Chris, you are a purveyor of the dogma that there are zero significant group differences between blacks and whites. It follows from this dogma that if there are significantly different life outcomes between blacks and whites, they must be caused by something other than group differences. You identify this something as “discrimination”. Discrimination by whom against whom? By whites against blacks. Hence, the core of your position:

The problems of black people are caused by white people.

You present this as a default position. This position underlies the idea that the simple fact of differences in outcomes (employment, education, etc.) must be the result of discrimination. This includes differences in test results. Hence many disastrous decisions, judicial and otherwise, made over the years:

[Can’t remember the name of the case, the one where a power company was sued for using standardized tests in hiring that resulted in lower scores for blacks…help!], which argued from your dogma and the fact of test score differences, that standardized tests could not be used in hiring.

No Child Left Behind, which depends on your dogma since it assumes that differences in test results cannot be the outcome of differences in student ability, with all the wonderful results that NCLB is giving and will continue to give for years to come.

Immigration policies that do not take intelligence differences between groups into account, with results you seem to think are peachy, and which I think are, well, your kind of peachy, not mine.

The widespread belief in black America that white America is responsible for its pathologies, justifying the refusal of black American “leadership” to engage with their problems, while sticking the hand out (gun optional) for more of white America’s money, which will never be enough, because money can’t make people smarter.

And in general, the obvious point (at least to me) that if you blame major social problems on people or institutions that ARE NOT THE CAUSE, then you are unlikely to reap working solutions.

Your dogma is the quintessence, the distillation, condensation, precipitation, intensification, the Platonic Idea of, the absolute, algorithmically incompressible, perfect, complete, unsurpassable manifestation of RACISM. Oh, and it’s wrong.

You (and Tom and maybe JV) present the dogma as truth that requires no justification. But there is something dangerous to your dogma out there: the science of human differences, especially of differences in intelligence. The simple presence of this alternative is dangerous to the survival of your dogma: it demands that arguments must be made, evidence adduced, STUDIES PERFORMED, if only to decide between the dogma and the science of human differences. It provides a rival explanation for differences in life outcomes between blacks and whites that accounts (IMO, I'm working from memory of the Thernstroms and L. Gottfredson here) for almost all of those differences. Which leaves very little room for your dogma doesn’t it?

You ask what is the use of race-based intelligence research? Well, your dogma is race-based isn’t it? So how can intelligence research challenge that dogma without being race-based itself? No good can come from race-based intelligence research? No good for your dogma. But discovering the truth of the reasons for differences in life outcomes between blacks and whites can’t hurt, can it? And how can we identify those reasons without race-based research? How do you, Chris, you, Tom, come to the position that discrimination accounts for race differences without referencing race-based research yourself?

But there is one uncontrovertible good that will come from research into human differences. It will blow your sh*tty lousy rotten little racist dogma sky f*cking high.

And that’s a good thing!

Chris, you fear race-based intelligence research because it hits you where you live. In the heart of the heart of your racist philosophy. It’s your worst nightmare come true.

Sweet dreams buddy,
Patrick

Posted by: PatrickH on July 19, 2008 6:38 PM

Some minorities use the fact of their own failure as a reason/excuse to make claims on the rights of others. This extra political muscle - provided interestingly enough by weakness/failure -- plays a key role in shutting down debate on a host of other issues involving these minorities So, to have research showing their failure is due to other causes could play a useful role in defending my rights or at least weakening their case for equality-based tyranny. This is what I would call a damn good use of the research.

sN

Posted by: sN on July 19, 2008 6:59 PM

Perhaps Patrick is exhibiting a race-based trait when he ignores those statements that do not serve his argument ... for example my complete acceptance of the position that different races taken as a group exhibit different "g" characteristics. Instead he accuses me of a position I do not hold, the dogma of zero significant group differences that (supposedly) means I believe all outcome differences are caused by discrimination, which, again, I do not believe.

Perhaps it is another a race-based trait to ignore my point that obvious discrimination over a couple of centuries must ALSO be taken into account when discussing differences between the black and white communities. I hope Patrick will concede that slavery, punishment for becoming educated, Jim Crow laws and segregation constitutes discrimination. Although, given that my comment making this particular point was answered by his claiming I'm perpetuating the dogma of no racial differences, maybe not.

Similarly, Patrick ignores the argument I did offer in favor of affirmative action ... that if a group has been discriminated against for generations it is reasonable to grant them some extra consideration for a time, partly in compensation and partly to give them an opportunity to catch back up. He also ignores that I offered the counter argument and proceeds to claim that I hold another position I do not. Namely, if test results show differences in which blacks as a group score lower the test must be at fault, a position I do not hold and have not offered anywhere.

He saddles me with believing the misguided logic behind No Child Left Behind, which has so many conceptual flaws and (badly) hidden political agendas that it deserves its own thread. Again, not my position, this is Patrick putting words in my mouth that he can then shoot down.

Next is the obligatory immigration issue. Patrick sets me up as his strawman, again assigning me views I do not hold while at the same time offering the I.Q. test for immigrants "solution" to the immigration problem. I seem to recall that Moira chided me for over-reaching when I suggested that some might offer this sort of suggestion, but then Dog of Justice and now Patrick obligingly have, although this doesn't seem to have registered either.

So, what we're left with are Patrick, sN, DoJ, et al using selective portions of studies into the various "g" traits of different races to justify racial profiling, to blame all the ills suffered by blacks as essentially their own fault based on one or two areas where they score lower as a whole than whites, to argue against "equality-based tyranny" (now there is an intriguing phrase), and finally to attempt to show that anyone who believes there is or was discrimination is a racist.

So, Michael, remind me again why it is a good thing that racial differences in "g" become debate fodder for the general public to use in addressing issues like immigration. While you're at it, maybe you'd like to take a crack at giving a real world example of where, as I asked above, scientific research into racial differences when used politically has not been used to justify benefits to the group deemed superior at the expense of those unfortunate enough to belong to other groups.

Posted by: Chris White on July 20, 2008 9:37 AM

Chris, given where you live, I guarantee that this is the reality:

Supporting sexual and racial quotas doesn't cost you anything you want. So, you are more than willing to sacrifice the job of another white man so that you can parade around your halo.

Give up the sanctimony, man. It's all vanity. It's kinda vile.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on July 20, 2008 11:28 AM

"And I'm still waiting for someone to offer any examples in the past century where scientific research into racial differences when used politically has not been used to justify benefits to the group deemed superior at the expense of those unfortunate enough to belong to other groups."

This not a critique of research into racial differences; it's a critique of POLITICS divorced from morality.

When has the propagation of falsehoods about racial differences, when used politically, not been used to justify benefits to the falsifiers at the expense of the truth-tellers? Never, of course.

Posted by: ben tillman on July 20, 2008 2:03 PM

"Perhaps it is another a race-based trait to ignore my point that obvious discrimination over a couple of centuries must ALSO be taken into account when discussing differences between the black and white communities."

This isn't a "point"; it's a mere assertion. Why must discrimination be taken into account? Discrimination is natural, healthy, and - by definition - morally right. It's merely the exercise of ownership rights over the resources one has assembled for his or its own use. Discrimination in no way impedes the ability of the non-self to assemble its own resources by using its own abilities.

It seems that you may be misusing "discrimination" to mean "oppression". However, the notion that oppression, consisting of enslavement and slaveowners' erection of obstacles to learning, could produce the results you propose is rather undermined by the existence of that enormous control group consisting of SSA's in Africa itself, whose intellectual performance is far worse than that of American Blacks.

Posted by: ben tillman on July 20, 2008 2:25 PM

Chris -- You're putting words in *my* mouth. Only point I've made here is that the research is being done, so it's pointless to argue that suppression of it (and of the knowledge it's delivering) would be a good, let alone a viable, idea. Why not instead cheer for the more-responsible rather than less-responsible consideration and use of it?

Y'know: Why argue over whether it *should* be raining? That's just silly. Why not instead accept that it's raining, and move along to the conversation about whether to take your umbrella or your raincoat?

Now, what might responsible ways of dealing with this information (and this moment) be? That's up for debate, of course. Interesting discussion in its own right. But arguing about whether it should be raining or not ....

Seriously, man, cat's out of the bag. We've already entered into a period when research is turning up loads and loads of info about the genome, which means loads and loads of info about racial (or, if you prefer, population-group) similarities and differences. This is already well underway, and it's likely to turn into a flood tide.

Suppression, blank slate-ism, the "polite discourse" of the late 20th century -- these are already well into their crumbling-into-irrelevance phase. Standing up for them is like standing up for the urgent need for critics and reviewers and professors to play cultural gatekeepers. I mean, profs and critics may have something to contribute to the ongoing conversation. But the gate simply doesn't exist any longer.

So what now?

(Incidentally, and FWIW: I think that concern with IQ can be, and sometimes is, grossly overdone. People, and population groups, have many different characteristics, and intellectual horsepower is only one of them, though it's a fairly important one. People and population groups are bundles of all kinds of different talents, deficits, characteristics, tastes, preferences, etc. I think I do semi-understand one reason why the concern with IQ sometimes gets overdone: it's because it's such an obvious thing, and because studies can be done, and numbers put to the results. It's a wedge issue, in other words. So people return to it. But me, I'm eager to see the converesation move on. As I try to stress in these conversations, I think population-group differences are cool and groovy. Life would be far less interesting and fun without 'em. I wouldn't want to go to Whole Foods and find only one vegetable on sale, because after all, all vegetables are alike. I like finding dozens of vegetables on sale. They're all vegetables, but I can tell a difference, and their existence makes my eating life a lot more fun.

To me, the anxiety over "what evil political use is going to be made of this?!!!" is huuuuuuugely overdone -- after all, on an informal level everyone knows that Italians are a little different than Germans, for example, and everyone takes this into some account. So, day to day, we have tons of evidence that people are capable of dealing reasonably with the reality of population-group diffs. Should it be so traumatic to start 'fessing up to a little of this in public? I can't see why. To me, the real evil is the determination of the we-must-control-the-conversation crowd. Let it flow.

Note: the kinds of things that Roissy and his crowd say about men, women and sex is stuff that polite people didn't say in public until, like, six months ago. So understandings change. And when young people decide to get rid of old forms of politesse, it can happen pretty much overnight. I'm betting that this is going to happen where genetics and race is concerned in the very near future.)

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on July 20, 2008 3:53 PM

Michael, your original post was about how glad you are that ballsy journalists like Steve Sailer are out there putting topics on the table that are too controversial for the MSM. The topic referenced in the link picked up in the comments thread was the genetic differences between races and how that relates to immigration and achievement levels in America.

The debate that developed as a result of this seems to be between Tom West and me on one side and nearly everyone else on the other over whether the very new science exploring genome differences between racial groups should be given greater importance than that fictional bit of idealism expressed in our Declaration of Independence ... We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal ...

As for anxiety about what political use is going to be made of this ... Shouting is waving the banner for white men as the new victims, shut out of jobs and college by affirmative action black lesbian feminists who are out to ruin the world. ben tillman is making points arguing the definition distinctions between discrimination and oppression, while essentially claiming (and I'll keep ben happy by using his more correct word choice) that two centuries of oppression and slavery need not be considered as contributing to the position of the black community in this country, BIOH is offering the intriguing notion that white slavery was also prevalent before the Civil War and hidden by historians for vaguely hinted at dark purposes, Dog of Justice suggests I.Q. based quotas on immigration ... so far I haven't found much to applaud in the way of useful discourse, just whining about how being a white guy doesn't automatically have the same perks it used to. And using a new tool for arguing that whites should, by virtue now of their higher "g" rating, be at the top of the socio-political food chain.

Now, since you've seen fit to chastise me for putting words in your mouth (even though I only asked you to "remind me why it is a good thing that racial differences in "g" become debate fodder for the general public to use in addressing issues like immigration.") I'm interested in which of these arguments YOU are cheering as more responsible. Having launched the debate, which you aver is good, needed, and inevitable in a forum where you can count on Steve Sailer and his fans to express a one set of views, you must have some opinion about those views.

Too bad Moira seems to have lost interest in the thread. While I may disagree with her on many things, at least her offerings here suggested some ways that might have opened the discussion up to more productive dialogue about whether we want to organize our economy and society entirely around the needs and abilities of the right side of the bell curve or whether we also need to consider the rights and needs of those lesser endowed folks among us. It's a shame that discussion can't seem to gain any traction here.

Posted by: Chris White on July 20, 2008 6:40 PM

more productive dialogue about whether we want to organize our economy and society entirely around the needs and abilities of the right side of the bell curve or whether we also need to consider the rights and needs of those lesser endowed folks among us. It's a shame that discussion can't seem to gain any traction here.

Jesus, Chris, did I not point out that the social democratic welfare state would have a whole new rationale derived precisely from a Rawlsian perspective on decisions made from behind the "veil of ignorance" about a world in which talents are distributed unevenly because of genetic differences? Wasted, wasted, wasted.

I give up on you. You're just not worth the time to bother even asking farking questions of. You just carry on carrying on. Oh well, time for the same eye-slide I do when I come across an ST post:

Move along, nothing to read here! Move along!

Disappointedly yours,
Patrick

Posted by: PatrickH on July 20, 2008 9:27 PM

Chris -- I invite you to have at BIOH, PatrickH, whoever. Have at me, of course. But what you said to me here was "remind me why it is a good thing that racial differences in "g" become debate fodder for the general public to use in addressing issues like immigration." I've never said a word about "g" and immigration, thus I can't "remind" you of any such argument that I've made.

As for immigration, I think we owe it to ourselves to discuss openly the question of who and how many and on what basis. Why on earth shouldn't we have this discussion? It seems basic to national well-being, and it was openly discussed in the pre-PC days. And I think it's appalling (and amazing) that PC, blank-slate-ism, and of course the Repub and Dem powers that are invested in current policies, have been so successful at making a necessary and sensible discussion seem ... forbidden, taboo, a mark of a really evil person. If getting an important conversation going again means busting down a little PCism, and a little blank-slateism, then so be it.

As for your ref to the Constitution: Do you really think that when the Framers wrote "equal" they meant that they believed that everyone was born with the same capability to sing opera, or shoot a rifle, or cook, or run, or do math? Or did they maybe mean "equal" in a different sense?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on July 20, 2008 11:19 PM

Chris, I didn't make any of the general statements about the status of white men that you claim I made. I made a very specific, rather brutal allegation against you, which you deftly avoided acknowledging. Here it is, again:

Chris, given where you live, I guarantee that this is the reality:

Supporting sexual and racial quotas doesn't cost you anything you want. So, you are more than willing to sacrifice the job of another white man so that you can parade around your halo.

Give up the sanctimony, man. It's all vanity. It's kinda vile.

Quit giving away the jobs of other white men so that you can wear a halo.

You are very devious, Chris. You have no political agenda. You are a backstabber.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on July 21, 2008 8:59 AM

Patrick - And I'm disappointed in me, too. There are so many smug and or vicious tidbits scattered about in the comments that my unfortunate tendency is to respond in kind. When I do try to respond seriously, as for example I did when I wanted you to explain how the points of your July 16, 2008 9:00 PM challenge (except affirmative action) were connected to race, I got no response. I brought up universal health care as an example that seems at best very tangentially related to race ... I got no response. It's hard to know how to proceed since, when I try respond to your challenges, I'm ignored, but then I disappoint you by my supposed failure to respond.

Michael - I think you are being too clever by half, as my Grammy used to say. You set a thread in motion applauding the ballsy American journalist Steve Sailer for getting topics into the public debate that are otherwise being ignored due to PC constraints with a link to VDARE that resulted in a set of comments that have primarily been about race, the bell curve and immigration policies. Given this, I don't see how I'm putting words in your mouth to ask you to remind me why this sort of debate is such a good thing ... especially since you go on to answer the question. You did, however, avoid offering your take on which are the more responsible rather than less responsible views being expressed. Wasn't that what you were suggesting is needed, a free wheeling, no holds barred, non-PC restrained discussion from which one might find more responsible views to applaud and less responsible ones to reject?

Questions Tom West or I ask trying to open the discussion up a bit get ignored. But I'm (again) asked to discuss the meaning of the phrase all men are created equal, which has been discussed and one might even say adjudicated over the past two centuries and whose meaning might thus be considered "self evident." Both Tom West and I already responded to this earlier. But here is another answer if it pleases you. No, the Founders did not mean "equal" in a literal sense with each of us having identical traits and talents, but rather used it as an idealized affirmation that all should be treated equally by the state. And yes, they were a bunch of white men, many of whom owned slaves, and also wealthy landowners who expected to remain part of the de facto elite and thus can be called hypocrites. Nevertheless, it set forth an ideal by which we as a nation could guide ourselves and toward which we have steadily progressed, an ideal I see no reason we should abandon due to nascent scientific research into statistical differences in various areas between genetically distinct groups.

Posted by: Chris White on July 21, 2008 9:44 AM

ST - Sorry I did not respond yet. I live near a refugee relocation city. I think at last count there were more than 120 languages being handled in the ESL programs in the public school system. There are Somali, Sudanese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian, Russian, Kazak, Persian, Hispanic and ... well it is a loooong list ... folks living here. There are also plenty of African Americans, gays and feminists. Should I find myself in a situation applying for a job or an educational opportunity or other benefits where sexual and racial quota systems are in place I am reasonably certain I face far more difficulty than you do in Woodstock. I have no power to give away the jobs of other white men to polish my non-existent halo.

Posted by: Chris White on July 21, 2008 10:02 AM

Well, Chris, given the limitations on comment length that decency requires I suppose everybody can't respond to everything everyone else says.

Sigh. I still get a lot out of your comments, and despite all of my disappointment with your responses on this thread, I still can't help reading what you write.

Damn you, man! You've used some kind of Flesh-tone Voodoo on me!

That ol' Chris White magic got me in its spell...

Posted by: PatrickH on July 21, 2008 10:41 AM

I work in New York City and suburban Jersesy, Chris. I have never in my life worked in Woodstock. There are no jobs in Woodstock, thanks to the anti-development crowd (which is incidently all-white). At some point it would be interesting to discuss what part keeping the area all-white plays in the motives of the anti-development crowd.

You are in competition for a job that refugees want?

Get serious.

I am aware that you don't have the power to deny other white men jobs. In your BS mode, you are all too quick to give away another white man's job. Tell me how willing you are to give away yours... of course, in BS mode.

So, yes, it is all about halo preening and backstabbing.

In your halo preening, you conveniently forgot everything you know about me. I was married to an immigrant Filipina who made quite a large income. My girlfriend is an immigrant Filipina who likewise makes a large income.

I have absolutely no obligation to have a policy toward women and minorities. The fact that you even bother to profess one is what gives you away for the fake that you are. Nothing counts in this world except the individual, private relationships of people. This constant harping of yours about your sanctimonious concern for people on an ideal, abstract level is what I'm talking about Chris. That is the sign of a con artist.

It's all BS. It's all vanity. It's all sanctimony and backstabbing. I don't know what your private relationships are. For all I know, you are a great friend and a good father. In the public arena, you are a dreadful backstabber.

I'd suggest that you stop it. Read Warren Farrell. Stop stabbing other men in the back.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on July 21, 2008 12:42 PM

Obviously no answer I give is going to satisfy you, ST. What I'm particularly curious about at the moment is how you connect this thread and my comments on it with me "stabbing other men in the back". You claimed I am somehow immune from suffering any ill effects due to sexual or racial quotas based on where I live. I presumed you were making the point that I live in an area that is relatively homogeneous. My response was meant to show that whatever the image may be of my part of New England, locally we actually have a very diverse population.

It's true that I don't have a problem with most women who might use the term feminist to describe themselves. Extreme caricature type feminists ... the type who want to blame every ill of the world on patriarchy, the type who might claim all hetero sex is rape or want to censor claiming the greater good of limiting the harm of sexual stereotyping ... I dislike, disagree with, and try to avoid. Of course, I've only encountered a very tiny number of those over the years ... other than a couple of high profile professional feminists like Andrea Dworkin who I only have encountered in the news.

Men who go about their business and achieve any level of success deserve and get my respect and admiration. Men who blame job losses or lack of advancement on women or minorities generally get little sympathy from me. Virtually all the men I've actually known who made such claims were self-centered a##holes, bad or at least indifferent workers, and given to coasting on a misguided sense of entitlement.

My sense of who I am and what groups I belong to is such that I find "white man" too broad and amorphous to primarily or strongly identify myself that way. New Englander, Boomer, "hippie", dad, localvore, environmentalist, arts enthusiast ... these are all group labels that I more strongly identify with. I guess another label I'm willing to wear is idealist, and that may be where we most seriously part company. While I may no longer be a church going true believer, like those who are I am well aware I'm no saint, but that doesn't change the ideals to which I aspire.

Posted by: Chris White on July 21, 2008 6:21 PM

Chris:
Other than affirmative action programs these policies have no direct connection to race. But it seems obvious they ARE connected to race in Patrick's view.

This is your "response" to my challenge. My challenge, you say, had nothing to do with race. And? My challenge was written to point out that finding that differences in traits important to life outcomes being derived from genetic differences provides a justification of the welfare state, not a justification for its elimination. The fact that these traits are unevenly distributed between groups has led to a taboo on discussion of the genetic basis of differences in these traits, and thereby prevented proper policies from being developed.

Universal health care is necessary because some people are just not smart enough to make good decisions about looking after themselves. There are more white people in that category than blacks. Because there are more blacks proportionately, no-one can defend universal health care on the grounds of differences in intelligence. This is not a good thing, since it is those differences that provide the best reason for UHC.

All your response did was indicate you failed miserably to understand my point. You then compounded it by whining about not receiving any comments about how to deal with the left side of the bell curve. Steve Sailer, whose name set off this brouhaha has talked about that very thing over and over again. And so did I. Effect on you? Zero.

I'll respond to your points when you do me the simple courtesy of reading mine with even a modicum of attention.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 21, 2008 7:57 PM

Chris,

You just keep doing it.

My previous employer, who I am contractually obligated not to identify, paid me off handsomely to indemnify itself from lawsuit. I am prohibited from discussing my employment with that firm in any specific terms as a result of the agreement I signed when I was terminated. Why do you suppose that firm paid me off?

That's why, if you've read my weblog, you'll discover that I've stated that losing my job wasn't really a financial problem. And, in fact, my employment has only improved as a result of losing my previous job.

Jesus, you are a bristling dog of hostility toward other men, and yes it is all sanctimony. When are you going to knock it off? The stance of the liberal, sensitive man is such a crock.

I've been on to your type for a long time. It is just natural for people to champion the cause of their own kind. We have been celebratings blacks, gays and women for doing precisely this for decades.

The fact that you think you are too good to identify yourself positively for being a "white man" makes you a bit of a turd. I know that dumb leftists congratulate themselves on "enlightenment" for taking this idiot stance. Well, only white men are supposed to take this stance. It isn't enlightenment, Chris. It's stupidity.

You are a con artist. Period. Quit conning me.

Like all con artists, you do your best job conning yourself.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on July 21, 2008 8:19 PM

Chris,

You really should meet my closest friend, who just happens to be a gay man.

25 years ago, I was the same as you. In other words, a completely indoctrinated leftist, playing the backstabbing game with other men.

The reason you should meet my friend is because he's much better at getting into the head of a man who's as totally indoctrinated to attack men as you are. My friend is quite good at slowly introducing into a man's mind the notion that being a white men is actually a rather good thing.

I'm not so good at it, because your boneheaded belief that you actually thought up this crap that's been stuffed down your throat makes me angry. Just the way I am. I know that its useless to try to break through the indoctrination in any way except endless patience, which my friend has. In a way, you need to be de-programmed

I'm only driving you deeper into the ignorance and self-deception by arguing with you. I'm just forcing you to keep defending the indefensible.

I probably won't have the sense to quit. But, it really is useless. The only positive thing I can suggest is that you read Warren Farrell's first two books. You are pretty thick headed, and almost hopelessly sanctimonious. But, it might be a start.

You're pretty lucky that you haven't gotten caught up in the meat grinder that has taken so many good white men. It's made you arrogant. I don't wish on you what I've seen happen to other good men, but for some men that's the only thing that brings them out of the trance of indoctrination.

Posted by: Shouting Thomas on July 21, 2008 8:35 PM

Patrick - Some of the blame for my misreading of your challenge must also lie with how you phrased the challenge. Before your list of various social programs and policies you said you wanted someone to "Construct an argument ... that demonstrates that proof of the genetic basis of intelligence differences between blacks and whites ... " I see no pertinent connection between Social Security, universal health care, etc. and race and pointed that out, my bad.

The connection between some of these programs and intelligence also seems to me tenuous. For example, you put forth the notion that "Universal health care is necessary because some people are just not smart enough to make good decisions about looking after themselves." I am in favor of universal coverage, but this statement seems based on presumptions that I don't share. Surely you know wealthy individuals who regularly make poor decisions relative to their health ... drinking to excess, smoking, a diet heavy on foods that can contribute to heart disease, etc. These individual, however, generally have excellent health insurance plans and regularly visit highly skilled private physicians. At the same time, at last count just shy of 16% of the population are uninsured. For a quick overview you might look at this U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report. Here is a quote from the conclusion.

"While the uninsured are concentrated disproportionately in certain subgroups, the uninsured are clearly a diverse population comprised of people from all income levels, racial groups and employment types."

Income level, whether one works for a small business as opposed to a large company, age and other factors can correlate to how likely one is to have ... or not have ... coverage. Absent health coverage someone who may well have intelligence and who makes good decisions in those areas they control (diet, smoking, etc.) may find it very difficult to see a doctor when minor symptoms appear, even though they know they should. In other words, their available options are limited in ways that force them to choose between bad and worse rather than between good and better. And many if not most of them know it.

Among your other challenge points were economic and educational policies. I again struggle to grasp why economic policies that, for example, would encourage manufacturing jobs (traditionally the role of skilled, but "cognitively less gifted") to remain in the country as opposed to moving offshore would be "AT THE EXPENSE of those more intellectually endowed." And given that such jobs as software design, accounting, and so forth are now being sent offshore as well, isn't this an area where both sides of the bell curve may share similar concerns?

As for education, while I agree that we have slighted "the less intelligent with extended stays in a system that at best bores them silly," I also think we have a system that fails to make higher education available to all who are capable of learning in favor a system available to all who are capable of paying.

Since you've brought up a significant number of the major domestic policy issues worthy of discussion, I'll stop here for now. I suspect we'll have further opportunities to spar over them.

Posted by: Chris White on July 22, 2008 9:44 AM

Shouting – Your willful insistence on misreading and projecting gets rather tiresome; as does your lack of any sense of humor; as do your personal attacks when you know so little about me other than what gets revealed in comment threads here. I'm supposed to be:
" a bristling dog of hostility toward other men."
"too good to identify yourself positively for being a "white man" makes you a bit of a turd."
"totally indoctrinated to attack men as you are"
"You're pretty lucky that you haven't gotten caught up in the meat grinder that has taken so many good white men."

And all of this because? Because, it seems, I self identify more readily with a lot of other sub-group labels before "white man." Growing up in New England with a civics teacher father originally from the south I was "indoctrinated" into considering race and religion as being far less important than character and other individual qualities for judging others and myself.

I DO have hostility toward those who seem to me to be reflexively intolerant. There's a black artist I know given to endless race baiting and complaints about how he would have been a great success except for racism. Given his talent I think he got farther at one point in his career due to liberal guilt than he deserved and has spent the rest of his life expecting the same. He gets little sympathy from me. There are one or two gay guys I find obnoxious because they constantly tie every slight they imagine they've received to being gay. I know and like many other gay guys who do not assume, absent overt bigotry, that their sexuality is any concern for anyone else. In short, the qualities I seek in friends or find admirable in acquaintances ... or the reverse ... rarely has to do with their race or sex. Why does that bother you?

The "meat grinder" I've been caught up in still threatens to leave me a chewed up lump on the side of the road. Those doing most of the grinding have been other white men, not feminists, gays or grasping minorities. And even there I don't see them being white men as the issue, what I see as pertinent is their greed and duplicity, character flaws that can be found in any race or either sex.

Posted by: Chris White on July 22, 2008 10:35 AM

"Patrick - Some of the blame for my misreading of your challenge must also lie with how you phrased the challenge."

Hardly. It was clear to the rest of us.

Posted by: ben tillman on July 22, 2008 11:07 AM

...at least her offerings here suggested some ways that might have opened the discussion up to more productive dialogue about whether we want to organize our economy and society entirely around the needs and abilities of the right side of the bell curve or whether we also need to consider the rights and needs of those lesser endowed folks among us.

Chris, this is utter nonsense. Patrick brought all this up before that half-wit cracker ho did, and Steve discusses it all the time. Nobody here has evinced any misapprehension of, or objection to, the traditional understanding of "created equal" as a statement of equality before the law. Nobody, but nobody, has advocated or so much as obliquely speculated upon the idea that an individual citizen's civil rights should be allocated according to average group IQ. You pulled all that out of your ass, and then proceeded to confuse your colonic harvest with the products of other people's cerebral cortices. You have an astonishing capacity to ignore, misread, and, mostly, just completely fabricate viewpoints for other people, when you could spare yourself the manufacturing effort by paying attention, with a modicum of good will, to their actual words.

And you wonder why you exasperate people.

The "meat grinder" I've been caught up in still threatens to leave me a chewed up lump on the side of the road. Those doing most of the grinding have been other white men, not feminists, gays or grasping minorities.

You actually have a good point in here. The whole Orwellian diversity machine that screws white men on the lower links of the food chain (and yes, it does, Chris, yes it does) would disappear in a flash if the smug little kleptocrats at the top decided that it was no longer in their interest. However, proximate evils are still evil.

Posted by: Moira Breen on July 22, 2008 12:34 PM

Well, Chris, you've been waiting for Moira to comment for a while now. You are now experiencing, I am willing to guess, the emotions of those who learn the hard way the meaning of the saying, "Be careful what you wish for..."

And Moira, I cannot permit you to call anyone, even in jest, a "half-wit cracker ho", especially one so clearly the opposite of all of those things (except perhaps, and proudly I suspect, a "cracker"). If those words did apply, then I would say the world needs more cracker hos, no matter how witted.

Jeebus! I seem to be falling for a significant percentage of the amazing women of 2blowhards. Sister W's already got me warming her pinky, I'm campaigning for President of your Fan Club, clio's got me weeping and suffering sleepless nights. And Tat. Oh, Tat. Sigh.

Who's next? Cowtown Pattie going to ravish my heart? Prairie Mary going to ride roughshod over this boy's feelings? I've even got a crush on Michael's "The Wife", a spectacularly sexy/smart city woman just my type (except for her Wifely status....damn marriage anyway!).

In Dylan Thomas' play Under Milk Wood, there's a girl lying in a field dreaming of sex and love. She says of herself, "I'm seventeen and I am going to hell. I shall sin till I BLOW UP!!!"

Well, I'm fifty, I'm going to hell, and soon enough too. I'd like to sin until I blow up, but I've got nobody to sin with. Oh well. I guess I'll just go somewhere and blow up anyway.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 22, 2008 6:48 PM

Uncle! I am slinking away from this thread, tail between my legs. I feel like the victim of a fraternity hazing or like the new guy on the docks told to sort, box, and ship the morning fog. I've got Thomas Shouting in my face calling me "a bristling dog of hostility" and "a dreadful backstabber" for failing to be the right kind of white man, getting my defensive juices flowing; Patrick asks for a New New Left justification for virtually all domestic spending and government policies based on proof of the genetic differences between blacks and whites in America, when I try to say this seems overly ambitious and misguided I'm kicked for running away from a challenge and chided by ben for thinking it has anything to do with race; meanwhile Moira slaps me with "Nobody here has evinced any misapprehension of, or objection to, the traditional understanding of "created equal"" for responding to Mencius asking whether "all men are created equal" is true the way the statement "Secretariat is a horse" is true.

Now I know how Alice felt falling down the rabbit hole and discovering that words have different meanings depending on where one is and who is speaking them.

Posted by: Chris White on July 22, 2008 9:36 PM

I still love you Chris.

Posted by: PatrickH on July 23, 2008 9:51 AM






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