Well, I'm not an anti-Semite, maybe a sexist in that I do believe there are innate differences between men and women, and maybe a bit of a racist in that I think there MIGHT be innate differences among races. Jury's still out on this one, and scientists aren't looking into it for obvious reasons, but until we can deal with the massive amounts of prejudice against minorities in society it is going to be hard to sort these things out for sure.

Is Steve these things? He definitely does believe in innate sex differences, and definitely does believe in innate race differences. Anti-Semitism? You could write an essay either way. He seems pretty suspicious of the Israeli lobby, but you don't have to be anti-Semitic to do that: plenty of Jews in America criticize Israel! And keeps going on about how you never hear the nasty things the Jews do because they own the media...but I'm afraid he's right about that one. Still, his obsession is rather disturbing from my point of view: I do believe the Iraq war was partially supported by a Jewish cabal of neoconservatives (as well as the very, very goyish Mr. Bush and Cheney's bloodlust) who wanted to protect Israel...but it was OPPOSED by the vast majority of American Jews. Describing it as a Likud conspiracy is probably most accurate (which I think he did at one point).

That said there's one thing I don't like about Steve. He's actually one of the better writers at discussing both sides of an issue and pretty lucid until he discusses immigration. Then it's always bad. Like, liberals are right about some things, but immigration is always bad. I think there's too much immigration, but I don't think it's always bad, just that there's too much of it at the present time and cutting down would give the latest bunch of arrivals the chance to assimilate a little, as every other wave has in the past.

He also tends to link to white supremacists (usually from the more intellectual wings of the movement, ie American Renaissance and The Occidental Quarterly), which I can't really say I approve of. And quite a few of his linkers themselves link to white supremacists; while you can't prove that much from second-order links, the truth is that you never see that sort of thing happening from Little Green Footballs or Instapundit.

Why am I cutting the guy so much slack when he stands for everything I abhor? Well, the point is that he's simply the most interesting writer around from my point of view. He points up all the defects in my New York liberal worldview and makes me reconsider things. Sure I might believe in racial harmony, but he shows me the problems with it. And I like the idea of a massive welfare state, but he shows me that it can decrease fertility rates. I might not like what racial differences might imply, but I'm still curious about them. The truth is that political choices involve tradeoffs. America with regards to Europe has traded leisure for wealth. The conservative trades cultural vitality (come on, what's the last artistic movement that came out of Sugar Land?) for the safety of his or her children. The liberal choices still a tradeoff I'm willing to make, mind you, but the nice thing about Sailer for this liberal is that as defender of the views I oppose, my Shadow if you want to be Jungian about it, _he makes me aware of the tradeoffs_.

Posted by: SFG on October 9, 2006 10:32 PM

"until we can deal with the massive amounts of prejudice against minorities in society"

And also massive amounts of hostility and envy of minorities toward the majority in or society, I would add.

Posted by: s.j. on October 10, 2006 5:55 AM

And hostility toward successful minorities. Why do you think the Holocaust happened in the first place?

Posted by: SFG on October 10, 2006 6:03 PM

SFG: are you talking about the majority of Americans' hostility toward successful minorities, or the minorities' hostility toward their own who are successful? Ignoring the Holocaus non-sequitour I wasn't sure what you meant.

If it's the former, I see no evidence of that whatsoever in the United States. I do however see a lot of hate directed by various minorities toward the majority here, and the majority's uneasy and often solicitous attitude toward them in response.

Posted by: PA on October 11, 2006 5:59 AM

Whoops! I was talking about Germans toward Jews in the 1930s. They were something like half of the lawyers from what I remember.

America's pretty good about anti-model-minority prejudice, actually; nobody's trying to kill Chinese or Indians (except when they confuse them with Arabs).

Posted by: SFG on October 12, 2006 1:38 PM

Pray tell how many Arabs have been killed in this country due to racial prejudice.

Posted by: Tat on October 13, 2006 12:25 PM






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