**Update **– I belatedly realized there was so much bullshit here that I overlooked addressing a few points, and made a couple errors. Normally I tack these on the end, but since it will be interspersed, I will tag updates with the, and any deletions will be lined out to keep things honest.
I stumbled into an article today that, before I eviscerate it, needs to be at least congratulated on being refreshingly honest about one point.
They hate us, and have no interest in being fair.
I have some difficult news for everyone: Progressives aren’t interested in diversity. We aren’t interested in inclusion. We aren’t interested in tolerance. The progressives I know give exactly zero shits about those things.
We have no interest in everyone getting treated the same. We have no interest in giving all ideas equal airtime. We have no interest in “tolerating” all beliefs. I don’t know where this fairy tale comes from, but it’s completely disconnected from every experience I’ve had with progressive liberal folks in my lifetime.
When conservatives cross their arms and glare and shout “It’s not fair! You’re supposed to welcome everyone but you aren’t being nice to me!” it stings about as much as if they shouted, “It’s not fair, you’re supposed to be wearing tutus and juggling flaming donuts!”
Now, the rest of this post is the pseudo-intellectual drivel you’d expect from the crowd that used to shout “nuance”, but never, of course, actually meant it.Let’s step back just a bit.
It starts off with the following Asimov quote:
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” ― Isaac Asimov
It’s beloved of the credentialists, the pseudointellectuals, and, redundantly, SJW’s and the left. You are ignorant, because you hold those opinions, so we don’t have to listen to you. Of course, there is a huge difference between ignoring a pilot when he’s explaining how a plane flies, and saying that normal people are unqualified to comment on matters of politics, which always touch the real word in the areas of human behavior, patterns, and psychology.
This anti-intellectualism is not aimed at knowledge, wisdom, experience, or searching for truth, but at those who pretend they are better, or better informed because they read something in a book somewhere. One of the most brutal and softly worded takedowns of this occurs at a TED talk where Mike Rowe discusses a dirty jobs episode where it turns out the “uneducated” ranchers knew far more about their jobs than the “intellectuals”.
The intellectual dishonesty, bullshit phrasing, cherry picking, misrepresentation, and so on only get worse. How they see themselves:
The progressive liberal agenda isn’t about being nice. It’s about confronting evil, violence, trauma, and death. It’s about acknowledging the ways systemic power, systemic oppression, systemic evil, work in our world around us. I’m not fighting for diversity. I’m not fighting for tolerance. I’m fighting to overturn horrific systems of dehumanizing oppression.
This is used to justify almost any inversion of the order. They aren’t interested in fairness, or giving men and women, whites and blacks, etc. an equal chance. They want to force everyone to get equal representation, equal time in the supreme court, equal time in the presidency, and so forth. Fuck freedom (free men are not equal, equal men are not free). You’ll have to force people to do this because there is a limited degree to which even the worst bigot will hire or not hire someone because of their genitals, skin color, “pronouns”, or such, than because they can or cannot do the job right.
Personally I’m not interested in a female president for the sake of “diversity.” Putting a woman in the white house in 2020 won’t mean that gender equality has arrived. We’ve had 43 presidents. It’s going to take 43 women serving as president before we even have a chance to reach parity.
If you want to pretend that the racial and gender horror in the world has already been righted, was righted in the 1960’s, is almost righted now, or can hope to come close to being righted in your lifetime (43 female presidents), you’re not getting the picture. We have a collective buildup of hundreds (thousands) of years of injustice to metabolize.
To believe this is good and proper, that things were so horribly unfair to women that the only answer is to punish capable, effective men to balance the scales in such a draconian manner, is to believe that women, outside of a couple accidents of biology, they’re fungible gears in a cog. That women were just as capable, intelligent, strong, etc. as men in every way, and yet, despite women being more than half the population AND raising the kids during their formative years, that they had no influence or choice in how society treated them. That despite being, again, just as smart, etc., outnumbering men, raising the kids, that “the patriarchy” somehow snookered the vast majority of women into accepting a “lesser” role. And that despite how horribly difficult it is for even a handful of people to keep a secret, that men had a nearly 100% success rate in snookering women AND keeping the secret.
Whether or not it is a lesser role is a discussion for another day.
Let’s pause on this. I live in Seattle, Washington. A liberal city if there ever was one. Full of cheery whites with “Black Lives Matter” signs in their windows. But in Seattle, Washington, black residents make less money than white ones. 5% less, 10% less? No. The average black Seattlite’s income is less than half of the average white Seattleite’s income.
Less than half.
*So, either there are unspoken forces at play that make it twice as hard for black people in Seattle to earn money, or black people are exactly half as intelligent and hard-working as white folks. Take your pick. But be honest about which one you’re choosing. *[my emphasis]
This is where the intellectual honesty starts going to hell, and despite the length of the article, any semblance of nuance goes out the window with a couch tied to it going first.
“Unspoken forces at play”, given the alternative he allows, is obviously supposed to be racism. Either racism is the reason (because there are no differences in culture, etc at all, nope) or “strawman”.
If blacks had a 50 IQ they’d have problems tying their own shoes, so obviously the answer is supposed to be “racism”. Here’s the problem. IQ and wages are not linear. Hell – depending on a person’s discipline, connections, personality type, they may have little bearing at all other than generally smarter people – up to a certain point – tend to do better in life (at higher levels, luck begins playing a part because the difficulty in talking to normal people results in a lot of mensa people working as janitors, etc., as in the Dilbert cartoons).
Ditto working “twice as hard/long”. It’s obvious that he believes in the labor theory of value in the sense that one hour of labor is worth the same as any other hour of labor. Obviously, not all work has the same value. One hour of my billable time is easily worth more than a day at minimum wage, because that’s what people are willing to pay me to solve their problems so they can keep on making money.
You only have to be a little bit lazy, and a little bit dumber on average, to make a lot less money, on average, in the generalized world of statistics. The second you understand that the useful work a person goes down faster than IQ, and that not all labor has the same value, the argument goes to hell.
Stefan Molyneux, Eric Raymond, and others have brought up the far from politically correct point that crime doesn’t correlate to color, to socioeconomic status, or to other factors, but to IQ, with the band around 85 being the high point of the bell curve. Smart enough to do stuff including, of course, crime, not smart enough when combined with the subset of said population having time preferences geared to immediate gratification to do it honestly.
And blacks, on average, have a lower IQ. This impacts not only crimes, but the value of the jobs, on average, they may be able to perform at in the same proportion as, say, a Korean population.
I’ll insert this caveat once, as statistically men, women, blacks, whites, chinese, etc., are not the same in height, health risks, average IQ, and other strengths and weaknesses. Yes, we’re talking generalities – of course there are exceptions. I know a number personally and any distribution of course has people on the right of the curve. Also, IQ doesn’t correlate directly to wisdom or common sense, and there are a lot of jobs where a work ethic and honesty count for more than book smarts.
I don’t even want to get into whether nature or nurture is the primary driver in black culture, but can tell you from experience with other cultures that cultural assumptions even among populations who’ve moved into a different one and taken the trouble to assimilate show up for at least several generations.
I have a four-year-old white son. A black boy his age, in the same income bracket, same level of education, will live, on-average, 5 years less than him. Half a decade.
Mysteriously.
That same black boy has a higher chance of spending time in prison than my son. How much higher? 110% the rate? 150% the rate? Nope, 500% as likely to be imprisoned.
Colin Flaherty covers this in depth over at http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/ and the associated podcasts, etc. It’s worth noting that when you compare the arrest rate to a survey was done of crime victims, the arrest rates for blacks matches the criminality rate reported. Given that blacks – who if they subscribed to “whites are out to get me” identity politics had an incentive to lie – are reporting those rates, and arrest rates are within a few percentage points, perhaps this is “mysterious” only if you subscribe to all people being fungible cogs with no statistical differences in culture or anything else.
But crying ‘persecution’ is what conservatives do with every single step towards gender equality, racial equality, any movement that seeks to treat all humans with the same dignity currently conferred on white men. The conservatives’ definition of a war on their rights is that gay people are allowed to get married and Latinx people are allowed to live in the same zip code. The false equivalency of straight white Christen men’s feelings with everyone else’s lives is absurd.
Here he both delves into bullshit, and contradicts his opener that they’re not worried about the same dignity, though I guess one could stretch “the same dignity” to be by the measure of “my turn now, until we’ve caught up”. The bullshit is the part where, except by his draconian measure, he describes what liberals are doing as “just” being about the dignity of minorities, and not, as he blatantly advocates near the beginning, punishing the majority until the minorities feel they’ve had their comeuppance.
As to gay rights – in the societal sense, any society that isn’t working to replace itself with a following generation, dies. Promoting that, vs tolerating it, in conjunction with no-fault divorce and the welfare state encouraging single motherhood, and careers for women instead of kids – all things that are individual choices skewed by government largess – result in plummeting birthrates that mean the suicide of a decadent society that cares more for its immediate pleasures than its legacy.
As to the latin thing, let’s again leave aside the nature vs nurture argument, and just point out, again, that it takes at least three generations minimum for cultural inertia to fade out and a family line to assimilate. A bunch of Mexicans moving in next door means your neighbors no longer have the same cultural standards and assumptions as you – especially if they are not strongly encouraged to assimilate (hint: they no longer are). This ranges across many areas, but could include something as simple as to whether or not its safe to loan your neighbor your lawnmower or leave a bike out in the front yard. It’s not just my personal experience, but something relayed by others like Portuguese-born Sara Hoyt, that latin people figure if you cared about it you would keep it locked in behind a fence or gate or garage. Their concept of “theft” just isn’t the same.
If you don’t believe me, Robert Putnam set out to prove “strength through diversity”, and was so upset by the results he sat on the results for years.
Again, notice the bullshit weasel words. “Just” sharing the same zip code, as if, again, they are fungible cogs and there’s nothing different about how they think or behave, even if they are decent people, than a greater penchant for tortillas. It’s also worth watching Razorfist in his why we need a wall video, as he covers some other issues related to the negative impact of immigration on the country left behind.
Poor Nazi soldiers, getting rounded up into prisoner of war camps while those Jewish people are getting let out of prisons by the same Allied soldiers! Jewish people get all the preferential treatment…
Furthermore, conservative Christians have allied themselves with racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, mass incarceration, war crimes, death sentences, and gun culture. These Christians work actively to undermine scientific thinking. Anti-evolution, anti-global warming, anti-intellectual, and anti-factual. None of these line up with the values most universities share.
Yup, start with the Nazi comparisons….. and the usual list of SJW thought crimes.
Yes, it’s important to intellectual growth to have variety. It’s important that unpopular ideas get a hearing. It’s important for there to be debate, and changes of heart, and to allow sincere disagreements to continue to wrestle with one another for clarification. I have no interest in our universities being populated by people who think like me. But I do have an interest in them being populated with people who think.
Which means that he believes – as he has stated elsewhere – that conservatives don’t think. Are dumb (as well as nazis, etc…)
Universities aren’t bereft of conservatives and Evangelicals because of a vast left-wing conspiracy. They’re bereft of those people because people committed to those world views so rarely have anything to offer to an open-minded, inquiring, growing community. Universities are lacking in conservatives and fundamentalist Christians because the amount of education that it takes to become a professor is likely to expose Evangelicals and conservatives to enough good ideas that they’re no longer fundamentalist or conservative.
Hmm. By your own argument you’re going to practice in-group selection to exclude conservatives, just like all other liberals already really do, but nope, not a conspiracy.
Note how he uses bullshit persuasion terms like “open minded” and so forth without defining them, and assumes that all the good ideas ( the ones he assumes are also true) are the ones that lead to people not holding conservative values. Note, again, that he flat out admits that liberals exclude conservatives, and only make sure what they consider “good ideas” are allowed, and then they tout that the little propaganda factories tend to make more people who go through the “education” agree with them.
The fact that humanities departments are exceptionally lacking in conservatives and dogmatically religious people highlights this reality. Psychology, poetry, sociology, political science. People who have wrestled with the human condition, the human soul, literature and art, are the least likely to give credence to backwards ideas that are diminishing to human value and human dignity.
Funny. The people who’ve studied the sociology in vogue the last century or so have, not too metaphorically, cheered on an ideology that’s killed tens, if not hundreds (possibly plural) of millions of their own citizens in search of utopia, and praised mass murdering tyrants. Modern poetry, music, and so called art is nihilistic and generally lacks the beauty of old. Our use of language is measurably, objectively dropping as what we read and write is dumbed down. Literature and stories in the last century, especially the last five decades, have stripped out the divine, the aspirational, the ability of man to reach for divinity and glory, in favor of cynicism and base instincts.
Because all political decisions aren’t equally right. Aren’t equally moral. Aren’t equally recognizing of human dignity and justice and freedom. Because liberals recognize that there are wrong and right decisions, because they parse good and evil, contrary to what my church taught me about them.
I agree with the first three sentences. Yet I find it hard to reconcile the disparity between “freedom” and cheering on forcing others to be oppressed.
And if he thinks liberals parse good and evil, the sacred and the profane, he may want a conversation with Jon Haidt.
Because democracy isn’t the only value we hold. We don’t accept the 51% enslaving the 49% by popular vote. We believe in human rights. We believe in the Bill of Rights. Because we balance the will of the people with the sanctity of each individual life. And no, your right to not sell flowers doesn’t outweigh someone else’s right to get married. Because not all rights are equal.
“We believe in the Bill of Rights“. No you don’t. Not in true freedom of speech, not in the freedom to practice a religion without interference by the state, not in the right to bear arms (per a later quote) not in the right to be free from having one’s work and property taken from them without just compensation, and not in the limitation of powers of the central government, with the rest going to the states. You’ve effectively contradicted every, single, one of these. So fuck off, liar.
“Because we balance the will of the people with the sanctity of each individual life” – only if you agree with their opinions, as you’ve already made clear.
“Your right to not sell flowers doesn’t outweigh someone else’s right to get married.” Hunh. So I can stop a wedding by simply refusing to sell flowers?
Because Hitler was brought to power by a democratically elected government. Because American slavery was legal.
Hmmm. Which party doesn’t know how it’s different from a socialist party? What kind of government consistently generates underperforming and/or mass murdering hellholes like North Korea, China through the great leap forward, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany (not enough time for the German work ethic and cultural cohesiveness to be insufficient to deal with economic issues, plus a war), Cuba, Venezuela, and so forth?
The Left meanwhile is roaring in the streets about the countless deaths of unarmed black Americans by the people charged with keeping them safe. Roaring in the streets about environmental devastation that the smartest humans among us agree poses a threat to all human life. Roaring in the streets about an admitted sexual predator being appointed as administer over our nation’s federal law enforcement.
He really should look at Colin Flaherty’s site, the crime victim survey, and other relevant statistics. Even the WashPo agrees “hands up don’t shoot” was bullshit.
Leaving aside who is actually the “smartest among us”, no, scientists, etc. do notagree – and those on the catastrophist side have been caught conspiring to hide raw data, and writing models for temperature graphs that result in hockey sticks with a flat data set. In short – these “smartest” are not actually using the tools of science, and letting others cross-check their work.
Finally, “admitted sexual predator” – what part of “and they let you do it” is not consent? It’s as if the readily observable phenomenon of groupies and gold diggers throwing themselves at the rich and famous has been forgotten. Was it vulgar? yes. Do all men talk in the locker room like that? No – though more do than admitted it over this flap. Was it “sexual assault” in a world where “50 Shades” is a bestselling book series, and it doesn’t even meet L&O:SVU standards of sexual assault?*
No.
Conservatives not having taken to the streets to riot when Obama was elected doesn’t prevent us from taking to the streets to direct as much resistance to Trump as humanly possible. Because Trump and Obama aren’t equal. Conservatives being deeply outraged and fearful when Obama was elected doesn’t negate or somehow counterbalance the outrage and fear on the Left right now. Because the Right was afraid of ridiculous, imagined fantasies of end times persecution and wildly inaccurate information. When the primary source of terror in living under an Obama administration is that he’s a Muslim, you don’t have one ounce of sympathy from me.
This and other paragraphs demonstrate perfectly what Haidt pointed out – the left really does not understand how conservatives think, just how Colbert, Stewart, the media, and the NYT tell them how conservatives think.
Meanwhile the Left is dealing with Donald Trump’s actually announced plans. To commit war crimes. To imprison his political opponents. Compel a religious minority to register themselves. To gut the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Amendments. Donald Trump is actually appointing white nationalists to top positions. Actually sexually assaulting women. He’s a man who openly admires the most despotic regimes in the world. His vice president has actually worked to jail homosexuals for applying for a marriage license. Actually worked to redirect HIV treatment funding to Pray-The-Gay-Away™ conversion therapy.
All of these of course are varying degrees of the truth, none of them complete insofar as I can tell, as seen through the liberal “Trump and his supporters are nazis” filter darkly.
Trump says we’re in the middle of a crime wave! I say crime’s the lowest it’s been in decades. Well darn. Back to that 50/50 chance either of us is right. We may never know.
He links to factcheck – and yes, crime has been going down for decades, until the last couple years, in largely Democrat cities, with a demographic mix heavily leaning toward those that have had their violence excused at the highest levels of power since Ferguson. But the snark was sure convincing, wasn’t it?
Trump says undocumented immigrants are dangerous! I say they’re more law-abiding than citizens. Trump says they’re destroying our economy! I say they’re a benefit to our economy.
He points to a time article that points to Cato – and while I’m also generally libertarian-ish (less so these days), they’re notoriously open borders. Leaving aside the opportunity and trust costs already mentioned, the studies they tout go on about how “violent crime goes down” – a little, or no correlation – and a few buried bits indicate property crimes go up. Not exactly the slam dunk “crime is massively lower” being argued here and at Time magazine.
A few thought experiments. I don’t notice in the article calibration for unreported crimes. Most crimes within ethnically homogeonous communities disproportionally affect those communities. And Mexicans, columbians, etc., are somewhat less likely to report these to the police, especially given the degree of corruption that is accepted as normal in central and south American cultures, and how much of the violence is gang related.
Again, it’s almost like our foreign bretheren are little cogs just like us, completely swappable, with no cultural differences that need to be factored in, such as: increased security and receipt checks at stores like Lowes and general retail handling of checkout lines, increased home security such as bars, gated outdoor entryways, braced doors, and fences are all common in Miami, even in “well off” areas, to a degree I hadn’t seen in other “high crime” areas.
It’s funny how predominantly black, “crime infested” areas of LA are now hispanic. I’m sure they were incentivized out with hugs and kisses.
Finally – not all immigrants are equal (cogs, see above). Sweden, for example, has gone from a very civil and peacefully place to basically the rape capital of Europe. No, the rapists, including the ones recently livestreaming their gang rape of a girl, do not look like ethnic swedes.
Lastly – one of the very first comments:
Thanks for this Tucker! I remember growing up and people screaming, “ if we let two men marry, what will come next, are they going to marry an animal?”
I have yet to hear a man marrying an animal.
She could have corrected her ignorance with a simple Google search for “[man | woman] marries [dog | horse | dolphin]” – not to mention the recent push seen in slate and the Huffpo to condone and excuse pedophiles.
See you guys, this level of stupid and self-unawareness is difficult to process. Since it’s after hours, this will be tomorrow’s post, but I’m putting it up tonight, and may yet still do something else tomorrow.
