The Executive Director of Pat Buchanan’s American Cause is to be sentenced for hate crimes.
“‘Diversity can be good in moderation – if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers – as long a these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.’" Marcus Epstein.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Cindy
Dan,
Taylor is a thouroughly scrupulous scholar of race realism, who's logical, scientific arguments are feared throughout the anti-white spectrum.
I find Jared Taylor's 'scientific methodology' to be pseudoscience. For example, he refuses to examine confounding variables with respect to his claims. That alone puts him beyond acceptability.
He is an educated white supremacist, who is able to fool people into thinking he is scientific, when he's not.
Slavery, segregation and science
"Revolutionary thinkers like Thomas Jefferson, seeking to justify their exploitation of other human beings, tried to explain their role as slavemasters in scientific terms. While 'all men are created equal,' later 19th-century academics argued, black Africans were not really men at all. They were smaller-brained ý an assertion that Glayde Whitney repeats today ý and endowed with larger genitals. By the 1830s, American race scientists had developed a full-blown defense of slavery based on this kind of alleged African inferiority.
Even the abolitionist movement was not free from racism. Often, Republicans of the period opposed the extension of slavery simply because they did not want blacks in the new territories. Emancipation, in fact, did not become a war aim until the end of 1862. Thus, it is little wonder that after the Civil War a second system of white supremacy ý codified in Jim Crow laws ý would emerge. White supremacy was the consensus nationwide."
That is just an excerpt from the entire article that I wanted to put in the thread for posterity. (Never miss a chance to pass out a snippet of real history.)
Try not to guess that we have gone beyond that ugly history. I recommend reading the entire article before you decide that.
27 - Cindy
Dave,
If you happen by, you may wish to check out what Barry Mehler has to say about Republican opposition to slavery. Paragraph two of my quote above.
Any insights?
28 - Cindy
SJ,
I enjoyed your article very much. But I wondered how Epstein can even consider going to Law School after such a crime. I thought that they has standards one must meet regarding that sort of thing.
You have to be a law-abiding tax-payer and all, I thought. Makes me wonder how a racist who assaults people thinks he'll manage to get accepted.
29 - Ruvy
For Ruvy # 20: The way Epstein wriggles around all the racism charges is the fact that he is Jewish and part Korean. Because of his "racial" mix, he "can't possibly be a racist!"
Thank you, SJ,
From what you say, it sounds like Epstein's father was a Korean war vet who married a Korean girl. Unless she converted to be a Jew, Epstein is not Jewish at all, no matter what anyone in his family says - including Epstein. A Jew is the child of a Jewish mother - end of discussion.
My real question is, do the KKK and similar pathetic scum accept such semi-Semites in their ranks these days? If so, they have really changed from what they used to was. What Epstein says or does is of little interest to me. If he, a public figure, assaulted a black woman and called her "nigger" in view of witnesses, he certainly does not have a Jewish head on his shoulders. Ugly mud fences have more brains. Even Israelis have more brains!
Cindy,
When Dan went to law school and when I went to law school years later, you had to keep your nose clean - at least until you got your license to practice law! Things may have changed (for the worse) since then....
30 - Cindy
#28 I thought that they has = I thought that they have
Also, I really didn't mean get accepted to law school. I meant the Bar.
31 - Dave Nalle
Ruvy, the John Birch society proudly claims several Jewish members. I think these groups welcome people who have turned against their own ethnic group in some cases.
Dave
32 - Dave Nalle
Cindy, historically Mehlman's argument is just crap. While the early republican party did eventually attract Whigs whose opposition to slavery was primarily on economic grounds and did have members -- including many who were black -- who opposed any kind of integration or mixing of the or mixing of the races, the nucleus of the party and the founders of the party were free soilers and abolitionists who opposed slavery on principle wherever it existed.
Dave
33 - Ruvy
Ruvy, the John Birch society proudly claims several Jewish members. I think these groups welcome people who have turned against their own ethnic group in some cases.
The Birchers are not the Sheets, Dave. The Sheets had this ugly habit of causing strange fruit to be harvested from Southern trees. Some of that fruit had mysterious features for fruit - like circumcised penises....
34 - roger nowosielski
23# Dan,
There's nothing "scientific" about Taylor's argument; the very fact that you'd try to represent it at such is quite revealing; your own language betrays you;
#24, Cindy
Just because I understand Buchanan's argument doesn't mean I'm sympathetic with it or agree with it.
35 - roger nowosielski
#23,
What's even of greater interest is that somewhat like Taylor and his followers (like Dan, here) would consider it important to try to marshal evidence on behalf of "the racialist thesis").
There's only one way to understand it: there's still a market for it, which is to say the white supremacists that are still around.
I guess the old South refuses to die.
36 - roger nowosielski
"someone like Taylor ..."
37 - Doug Hunter
"'Scientific arguments'? Are we going to re-institute the science of eugenics and cranial measurement?"
The concept that there are differences between races through genetics is both extremely difficult to discount scientifically, and impossible to accept politically. Confounding variables do make it possible to believe anything you want though. As soon as you say being dumb makes you more likely to be poor, someone else will chime in that being poor makes you dumber or point to a dumb person that is rich. Those things may be true but have no bearing on the original statement. That's generally the type of 'disproving' you get of scientific racism.
38 - roger nowosielski
Are you desirous of establishing a thesis of racial superiority?
39 - Doug Hunter
No.
40 - Doug Hunter
The idea that there are differences based on ethnic origin is as clear to me as the idea that Ethiopians are taller than Pygmies. Yes, there may lots of Ethiopians shorter than Pygmies. Yes, dietary intake effects height. That doesn't change the basic facts.
41 - roger nowosielski
Well, that's the point of the matter, Doug. There's no denying there are racial differences, as well as biological differences between men and women. But as a member of a civil society, it's more important to me to uphold the credo that man was created equal.
42 - Cindy
Doug,
I can't entirely agree with you on the genetic aspect. You don't find geneticists, who actually work in the field, accepting racist theory. You only find these characters like Taylor.
I think I generally agree about the rest. Except I find no evidence that race is biological--only a cultural construct. But yes, because there are confounding variables that cannot be controlled for, racists simply claim everything they say is about race and ignore the rest of the variables.
Taylor uses information and skews it blatantly to arrive at his suppositions. Leaving out any other possibility. So, if you don't like poor people and your agenda calls for making it appear that laziness cause poverty, you will simply leave out anything else that could cause poverty. That's not science. That is just bigotry dressed up.
43 - Cindy
Oh, by 'in the field', I meant those who work as scientists. There are apparently plenty of racists within academia.
44 - roger nowosielski
Even terms like "laziness" have a significant racist/discriminatory content.
45 - roger nowosielski
i.e., when applied to a group rather than an individual.
46 - Cindy
#42
Perhaps I was agreeing with you, in reverse, Doug. The burden of proof rests with the one who makes the claim.
I think maybe you claim there are differences, as if this is a fact, then complain that those who discount the differences are merely making unfounded claims.
Well, that isn't quite how it works. Scientific method requires us to control for confounding variables. Otherwise no statement can be made.
Roger,
There's no denying there are racial differences...
There is though. There are no racial differences. You are pointing to human variations and calling them racial. There is no biological basis for race.
You can certainly disagree with me. But to say there is no basis for denying something, that is discounted by evolutionary scientists is a step too far.
47 - roger nowosielski
Besides, Taylor is neither a scientist nor a geneticist - only a journalist. The only kind of "scientific" argument he can possibly advance is what has already been said by others, giving it his own spin. So never mind Taylor. Let's go to the sources.
48 - roger nowosielski
I don't have anything at stake at how one calls it here. Probably is it a cultural construct, but even if it were biological, I don't think it wouldn't disturb me. So I kind of "conceded" that point to Doug saying - So what?
49 - Glenn Contrarian
SJ -
The 'Council of Conservative Citizens'...is that affiliated with the "Citizens Council" that began in the Mississippi Delta (under the guidance of Democratic Senator James O. Eastland) and spread nationwide after Brown v. Board of Education?
50 - Cindy
Hmmm, I'll have to look at things you say more carefully. You are all about the argument, nothing about the facts, I think. I am the opposite. The facts are all that matter to me as best as they can be discerned.
To discuss a subject using all sorts of verifiable misinformation and say that it is an argument that is successful or is working in some way strikes me as being a sport or a game. What is the point of arguing about whether Batman can beat up Superman and winning the argument?
Besides when doing this it has the appearance of people actually learning something. But all they are doing is spreading and agreeing to misinformation.
I mean, sure you can do that. But, I find it confusing. Probably why I find it difficult to understand what you stand for half the time. Defending a one-sided argument, on the one hand and conceding points for whatever purpose I haven't a clue on the other hand.
So, you can concede the point to Doug. However, I won't concede the point to either of you.
51 - ma rk
Cindy, I think your attitude trivializes the theory that all facts are theory-laden. Do you think that you will convince Doug with a list of facts...isn't the way that you present them just as important?
52 - El Bicho
"What is the point of arguing about whether Batman can beat up Superman and winning the argument?"
Cindy, unless Batman has access to kryptonite, I don't see how that argument can be won. ;)
53 - Dan
SJ, Jared Taylor is speaking at the CofCC National Conference. It is not the "joint CofCC/Stormfront National Conference".
There seems to be a McArthyite tendancy to tie individuals and groups of varying levels of integrity together. The intent, I suppose, is that if a forlorn irrational group of klansman attend a conference where Jared Taylor speaks, then mainstream, respectable people can scuttle compelling, but uncomfortable arguments without debate.
Jared Taylor is a man of impeccable integrity which is why I question why someone would hide an association with him.
"There's only one way to understand it: there's still a market for it, which is to say the white supremacists that are still around."---Roger
I guess it depends on what you mean by "the racialist thesis". "White supremacists" is a term of degradation. It doesn't seem accurate to me when I read many of Taylors' and others works.
We are occasionally called on by politicians and other social policy makers to have an "honest dialogue on race". Yet the focus of "dialogue" seems to be a monologue about examining whites for any sort of personal, institutional, or subconscious racism that might explain the racial inequalities we see in the real world.
Over a decade ago, a couple of academics named Herrnstein and Murray,(one I think is Jewish Ruvy. Not sure if they're "pathetic scum") wrote a book on social policy called The Bell Curve.
The scholarship covered many areas, but a small portion included scientific finding on varying, average, cognitive ability between racial groups, and how social policy might be adjusted to benefit the common humanity and equal worth of all people.
Despite the carefully sensitive treatment of the subject, the authors were subjected to a vicious campaign of smears and inuendo (similar to what Taylor experiences daily) that threatened their career standing and even their physical safety.
The media lynching over the "psuedo-science" of a very small portion of the material was so relentlessly profound that the social scientists' academic peers authored and published a paper titled Mainstream Science on Intelligence. This served to shut up a few of the more ardent critics with scientific reputations to uphold. But there was no widespread re-examination, and the damage to Herrnstein and Murray was done and still flourishes today.
This is what happens when the honest dialogue on race is joined.
54 - Doug Hunter
Cindy,
I won't deny that race is a somewhat arbitrary construct, although I think if you put a group of prototypical Ethiopians in one group and Swedish in another even a child without race training would probably eventually notice the difference in skin color. That is the seed from which the concept of race grows.
Anyway, I don't care for the science of racism I simply point out that they may have one thing correct (they have completely ignorant views on a host of others, for example there is vastly more genetic diversity in the 'black' race than the traditional 3 pronged raceview implies. It's more like whites and asians are simply two small branches on the black tree of humanity)
You're right that it cannot be rigorously proven, just as most things involving study of humans. There is no way to ensure identical environments, there is no such thing as a real control group. You never can recreate exact conditions or control an adequate number of factors to definitively say anything about anything.
That doesn't mean I won't have my opinion. I think the evidence leads towards some overall average differences based on racial groupings. I think society then magnifies those differences through a range of social biases.
55 - Cindy
Mark,
You might be surprised to find that I agree with you. I do think the way things are presented make all the difference in whether or not information will even be heard. What good are facts without the possibility of receiving them?
But I am at a loss for convincing people who aren't actually interested in being convinced. When I talk to Doug, maybe wrongly, I am talking past him. My audience is not really Doug but the person who reads the argument and being already ameniable to it, will benefit from it being stated or will add to their own store of information.
I think, so far, that the way people change is voluntarily and often with great effort on their part. For example, I find that to willingly engage in changing one's own perspective, one might have to be willing to be angry at the very idea that one's whole viewpoint has been wrong for a lifetime, and yet continue past that anger, for whatever reason, and keep trying to see in the new way despite that. If this is true--then how could I ever hope to casually convince anyone who did not want to be convinced?
So, if I don't have cooperation or consent...I think I just don't even bother doing anything besides putting down the truth as I see it and challenging falsehood as I see it.
I'm always thinking about these things. But unfortunately, I am not in a setting to get much feedback or discussion. I'd like to hear your opinions and experience on this sort of thing.
56 - Cindy
Hmmm, Mark,
Maybe this is better: while I am talking to Doug, or whomever, I'm also talking to another audience.
Sometimes it's just me I'm talking to. I have trouble writing and this sort of chat lets me put down ideas where I can't do it otherwise.
57 - roger nowosielski
Thanks, Mark (#51). I'd like to think that we've transcended the times of the Third Reich when the proponents of eugenics had to be fought tooth and nail (although some commenters here make me wonder and think that vigilance is always a good thing). I was appealing to certain eternal Truths, which go beyond the usual human variations, whether with respect to individuals or group of individuals.
I believe you were aware of that.
58 - roger nowosielski
What is the point of a racialist thesis, Dan, I'll ask you straight out, if not to propagate a thesis of important racial differences and therefore, ipso facto, racist supremacy. For the love of truth, love of science? The truth than any such theory would hope to uncover pales in comparison to the basic equality of humankind, men and women, black or white, and the liberal democracies which take this equality as one of its basic postulates.
59 - roger nowosielski
My question to you, Doug, is: What's the point of the proof? What's the underlying interest? Who wants to know?
I would say that the very project is more suspect here than whatever results might obtain. Can't you see that?
60 - roger nowosielski
#50,
"Defending a one-sided argument, on the one hand and conceding points"
1) "concede" was in quotation marks,
2) Cindy's always around to argue the point of fact; Roger's doing it would be duplication of effort.
3) Roger's attack is in the realm of ideas, which Cindy considers less important than matters of fact.
61 - roger nowosielski
Regarding Bell Curve:
"It is doubtful whether any book in the entire history of psychology has been so extensively attacked as The Bell Curve.[6] Perhaps the most prominent critic of The Bell Curve was the late Stephen Jay Gould, who in 1996 released a revised and expanded edition of his 1981 controversial book The Mismeasure of Man intended to more directly refute many of The Bell Curve's claims regarding race and intelligence. Specifically, Gould argued that the then current evidence showing heritability of IQ did not indicate a genetic origin to group differences in intelligence. Murray claims that Gould misstated his claims; for instance, Gould says Murray boils down intelligence to a single factor while Murray denies making such a claim.
The initial positive reception of The Bell Curve in media such as newspapers and television talk shows was troubling to critics such as economist Edward S. Herman and evolutionary biologist Joseph L. Graves who felt that it indicated an acceptance of what Herman calls "deterministic racist doctrines."[7]
The second wave of reviews, which did not arrive until much later, was composed of expert opinion in the relevant fields. It provided a belated substitute for the peer-review process to which Murray and Herrnstein did not originally submit their work.
Melvin Konner, professor of anthropology and associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Emory University, called Bell Curve a "deliberate assault on efforts to improve the school performance of African-Americans":
This book presented strong evidence that genes play a role in intelligence but linked it to the unsupported claim that genes explain the small but consistent black-white difference in IQ. The juxtaposition of good argument with a bad one seemed politically motivated, and persuasive refutations soon appeared. Actually, African-Americans have excelled in virtually every enriched environment they have been placed in, most of which they were previously barred from, and this in only the first decade or two of improved but still not equal opportunity. It is likely that the real curves for the two races will one day be superimposable on each other, but this may require decades of change and different environments for different people. Claims about genetic potential are meaningless except in light of this requirement.[8]
[edit]Assumptions
Much of the criticism of The Bell Curve has focused on potential flaws in the basic assumptions made at the beginning of the book. William J. Matthews and Stephen Jay Gould list four basic assumptions of The Bell Curve:
Intelligence must be reducible to a single number.
Intelligence must be capable of rank ordering people in a linear order.
Intelligence must be primarily genetically based.
Intelligence must be essentially immutable.
According to Gould, if any of these premises are false, then their entire argument disintegrates (Gould, 1994).[9] Similarly, in "Science" in the service of Racism, C. Loring Brace writes that The Bell Curve makes six basic assumptions at the beginning of the book:
Human Cognitive ability is a single general entity, depictable as a single number.
Cognitive ability has a heritability of between 40 and 80 percent and is therefore primarily genetically based.
IQ is essentially immutable, fixed over the course of a life span.
IQ tests measure how "smart" or "intelligent" people are and are capable of rank ordering people in a linear order.
IQ tests can measure this accurately.
IQ tests are not biased with regard to race ethnic group or socioeconomic status.
Brace proceeds to argue that there are faults in every one of these assumptions. The Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman writes that two assumptions made in the book are questionable:
"g" [the one-ability model of human intelligence] accounts for correlation across test scores and performance in society.
"g" cannot be manipulated.
Heckman writes that a reanalysis of the evidence used in The Bell Curve contradicts this story. The factors that explain wages receive different weights than the factors that explain test scores. More than "g" is required to explain either. Other factors besides "g" contribute to social performance, and they can be manipulated.[10] Murray responded to a shorter version of Heckman's critique in an August 1995 letter exchange in Commentary magazine." (Wiki)
62 - Cindy
Dan,
What Roger said, in #57.
Roger,
I'd like to think that we've transcended the times of the Third Reich when the proponents of eugenics had to be fought tooth and nail...
Have a look at the article I linked to. According to the author, racists like Taylor are making headway. Racist thinking by college faculty is on the rise.
I understand your concession better since you don't see that it's an issue. I conceded the nature vs. nurture question with Baronius. But, we're not discussing gayness here--which doesn't reflect on superiority or inferiority. And it seems it is an issue.
Conceding the race biology point, opens the door for biologically based arguments for race discrimination. And although biological racial differences shouldn't matter on the level of human rights, you know they do.
They also matter in how ordinary people legitimately or illegitimately assess others in terms of intelligence, etc. We have enough information to determine satisfactorily that race is not a biological issue. When people like Taylor, et al come along and couch their claims in science, they have the effect of convincing a lot of people of these very wrong ideas.
Conceding the biology issue prevents heading off racist arguments. The argument then changes to one that is open to considering racial differences. In my opinion, it is a grave mistake to let things get this far when all that we know tells us there are no racial differences.
So, perhaps you can see where I would have a problem with doing that.
63 - Cindy
Dan,
Are you a racist, a pedophile, anti-gay? Where exactly do you stand Dan?
Was Dr.D right? You are against gay marriage and were trying to steer us into a logical trap?
I bought that idea. But now I am not so sure. You have some pretty disturbing views.
64 - Cindy
Roger,
you know that they do = you know that they would
65 - roger nowosielski
I am beginning to have a serious doubt about Dan (perhaps even Doug). You guys seem reasonable enough in most other contexts - much more so that many other voices here (I shan't name them) which are clearly biased - to find both of you now propagating racialist theories.
No wonder some of our more respectable voices from the right (like Nalle or Baronius) won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Even Clavos picks an argument with me (trivial in comparison) rather than face you guys head on.
Personally, I think it's a shame that none of the people alluded to above won't step and stay above the frey.
Luck of courage? I have no fucking idea.
66 - roger nowosielski
#62,
"And although biological racial differences shouldn't matter on the level of human rights, you know they do."
How do they matter? Only to bigots, is my answer. If I'm missing something, tell me.
67 - Cindy
El B,
lol, forgot about the kryptonite.
68 - roger nowosielski
I understand why Clavos and Nalle and Baronius won't come in and participate.
They don't want to be stained by association. And I don't blame them.
69 - Doug Hunter
Cindy,
You seem to have a good grasp of the situation. You can't concede what might be objectively right, if unpalatable, about race because that would open the door for hateful people to abuse it. That's essentially the same way I see it except I'm more interested in what is objectively most correct that what makes people feel good.
I think we can agree that it would be better if the concept of race would simply disappear.
70 - Dan
"...a thesis of important racial differences and therefore, ipso facto, racist supremacy...."---Roger
Is it your contention Roger that important racial differences constitute supremacy? Do you feel like individual intelligent people are worth more than less intelligent people?
Sometimes it seems like the most ardent anti-racists are like what gay activists say about obsessed anti-gay activists; that they are suppressing their own closeted homosexuality.
The scientists who accept the evidence on group differences are usually the smartest people in the room. If they were of the belief that intelligence equals self worth they wouldn't need to pull the wool over everyone elses eyes.
Your notion that some truths are too damaging to know is common.
Studying things like Evolutionary origins of species doesn't seem to bother many people. If such science actually were ever able to make God improbable, wouldn't that be an uncomfortable truth as well?
Social policy is currently set on the premise that white people and white society are uniquely racist. If that premise is wrong, who are the real victims of social injustice? A firefighter in New Haven?
71 - roger nowosielski
"Conceding the race biology point, opens the door for biologically based arguments for race discrimination."
I agree. But there's no way stop bigots from being bigots because they'll latch on to anything to perpetuate their own sense of insecurity and lack of self-esteem.
The only solution - we must stop breeding them.
72 - roger nowosielski
"Your notion that some truths are too damaging to know is common."
I haven't said that. I said that whatever results might or might not obtain from these inquiries - results, not truths, Dan, that's not one and the same thing - pale in comparisons to the kinds of Truths upon which this country was founded.
Again, what is your interest or motivation behind such studies other than to establish what you deep down hope to establish. And I'm going to say that again - your very interest in this project is more suspect than anything else. I could understand it better, perhaps, if you were a geneticist or a social scientist, or whatever. But you're not.
Oh, I get it now. You're a lover of truth and objective fact. Honestly, I don't understand your motivation.
73 - Cindy
#60
Roger,
Knowing that, I can look at your posts in a different way and make allowances.
Also, I am thinking probably I will need to understand philosophy more.
I was reading an article last night, to try and understand what you were saying about language and development better, called Chomsky and Knowledge of Language. In there it mentioned 'the problem of poverty of evidence'. I think it would help if I had a developed understanding of what things like that meant without just looking them up helter skelter.
I like philosophy when it regards personal thinking. Like in the Philosophy for Children program. (Or maybe it's just that is about my level of competence, lol). However, I still think reading philosophers is boring and it's not my preferred way of thinking. I'd rather think in terms of testing theory in a scientific way.
So, if you can offer me any instruction here and there, if possible, I would appreciate it. Hopefully, it won't include suggestions I read Plato's Republic or things like that.
74 - roger nowosielski
I thinks it's rather confusing having to deal with Dan and Doug on the same subject. Why don't you two get together first, have a pow-wow or something, and come up with a comprehensive position. I detect significant differences between you two, yet perhaps even more significant agreement.
It's difficult to deal with what comes across as a splintered/psychopathic view.
75 - Doug Hunter
Roger, you've resorted to attacking the person rather than the argument. That's very typical when these subjects are broached.