John Derbyshire, the talk: non-black version

[Demon of Undoing]

I've found that most males have conflicting feelings when it comes to homosexuality: they find male homosexuality revolting when they think about it, but are surprised to find that male homosexuals are some of the nicer and more interesting people to know in person; meanwhile, they find lesbianism exciting in their fantasies, but actual lesbians insufferable and almost unbearable to be around.

I remember the first time I saw two lesbians grinding together on the floor of The Dungeon in the French Quarter. I said to myself," Self, there's two ladies that, regardless of your feelings, look like they don't need you one little bit".


Saves lots of trouble, disabusing yourself of that notion does.

[monster_gardener]

I've found that most males have conflicting feelings when it comes to homosexuality: they find male homosexuality revolting when they think about it, but are surprised to find that male homosexuals are some of the nicer and more interesting people to know in person; meanwhile, they find lesbianism exciting in their fantasies, but actual lesbians insufferable and almost unbearable to be around.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Juggernaut.......

Interesting observation you have there........

FWIW IME women often like male homosexuals too....... Not going to hit on them...... Interested in the same things.......

I am not talking about the hyper macho gays...........

Conflicting personal data on how women fell about lesbians........ One hetero female relative who was in the Navy, said that the lesbian sailors were often the nicest women........

Another hetero female relative not in the Navy dislikes lesbianism...... but deals cautiously with them....... lesbian cousin... notably wild.....
but still family........ would be best to deal carefully with her if was het........


From a Biblical/Jewish/Christian, it is interesting that while male homosexuality has been HIGHLY prohibited since Moses and perhaps sanctioned since Noah got drunk , Lesbianism didn't get prohibited till St. Paul ........... and AIUI lesbianism is not encouraged but is not prohibited in Judaism*.......


Then there are the switch hitters of both sexes........

Many of whom do NOT consider themselves to be Gay as long as they are Dom.......

And there is the contention that het men are "male lesbians"

And perhaps hetero women may be "female male gays/"cuecos" ...........

Maybe we humans are polymorphous perverse............

*Interesting story from Canada and Israel............

Muslim lesbian couple fight Canada deportation to Israel

Muslim lesbian couple who claim they will be killed if deported to Israel due to their sexuality is being given second chance to remain in Canada

An Israeli Muslim lesbian couple who claim they will be killed if deported to Israel due to their sexuality is being given a second chance to remain in Canada.


According to the Toronto Sun newspaper, Iman Musa and Majida Mugrabi who are currently living in Toronto, arrived in Canada from Tel Aviv in 2007 and filed unsuccessful refugee claims that were appealed to the Federal Court of Canada.


Judge Roger Hughes on March 8 granted the couple another hearing by an Immigration and Refugee Board based on new information that shows one of Mugrabi’s cousins confessed to the “honor killing” of his sister 12-years ago.


The couple in an emotional letter presented to the courts claimed they would be killed if forced to return to Israel for being a same-sex Muslim couple.


“We have a same sex relationship, which is forbidden back home,” the couple wrote. “We have dishonored our families by running away to try and start a life with each other."

The couple, through their lawyer, Daniel Kingwell, said they were pleased by the court’s decision but still fear for their lives.


“As Muslim women, we don’t have any rights in our families,” the couple wrote. “The fact that we are lesbians does not help."


The letter claimed Mugrabi’s grandfather is a Muslim sheikh, who “repeatedly threatened to kill her.” Musa's brother, from Ramleh, has "threatened to kill her if she does not leave her lesbian relationship and marry a male,” the women alleged. “There are several police complaints regarding the threats of her brother."


“Same sex relationships are not permitted or accepted in all Arabic countries,” they said. “There are many stories about honor killings and we are victims of this."



There are several police complaints regarding the threats of her brother."


Kingwell said the women will be killed if deported to Israel.


“The situation is not the greatest for gays or lesbians in some Arab countries,” Kingwell said on Saturday, adding many “honour killings” occur from family members who slay their same-sex or gay relatives.


“This couple face a real threat from Muslims in a Conservative country," Kingwell said. No date has been set for a new hearing.


While Israel is known as a country highly tolerant of its thriving LGBT community, it is a well known fact that the Arab communities in Israel still hold an extremely conservative outlook and condemn the LGBT lifestyle.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 34,00.html

Maybe they should convert to Judyism oops I mean Judaism and buy guns if they have to go back to Israel.......

In Canada, whatever weapons they can get their hands on.....

If Bad Bro or the Cussin' Cousin or an apostate hating murderous Muslim comes around without proving peaceful intentions, shoot first if you can't retreat safely (not turn back).........

Better to be judged by 12 than carried by six..... To put my 50cents oops I mean 2 cents worth in.........

[Ammianus]

The more I think of this mess the funnier it gets. Essentially we have two sides playing a pathetic game of gotcha to try and see which side one-ups the other in being either a prima donna martyr or a self righteous knight in shining armor or both at the same time.

[Ammianus]

Huh, a reply to critics in........Gawker of all places.

http://gawker.com/5900452/

Have you been following the internet outcry about your article?

I can't really say so. I looked at a couple, but they seemed very malicious—willfully distorting what I wrote. A lot of the PC left is just hysterically deranged. Why read stuff by deranged people? I'd rather play FreeCell.

Is racism—yours or other people's—a problem?

Depends what you mean by a problem. The mild and tolerant racism I've owned up to, and which seems (from these Implicit Association studies) to be very common, is not usually a problem in people's personal social lives. It's never been a problem in my life. I've always got on pretty well with persons of all races, excepting those individuals nobody can get along with—we've all met 'em. But then, of course, as an individual, one can "navigate" through life, making choices that avoid difficult quandaries, by just the kinds of strategies outlined in my article.

Those irenic results don't scale up. Entire societies don't have the "navigational" freedom of individuals. The natural preference most people have for some races—usually their own—over others means that multiracial societies are plagued with stresses that you don't see in monoracial societies. The tendency in modern times is to separation. Look at residential and educational patterns in the U.S.A. I discuss these issues at length in my book We Are Doomed.

A friend of mine who is an academic social scientist likes to say that if you want to know what people believe, there are two methods of inquiry: (A) ask them, or (B) observe their behavior. It's a depressing fact about human nature that if you apply both (A) and (B) to a given situation, the answers you get will not necessarily be the same. Whether we are, as our current Attorney General said, a nation of cowards about race, I don't know; but looking at those residential and educational patterns, it's awfully hard to deny that we are a nation of liars.

The big question is whether these problems, as they manifest themselves in the U.S.A., are solvable. Current orthodoxy is that they are, and offers a laundry list of solution methods. Fix the schools! End poverty! Stamp out racism! Affirmative action! Fifty years ago a thoughtful person could sign on to those prescriptions. I know: I was around: I did. Yes (we said) once unjust laws had been struck down, and some social massaging of that sort been done for a few years, the races would merge in happy harmony, and the word "race" and its derivatives would drop out of the language. We all believed that. I believed it.

Plainly this hasn't happened, except of course in the upper classes, which go by their own rules. For a thoughtful person today to believe that these social-engineering nostrums will (for example) bring black crime rates to a level indistinguishable from white crime rates, involves a strenuous act of what Orwell called "doublethink"—massive self-deception. Does anyone, after all those decades, all those trillions of dollars, all those failed social-engineering experiments, does anyone really, honestly still believe in the nostrums? I don't.

My own sense of the thing is that underneath the happy talk, underneath the dogged adherence to failed ideas and dead theories, underneath the shrieking and anathematizing at people like me, there is a deep and cold despair. In our innermost hearts,we don't believe racial harmony can be attained. Hence the trend to separation. We just want to get on with our lives away from each other. Yet for a moralistic, optimistic people like Americans, this despair is unbearable. It's pushed away somewhere we don't have to think about it. When someone forces us to think about it, we react with fury. That little boy in the Andersen story about the Emperor's new clothes? The ending would be more true to life if he had been lynched by a howling mob of outraged citizens.

Choice quote

The tendency in modern times is to separation. Look at residential and educational patterns in the U.S.A. I discuss these issues at length in my book We Are Doomed.

Oooh I don't know Derb. You might want to consult those people in Mother Jones or The Nation about that.

[Ibrahim]

The big question is whether these problems, as they manifest themselves in the U.S.A., are solvable. Current orthodoxy is that they are, and offers a laundry list of solution methods. Fix the schools! End poverty! Stamp out racism! Affirmative action! Fifty years ago a thoughtful person could sign on to those prescriptions. I know: I was around: I did. Yes (we said) once unjust laws had been struck down, and some social massaging of that sort been done for a few years, the races would merge in happy harmony, and the word "race" and its derivatives would drop out of the language. We all believed that. I believed it.

Plainly this hasn't happened,

"I keep writing racist articles and for some reason people are still talking about race in America. Weird." Impressed this guy flew under the radar so long.

For a thoughtful person today to believe that these social-engineering nostrums will (for example) bring black crime rates to a level indistinguishable from white crime rates, involves a strenuous act of what Orwell called "doublethink"—massive self-deception.

"It's inevitable, you see. There is nothing anyone can do. The black man is inherently a criminal. Giving them full constitutional rights or letting them vote or go to Yale won't change that."

Why are people calling this guy racist? Hysterical liberals, obviously.

My own sense of the thing is that underneath the happy talk, underneath the dogged adherence to failed ideas and dead theories, underneath the shrieking and anathematizing at people like me, there is a deep and cold despair. In our innermost hearts,we don't believe racial harmony can be attained.

"Everybody thinks this, not just me! Right? Right, everybody? I'm not alone in this, right.....?"

Hence the trend to separation. We just want to get on with our lives away from each other. Yet for a moralistic, optimistic people like Americans, this despair is unbearable. It's pushed away somewhere we don't have to think about it. When someone forces us to think about it, we react with fury. That little boy in the Andersen story about the Emperor's new clothes? The ending would be more true to life if he had been lynched by a howling mob of outraged citizens.

Ooooh, Derb's not a washed-up racist caricature, he's a brave truthsayer. An American hero, really.

[Torchwood]

There is a need for people to say things which everybody thinks but no-one dares say. In an American context, most of what Derbyshire says is, lamentably, empirically justified, however ethically undesirable.

It is an accident of history that the division is on racial lines, when it is in fact cultural/tribal. Even in these so called days of peace a Bosnian Muslim or Croat would be wary in a Serb area, or an Ulster Prod in a Catholic area - but the cultural differences are minimal and the racial differences non-existent. Over here:
- I might be a bit warier in largely black areas of south London in an evening, but not much, but would feel perfectly comfortable in the day . Not like an American ghetto at all.
- on the other hand, would avoid pub closing time on a Friday/Saturday in white working class areas when drunken chavs abound
- if an East European gypsy approaches me (invariably begging) would immediately put a protective hand on my wallet
-feel perfectly safe in a Muslim ghetto, but repelled by the in-your-face separateness

The above may be equally lamentable but strictly empirical.

What I take issue with is all the IQ stuff, with the unstated implication that blacks are genetically inferior. This is easy to refute, and to show that IQ is largely culturally determined. Underclass groups in urban environments everywhere register low IQs, poor educational attainments/aspirations, and high crime rates:
- This applies to Koreans in Japan, while Koreans in their homeland and elsewhere are high achievers;
- Also in Japan, the bottom of the pile are Ainu tribesmen, who are ethnically white (Siberian) while American Red Indians are bottom-of-pile in the US and ethnically close to high achieving east Asians. Ironic.
- black kids in British schools now have improved to much the same educational attainment as working class whites, still pretty crap. Bengali Muslims are bottom of the pile, while Hindus near the top
- American black women score more highly in IQ/educational attainment than black men, a purely cultural artefact not seen in whites or Asians;
- the most highly educated sector of British society, on average, is African origin men. The middle class suburb I live in is becoming increasingly black, but largely Africans not Afro-Carribean, who still have middle class values, strong families and nobody minds (because property values have not been hit and street crime rates are low...). Nigerians abroad are a bit like the overseas Chinese and Indians of a generation ago, the homeland is still f*cked up but they do rather well.

Also Americans are under the impression that 50 years is a long time, it is going to take a lot longer to sort this. It will only do so if blacks aspire to mainstream values and do the work necessary to do it. Guys like Chris Rock will do more than white liberals, while the Rev Wrights/Jesse Jacksons of this world should gladden any racist's heart.

[Mr. Perfect]

Guys like Chris Rock will do more than white liberals,

No he won't.

[monster_gardener]

Guys like Chris Rock will do more than white liberals,

No he won't.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Mr. Perfect.

Please explain.

[Nastarana]

One more Brit twit who doesn't understand the USA.

He should try living in El Paso. Or Stockton. Or Fresno. Or asnywhere with an illegally in the USA population approaching 50% of all residents. Ethnicity is pretty much irrelevant; what does matter is that if people had wanted to stay poor they would have stayed home.

Rules for living in CA central valley.

1. Always lock the doors of your house and vehicle, even when you are inside said house or vehicle. When you are working in your yard, keep your house doors locked.

2. Always have a club on your car when the car is parked. Always. I wish I had a buck for everytime I found that my vehicle had had the door unlocked by persons unknown while I was buying groceries.

3. Don't employ maids or gardeners unless absolutely necessary, and then use a reputable agency. Better, make a financial arangement with a down and out relative; we all have those. Usually family pressure will keep depredations to a minimum, and the relative will not be giving the particulars of your residence to gangs who specialize in home invasions.

4. Move to any state east of the Rocky Mts., where house prices are about 1/2 what they are in CA.

During the 5 years I lived in a central valley town, the following incidents occurred:

My car was broken into. Fortunately it was parked in a lot near a Catholic Church, and the would be theives were interrupted by people leaving evening Mass. Cost for repair of a broken window and damaged steering column was around $300.

In another incident, the rear liscense plate on my car was stolen.

My purse, with ID, was stolen from where I worked. I was able to track use of a prepaid credit card on line, and furnish info to the police which helped put away two women for 8 and 12 years respectively. (if it matters, on was Anglo, one Hispanic).

Theft of hard to obtain garden tools from my yard while I was answering a phone call inside.

House next door was a drug house, with frequent incidents culminating in a killing in the front yard in broad daylight. That was followed up by firebombing of a vehicle in front of the house some months later after the killer had been apprehended, said to have been a warning to residents to not testify.

Those are only the incidents which concerned or affected me personally. News reports during that period were a neverending list of mayhem and psychopathic crime, including burning alive a young woman over an $800. debt for drug purchases.

BTW, if it matters, none of this Wild West extravagance involved Black folks.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Stockton is something else... I know people who live there, and it's the kind of place where people speak with a perverse pride about the high crime rate.

[Enki]

What I think is interesting is that guys like this seem blissfully unaware that 'social engineering' causes the disparity. White people took people from Africa, mixed them up with strangers also from Africa, put them in chains and made them work for things that they had no interest in. They whipped and beat them if they didn't work. Then there was a big war for their freedom. They won their freedom and were let go penniless. Then those penniless people kept surviving despite the fact that the society socially engineered it so that they couldn't participate in the economy equally for a century. Then when all of that ended, and everything didn't suddenly fix itself as if by magic in a single generation, it's right back to blaming them for their race.

These guys LOVE to talk about culture, but don't really seem to comprehend what culture means. They don't understand the long term growth of wealth and estates, and how the white people after the civil war started from a position of being educated, wealthy and owning land. The black people started from a position of being uneducated, poor, and disenfranchised by the system. Over the course of 150 years, those people took what they had and sought to pass on their inheritance to their children. The white people continued to grow those estates, and the black people grew the estates that they had. Some were lucky enough to stand out, get educated and organize a bit of wealth to pass onto their children, most were not.

Mr. Derbyshire seems to outright ignore the fact that the people who fought the Civil Rights battles ARE STILL ALIVE. In living memory, they were held back by the system. Instead of saying the black community has done poorly with the changes that have benefitted them, we should think that actually they've done quite well considering the deck was stacked against them, and remained stacked against them through institutional inertia.

The attitude of, "What's wrong with these people? We turned the fire hoses off and gave them food stamps and still they aren't able to compete with us.", tells me that John Derbyshire is in fact inferior.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Then when all of that ended, and everything didn't suddenly fix itself as if by magic in a single generation...

This isn't so much the problem many people have. A great deal of progress was being made in the black American community, culminating in the Civil Rights revolution. But somewhere around the time Marcus Garvey was calling W.E.B. du Bois an Uncle Tom and a "house nigger", things started to change. Rather than continuing the process of moving comfortably into modern society and mastering its forms, a new generation came along and rebelled against the whole project. You are saying that black integration has been one big failure since the Civil War, but that's not true. A lot of good work was done until it was reversed after the 1960s. The last 40 years have been a slide into depravity and a reversal of progress made. This is not due to genetics or slavery, but, primarily, the drug war and the black urban community's response to it (glorifying the values of the dealer, for example).

[Ammianus]

Nastrana,

Are you George Elliot by any chance?

[Enki]

Then when all of that ended, and everything didn't suddenly fix itself as if by magic in a single generation...

This isn't so much the problem many people have. A great deal of progress was being made in the black American community, culminating in the Civil Rights revolution. But somewhere around the time Marcus Garvey was calling W.E.B. du Bois an Uncle Tom and a "house nigger", things started to change. Rather than continuing the process of moving comfortably into modern society and mastering its forms, a new generation came along and rebelled against the whole project. You are saying that black integration has been one big failure since the Civil War, but that's not true. A lot of good work was done until it was reversed after the 1960s. The last 40 years have been a slide into depravity and a reversal of progress made. This is not due to genetics or slavery, but, primarily, the drug war and the black urban community's response to it (glorifying the values of the dealer, for example).

What you claim I said, I didn't say anything even close to. And what you said, I disagree with completely.

I am not at all saying that integration has been one big failure since the civil war. I also don't agree that a lot of good work has been reversed since the 1960s. The black community, simply put, is not worse off than it was in the 60s, it's better off, and race relations are better than they've ever been.

People like John Derbyshire just want to feel superior for being what race they are.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I also don't agree that a lot of good work has been reversed since the 1960s. The black community, simply put, is not worse off than it was in the 60s, it's better off...

That's an interesting perspective. By what measure? For example, black youth unemployment averaged 10.4% in the 1960s, and it is 49.1% today.

[Enki]

I also don't agree that a lot of good work has been reversed since the 1960s. The black community, simply put, is not worse off than it was in the 60s, it's better off...

That's an interesting perspective. By what measure? For example, black youth unemployment averaged 10.4% in the 1960s, and it is 49.1% today.

Youth unemployment is higher across the board.

There is a saying, when wall street has a cold, main street gets the flu and the hood has pneumonia.

But you make a good point. I'll think about it.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

I also don't agree that a lot of good work has been reversed since the 1960s. The black community, simply put, is not worse off than it was in the 60s, it's better off...

That's an interesting perspective. By what measure? For example, black youth unemployment averaged 10.4% in the 1960s, and it is 49.1% today.

Youth unemployment is higher across the board.

There is a saying, when wall street has a cold, main street gets the flu and the hood has pneumonia.

But you make a good point. I'll think about it.

Take careful note of the fact that I attribute the reversal primarily to the war on drugs.

[Typhoon]

... [insightful observations] . . .

Also Americans are under the impression that 50 years is a long time, it is going to take a lot longer to sort this. It will only do so if blacks aspire to mainstream values and do the work necessary to do it.

Anecdote. Observe what seems to be more middle and upper class blacks during recent annual trips to Chicago. Assume that this is a good thing.

Guys like Chris Rock will do more than white liberals, while the Rev Wrights/Jesse Jacksons of this world should gladden any racist's heart.

Quite right.

Puns aside, true change only does come within.

[monster_gardener]

One more Brit twit who doesn't understand the USA.

He should try living in El Paso. Or Stockton. Or Fresno. Or asnywhere with an illegally in the USA population approaching 50% of all residents. Ethnicity is pretty much irrelevant; what does matter is that if people had wanted to stay poor they would have stayed home.

Rules for living in CA central valley.

1. Always lock the doors of your house and vehicle, even when you are inside said house or vehicle. When you are working in your yard, keep your house doors locked.

2. Always have a club on your car when the car is parked. Always. I wish I had a buck for everytime I found that my vehicle had had the door unlocked by persons unknown while I was buying groceries.

3. Don't employ maids or gardeners unless absolutely necessary, and then use a reputable agency. Better, make a financial arangement with a down and out relative; we all have those. Usually family pressure will keep depredations to a minimum, and the relative will not be giving the particulars of your residence to gangs who specialize in home invasions.

4. Move to any state east of the Rocky Mts., where house prices are about 1/2 what they are in CA.

During the 5 years I lived in a central valley town, the following incidents occurred:

My car was broken into. Fortunately it was parked in a lot near a Catholic Church, and the would be theives were interrupted by people leaving evening Mass. Cost for repair of a broken window and damaged steering column was around $300.

In another incident, the rear liscense plate on my car was stolen.

My purse, with ID, was stolen from where I worked. I was able to track use of a prepaid credit card on line, and furnish info to the police which helped put away two women for 8 and 12 years respectively. (if it matters, on was Anglo, one Hispanic).

Theft of hard to obtain garden tools from my yard while I was answering a phone call inside.

House next door was a drug house, with frequent incidents culminating in a killing in the front yard in broad daylight. That was followed up by firebombing of a vehicle in front of the house some months later after the killer had been apprehended, said to have been a warning to residents to not testify.

Those are only the incidents which concerned or affected me personally. News reports during that period were a neverending list of mayhem and psychopathic crime, including burning alive a young woman over an $800. debt for drug purchases.

BTW, if it matters, none of this Wild West extravagance involved Black folks.

Thank you Very Much for your post, Nastarana.

Theft of hard to obtain garden tools from my yard while I was answering a phone call inside.

Reminds me of something that happened to Victor Davis Hanson..... chainsaw..... using bathroom IIRC

June 21, 2011
The Metaphysics of Contemporary Theft
by Victor Davis Hanson
Pajamas Media

Same Old, Same Old…

Last week was another somewhat depressing chapter in a now long saga of living where I was born. I returned to the farm from leading a European military history tour, and experienced the following — mind you, after a number of thefts the month prior (barn, shop, etc.):

1) I left my chainsaw in the driveway to use the restroom inside the house. Someone driving by saw it. He slammed on the brakes, stole it, and drove off. Neat, quick, easy. Mind you there was only a 5-minute hiatus in between my cutting. And the driver was a random passer-by. That suggests to me that a high number of rural Fresno County motorists can prove to be opportunistic thieves at any given moment. The saw was new; I liked it — an off-the-shelf $400 Echo that ran well. I assume it will be sold off at a rural intersection in these parts, or the nearby swap meet for about $60. I doubt the thief was a professional woodsman who needed a tool of the trade to survive.

2) On the next night, three 15-hp agriculture pumps on our farm were vandalized — all the copper wire was torn out of the electrical conduits. The repairs to each one might run $500; yet, the value of the wire could not be over $50. I was told by neighbors that reports and descriptions of the law-breakers focused on youthful thieves casing the countryside — in official parlance a “gang,” and in the neighborhood politically-incorrect patois “cholos” [1] — like the fellow who recently drove in, in his new lowered shiny red pickup (hydraulic lifters are not cheap), inquiring about buying “scrap” and “just looking” before I ran him out.

3) A neighbor has a house for sale. It is unoccupied and rather isolated. I saw someone approach it on Friday, and drove over to ensure he was lawful. It was the owner’s assistant, who lamented that someone had just stolen all the new appliances out of the house — carting off the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, and microwave. But why? Do these miscreants wish a civilization of the sort that all houses must seem occupied all the time, or are otherwise considered “communal property” for the taking? Don’t the appliance thieves have homes, and if so, do they have locks on the doors to protect their investments from the likes of themselves?

These days I sympathize with gloomy St. Augustine, writing after the sack of Rome in 410, and then again contemplating things lost when back home, near death, and besieged by the vandals at Hippo Regius. He died I think convinced that a millennium of culture was about to end. And despite a Belisarius to come, it did.............

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson062111B.html

FWIW the copper theft happens elsewhere....... So much damage for so little gain..........

Recalling an cupric oops I mean ironic example of where an agency attempting to help ex-cons had the copper stolen from the heat pump/air conditioner........ Talk about biting the hand that helps you........

And another where the thief tried to steal some copper that was still electrified...



What do you garden?

[Torchwood]

Some of the local thieves stealing copper cables are so dumb they steal fibre optic ones as well, resale value nil. It is the latest excuse for being late for work "train delayed, signal cables stolen"

Oh, there have quite a few cases of trying to steal electrified cables, and thus qualifying for the Darwin awards.

[Ammianus]

Apparently post job loss and cancer chemo, the Derb is now running a panhandling drive!

http://takimag.com/article/talking_back ... z1rnxrGFVU

Thanks to the hundreds of readers who have emailed in with expressions of support. I did begin by answering them as they came in; but by Sunday I was finding that while I’d answered a dozen, forty more had appeared in my inbox. I’ll continue to do my best, as time permits, but there is probably no way I shall ever answer all these supportive emails, so I can only offer a blanket THANK YOU! to those who wrote and a promise on my honor that every word of every email will at least be read and appreciated.

• The “Donate” button on my own website has been lighting up like a pinball target. Remarks similar to those in the previous paragraph apply a fortiori to all the generous souls who have contributed their own hard-won dollars to help my little boat and its four occupants through these present rough waters. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(I confess to being baffled by the guy who sent me $1. Was it meant as sarcasm? Sheer bad typing? A genuine widower’s mite? He didn’t tell me. Awash as I am in the milk of human kindness, I’m going to assume the best of humanity and include him in my thanks along with the rest.)

Quite a productive thing to do for a productive citizen, isn't it?

Statistical common sense. Readers, even quite friendly and intelligent ones (maybe an IWSB or two—who knows?) emailed in to say things such as: “I live in a heavily black neighborhood, and things are just fine, never any trouble.”

I don’t doubt it. Of course there are nice black neighborhoods. That misses my point about statistical common sense. A white person who finds himself in a neighborhood about which he knows nothing except that it is heavily black is more likely to encounter trouble than he would in some strange neighborhood not heavily black.

Likewise, if your stretch of beach is suddenly flooded by a swarm of black people, it might be a local convention of the Association of Black Cardiologists taking a break. But this is not very likely.

I don’t know why people have so much difficulty thinking statistically, as we behave statistically all the time. The sky is overcast; I have to go out to an event where I’ll be in the open; I take an umbrella. If, after all, it does not rain, do I feel like an durian for having taken the umbrella? Of course not. I yielded to my inner statistician. I went with the percentages. We all do it a dozen times a day. It’s statistical common sense. The trouble-free black neighborhood is the rain-free overcast day: It happens a lot, but take that umbrella.

Hypotheses non fingo. Lefty commenters waxed large on my piece as promoting eugenics, arguing for genetic inferiority, and so on.

Now, I do have opinions about eugenics. I support, for example, the eugenic requirements in the marriage laws of my state (see under “Familial Restrictions” here.)

Similarly, I have opinions about the notion of genetic success (as I prefer to frame the issue). In the long biological view, the only criterion is survival. The humble sea cucumber, which has been around for 400 million years, is a “superior” organism—more successful—than the saber-toothed tiger, which I don’t think lasted even one million. Likewise, the premise of the movie Idiocracy is that coarse, dumb people will inherit the Earth by out-breeding refined, smart people. If that happens (and I wouldn’t be surprised) then from a biological perspective, which is actually my own perspective as a stone-cold empiricist, the coarse, dumb people will have proven “superior” to the refined, smart ones. Personally I prefer the latter type, but Ma Nature doesn’t care what I prefer.

Sure, I have opinions; sure, I’m willing to discuss these topics. There was nothing of them in my piece, though. I just stated facts, based on statistics gathered over decades, by both private and government agencies, accumulated and checked beyond the range of dispute. Those facts might have any of several causes, with corresponding remedies. They might be “cultural”: Perhaps a nationwide ban on rap music and malt liquor might change them. They might be biomedical, fixable by some not-yet-discovered pharmacological wonder we could put in the water supply such as fluoride. They might be manipulated by extraterrestrial powers lurking in the fogs of Jupiter, beaming malign rays at us. I didn’t speculate. I framed no hypotheses. Just the facts.

Best of the hostiles? Somebody asked whether there were any hostile pieces that I thought made good points, with logic and style, against mine.

I couldn’t say. I don’t read stuff hostile to me; never have, unless paid time and a half for my trouble. You can call that arrogance if you like, or cowardice. The way I look at it is: Why invite indigestion?

Best of the non-hostile critiques? Were there any reasoned non-hostile critiques I thought were good?

Even there, I only looked at three or four, at the urging of friends. Of those, the best was Noah Millman‘s. It deserves a formal, collegial rebuttal, but I’m so far behind with absolutely everything, I daren’t think about it. I haven’t done my damn TAXES yet. Sorry, Noah. In any case, most of the points I’d make are already there in the comment thread to Noah’s piece.

Would I like to offer some kind of sniveling apology for the piece? In your dreams, pal. I haven’t sniveled since about 1952, and I’m too old to reacquire the habit.

I say what I think, and I’m very much obliged to Taki’s Mag for letting me do so. If you don’t like the kinds of things I say, there is a very simple remedy available to you: Don’t read me.

And here’s the pesky word limit again, w-a-a-y back in the rearview mirror in fact. I may return to this topic another time. Then again, I may not.

So no, he's not going to change. With that donation button flashing, I don't think it'll be possible anyways.

[Ammianus]

Then when all of that ended, and everything didn't suddenly fix itself as if by magic in a single generation...

This isn't so much the problem many people have. A great deal of progress was being made in the black American community, culminating in the Civil Rights revolution. But somewhere around the time Marcus Garvey was calling W.E.B. du Bois an Uncle Tom and a "house nigger", things started to change. Rather than continuing the process of moving comfortably into modern society and mastering its forms, a new generation came along and rebelled against the whole project. You are saying that black integration has been one big failure since the Civil War, but that's not true. A lot of good work was done until it was reversed after the 1960s. The last 40 years have been a slide into depravity and a reversal of progress made. This is not due to genetics or slavery, but, primarily, the drug war and the black urban community's response to it (glorifying the values of the dealer, for example).

It may not have been genetics* initially, but it is now ( at least substantially). After 2-3 generations living/rotting in the ghettos, imbibing lead tainted products and homes, exposure to drugs, chronic malnutrition, high stress and testosterone pressures, dysfunctional "family" (dis)formation, low mental stimulation etc., it is very very difficult to imagine these cultural and environmental effects not exerting some sort of baleful influence upon a population's genome. And that's only in the last 40-50 years, not counting additional environmental effects of slavery and segregation. Most liberals, centrists, and many conservatives have refused to countenance such a notion, but if we're to have any fruitful debate at all we must at least acknowledge the truth of epigenetics and how it'll affect any solutions we may offer.



*=(actually, there's almost no chance it was genetics, if you compare black behavior and cultural norms in the 60's, 70's vs their parent's generation in the 20's, 30's)

[Enki]

Wow, I should get into the racist rant business. It pays!

[Ammianus]

I also don't agree that a lot of good work has been reversed since the 1960s. The black community, simply put, is not worse off than it was in the 60s, it's better off...

That's an interesting perspective. By what measure? For example, black youth unemployment averaged 10.4% in the 1960s, and it is 49.1% today.

Youth unemployment is higher across the board.

There is a saying, when wall street has a cold, main street gets the flu and the hood has pneumonia.

But you make a good point. I'll think about it.

Also unemployment #s for black adults as well. There's also the fact of out of wedlock births and single motherhood off the wazoo in the black population, which not even poor third world Hispanics can match. Or the depressing number of black youths committing crimes (note, NOT incarceration rate nor drug related crimes, but conventional ones like theft, assault, rape, murder, etc.) that outpaces both white and Asian numbers. Or the disparate number of suspensions and dropouts of black students in high school.

[Typhoon]

Then when all of that ended, and everything didn't suddenly fix itself as if by magic in a single generation...

This isn't so much the problem many people have. A great deal of progress was being made in the black American community, culminating in the Civil Rights revolution. But somewhere around the time Marcus Garvey was calling W.E.B. du Bois an Uncle Tom and a "house nigger", things started to change. Rather than continuing the process of moving comfortably into modern society and mastering its forms, a new generation came along and rebelled against the whole project. You are saying that black integration has been one big failure since the Civil War, but that's not true. A lot of good work was done until it was reversed after the 1960s. The last 40 years have been a slide into depravity and a reversal of progress made. This is not due to genetics or slavery, but, primarily, the drug war and the black urban community's response to it (glorifying the values of the dealer, for example).

It may not have been genetics* initially, but it is now ( at least substantially). After 2-3 generations living/rotting in the ghettos, imbibing lead tainted products and homes, exposure to drugs, chronic malnutrition, high stress and testosterone pressures, dysfunctional "family" (dis)formation, low mental stimulation etc., it is very very difficult to imagine these cultural and environmental effects not exerting some sort of baleful influence upon a population's genome. Most liberals, centrists, and many conservatives have refused to countenance such a notion, but if we're to have any fruitful debate at all we must at least acknowledge the truth of epigenetics and how it'll affect any solutions we may offer.

The big untested assumption here is that epigentic traits can in influenced in only 1 or 2 generations.

The bigger untested assumption is that epigenetic traits exist.

*=(actually, there's almost no chance it was genetics, if you compare black behavior and cultural norms in the 60's, 70's vs their parent's generation in the 20's, 30's)

Not the laws of genetics, but the law of unintended consequences.

The irony is the the black neighbourhoods in the early 20th century were forced to be self-sufficient, of necessity, due to apartheid.

If there was no black medical doctor to go to, then there was no medical doctor to go to.

After the end of apartheid in the US in the 1960's, the Great Society helped to decimate the existing social structures.