in the world. If you already have an uncle or a cousin
in the States - something that is very likely - you may find it
easy to take up residence and get a job. If not, welfare assistance
will not be hard to obtain; no one starves in America. And suppose
that you are, indeed, one of the great majority of immigrants who
want a job and work hard when they get it. What then? Does this
mean that the political and social attitudes to which you have been
accustomed will simply disappear? I don't think that they will. I
think you will probably keep most of those attitudes. I think that
the longer you stay in America, the more self-confidence you gain,
and the more you and your children are exposed to modern
multicultural propaganda, the more likely you will be to insist
that America conform to your own cultural assumptions.
The best we can do is to admit immigrants sparingly, not by the
tens of millions; to judge their economic fitness by their skills
and education, not by their mere presence, and to be especially
restrictive about immigration from cultures that do not prepare
people for life in a libertarian society.
http://www.libertyunbound.com/archive/2006_10/cox-immigration.html
X|10.26.08 @ 5:25AM|#
Mike Laursen for the win! Sorry, honkies.
How do we get more of those disproportionately brilliant epileptics
to move here?
Fluffy|10.26.08 @ 8:06AM|#
Tom P,
Strictly speaking, when I said you were too stupid to understand
the Murray you were badly quoting and interpreting, that was
adjectival, and not the application of a name.
It's not name-calling until I call you a queef. You queef.
Mike Laursen|10.26.08 @ 9:53AM|#
Bruce, do you ever personally interact with immigrants, or is all of your understanding of them theoretical?
|10.26.08 @ 11:42AM|#
I hate persons who attempt to justify their racism with economics or philosophy. I just dislike blacks.
|10.26.08 @ 12:38PM|#
I have not many concrete contacts with immigrants. Significant pieces of my everyday knowledge as who these people are, how they live, where they come from, why they come, is derived from reading and by watching the political debate that has been going on for the last several years.
Trevor|10.26.08 @ 1:35PM|#
"the political debate that has been going on for the last
several years."
Read "the fringe-right blogosphere."
|10.26.08 @ 5:13PM|#
Reason this is not. This is the closing of one's eyes to a real problem so as not to appear "xenophobic" or "racist." You pat yourselves on the back for being balanced and magnanimous, but you're really just being cowardly.
Trevor|10.26.08 @ 8:32PM|#
"Reason this is not."
Drink!
And, yes, I agree that immigration is a "real problem," if you get
all your information from VDare.
Mike Laursen|10.26.08 @ 9:09PM|#
I have not many concrete contacts with
immigrants.
It would change your views a lot. I live in a place that probably
has more people that just arrived from foreign countries. When I
take a walk in the local park on a Sunday every family I walk by
strolling around the lake is speaking in a different language:
Spanish, Russian, Hindi, French, Chinese, Japanese.
Here's the deal. They all love America and American values. That's
why they bothered to come here. Plus they bring with them all kinds
of interesting culture, food, and good-looking women of all
descriptions. I can't imagine how anybody could take in this whole
scene and think it was anything but fun and fascinating.
Trevor|10.26.08 @ 9:23PM|#
"Here's the deal. They all love America and American
values."
Bullshit strawman argument about La Raza and/or al Qaeda cells in
5, 4, 3, 2...
Trevor|10.26.08 @ 9:28PM|#
When we finally get the mass deportations that you VDare guys want, could we throw out the Irish, too? They've gotten really smug. They've hijacked the punk scene from those of us with British ancestry. And their Jameson comsumption and dick size are statistically troublesome. Maybe they don't bother you in Hayden Lake, Idaho, but in Chicago, it's gotten out of hand.
zoltan|10.26.08 @ 9:46PM|#
I like when collectivism rears its ugly head too. And thanks to the people who corrected me on Gould, I knew the book was old but was unaware of responses to it which made it obsolete.
Del Gato|10.26.08 @ 9:49PM|#
Plus they bring with them all kinds of interesting culture,
food, and good-looking women of all descriptions.
We've already heard about immigration being good for the stomach
and good for the cock. Some of us have other priorities,
however.
"Here's the deal. They all love America and American
values."
Bullshit strawman argument about La Raza and/or al Qaeda cells in
5, 4, 3, 2...
Bullshit strawman? Tell that to the
British.
Annonymous|10.26.08 @ 10:28PM|#
Plus they bring with them all kinds of interesting culture,
food, and good-looking women of all descriptions.
Blond hair, blue eyes and red hair would be whiped off the face of
the earth forever after one generation of random mating. You leave
the European continent and you only have one choice for hair and
eye color. You like diversity and physical beauty? Fight against
race mixing.
As far as "interesting cultures" go, well, headlines like "Muslim
Rape Wave" sure make the politics of the country more
interesting.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/wcva/fjordman.htm
Mike |10.26.08 @ 10:48PM|#
Bullshit strawman? Tell that to the British.
Don't forget the French,
the Dutch, the Swedes,and
the Germans
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 12:52AM|#
We've already heard about immigration being good for the
stomach and good for the cock. Some of us have other priorities,
however.
And those are?
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 12:59AM|#
Blond hair, blue eyes and red hair would be whiped off the
face of the earth forever after one generation of random
mating.
Wouldn't that require non-random mating? As in forcibly preventing
people of European heritage from having children with each other? I
hope you're not wasting your time lying awake at night worrying
about that happening.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 1:02AM|#
As far as "interesting cultures" go, well, headlines like
"Muslim Rape Wave" sure make the politics of the country more
interesting.
So, I relate how immigrants are a blessing and a joy to be around.
That I have lived in that world every day for years and years,
right here in America. And the best you can do to counter is to dig
up some story from Sweden?
Annonymous|10.27.08 @ 1:17AM|#
So, I relate how immigrants are a blessing and a joy to be
around. That I have lived in that world every day for years and
years, right here in America. And the best you can do to counter is
to dig up some story from Sweden?
Mexicans rape too. The "Hispanic" crime rate is 5 times that of
Whites. They are faliures by every objective
measure.
Mike|10.27.08 @ 1:23AM|#
Wouldn't that require non-random mating? As in forcibly
preventing people of European heritage from having children with
each other? I hope you're not wasting your time lying awake at
night worrying about that happening.
Whites are about 15% of the world's population. A minority of them
have light hair and light eyes. They build socities that attract
the other 85% of the world that has black hair and black eyes. Some
whites will mix with non-whites every generation and if the influx
of the latter continues eventually blond hair and blue eyes will be
something they read about in anthropology text books.
Look at who Mexicans, Indians and Arabs choose to look at on TV. An
old joke is the only channel in America where the actors are still
all white is Telemundo. I oppose immigration because whites are the
only physically attractive race.
Trevor|10.27.08 @ 2:28AM|#
"I oppose immigration because whites are the only physically
attractive race."
Wow.
Good luck with that.
|10.27.08 @ 4:11AM|#
Mr. Laursen -- you haven't related "how immigrants are a blessing and a joy to be around." You've said you find it pleasant to be amid a variety of them during weekend strolls in your local park. Whether or not that's true, it has nothing to do with intimacy -- not even with the minor intimacy of good neighbors. In my own observation, the increased presence in the United States of non-Europeans has reduced human connection, which has been replaced by obsessive -- almost desperate -- small talk -- about professional sports, television programs, and pop musicians. There seems to be an unuttered notion that within a few generations, all of those non-concerns will become the basis of some new ethnicity -- and not only an American one, a World one. That is a delusion. The divide that is race is great; one either accepts the limits of the connections that can be made across it or one does not.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 9:24AM|#
I oppose immigration because whites are the only physically
attractive race.
I gotta, say, Mike, you've got me with that one. It was so
bizarrely wrong-headed and close-minded, I have no idea how to
continue debating with you.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 9:27AM|#
it has nothing to do with intimacy
Oh, no. Didn't mean to imply I don't have intimate relationships
with any immigrants. I do.
-- not even with the minor intimacy of good neighbors. In my
own observation, the increased presence in the United States of
non-Europeans has reduced human connection, which has been replaced
by obsessive -- almost desperate -- small talk -- about
professional sports, television programs, and pop
musicians.
You'll have to explain further how this perceived lack of intimacy
ties in with immigrants. Or why you don't have the problem when
you're interacting with Europeans.
|10.27.08 @ 10:03AM|#
"Blond hair, blue eyes and red hair would be whiped off the face
of the earth forever after one generation of random mating."
(...)
"I hope you're not wasting your time lying awake at night worrying
about that happening."
This reply is quite ironic in an age when self-proclaimed
conservationists, preservers of nature, environmentalists and
ecologists, and their various and sundry organizations, express
constant concern over the depletion and shrinkage of the earth's
biological richness and diversity, implement programs to maintain
the diversity of the earth's gene pool, and recommend that the
public be educated in the need to protect species and make the
preservation of biological diversity an issue of global
importance!
|10.27.08 @ 10:36AM|#
"I oppose immigration because whites are the only physically
attractive race."
Here is a delemma.
The greatest accomplishment of American culture, did not come from
mainstream whites.
Jazz came from a black culture that drew back on its long-standing
and uniquely African traditions. Without the African tradition
brought over to the United States, jazz would not exist - nor would
the blues and rock 'n roll!
Millions of white people like jazz, blues, rock 'n roll and music
related to that genre.
So, my question to Mike is: do you think America would have been a
better place if jazz and the people who created it would have been
left in Africa?
Mike|10.27.08 @ 11:37AM|#
Millions of white people like jazz, blues, rock 'n roll and
music related to that genre.
So, my question to Mike is: do you think America would have been a
better place if jazz and the people who created it would have been
left in Africa?
I would trade jazz for a 50% (blacks share) drop in the crime rate,
getting rid a block that voted 90% big government and whose faliure
is used as an excuse to keep expanding government power and rap
"music."
So yes, of course this country would be better off without
blacks.
|10.27.08 @ 11:46AM|#
This will be my last post here, Mr. Laursen, simply because I can give no more time to the present page. Race itself is the divide. If a handful of persons of one race live among those of another, human connection suffers little. The members of the majority interact with each other as they had been interacting, and the behavior of the members of the minority is modified by their consciousness of their status as guests, so to speak. Members of the majority, if they choose, can embrace those minority members who are inclined to be embraced sentimentally. If, alternatively, the minority's numbers are fairly large, human connection can be preserved by segregation, as via Chinatowns, which limits the interaction between members of the two groups and permits the vast portion of life to be carried out as if they were not in the same country: the borders of the ethnic enclaves become something like national boundaries within a nation. A third condition -- which is arising in America -- denies every person a social sphere populated exclusively by members of his or her own race. Constantly in contact with each other, members of every group have only two options: to remain aloof from each other or to substitute the false intimacy of chronic small talk. Most choose the latter.
Annonoymee|10.27.08 @ 11:56AM|#
Re: Race and beauty
Don't libertarians trust the market to give people what they
want?
http://www.amren.com/search.html?cx=009148206432049679303%3Aublljjeli10&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=african+fashion#1415
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 11:59AM|#
It is very, very rich that your comment was posted by someone with the last name, Bonaccorsi. I suggest you go back and read what was said about "Papists" when they first came over to America in large numbers.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 12:05PM|#
Bruce, it's a big stretch to tie this discussion into
environmentalism, but if, in this far-fetched scenario,
environmentalists planned all human mating and preferred
preservation of human genetic lines with traits like blond hair,
blue eyes, etc. wouldn't that be in harmony with your goals?
By the way, why are we worried about blond hair disappearning?
We'll always have blond hair around as long as we have corner drug
stores.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 12:08PM|#
When you guys post statistics about black or hispanic people having higher crime rates, do you go beyond the statistics to attribute the factors behind those rates? May I venture the guess that you consider race per se as the primary factor, as opposed to, say, economic status?
Annonyee|10.27.08 @ 12:57PM|#
Both low SES and high crime are due to genes. Do research on nature/nurture and get back to us.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 1:08PM|#
The traditional races have no correspondence to any genetic classification of population groups. In other words, they are pre-scientific and vague. Do the research and get back to us.
|10.27.08 @ 1:23PM|#
"preservation of human genetic lines with traits like blond
hair, blue eyes, etc. wouldn't that be in harmony with your
goals?
" -Mike Laursen
What's wrong with these goals?
The Nordic race has created the only civilizations to place a
significant value and emphasis, in concept and practice, on
individual rights, freedom, dignity, importance and
sovereignty.
The objectivity which is a common characteristic of the Northern
race - the ability to approach new experiences and situations, and
perceive reality, with an unbiased open mind, free of prior
judgment, and appreciate other points of view - has fostered the
creation and development of science and, to a significant extent,
liberated the North from the doctrinaire dogmatism, obscurantism
and narrow perspective of subjective thought.
musicologist|10.27.08 @ 2:05PM|#
The greatest accomplishment of American culture, did not
come from mainstream whites.
Jazz came from a black culture that drew back on its long-standing
and uniquely African traditions. Without the African tradition
brought over to the United States, jazz would not exist - nor would
the blues and rock 'n roll!
That's not exactly an uncontested
fact.
That's a statement that gets made frequently. Strangely, no one is
ever able to cite any examples of African music that could be
considered precursors of American music.
Tertian harmony, 4/4 beats and I-IV-V type chord progressions have
existed in European music for centuries. Where do you find any
examples of those in African music?
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 2:46PM|#
The Nordic race has created the only civilizations to place
a significant value and emphasis, in concept and practice, on
individual rights, freedom, dignity, importance and
sovereignty.
Oh, sure. Just dangle Godwin bait right in front of me. I'm not
gonna bite.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 2:53PM|#
That's not exactly an uncontested fact.
I'm not a musicologist, so I'll leave you to debate the roots of
jazz with Bruce.
Annonymous|10.27.08 @ 3:09PM|#
The traditional races have no correspondence to any genetic
classification of population groups. In other words, they are
pre-scientific and vague. Do the research and get back to
us.
You've proved yourself to be the left wing equivalent of a
creationist.
I hope there's a special place in hell for those of you who are
leading us to the third world due to your cowardly inability to
face reality.
|10.27.08 @ 5:16PM|#
"Do the research and get back to us."
Read the book by Michael H.: Understanding Human History: An
analysis including the effects of geography and differential
evolution (Washington Summit Publishers, pp. 484, $24.95).
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN HISTORY is a history of humanity, beginning
about 100,000 years ago and going through the 20th century. It
includes discussions of developments in every major area of the
world. Unlike other books on world history, it explicitly discusses
racial differences in intelligence, and explains how, why, and when
they arose. The book also discusses the many consequences that
those differences have had on human events, starting in prehistoric
times and continuing to the present. The book includes an abundance
of data and tables, together with sixteen maps, three tables, an
extensive bibliography, and a thorough index.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 6:41PM|#
When the U.S. is divided up into three racially-separated states, as Michael H. Hart proposes, I want to live in the mixed-race one please. Sheesh, this is your supposed objective scientific historian?
highnumber|10.27.08 @ 7:51PM|#
Is this another one of those threads that will require me to
have the last post?
I'll do it, I swear.
I can get really into that sort of a contest.
Tell ya'll what - I'll ramble, ramble, ramble ramble, ramble on,
and after you think you've read enough of what I wrote, you all
take a guess what my ethnic heritage is. It'll be fun.
First I will write about pumpkin seeds, sometimes known as
pepitas. A lot of folks eat pumpkin seeds year round. They
buy them at grocery stores, both shelled and unshelled. Few people,
though, make them at home at any time other than Halloween. It's a
tradition in many American homes to hollow out a pumpkin and carve
a face on it, creating a Halloween decoration that is known as a
jack-o-lantern. The seeds from the pumpkin are saved and roasted.
Yum!
Annonymous|10.27.08 @ 8:58PM|#
Here you go,
http://vdare.com/rushton/080616_lynn.htm
In Caribbean countries such as Cuba, Trinidad, and Guyana, it
was the Chinese and South Asians who were brought in after the end
of slavery. Subsequently, they too began to do well, with the
Chinese excelling and the South Asians placing intermediate to
Whites and Blacks.
In Britain large numbers of Blacks from Africa and the Caribbean,
and South Asians from Africa, India, and Pakistan began to enter
the country in the 1950s and 1960s. Twenty-two studies find
Afro-Caribbeans have a median IQ of 86, which is similar to the
African American mean of 85. Twelve studies find the South Asians
have a median IQ of 92.
In Africa and Australia too, South Asians average intermediate to
Whites and Blacks in IQ scores, educational achievement, and
economic success.
At the other end of the IQ distribution, seven studies of Jews in
Britain yield a median IQ of 110. In educational achievement, East
Asians in Britain also outperform the indigenous Whites.
Similarly in Australia, East Asians (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese)
average higher than Whites in IQ, educational achievement, and
earnings. Lynn describes pockets of ethnic Chinese elsewhere in the
world such as in Mexico, Argentina, and especially Hawaii, where
they also do well.
In Canada too, there is an IQ hierarchy: Jews (109), East Asians
(101), Whites (100), Amerindians (89), and Blacks (84).
These results are remarkably consistent over time, place, and
situation, irrespective of the original status of the people, or
the language, history, and political organization of the country
concerned.
The same data holds all place and all times. While you're education
yourself, you might want to check out what science says about
diversity.
http://amren.com/ar/2007/11/index.html#cover
http://amren.com/ar/2007/12/index.html#cover
October Surprise|10.27.08 @ 9:47PM|#
I love you, Urkobold.
Is there ANY source for this shit that isn't AmRen, VDare, or some
underground historian who wants to split up the country? There's a
slight whiff of confirmation bias. Science at large rejected
eugenics a long time ago, and there doesn't seem to be a credible
effort to bring it back, outside the outwardly racist fringes. If
most scientists aren't interested, is it because of a massive PC
conspiracy, or is it because your ideas are horseshit? Occam's
razor sez B.
Your movement is completely irrelevant. But don't worry. I assume
Mr. Whitefolks will land on his feet - he's always done all right
for himself in the past, under all sorts of weird
circumstances.
Mike Laursen|10.27.08 @ 10:10PM|#
You calling me lazy?!
Well, yeah, but not as part of a race or anything. Just lazy as an
individual. :-)
highnumber|10.27.08 @ 10:44PM|#
Yes. I understood that.
The pumpkin seeds turned out great. I'll try to save some for the
block party on Friday. Stop by.
pushpin|10.27.08 @ 11:27PM|#
John Bonaccorsi-- too bad you cashed in on commenting (though I
don't blame you). Thanks for sharing some interesting ideas about
ethnic cooperation and social-geographic relations between races. I
think that if one group retains historical social and political
dominance-- usually racial but not necessarily so-- then relations
can be harmonious even if they seem "unfair". But as soon as a
disenfranchised minority attains and exercises an increase in
political power, all the historic resentments will accompany that
ascendancy, probably with increased force (rather than being
lessened due to the expression of greater power). In turn this
brings out stereotypes and hostility from the predominant class or
group because it feels threatened.
If you are saying that the "one world race" idea is laughably
mindless, I agree, and would add that even as a conceptual goal it
is a recipe for strife and violence rather than a bogus harmony.
Equality in terms of expectations of outcome by race is a mental
delusion and its social and academic promotion has brought only
discord and pain. We can still do a lot with the presumption of
basic equal rights and the idea of equal opportunity.
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 12:05AM|#
I think that if one group retains historical social and
political dominance-- usually racial but not necessarily so-- then
relations can be harmonious even if they seem "unfair". But as soon
as a disenfranchised minority attains and exercises an increase in
political power, all the historic resentments will accompany that
ascendancy, probably with increased force (rather than being
lessened due to the expression of greater power). In turn this
brings out stereotypes and hostility from the predominant class or
group because it feels threatened.
Translation: Everything would be harmonious and fair for us white
guys if we can just keep all of the other races under our
domination.
|10.28.08 @ 6:06AM|#
"When the U.S. is divided up into three racially-separated
states, as Michael H. Hart proposes, I want to live in the
mixed-race one please."
If Northern Europeans had been limited to multiracial societies in
the past they would NOT exist today, and if present interracial
trends continue they will not exist in the future.
See also the monograph by sociologists Glaister and Evelyn Elmer,
Ethnic Conflicts Abroad: Clues to America's Future?
highnumber|10.28.08 @ 6:39AM|#
No, I did not see that, but do you know what I did see? Go on, guess.
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 9:29AM|#
Woohoo! Day three!
Did you see a puppy? I don't think puppy breeds should mix, by the
way.
Annonymous|10.28.08 @ 11:35AM|#
Translation: Everything would be harmonious and fair for us
white guys if we can just keep all of the other races under our
domination.
We want to keep them away! That's the difference between us White
Nationalists and our black and brown equivalents.
Is there ANY source for this shit that isn't AmRen, VDare, or
some underground historian who wants to split up the
country?
A lot of those guys writing for AmRen and VDare are psychologists
from the top universities in the world. Do you expect tthem to be
published in the Washington Post?
There's a slight whiff of confirmation bias. Science at large
rejected eugenics a long time ago, and there doesn't seem to be a
credible effort to bring it back, outside the outwardly racist
fringes. If most scientists aren't interested, is it because of a
massive PC conspiracy, or is it because your ideas are horseshit?
Occam's razor sez B.
As far as most scientists rejecting eugenics, that's a
political/moral position, not a scientific one. Political/moral
positions can be influenced by scientific findings though and the
consensus is that nature matters more than nurture. Even the
New York Times admits it.
Dr. Segal has found that identical twins were the most alike in
their thinking, fraternal twins somewhat less so, and virtual twins
strikingly different. When it comes to intelligence, for example,
her research has found that only 25 percent of the differences
between twins - virtual, fraternal or identical - can be accounted
for by their environment, 75 percent by genetics.
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 11:56AM|#
So, Bruce, Annonymous, where do you guys live? What do you do for a living? Do you have any hobbies? How much of your time do you spend thinking about the fate of the Northern European race?
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 11:58AM|#
Hey, do you guys like to cook? Ever watch Top Chef? Would you agree that Padma Lakshmi is a very good-looking woman?
pushpin|10.28.08 @ 12:41PM|#
Laursen:
"Translation: Everything would be harmonious and fair for us white
guys if we can just keep all of the other races under our
domination."
Behind the Translation: "Life is unfair so long as any group enjoys
dominancy, even on their own territory: Greeks in Greece, Iranians
in Iran, etc. It is morally wrong for them, or whites in America,
to defend the culture and systems they have built."
If you had said something more intelligent, such as that it seems
the case that there is a natural turnover of dominant groups over
time/space (again, Greece, Egypt, Persia, Russia, etc.)-- nothing
stays the same-- then we could perhaps agree. But it sounds as
though you cannot tolerate for a moment any hierarchy of social
status for any reason since this amounts to racism and
prejudice.
Individuals of all races and creeds find their natural place in the
world, according to ability and desire, and groups have the same
tendency. Sometimes unfairness and racism are involved in both
cases. Still there is hardly a more naturally evident fact in
observing human tendencies than this unavoidable
"inequality".
Isn't your sense of outrage mainly an overwrought sense of morality
projected onto others? Haven't we been shaped by disparities of all
kinds for oh, I don't know, 10s of thousands of years? Time for
that evolutionary nonsense to come to a close you say?
Annonymous|10.28.08 @ 12:52PM|#
Mike,
Yes, I spend a lot of time worrying about the future of the white
race. Anyway, we'll have a lifetime to see what "diversity" brings
to the Western world. Nice chatting with you.
highnumber|10.28.08 @ 1:40PM|#
thumbtack,
I'm no longer allowed to speak for anyone else (court order), but
if I may answer for Mr Laursen:
1. No.
2. Was that supposed to make sense?
3. Consider this: If I put 100 tadpoles into a bucket and put that
bucket into a freezer, what do you think would happen? Would it
make more or less sense to add water to the bucket first?
|10.28.08 @ 1:44PM|#
"So, Bruce, Annonymous, where do you guys live? What do you do
for a living? Do you have any hobbies? How much of your time do you
spend thinking about the fate of the Northern European race?"
I live in Belgium, Flanders to be correct, and my native tongue is
Dutch.
I retired 10 years ago at age 53.
I love to go biking and walking, I also like to read, especially
anything having to do with philosophy, and I also like listening to
music.
Regarding your last question: as a wild guess I'd say more than you
would like to.
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 2:21PM|#
WTF, I've been spending all of this time debating with you about
immigration and racial purity, and actually paying attention to
your theories on jazz music, and you just now get around to
mentioning that you live in Belgium, not America.
I don't really care what you think about immigration or race then,
or jazz. Here in America most of us get why the multi-cultural
"melting pot" is so great, and we instinctively understand how that
melting pot creates marvelous cultural explosions of creativity
like jazz.
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 2:29PM|#
Isn't your sense of outrage mainly an overwrought sense of
morality projected onto others?
Nope. My opposition to your views centers around an objection to
your seeing yourself and others primarily as members of groups,
rather than as individuals.
Eurowatcher|10.28.08 @ 2:29PM|#
@Bruce Graeme
Flanders, eh? They've been in the news quite a bit lately. What do
you think the chances are Flanders will secede from Belgium anytime
soon? I notice Vlaams Belang has been the largest political party
in Belgium for some time now - do you think they're a viable model
for nationalist parties in other parts of Europe? In America?
They're seems to be quite a bit of nationalist sentiment brewing
under the radar in Europe. I'd expect that's the natural effect of
a.) sovereignty being taken from the citizenry via the unelected
EU. b.) having massive immigration inflicted on the citizenry by
their elites (see a.).
Believe it or not, despite the example of Europe, there are quite a
few people here who think open borders and a North American Union
would be a great idea for the US. I suspect those people haven't
been paying a whole lot of attention to the experience of
Europe.
|10.28.08 @ 2:37PM|#
Here in America most of us get why the multi-cultural
"melting pot" is so great, and we instinctively understand how that
melting pot creates marvelous cultural explosions of creativity
like jazz.
We do?
highnumber|10.28.08 @ 3:27PM|#
I understand why no one responded to my tadpole metaphor - it
was poorly chosen. Let me try again with hot links. Imagine ten
packages of hot links (any brand will do), 6 hot links per pack.
You have seventy guests on their way over. The hot dog stand is
right around the corner, but your wife still wants help cleaning
the bathroom. Do you run to Pete's Red Hots right away and sneak a
smoke while doing that, or do you fire up the grill, finish
cleaning the toilet bowl, and then run out to pick up the polishes?
Maxwell style or no? Oh, and you just noticed that the hot links
are made with pork and you don't eat pork.
And you're not sure if Meena is coming, and she's a
vegetarian.
Now do you see what I mean?
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 3:47PM|#
For our Belgian friends, a "hot link" is a lot like a waffle except it is made of spices and meat, and is typically prepared on a barbecue grill. It is just one of the delicious foodstuffs available everywhere in the cornucopia of dining variety that exists in our multi-cultural county.
Lewis|10.28.08 @ 6:07PM|#
End Affirmative Action!
Sign NPI's Petition Today
Affirmative action is unfair, un-American, and just plain wrong. A
bill to end it has been languishing in Congress since 1995.
Join NPI in demanding that Congress finally take action, and pass
the Equal Opportunity Act of 1995.
Read-and then, please sign-NPI's Petition
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/petition/
highnumber|10.28.08 @ 7:19PM|#
All right, I'm getting nowhere. How about this?
You wake up in the living room on the sofa. Last thing you
remember, you had been partying with your roommates and were quite
tired. Not that anyone could blame you - you were out driving the
wrecker for 20 hours straight before you got home. Now, though,
when you try to open your eyes, there's something weighing down
your eyelids. What the hell?! What's going on?! Your hands grab
madly at your face. Theres something taped over your eyes. It's
coins. What the fuck?! What the fuck are COINS doing taped on your
motherFUCKING eyes?!! MIIIIIKKE!!!! YER A DEAD MAN!!!!!!
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 7:51PM|#
Assuming you are of Northern European descent and Mike, your
roommate, is also of Northern European descent, you two would be
living in harmonious harmony. So, therefore, nothing like your
proposed scenario could occur.
Unless ... Is this a trick question? Is there another roommate, who
is not a Northern European?
|10.28.08 @ 8:55PM|#
Believe it or not, despite the example of Europe, there are
quite a few people here who think open borders and a North American
Union would be a great idea for the US.
Care to name one?
In my experience, people who are for open borders are against a
North American Union.
Trade and migration blocs should be as large as possible. Political
blocs should be as small as possible. It's a simple principle,
really, that maximizes the autonomy of the individual.
Mike Laursen|10.28.08 @ 9:06PM|#
Trade and migration blocs should be as large as possible.
Political blocs should be as small as possible. It's a simple
principle, really, that maximizes the autonomy of the
individual.
I totally agree.
pushpin|10.28.08 @ 9:21PM|#
Well, I think there is no coherent discussion with someone who
applies the either/or mentality to individuals vs. groups. Maybe
you want to erase group identity altogether, but look around the
world-- and the US-- and you will find you belong to a very small
group (!) that is elitist and idealistic.
Groups and individuals are both real. They are not natural
adversaries.
pushpin|10.28.08 @ 9:37PM|#
The maximum expression of individual autonomy cannot be realized
without the tyranny of a higher organizing force with this as its
goal, viz., the legal-political State. This renders the
autonomy-as-greatest-good argument both absurd and dangerous, as
well as circular in its reasoning. If you believe that the
individual (autonomy) is more important than the general culture,
family, ethnicity, class, etc., you are stuck in a nightmare of
rules meted out by invisible bureaucratic rulers. How else could
this unnatural condition possibly arise? The EU is this principle
incarnate and it violates the very spirit of man and
humanity.
Such seemingly simple and idealistic "smart" thinking is *always* a
warning sign. But the arguments always sound so good to the
incautious ear!
highnumber|10.29.08 @ 12:20AM|#
thumbtack,
You ever play with a ball & cup toy? Hours of fun.
Seriously.
Hours.
Find a nice painted wood one if you can.
pushpin|10.29.08 @ 12:43AM|#
highball-- I suppose it shows I could use more fun on some days. Thanks for th' tip. I will look for one that is wooden with nice ethnic design flourishes.
highnumber|10.29.08 @ 12:58AM|#
I don't know what you were getting at with that "ethnic design flourishes" thing, but really, I feel strongly enough about this that I have to double post to emphasize: simple stripes, four colors max.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 12:59AM|#
Well, I think there is no coherent discussion with someone
who applies the either/or mentality to individuals vs.
groups.
I was going to elaborate, but was tired and in a hurry. It's not
just seeing people primarily as members of groups rather than as
individuals. It's also that the particular groupings you pick are
so fundamentally meaningless, superficial, and rooted in a
centuries-old history of ignorance and cruelty.
highnumber|10.29.08 @ 1:02AM|#
This is going to keep me up all night.
K.i.s.s.
Do you know what that stands for?
Very fucking important.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 1:02AM|#
The maximum expression of individual autonomy...
Jesus Christ, pushpin, I'm not even talking about politics and
power when I accuse you of not relating to people as individuals.
I'm talking about just everyday relationships with your neighbors
and acquaintances. Does everything with you racists have to be tied
in with some elaborate theory?!
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 1:05AM|#
If Northern Europeans had been limited to multiracial
societies in the past they would NOT exist today, and if present
interracial trends continue they will not exist in the
future.
Wonder if Mr. Bonaccorsi lies awake at night worrying about the
future of the Northern European races. Oh, that's right, he's of
Southern European heritage. What do you think of the papists,
pushpin?
|10.29.08 @ 1:07AM|#
The EU is this principle incarnate and it violates the very
spirit of man and humanity.
The EU is exactly not this principle incarnate. The
European Community was excellent -- increasingly free trade
followed by completely free migration. The principle of maximal
trade and migration blocs with minimal political blocs was clearly
evident. But as governments, and collectives in general, are wont
to do, the greater political powers in the EC tried to build a
government one level higher to guarantee their oligopoly in
perpetuity. Thus the mistake that is the EU.
I hardly think that any of the US, Canada, or Mexico want to chart
a similar political course for a post-NAFTA regime. There is no way
the smaller partners want to be dominated by the largest. And the
largest would have significant trouble giving up its sovereignty --
trouble caused mainly by the cultural bias toward those very
individual rights you malign.
highnumber|10.29.08 @ 1:11AM|#
Something as simple as a gottdam ball & cup. You fuck that
up. What the fuck do you value? Is truth fucking meaningless? Are
you that fucking bankrupt?
STRIPES, DUDE!
pushpin|10.29.08 @ 2:23AM|#
Not sure why I'm bothering to reply, but I guess that is my
expression as an individual. When you say "when I accuse you of not
relating to people as individuals" where do you get any idea of how
I regard such relationships in my personal life? And because I have
shared some views (sorry, "elaborate theories") on society and
community you call me a racist?
"It's also that the particular groupings you pick are so
fundamentally meaningless, superficial, and rooted in a
centuries-old history of ignorance and cruelty." What are you
talking about? The Russians and the Greeks or class, family, etc.?
Do we have a real intellectual disagreement/s or are you just
pissed about something I said? Maybe the mistake is mine in
assuming you actually care about anything under discussion
here.
highnumber, you are obviously pissed and all I can say was that I
assumed your initial comment about ball and cup (they don't sell
these at my local 7-Eleven, sorry) was pointedly condescending,
implying need to have fun, lighten up etc. But I see by your
reaction to my *playful* response that it held much deeper meaning
for you.
I'm out. The free use of the "f" word and pathetic, if
unsurprising, stabbing with the "r" word tell me this thread has
reached a point that cannot sustain civilized dialogue. Sorry if
that sounds too uppity for you both.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 2:52AM|#
And because I have shared some views (sorry, "elaborate
theories") on society and community you call me a
racist?
"I think that if one group retains historical social and political
dominance-- usually racial but not necessarily so-- then relations
can be harmonious even if they seem 'unfair'."
pushpin|10.29.08 @ 3:21AM|#
How does my assertion here translate to racism? The most
harmonious arrangements involving different groups (or individuals
if you like) have historically been hierarchical and markedly
non-egalitarian. Do you think this condition-- the story of human
history-- is an absolutely immoral one? Have you thought about the
disastrous consequences that would develop among the poor as well
as the monied classes (or classes of higher social status) if you
rearranged Arab or English or Chinese societies to suit your notion
of equality?
I do not believe it is worth experimenting with Marxism or
ueber-libertarianism in order to satisfy some bug that a few people
have for what they think is a missing equality. Equal rights is
something we work toward-- and there is a hell of a lot more of it
about these days-- not something we tear down existing
civilizations to rebuild on top of.
|10.29.08 @ 6:22AM|#
Eurowatcher,
My estimate is that the chance of splitting up at the moment is
only small. cf. www.misesyouth.org/Decentralisation.pdf
I can only confirm that the party is a viable model for nationalist
parties in other parts of Europe and America.
The party defends the free market, wants to reestablish traditional
values and mores, rejects multiculturalism and openly opposes
massimmigration and warns against the Islamification of
Europe.
By the way, I was one of the early pioneers to warn about that
possibility. But I had a nasty experience with that!
Angered by the many errors in religious truth claims and motivated
by injustices experienced at the hand of religious intolerance,
since I was 15 years old (1960), I became an atheist and I
considered the elimination of religious error a noble task.
As an abolitionist, I wrote various articles attacking
Christianity, the bible and defending atheism. Within the
freethought movement this was appreciated; but this was 'before'
there was massive immigration of Muslims in my country. Since then
things have changed....I have been excluded from the local Free
thought Organization. Why? Because I criticized the Islam in the
same and harsh way as had been the case with Christianity. But this
time the leftist freethought movement considered my critique as
"political incorrect". Six years ago - thus before the terrorist
attack on the Twin Towers - I predicted terrorist attacks in Europe
and incidents (as have happened all ready in France, Spain, Great
Britain and in Denmark); they called me a racist and
agitator!
That's why I am very sensible for every apologetically tone I
detect sometimes in articles regarding Muslims and their religion
by many freethinkers and atheists as well - in particular those on
the 'left' - who manifest themselves as Islamic apologists, taking
a soft tack on Islam. [e.g. when Muslims around the world reacted
with violence and anger to the remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI on
Islam, 'atheist' Austin Cline commented shamelessly in one of his
posts: "Benedict XVI doesn't have what it takes to be a pope in the
modern world where marketing, image, and communication both move
quickly and are vitally important." - cf.
http://atheism.about.com/
If I had known beforehand (when I was 15) what I went through the
last five years, because of the turmoil in the wake of my political
incorrect letters about Islam (*), I would never have grieved my
mother with my break of faith, and certainly never would have felt
the need to be debaptised. I have never been personally repressed
by the Catholic Church's clergy; on the other hand, the repression
by 'secular freethinkers'- the only repression I have been victim
of in my whole life - has been going on for about five years!
(*) I was actually stalked about 5 years ago by the secret police
on command of the Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and, last
year in March I have been put in a mental hospital for six
months.
Guy Verhofstadt is a highly emotional, narcissistic person, who -
for the sake of power - veers from one pole to its opposite. Back
in 1991, in his second 'Burgermanifest', he had still the audacity
to criticize Islam. But after he fell upwards - with the blessing
of "the dioxinecrisis" - and became Prime Minister, he took a 180
degree turn from earlier made comments and is now a hater of Muslim
critics (such as me), because they criticize him as well.
Here is what he wrote in 1991: "Is the Rushdie-case not ultimate
proof of the impossibility to fit Islam in our society? Does this
case not demonstrate how Islam at its core is a totalitarian
ideology, colliding with the cultural, moral and legal regulations
which apply in an open and democratic society?"
In that mental hospital, I have been forced to swallow
anti-psychotic meds simply to try to space myself out and not to
focus on the the danger of Islamization.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 9:35AM|#
The most harmonious arrangements involving different groups
(or individuals if you like) have historically been hierarchical
and markedly non-egalitarian.
Perhaps I have a different idea of what "harmonious" means. What do
you mean by that word?
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 9:39AM|#
OK, Bruce, we've been debating four days and you just now mention that you have spent a lot of time in mental hospitals because of your hysterical political views? What else do you have left to reveal?
|10.29.08 @ 11:29AM|#
" What else do you have left to reveal?"
Among those who knew about this flagrant violation of individual
rights there are influential 'libertarians' and atheists,
professors to boot! I still consider it inexcusable that they
failed to support me morally and didn't voice or express any
protest.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 11:53AM|#
By the way, why is your name, Bruce Graeme, but your email address is Gilbert de Bruycker?
pushpin|10.29.08 @ 12:45PM|#
A fair question regarding "harmonious" and without an easy answer. I suppose to me it means a system that works well because all participants understand the stakes both personally and communally and so may forsake certain idealistic 'equalities of result' in exchange for stability and prosperity. At the same time, harmony implies, in the West, a great deal of freedom on different levels. What many liberal-minded folks fail to appreciate, however, is that the exercise of these liberties depends upon a *non-liberal* framework in order to operate. By non-liberal I mean traditional, concrete and particular aspects of society-- those aspects that you may reject. In this way both "conservative" and "liberal" features of society can be in balance (on average) but it is not a system that can serve non-Western societies well and we should not expect it to.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 12:47PM|#
The objectivity which is a common characteristic of the
Northern race - the ability to approach new experiences and
situations, and perceive reality, with an unbiased open mind, free
of prior judgment, and appreciate other points of view - has
fostered the creation and development of science and, to a
significant extent, liberated the North from the doctrinaire
dogmatism, obscurantism and narrow perspective of subjective
thought.
Bruce, do you attribute such qualities to the Southern European
race or races? Italians, specifically?
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 12:52PM|#
It's hard to understand your explanation, pushpin, because it is vague. Are you aware that Hit & Run is primarily an online hangout for libertarians, not liberals or conservatives?
|10.29.08 @ 1:28PM|#
"By the way, why is your name, Bruce Graeme.."
Because my real name is difficult to pronounce.
Public Enemy No. 1 by Bruce Graeme (a pseudonym for Graham Montague
Jeffries) was the first English book I have read through from the
beginning to the end.
Bruce Graeme is a nice name. Has a ring to it!
|10.29.08 @ 1:41PM|#
"Bruce, do you attribute such qualities to the Southern European
race or races? Italians, specifically?"
All the races of humanity have certain accomplishments that would
likely not have been if they had not been. These accomplishments
are appreciated and valued in different degrees by different
people. But I am concerned with the preservation of the European
peoples, who happen to be the peoples whose continued existence is
currently under assault.
The racial differences between Northern and Southern Europeans seem
to me minor, I would even say even trivial, compared to the
differences between Europeans and the races of sub-Saharan Africa
or East Asia. There is even a degree of racial overlap between the
native populations of Northern and Southern Europe.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 1:49PM|#
What do you consider the big accomplishments of Southern Europeans?
Anonymous|10.29.08 @ 2:34PM|#
What do you consider the big accomplishments of Southern
Europeans?
The Roman Republic/Empire, the Catholic Church, the Renaissance,
the individual work of Michaelangelo, Rafael, Da Vinci, Dante,
Galileo, etc.
|10.29.08 @ 2:48PM|#
When you guys post statistics about black or hispanic people
having higher crime rates, do you go beyond the statistics to
attribute the factors behind those rates? May I venture the guess
that you consider race per se as the primary factor, as opposed to,
say, economic status?
Well, given that those rates are higher even when controlled for,
say, economic status, you figure it out.
|10.29.08 @ 2:52PM|#
OK, please explain why you racists are so fixated on
dividing everyone up into groups (black people, white people,
left-handed people, people who can curl their tongue) and rating
each groups' intelligence, crime rates, per-capita ownership of
cardigan sweaters. Do you have some kind of mental block when it
comes to dealing with people as individuals?
While there are plenty of contexts in which is is both possible and
appropriate to deal with persons as individuals, there are also
plenty of contexts in which it is appropriate to look at their
group characteristics. The insurance industry, for example, depends
on making underwriting decisions on potential policyholders
depending on the characteristics of groups they are members of.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 2:55PM|#
The Roman Republic/Empire, the Catholic Church, the
Renaissance, the individual work of Michaelangelo, Rafael, Da
Vinci, Dante, Galileo, etc.
Pretty damned good for a race that doesn't have a lot of blond hair
nor blue eyes.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 2:56PM|#
Well, given that those rates are higher even when controlled
for, say, economic status, you figure it out.
Sources, please.
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 2:58PM|#
While there are plenty of contexts in which is is both
possible and appropriate to deal with persons as individuals, there
are also plenty of contexts in which it is appropriate to look at
their group characteristics.
That didn't answer my question. My question was about your
psychological fixation.
|10.29.08 @ 3:24PM|#
My question was about your psychological
fixation.
Mostly because they're obvious, and consideration of the
distinctions yield useful information.
Would you care to explain your pathological determination to ignore
the obvious?
Mike Laursen|10.29.08 @ 3:44PM|#
Would you care to explain your pathological determination to
ignore the obvious?
I'd be happy to answer your question, but it was vague. Can you
give an example or two of an obvious fact I'm ignoring?
CS|10.30.08 @ 7:36PM|#
Africa for Africans! Asia for Asians! White countries for
Everybody!
BOB'S MANTRA
"Everybody says there is this RACE problem. Everybody says this
RACE problem will be solved when the third world pours into EVERY
white country and ONLY into white countries."
"The Netherlands and Belgium are more crowded than Japan or Taiwan,
but nobody says Japan or Taiwan will solve this RACE problem by
bringing in millions of third worlders and quote assimilating
unquote with them."
"Everybody says the final solution to this RACE problem is for
EVERY white country and ONLY white countries to "assimilate," i.e.,
intermarry, with all those non-whites."
"What if I said there was this RACE problem and this RACE problem
would be solved only if hundreds of millions of non-blacks were
brought into EVERY black country and ONLY into black
countries?"
"How long would it take anyone to realize I'm not talking about a
RACE problem. I am talking about the final solution to the BLACK
problem?"
"And how long would it take any sane black man to notice this and
what kind of psycho black man wouldn't object to this?"
"But if I tell that obvious truth about the ongoing program of
genocide against my race, the white race, Liberals and respectable
conservatives agree that I am a
naziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews."
"They say they are anti-racist. What they are is anti-white."
"Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white."
highnumber|10.30.08 @ 8:09PM|#
No, Day Five! Yay!
It never ends.
Well, it will end, and I know when. The end is not nigh...nor is it
far off. When the end comes, you will ask yourself, "Why did I
fight? Why did I hate?" You may expect tumult as it ends. You will
be disappointed. You may expect struggle and conflict. The end will
be quiet and peaceful. It will not bring you peace though. It
brings peace only to those who bring peace themselves. It is all
around you, and, although it can be hard to find, it is not
elusive.
More messages will follow as the end approaches.
highnumber|11.3.08 @ 12:42AM|#
You know what else is ending?
The presidential campaigns.
Thank FSM, god, God, Kali, Jesus, Vishnu, Buddha, Yahweh, Jehovah,
Allah, G_d, yer mom, L Ron Hubbard, Karl Marx, Judas Priest, Joseph
Priestly, and the Energizer bunny.
highnumber|11.5.08 @ 8:00PM|#
Whew! The election is over, the wannabe intellectual racists are gone (probably crying in their dank corner of mom & dad's basement). Can I get on with my life now? Cyber-squatting is a tedious task.
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