The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 01.31.22

Posted on | February 1, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 01.31.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

It was, too.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Consequences Of The Breakdown Of Law & Order In LA
EBL: Where In The World Is Blackface Trudeau?
Twitchy: Grope & Flail Finds “Activists & Academics” Who Say Calling Trucker Protest “Peaceful” Undermines “Non-Violent Danger” It Poses
Louder With Crowder: Joe Rogan Addresses Spotify Controversy, Forced To Explain To Haters What A Podcast Is
Vox Popoli: Russia Rejects Globohomo, “A Rare & Direct Warning”, and Trudeau Flees Canada
Stoic Observations: Exit The Ghetto

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Cloud Yells At Old Man
American Greatness: Joe Biden & The Uses Of Nihilism
American Power: The Totalitarian Left’s Joe Rogan Freakout
American Thinker: The Most Impressive Communist-Crusher You’ve Never Heard Of
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Abbott Beating Beta O’Rourke Among Hispanics, also, Thinking Of Vacationing In Communist Cuba? Think Again. 
Baldilocks: Slavery & Names
BattleSwarm: These Canadian Truck Protest Convoys Seem Pretty Massive, also, Amazon & Its Discontents
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American Killed Himself, also, Israel, Overrun With COVID, Proves The Jab Has Failed & Must Be Abandoned
Cafe Hayek: Scott Atlas Asks If Truth Will Prevail, also, Human Beings Are Not To Be Trusted With The Power To Lockdown
CDR Salamander: Ukraine Exposes NATO’s Divisions
Da Tech Guy: “I’m Not Black Enough To Be Shot”, also, The Three Stages Of Young & Mitchell Vs. Spotify (Per My Wife)
Don Surber: Trump Basher Wants Him Back, also, WaPo Opposes Freedom
First Street Journal: What George Soros Has Inflicted On America, also, More Journolism From The Lexington Herald-Leader
Gates Of Vienna: Two Out Of Three Germans Can’t Be Wrong, also, The Revolution Has Begun
The Geller Report: Sweden Refuses The Jab For Kids 5-11, also, Trump’s Texas “Save America” Rally Shatters State Record With Massive Crowds
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, What Color Is Your Galaxy?
Hollywood In Toto: Gutfeld Shows Colbert & Co. How To Speak Truth To Power, also, Rockers’ Silence On SpotifyGate Speaks Volumes
The Lid: American Truckers Awakening “The Fire-Breathing Dragon”
Legal Insurrection: Profile In Cowardice, Penzey’s Begging For Customers After CEO Calls Republicans Racist, and Democrat Incompetence Led To Pittsburgh Bridge Collapse – So Of Course They Blame Republicans
Nebraska Energy Observer: Deliberate Observation, also, Antisemitism Persists
Outkick: The Rock Supports Joe Rogan, Bengals Score 21 To Beat The Chiefs 27-24, and Tom Brady Retires From NFL
Power Line: Whoops Whoopi! also, Smearing The Truckers
Shark Tank: Rubio On Demings’ Silence – “She Doesn’t Want To Tell People The Truth”
Shot In The Dark: “Dangerous Misinformation”, also, Lions Are Lying Down With Lambs
STUMP: Original Sin (or Pandora’s Box), Public Finance, & Pensions
The Political Hat: Florida Vs. Critical Race Theory
This Ain’t Hell: Special Ops Legend Maj. Gen. Singlaub Dies At 100, also, Maryland Woman Charged With Possession Of Fake Military ID
Transterrestrial Musings: Lockdowns, Red China In Space, and Weed Makes You Stupid?
Victory Girls: Convoy For Freedom Truckers Threatened With Arrest, also, Bad Orange Woman Giggles “Soft On Crime? What Does That Mean?”
Volokh Conspiracy: “A Rock…The More Mass, The Faster It Falls”, also, Georgetown U. Faculty Letter Against Firing Ilya Shapiro
Weasel Zippers: Canadian PM Flees Capitol For “Secure Location”, also, Cheney Challenger Raises $1.1 Million
The Federalist: A Happier Society Would Have More Children, also, Corrupt Media’s Smear Of NYT’s David Leonhardt Over COVID Reminds Us Why They Cat Be Trusted
Mark Steyn: The Two Johns – John Milius & The Legend Of Dillinger, also, When Irish Eyes Are Daíling

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Category: Linkagery

‘Running Gun Battle’ in Florida Town Leaves One Dead, Four Wounded

Posted on | January 31, 2022 | Comments Off on ‘Running Gun Battle’ in Florida Town Leaves One Dead, Four Wounded

Polk County, Florida, is in the central part of the state, between Tampa to the west and Orlando to the northeast. It used to be a mostly rural area, with lots of orange groves and a cheap place to retire, but the population has grown to more than 700,000, adding about 250,000 new residents in just the past 20 years. Some of the new residents of Polk County are thugs, and they had some of their typical thug fun over the weekend:

A 20-year-old man was killed and four others were hospitalized in critical condition from an exchange of gunfire between two cars in unincorporated Winter Haven early Sunday morning, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
The deceased man and three of the injured — a 26-year-old man, a 20-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy — had left a bowling alley in the same car around 1:13 a.m., Judd said.
As the group drove north on Buckeye Loop Road toward Martin Luther King Blvd on the outskirts of Winter Haven, a dark sedan that followed them pulled up beside the car and the two vehicles engaged in a “running gun battle,” Judd said at a news conference Sunday.
“If you look very close, you’ll see some of these bullets are entrance holes into this vehicle, some are exit holes from the vehicle, so the suspects were shooting back and forth at each other,” Judd said.
The shootout was witnessed from a distance by friends of an individual in the first car, who Judd said reported seeing the vehicle ease over to the side of the road before it came to rest.
“And what we find (in the car) is not good. What we found was a 20-year-old young man, still a kid, dead,” Judd said. “He was shot eight times. Did you hear what I said? He was shot eight times.”
Judd said that among the other occupants, the 26-year-old was shot eight times, the 17-year-old was shot twice and the other 20-year-old man was shot between seven and eight times. The man who was shot and killed was the front-seat passenger of the car with an “AR strapped around him” and “a gun in his waist,” Judd said.
Though the shooting occurred in unincorporated Winter Haven, Judd said that the Winter Haven Police Department offered a “remarkable amount” of assistance to Polk County deputies at the scene.
The dark-colored car continued to drive west on Martin Luther King Blvd before it dropped off a 21-year-old man at Winter Haven Hospital who had also been shot and is now in critical condition there, Judd said.
Judd said there were so many bullet holes and shell casings to count that deputies were initially unable to report exactly how many shots were fired between both cars.
“We’re still counting bullet holes,” Judd said.

Watch the video here:

 

You’ll see that Sheriff Judd makes the case that Polk County has a low crime rate, and that this incident was unusual. What apparently happened was that some thugs were dealing dope and got into a feud with rival thugs. And the sheriff makes the point that, while a lot of people talk about marijuana as a “low-level, non-violent crime,” there is an awful lot of violence surrounding the dope trade, because it’s run by thugs.

I’m reminded of a scene in P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores, where O’Rourke did a ride-along with D.C. police in an area afflicted by the 1990s crack epidemic. O’Rourke tried to offer a libertarian critique of the War on Drugs, suggesting legalization was the solution, to which the police officer replied, “Air should be illegal, if these people breathe it.”

What that cop was trying to express was an idea that I’ve often phrased a bit more politely: Crime is a people problem. It’s not a drug problem. It’s not a poverty problem or a gun problem. Crime is caused by bad people — criminals — who will commit crime more or less continuously unless they’re put behind bars. The only way you can reduce crime is to identify the criminals, arrest them, and send them to prison. It doesn’t really matter what they’re arrested and convicted for — burglary, assault, drug possession, car theft, whatever — what matters is that you convict them of something, and get them off the streets. Put enough thugs in prison, and the would-be thugs on the street will be discouraged from following in their footsteps. Otherwise, they’ll just kill each other.

“Self-cleaning oven,” they call that in Chicago.




 

Category: Crime, Florida

The Joy of Schadenfreude as Nick Wright Cries the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness

Posted on | January 31, 2022 | Comments Off on The Joy of Schadenfreude as Nick Wright Cries the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness

When my team loses a football game, I have the luxury of being silent, pretending that nothing happened. The incident on January 10?

Nope. No comment. Movin’ on.

Nick Wright of Fox Sports does not have that luxury. He gets paid to talk about football, which is galling to fans of other teams who must listen to this Kansas City native rave about his man-crush, Patrick Mahomes.

Until this past season, I had never paid any attention to Nick Wright, and had no real opinion about Mahomes. But then the New England Patriots drafted Mac Jones from Alabama, and I became a Patriots fan — and quickly learned to hate Nick Wright like God hates sin. Because he is convinced that Mahomes is destined to be the greatest quarterback in NFL history, Wright habitually slanders any potential rival.

Honestly, I had almost completely ignored the NFL for a couple of decades before the Patriots drafted Mac Jones, which was why I had no idea who Nick Wright was when I first started seeing YouTube clips of him slagging Mac Jones. At that point, I was unaware that Wright was a Kansas City native, but once I figured out his motive for being anti-Mac, it made me furious — how dare Fox Sports employ this commentator who was so obviously biased in favor of one team that he made a habit of dissing other teams (especially the Chiefs’ AFC rivals)?

My hatred of Nick Wright led me to start cheering against the Chiefs, the same way, as an Alabama fan, I cheer for whoever’s playing Auburn.

And this was frustrating, because the Chiefs are a very good football team and Mahomes really does have wizard-like football skills. While I’m not a fan of the run-and-gun, shake-and-bake, razzle-dazzle style of football that Mahomes plays, he is unquestionably the best at that style of play. Last week’s division playoff game between Kansas City and the Buffalo Bills was one of the greatest games in NFL history, and the performance by Mahomes was absolutely electric.

He completed 33 of 44 passes for 378 yards and 3 touchdowns, and was also the Chiefs’ leading rusher, with 7 carries for 69 yards and another TD, but the numbers don’t capture just how magical he was against the Bills. Just watch the video of these two plays:

How do you defend against a player like that? It’s perfectly understandable why opposing defenses would get demoralized against Mahomes, and also understandable why a Kansas City native like Nick Wright would be a fan. But having to listen to Wright drool over Mahomes is so annoying that, as a freshly minted Patriots fan, I have come to hate Nick Wright so much that I hate Mahomes, too.

Therefore on Sunday, I was cheering for the Cincinnati Bengals against the Chiefs in the AFC championship game, but during the first half, it seemed like all hope was lost for an upset that would break Nick Wright’s heart. The Bengals were trailing 14-3 with about 10 minutes left in the half when, on third and 6, Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow threw an incomplete pass, and the Bengals were forced to punt. Kansas City took over at their own 28, and Mahomes led his team down the field on a drive that ended with a touchdown pass, to put the Chiefs up 21-3 with five minutes left in the half. Trailing by 18 points, it seemed the Bengals were doomed, and Kansas City was on their way to the Super Bowl.

And then Patrick Mahomes choked like a loser.

Mahomes choked so bad, even Nick Wright couldn’t deny he’d choked.

It was a choke of world-historic importance, a performance destined for a place of honor in the Choking Hall of Fame. So every NFL fan who isn’t from Kansas City set their alarms this morning to wake up and watch Nick Wright writhe in agony about how bad Mahomes choked:

Oh, the salt just burns in that open wound, doesn’t it, Nick? And trust me, there are millions of people laughing at your misery.




 

Category: Football

Rule 5 Sunday: Evangeline Lilly

Posted on | January 31, 2022 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Evangeline Lilly

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Ms. Lilly has been in a fair number of movies & TV shows, most notably Lost, The Hobbit, and Ant-Man & The Wasp. Of course, what caught my attention is her public statement against the jab mandate, which of course has earned her some flak from her fellow actors & actresses. This pic of Ms. Lilly is from her days on Lost.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

On the beach.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1610, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five University Sheep Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Chicks With Iguanas, Boston Blizzard Babes, Regina Spektor, Evangeline Lilly, Marie Newman, Possibly (Mass Formation) Psychotic Babes, The Gilded Age, “Hazy Shade Of Winter”, Daisy Edgar Jones, Fountains Of Wayne, and The Last Duel.

A View From The Beach: Elizabeth Smith, ASMFC Looking to New Striper Regs, Analysis: Probably Correct, Fish Pic Friday – Tara Foster, Whew, Chessie Gets Home Safe, In a Fit of Mass Formation Psychosis, Justice Breyer Says Sayonara, Some Thursday Tanlines, Bravo! No Dissent Permitted, Hump Day Political Hilarity, Some Wednesday Wetness, Tattoo Tuesday, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Sunday Sunrise

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Category: Rule 5

‘Air Biden’: Midnight Flights Bring Illegals From Border, and It’s ‘Racist’ to Notice

Posted on | January 30, 2022 | Comments Off on ‘Air Biden’: Midnight Flights Bring Illegals From Border, and It’s ‘Racist’ to Notice

Remember, the “Great Replacement” is just a right-wing myth:

The Biden administration doesn’t want media attention on illegal immigration, its open border policies, or the results of those policies. How do we know? A security officer just said so, in an explosive video of secretive, dark-of-night flights transporting illegal immigrants to various points throughout the US.
This video merits coast-to-coast media coverage, not just to expose the administration’s stealth operations that flout the laws, but to encourage Americans and leaders at all levels of government to demand that the administration start protecting our border, our country, and our citizens.
The list of lies administration officials have told regarding their handling of illegal immigration is extensive and still growing. How many times have they refused to call the historic numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border a “crisis” or implausibly claimed the border is “closed”? . . .
Over the last several months, night flights of illegal migrants have been periodically reported in places such as Florida, New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. In each instance, state and local officials received no notice they were coming, let alone given an option to refuse them admission. The administration has no apparent concern with how these “air lifts” may burden local officials with additional costs and facilities capacity in areas such as education, housing, healthcare and law enforcement.
When asked why the administration was flying illegal immigrants in the middle of the night, press secretary Jen Psaki belittled the reporter and then lied. She claimed that the flights were resettling unaccompanied children. Yet videos of these surreptitious flights clearly show full grown adults emerging from the planes.

Anyone asking questions is a “racist,” of course:

Last summer I was notified of secret overnight flights coming into Westchester County Airport that were transporting thousands of illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border. Having overseen the airport during my tenure as county executive, I knew that flights arriving after midnight are not allowed so I started asking questions publicly.
Who are on these planes? Have they been vetted and COVID tested? How many flights so far and how many more are scheduled? Where are these illegal immigrants being placed and who is paying for all this? Have background checks been done, especially on the adults?
What happened next was entirely predictable. I and other local residents were called “racist” and “xenophobic” simply for asking questions. Seemingly, neither the current county executive nor the governor cared or had any interest in knowing what was happening in their jurisdiction.
We ignored the taunts and continued to demand answers.
Finally, we were told that these were only unaccompanied minors and they were not being resettled locally. That was a lie. I eventually learned that the flights began in April and grew more frequent with larger planes by summer. I personally witnessed and videotaped dozens of adult male migrants boarding charter buses and being dropped off to waiting cars at a nearby Costco parking lot.
And New York Post journalist Miranda Devine’s investigation found that many of the undocumented individuals were indeed being resettled throughout Westchester, Long Island and the other New York suburbs.
Recently we secured police body-camera footage from the tarmac after one of the flights. A government contractor is seen on the recording telling a county police sergeant that Homeland Security wants the flights from the border “on the down-low. … Everything is supposed to be hush-hush.” . . .

Importing future Democratic voters is serious business.




 

Category: Immigration, Joe Biden

Yes, Black Lives Matters Was a Scam

Posted on | January 30, 2022 | 1 Comment

Intelligent people knew from the start that Black Lives Matter was simply a Democratic Party propaganda operation. “Systemic racism” did not suddenly become a problem in the spring of 2020, and obviously it was not a coincidence that the “mostly peaceful” protests erupted in an election year. Further proof of the BLM movement’s essential bogusness was the fact that, once Joe Biden was installed as president, the protests ended. Black suspects are still getting shot by cops, but the national news media has ceased covering these incidents, because that was never really what it was about. It was about electing Democrats, period, and having succeeded at that goal, the media has moved on from BLM.

“Demand Justice for [Fill-in-the-Blank]” memes are now gathering dust back in the Instagram archives of liberals too stupid to wonder what the 2020 season of “activism” was really about. Never once has a liberal asked the cynical question, “Cui bono?” Who benefited from all that “activism”? Whose interests were served? Who got rich from those months of media-fueled outrage? For anyone naïve enough to buy into the BLM narrative, perhaps this information will come as a surprise:

No one appears to have been in charge at Black Lives Matter for months. The address it lists on tax forms is wrong, and the charity’s two board members won’t say who controls its $60 million bankroll, a Washington Examiner investigation has found.
BLM’s shocking lack of transparency surrounding its finances and operations raises major legal and ethical red flags, multiple charity experts told the Washington Examiner.
“Like a giant ghost ship full of treasure drifting in the night with no captain, no discernible crew, and no clear direction,” CharityWatch Executive Director Laurie Styron said of BLM.
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors appointed two activists to serve as the group’s senior directors following her resignation in May amid scrutiny over her personal finances. But both quietly announced in September that they never took the jobs due to disagreements with BLM. They told the Washington Examiner they don’t know who now leads the nation’s most influential social justice organization.
Paul Kamenar, counsel for conservative watchdog group the National Legal and Policy Center, said a full audit and investigation into Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the legal entity that represents the national BLM movement, is warranted.
“This is grossly irregular and improper for a nonprofit with $60 million in its coffers,” Kamenar said.
BLM previously came under fire from local black activists after the New York Post reported in April that Cullors, then its executive director, had spent $3.2 million on real estate across the United States. The reports followed BLM’s disclosure in February 2021 that it closed out 2020 with $60 million in its bank accounts.
BLM denied allegations that Cullors spent BLM funds on her personal properties. However, BLM and other activist organizations under Cullors’s control offered contracts to an art company led by the father of her only child, the Daily Caller reported.
Cullors announced in May she was stepping down and that activists Makani Themba and Monifa Bandele would lead the organization as senior executives. But Themba and Bandele revealed in September that they never actually took the job because of disagreements with BLM’s “acting Leadership Council.” . . .

You can read the whole thing, but the fascinating thing about this is the fact that liberals don’t care that BLM was always a scam.

It’s almost as if they knew it all along.




 

Category: Racism

FMJRA 2.0: There Ain’t Nothing Wrong With The Radio

Posted on | January 29, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: There Ain’t Nothing Wrong With The Radio

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Not a good week for my Senators, who dropped two to the Pirates at RFK, and neither of them were close. Hoping to get three in against the Orioles tomorrow morning before I motor up to Reno for three weeks of work in the tax mines there. 
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

When the manager ain’t happy, nobody’s happy.

Can We Make Thursday ‘Everybody Blog About Mass Formation Psychosis Day’?
Gregor Mendel Blog
Quotulatiousness
Nebraska Energy Observer
Hogewash
Scott’s Blog
A View From The Beach
EBL

Rule 5 Sunday: Yvette Mimieux, RIP
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Aspiring Rapper Update: Lawsuit Accuses Seattle CHOP ‘Warlord’ of Pimping Hoes
The Political Hat
EBL

Patriots Post Mortem: What Mac Jones Needs to Do During the Off Season
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Ludwig II von Bayern
A View From The Beach
EBL

Good News From New York
357 Magnum
EBL

Jimmy Baseball’s Third Ex-Wife
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.24.22
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

‘Mass Formation Psychosis’ and the Censorship of COVID-19 Criticism
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.26.22 (Morning Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.26.22 (Afternoon Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Mass Formation Psychosis: What Is It and Why Is Everybody Talking About It Now?
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.27.22
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

A Death in New Jersey
EBL

In The Mailbox: 01.28.22
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending January 28:

  1.  EBL (16)
  2.  A View From The Beach (9)
  3.  357 Magnum (8)
  4.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

‘Liberal Creationism,’ Revisited

Posted on | January 29, 2022 | Comments Off on ‘Liberal Creationism,’ Revisited

William Saletan marks his 25-year anniversary at Slate-dot-com with a column discussing what he’s learned, about himself and the online audience, during his quarter-century at the original Internet magazine. Among other things, he laments the rise of Twitter warfare and the way centrifugal forces seem to be driving both Left and Right toward tribalism, with no possibility of moderation or compromise or even rational discussion. These are conditions not conducive to the kind of elitist neoliberal punditry that is Saletan’s specialty. During the same 25 years that Saletan has been at Slate (originally a property of Microsoft, since purchased by the former owners of the Washington Post), I’ve gone from working for the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune to spending more than 10 years at The Washington Times to being an independent blogger and American Spectator correspondent (while also recently being employed in a day job I never talk about). While I’ve been swimming along with the surging current of populism — I was populist before populism was cool — Saletan has attempted to resist the tide and, consequently, has become nearly irrelevant. Elitist neoliberalism matters a lot to the elite, but it doesn’t swing much weight with the masses, and if anybody’s sitting around breathlessly awaiting William Saletan’s next column, I can’t imagine why. This doesn’t make Saletan a villain, and I have no desire to celebrate his unfortunate situation, but I am dumbfounded by this paragraph in Saletan’s farewell column at Slate:

My worst mistake was in 2007, when I wrote about race and IQ. To this day, the subject makes me feel almost physically ill. In addition to a basic scientific error — you can’t use data about the heritability of traits within a population to draw inferences between populations — I was spectacularly obtuse to the social context in which I was writing. I thought statistical averages within groups should make no difference in how individuals are perceived. And it would be lovely if we lived in that world. But we don’t.

Saletan thereby repudiates and apologizes (again) for his 2007 column, “Liberal Creationism,” which was one of the most important and controversial things he ever wrote — and thus does the neoliberal surrender to the mob. In so doing, however, he draws attention to the heresy he has recanted, giving the rest of us an opportunity to examine his arguments and interrogate his reasons for abandoning them.

What prompted Saletan’s column was a newsworthy event:

Last month [i.e., October 2007], James Watson, the legendary biologist, was condemned and forced into retirement after claiming that African intelligence wasn’t “the same as ours.” “Racist, vicious and unsupported by science,” said the Federation of American Scientists. “Utterly unsupported by scientific evidence,” declared the U.S. government’s supervisor of genetic research. The New York Times told readers that when Watson implied “that black Africans are less intelligent than whites, he hadn’t a scientific leg to stand on.”

These denunciations of Watson’s claims were contrary to the facts. That is to say, Watson’s claim was not “unsupported by scientific evidence,” even if there was (and is) controversy about what the evidence means, both within the narrow confines of anthropology and in the larger context of societal and political issues. The real point, as explained by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray in their monumental 1994 book The Bell Curve, can be summarized in three words — average group differences.

Insofar as human beings can be categorized as members of groups, there will be measurable differences between such groups — otherwise the categories are meaningless — so that when studying these groups from a behavioral or sociological perspective, what matters is the difference between group averages. This is a point Herrnstein and Murray emphasized sufficiently in their book for any honest and intelligent reader to grasp, but alas the Left is not populated by such people, so that The Bell Curve was greeted by an insane hysteria. Herrnstein (whose scientific credentials were impeccable) had died of cancer by the time the book was published, so that Murray (an economist by training) was left alone to defend their argument against malicious accusations that their intention was to justify some sort of latter-day Nazi eugenics program.

Those of us old enough to recall this mid-1990s controversy should understand it as a prelude to today’s “cancel culture” issues. The malicious slander directed at Murray (and posthumously also toward Herrnstein) was not intended to enlighten the public about the issues involved; rather, this was a journalistic lynch mob engaged in character assassination as part of an effort to suppress the facts and prevent any debate over what The Bell Curve might suggest in terms of public policy.

We can disagree as to why average group differences exist, or what sort of policies could be implemented in dealing with such differences, but what we cannot do — if we wish to be intellectually responsible — is to engage in a make-believe game where we pretend that these differences don’t exist, and then try to sustain our make-believe game by screaming “RAAAAACIST!” at anyone who raises the issue.

And this, really, was the point of Saletan’s 2007 column, i.e., that liberals were playing the part of fundamentalist True Believers, attempting to prohibit discussion of what they regarded as heresy:

Tests do show an IQ deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for Europeans relative to Asians. Economic and cultural theories have failed to explain most of the pattern, and there’s strong preliminary evidence that part of it is genetic. It’s time to prepare for the possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial averages on tests, will turn out not to be true.
If this suggestion makes you angry — if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable — you’re not the first to feel that way. Many Christians are going through a similar struggle over evolution. Their faith in human dignity rests on a literal belief in Genesis. To them, evolution isn’t just another fact; it’s a threat to their whole value system. As William Jennings Bryan put it during the Scopes trial, evolution meant elevating “supposedly superior intellects,” “eliminating the weak,” “paralyzing the hope of reform,” jeopardizing “the doctrine of brotherhood,” and undermining “the sympathetic activities of a civilized society.”
The same values — equality, hope, and brotherhood — are under scientific threat today. But this time, the threat is racial genetics, and the people struggling with it are liberals.

Here, as a Bible-believing Christian, I must defend Bryan and object to Saletan’s implication that Darwinism is a scientific fact and that Genesis is false. Of course, there are (((other))) reasons why Saletan ought to defend Genesis — as a matter of self-interest, I certainly would, if I were him — but what I find really objectionable among Darwin’s fan club is their apparent certainty that our entire universe is one gigantic accident, a random coincidence without transcendent meaning or purpose.

Did I ever mention that I am a traditionalist? My ancestors thought of themselves as pilgrims sojourning in this vale of tears on their way to the Promised Land, and this sense of a missionary purpose to life, which was instilled in me in the pews and classrooms of the Lithia Springs First Baptist Church, has never really left me. Sinful backslider though I am, nevertheless I have never doubted that God has some larger purpose for my life, even if that purpose is a mystery I shall never understand.

We must keep the faith, dear brothers and sisters, even while we endure hardship and doubt, harassed by scoffers and forced to witness the evils of a world lost in sin. Among the rewards for this stewardship is the courage to withstand the attacks of the wicked. Satan is a liar, and his earthly minions habitually traffic in slander, of which I have sometimes been a target. In moments of crisis, when my survival was threatened, I declared, “Never doubt that God answers prayer.” Having fools for enemies is among the greatest blessings I have enjoyed.

Readers will excuse this seeming digression into theological matters, because it only seems irrelevant to William Saletan and his repudiation of his “Liberal Creationism” column. Truth is not to be discovered by plebiscite; facts are not a matter of majority rule. If you have the truth on your side, you ought to be courageous in defending it, even if — and perhaps especially if — it seems everybody is telling you you’re wrong.

The truth may be controversial, but it’s still the truth. This is what we learn from the Book of Job — afflicted by evil, and surrounded by “friends” who told him to curse God and die, Job kept the faith.

When Saletan wrote “Liberal Creationism,” he must have known this would be controversial, so why didn’t he resolve himself to defend the truth at all hazards, to acquit himself with courage in the battle?

One imagines he was afraid of losing his career as a journalist.

To which the proper answer is, “So what?”

In August 1987, I was driving a forklift in a warehouse on Fulton Industrial Boulevard. The warehouse was not air conditioned, the pay was low, and there was certainly no prestige to my labor. I’d walked out of my last newspaper job vowing that I was through with that infernal business, but sweating in that warehouse made me reconsider my vow. That evening, I called my old editor, Chris Barker, and asked him if he knew of any job openings in the newspaper racket. Chris said he’d check around, and called back later to tell me there was an opening for a sports editor at a paper in Calhoun, Georgia.

“Fine,” I said. “Just tell me, where the hell is Calhoun, Georgia?”

Within a week, I was living there, and a couple months later, I walked into the office and met the woman who became my wife, and by summer of 1989, we were married with a little baby daughter. The point of that story is: If all else fails, I could always go back to driving a forklift.

Perhaps that thought never occurred to William Saletan, so that when his liberal friends started screaming “RAAAAACIST!” at him because of his 2007 column, this represented in his mind an existential threat.

Whether or not Saletan’s job at Slate was in jeopardy, a liberal pundit’s career opportunities might be severely limited by the accusation of racism, and so Saletan followed up with a series of articles backing down from what he’d written in “Liberal Creationism” and now, nearly 15 years later, he feels compelled to renounce that column as his “worst mistake.”

Well, let me tell you something, Bill: I’d go back to driving a forklift before I’d belly-crawl in front of a mob like that. Your cowardice only incited the mob to further aggression, with the consequence that we are now surrounded by mobs who think they can bully people into silence.

Now let me offer you the best refutation possible of the slanderous accusation that it is “racist” to discuss average group differences: If you are smart enough to read and understand The Bell Curve, obviously you are a person of superior intelligence, no matter what your ethnic heritage.

It so happens that I, as a white Southerner, belong to a below-average group — Yankees, on average, are actually smarter. Well, what does that mean for me as an individual? “Stupid is as stupid does,” to quote the great Alabama philosopher Forrest Gump, and if I do not wish to be regarded as inferior, it behooves me to take care how I conduct myself.

Grant that at times I may have said or done stupid things that would lend aid and comfort to my enemies, giving credence to their dismissal of me as a stereotypical dumb hillbilly, but on the whole, I think no honest critic would describe me as ignorant, and thereby I refute the slander of my enemies and uphold the dignity of my people. It would seem to me that others ought to emulate this example if they are likewise members of groups whose average might give rise to accusations of inferiority.

Try not to be a stereotype, is what I’m saying here. Say, for example, if you’re a pointy-headed intellectual, learn how to park your bicycle.

If you get that joke, don’t let on. They’ll ban you forever.

Patience is a virtue. We must learn to endure life in a world where truth is trodden under foot by peddlers of lies, and where those who ought to be courageous in defense of truth instead surrender to the mob. My ancestors were not wrong in thinking of themselves as sojourners in the vale of tears, and knowing what dreadful hardships they endured gives me courage to maintain my dignity amid whatever minor difficulties might afflict my own circumstances. You have not yet seen me bowing before any mobs, the way the gutless Saletan has done, and I don’t anticipate you’ll see this in the future because, unlike Saletan, I know: I could always go back to driving a forklift. Deo vindice.




 

Category: Intellectuals, Media Bias, Racism
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