The Other McCain

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

Don’t Question ‘The Science’?

Posted on | October 2, 2021 | Comments Off on Don’t Question ‘The Science’?

Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change called attention to these headlines:

It’s Time to Give Up on Facts
— Jess Zimmerman, Slate, Feb. 8, 2017

You Must Not ‘Do Your Own Research’
When It Comes To Science
— Ethan Siegel, Forbes, July 30, 2020

Don’t Go Down the Rabbit Hole
Critical thinking, as we’re taught to do it, isn’t
helping in the fight against misinformation
— Charlie Warzel, New York Times, Feb. 18, 2021

Questioning authority has become
too much of a good thing,
and it’s killing people
— Al Cross, Northern Kentucky Tribune, Sept. 23, 2021

The general theme here is that skepticism is wrong — we must accept what we are told by those in authority. The “consensus,” as determined by university professors, mainstream journalists and government officials, should not be subject to criticism or debate. If you are not a member of the class of credentialed experts authorized to determine the “consensus,” your duty is to shut up and obey.

What they are telling us, really, is that our own education and experience are invalid. Whatever schools you attended, whatever degrees or diplomas you may possess, whatever knowledge you may have acquired through your employment — none of your credentials count for anything, if you are disposed to challenge the authority of the expert class.

When and how did this insistence on elite authority develop? It didn’t start with the COVID-19 pandemic or with “fact checkers” telling us not to believe Donald Trump. A more obvious starting point of this expert “consensus” theme was The Great Global Warming Scare (which has been renamed “climate change” because the experts find this phrase more convenient when record snowfalls occur). You could point to the 2000 presidential election as the historic fulcrum in this regard. Al Gore shoved his chips all-in on global warming, and lost the election to George W. Bush, whose connections to the oil industry were no secret.

It was just about the time Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth (2006) that we were told “the science is settled” about global warming, and the expert class decided that skeptics must be silenced. The Michael Mann lawsuit against Mark Steyn, et al., was the manifestation of the belief that it should be illegal to question the “consensus.”

On all matters scientific, I find myself forced to defer to John Hoge, the engineer who makes space robots for NASA. A mere journalist has no business arguing about science with an engineer, really, and so whenever such subjects are under discussion on The Other Podcast, I am compelled to leave it to Hoge. But he is at odds with those who endlessly declare that we must believe The Science™ when it comes to things like dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. There is no such thing as The Science™ — a complete set of solutions, of which Dr. Anthony Fauci and his colleagues are the sole proprietors — because that’s not how science works.

Reasonable skepticism — citing facts and logic that contradict the liberal establishment’s preferred narrative about COVID-19 or anything else — is now being labeled “misinformation,” not because of science, but because of politics. Skeptics cannot be permitted to speak freely, to express doubt toward the “consensus” on subjects that may affect the political power of the liberal elite. And therefore “deplatforming” and other means of censorship are used to suppress dissent: Shut up, because science.

Well, we won’t shut up — you can tune in to hear more at 7 p.m. ET Saturday night on The Other Podcast.




 

Category: Science, The Other Podcast

In The Mailbox: 10.01.21

Posted on | October 2, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.01.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Thanks to everyone who bought stuff through my Amazon links in September. Very much appreciated!
Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Spot on.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Chicago’s Hall Of Shame
EBL: The Many Saints Of Newark
Twitchy: Meet The Black Georgia Democrat Who Would Rather Have A Statue Of A Confederate In The State Capitol Than A Statue Of Justice Thomas
Louder With Crowder: Draymond Green Refuses To Bash Unvaxxed Teammate – “That Goes Against Everything America Stands For”
Vox Popoli: The College Mating Crisis, A Rebel Without A Pulse, and California Culls The Kids
According To Hoyt: Just An FYI, also, Home!
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S1E7 – Building Characters, also, People Really Don’t Understand How Audits Work And The Media Likes It That Way
Gab News: Crush Communist Globalists – Return To Real Freedom!

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Greasy Pole #18 – The Empowering Patriarchal Christian Episode
American Conservative: Church, State, & The Future Of Evangelism, also, Public Health Or Power Play?
American Greatness: Republicans Demand Release Of Marine LTC Jailed For Criticizing Afghan Bugout, also, Whitmer Case Exposes Pattern Of FBI Misconduct
American Power: Krysten Sinema Faces Growing Revolt From Former Supporters, also, What’s Going On In Congress?
American Thinker: The Scheller Case Is America’s Dreyfus Affair, also, Is Modern Society Finally Getting Sick Of Talking About Colonialism?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Soft Secession Friday
Babalu Blog: Another Cuban General Dies – Body Count Of Senior Officers Since 7/11 Hits 14, also, Cuban Political Police Warn Dissident Cuesto Morua – “We Will Not Allow The 20-N March”*
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For October 1
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, also, Two Nearby Asteroids Found With More Precious Metals Than Earth’s Entire Supply
Cafe Hayek: Quotation Of The Day
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Stacy McCain Discovers The Key To Happiness
Don Surber: Musk Criticizes Biden, Not Xi, also, Pelosi’s Little Big Horn
First Street Journal: Another Priestly Problem, also, Murder In Lexington
The Geller Report: Biden Picks Communist To Be In Charge Of Our Banking System, also, Smith & Wesson Abandons Massachusetts For Tennessee
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, Trojan Asteroids, and The Rumor Mill
Hollywood In Toto: Antonio Sabato Jr. Won’t Fight Fire With Fire In The Culture Wars, also, Black As Night – Toothless Social Justice Vampires
The Lid: Thanks, Biden! DHS Prepares For Massive Surge Of Up To 400,000 Illegals In October
Legal Insurrection: The Left Expresses Joy & Happiness After Justice Kavanaugh Tests Positive For COVID, Cost Of Indiana U.’s “Diversity Hiring” Initiative Could Have Paid Tuition For 2,600 Students, and National School Boards Assn. Calls CT Protestors “Domestic Terrorists”, Requests Federal Intervention
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday – Biden Lied, Americans Died
Outkick: Dave Portnoy Jumps In On Howard Stern/Joe Rogan COVID Debate, Bengals Have Themselves A Leader In Joe Burrow, and How The SEC East Is Shaping Up
Power Line: Today’s Leftist Temper Tantrum, Keep Nope Alive, and Lefty Fairfax County Prosecutor To Courthouse Security – “Do You Know Who I Am”?
Shark Tank: Makki Accuses Former Obama Supporter Anna Paulina Luna Of Being A “Phony”
Shot In The Dark: Downfall – Ramco Edition, also, The Better Mousetrap
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – Can New York City Govern Itself?
This Ain’t Hell: The Three Curses Of Non-Military Service, Open Letter From A 1/6 Political Prisoner, and Sword-Wielding Ninja Trains With Special Ops
Victory Girls: Eco-Terrorist Confirmed As BLM Director, also, Rand Paul Humiliates HHS Secretary Becerra On COVID
Volokh Conspiracy: Does The Supreme Court’s Declining Popularity Matter?
Weasel Zippers: Biden’s Education Secretary Echoes McAuliffe – Parents Shouldn’t Be Primary Stakeholders In Kids’ Schooling, also, College Prof Turned CDC Chief Overrules Own Scientists, Recommends Jab Boosters
The Federalist: First Workers, Now Blacks – Democrat Betrayals For Big Business Are Piling Up, also, Debunking The 1619 Project Reveals The Difference Between History & Propaganda
Mark Steyn: We Have Met The Enemy, Part XXII

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 09.30.21

Posted on | September 30, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.30.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Cognitive dissonance

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Another Fake Hate Crime
EBL: The Largest Ostrich Subspecies Is Victim Of Good Intentions
Twitchy: Eric Swalwell Claims “Every Poll” Shows Americans Support Biden’s #BuildBackBetter, Gets Rekt, also, “NOT A Republican Vs. Democrat Thing”- Thread Goes into Detail About How Bad Government Is At Everything
Louder With Crowder: Biden Booed At Congressional Baseball Game – May Have Been By Own Party
Vox Popoli: Welcome To The Unvaccinated, Third World People, and The Nurses Know

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Navigating NYC’s COVID Mandates
American Greatness: The Coordinated Attack On Ivermectin Is A Crime Against Humanity, also, Democrat Attack Ad Against DeSantis Backfires Badly
American Power: Inside Biden’s Controversial Decision To Abandon Bagram, also, The Authoritarian Left
American Thinker: The Saladin Paradigm – Finding The “Good” In Islamic Terrorists, also, Choosing Senility Over Substance
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Tax & Spend News
Babalu Blog: Equity In Communist Cuba, also, The Smackdown Heard Across Latin America – Uruguay Puts Cuba In Its Place
BattleSwarm: Matthew Dowd Running Against Dan Patrick For Texas Lieutenant Governor
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, also, A Mars Mesa Carved By Floods & Lava?
Cafe Hayek: Bryan Caplan Pens An Open Letter To University Presidents
CDR Salamander: Words Begat Actions Which Create History, also, Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: The $64,000 In New York, also, My Strategy For Fighting COVID Lockdowns & Mandates
Don Surber: Only 45% Trust Biden On COVID, also, #BLM Increased Black Murders By 2,164 (28%) In 2020
First Street Journal: Feminista Jones Calls out The Philadelphia Inquirer, also, The Lexington Herald-Leader And Photos Of Accused Criminals
Fred On Everything: FDR’s Secret Plea to Hitler
The Geller Report: Manchin Trashes Democrat Spending Bill – “Fiscal Insanity”, also, Marine Who Rescued Baby In Kabul Under Investigation For Appearing With Trump
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, My Upcoming Work Schedule
Hollywood In Toto: Did Joe Rogan Just Become The Media’s Public Enemy #1? also, Why Many Saints Of Newark Is For Sopranos Fans Only
Legal Insurrection: The College Fix Launches New Database To Track Cancel Culture On Campus, also, Legal Scholars Detail The Fight Against CRT In Public Schools
Nebraska Energy Observer: TV Democrats
Outkick: Good News Chicagoans! Now, When You Get Shot, There Are Local Bleed Stations, Farewell To Our Friend Matt Loede, and Paul Finebaum Thinks Clemson’s Dynasty Is Over
Power Line: COVID Morgue RIP, The Manchin Proviso, and How Crazy Are The Democrats? This Crazy
Shark Tank: Byron Donalds – House Spending Bill Is “Not What America Needs”
Shot In The Dark: School Daze, also, You May Ask Yourself
The Political Hat: Corona-Chan Madness In Australia – Door To Door Interrogation, Choking The Maskless, & Firing On Protesters
This Ain’t Hell: Nazi On The Run, Milley Confirms The Most Egregious Part Of Woodward’s Book, and PTR, Kahr, Mossberg…
Transterrestrial Musings: Milley’s Dishing, also, Self-Replicating Protocells
Victory Girls: Border Patrol (But Not Illegals) Faces Jab Mandate, also, Our Supply Chain Is Hanging By A Thread
Volokh Conspiracy: House Votes To Apply Mandatory Draft Registration To Women
Weasel Zippers: “No Need To Dumb This Down”, also, Officials Believe Over 350,000 “Migrants” Heading For Border
The Federalist: How Turning Christianity Into A “Nice People Club” Is Destroying The Church, also, Leftist School Board Association Begs Biden To Target Concerned Parents With Domestic Terrorism Laws
Mark Steyn: Live Around The Planet, also, The Post-Democratic Era

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Identity, Opposition and Hate

Posted on | September 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Identity, Opposition and Hate

The ‘Killing Fields’ of Cambodia

Did you study developmental psychology when you were in college? For a couple of semesters, I changed my major to secondary education — thinking I might become a high school teacher, before realizing I lacked the temperament for it — and one of the courses I took was Childhood Psychology. This provided me a lot of insights on how human personality is developed during childhood, especially identity formation.

This is the crucial question of youth: “Who am I?” If you think of classic teen comedies — Animal House, The Breakfast Club, Mean Girls, etc. — you realize how membership in a particular clique or adolescent subculture is part of the struggle to develop a sense of identity. When I was in high school, had one foot in the nerd subculture (playing trombone in band, etc.) and another foot in hoodlum subculture (smoking dope, etc.). Kids naturally form cliques, and part of what goes on in this adolescent tribalism is defining one’s own identity in opposition to The Other — you’re a Jock because you’re not a Nerd, or you are a Hoodlum because you’re not a Goody Two-Shoes, and so forth.

Because identity is so closely connected to group membership, and defined in opposition to The Other — “I’m a Delta, not an Omega” — this often gives rise to a sense of competitive rivalry inherent to one’s identity. And thus identity may lead to conflict and violence. We can see this, for example, in urban gang warfare — Crips vs. Bloods, or Gangster Disciples vs. Latin Kings — but it also explains, for example, the 1999 Columbine Massacre, where the killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold defined their identities in opposition to the more popular cliques in their high school. Columbine was a typical suburban high school where the football team was a focus of school spirit, and there was also a strong culture of evangelical Christianity, with many kids involved in church youth groups. Harris and Klebold, who were associated with a loosely identified clique of outsiders known as the “Trench Coat Mafia,” hated jocks and cheerleaders and Christians, and their bloody day of vengeance could be seen as a particularly toxic expression of adolescent identity.

This kind of antisocial identity — formed in opposition to the values of one’s community — can be understood as the consequence of psychological alienation, which generally involves the rebellion against (or rejection of) parental role models. Nearly all teenagers, in some way, go through rebellious phases, but for the antisocial personality, this kind of rebellion becomes the basis of identity. In the mind of the antisocial youth, there is a clear binary of values — the parental value system, which they reject, and the polar-opposite values the teenager adopts as an act of rebellion. A famous line from The Wild One comes to mind:

Mildred: “Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?”
Johnny: “What have you got?”

The adolescent rebel lacks the ability to view his situation objectively. His rebellion is driven by emotion, and there is a mindless quality to the destruction that typically ensues — it makes no sense, for example, that a nice suburban kid like Dylan Klebold would become a mass murderer.

All of that is preamble to my main point, which is understanding how these factors play out when identity becomes the basis of politics.

Of course, it is entirely natural and understandable that, for example, farmers care about how government policy may affect agricultural interests, while auto factory workers are concerned with how legislation might help or harm the automobile industry. Likewise, we can understand that women will take a particular interest in issues relating their lives, that racial minorities are focused on issues that affect them, etc. Anyone who has read Federalist No. 10 knows that our system of government was established with the idea of balancing out the various interests of different factions, and far be it from me to deny to anyone the basic right to judge their own interests and to advocate for policies favorable to their interests. That’s just normal politics.

What we call identity politics, however, is something else entirely, involving activism and propaganda intended to incite collective resentment — the victimhood mentality — and to demonize others as perpetrators of oppression. Identity politics is simply organized hatred, and it follows a distinctly destructive pattern of logic.

Anyone who has studied formal logic sees how claims of “systemic racism” incite antisocial attitudes. If racial minorities are universally victimized in a more or less automatic manner — because, it is claimed, “white supremacy” is ubiquitous and omnipotent — then nothing can end this oppression except the destruction of society itself.

Such is the nihilistic syllogism embedded in the work of Ibram X. Kendi, et al., and students of history know where such hateful logic tends to lead: “Year Zero” in Kampuchea under the reign of Pol Pot.

We might also mention in this context Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RLTM), otherwise known as “Radio Genocide” in Rwanda.

What is so infuriating about those who incite this kind of genocidal hatred — the logical consequence of what we call identity politics — is that they do it for mere political advantage, to obtain power by “energizing their base.” That’s what last summer’s Black Lives Matter riots were really about — generating turnout to elect Joe Biden. And yet the “base” which Democrats seek to “energize” this way is so irremediably stupid that many of them actually believe the “social justice” propaganda.

Say hello to Shardé Nabors, Oregon project manager for a Seattle-based activist organization called Social Justice Fund NW. Curious readers may ask, “What sort of ‘social justice’ does Shardé advocate?” And the answer is, the destruction of the United States of America.

“So, earlier this week I made a post saying that it doesn’t sit right with me that there are white people who own property — multiple properties, at that — in the United States of America while black and indigenous people are experiencing homelessness. And I want to expand on that, especially for my new followers who are white, who followed me because of my anti-racist content. I’m glad that you’re listening to me, but I really want to make sure that you’re hearing what I’m saying. There will never be black liberation or indigenous sovereignty as long as the United States of America exists. If you want black folks around the globe and in this country liberated, if you want indigenous folks to be able to have sovereignty over the lands that they’re indigenous to, then the United States of America needs to cease to exist. And I don’t know if y’all are ready for that, I don’t know if that’s what y’all signed up for. I’m not sure if anti-racist work is just something you do to lessen the inconvenience of racism in your life, but I hope you’re ready for this. It’s not for the weak.”

That’s the kind of 501(c)3 tax-exempt “activism” she gets paid for. This is where the logic of the “social justice” narrative leads — hatred and destruction, advocating genocide as the Final Solution.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)




 

Category: Racism

The Fall Harvest of Books

Posted on | September 30, 2021 | Comments Off on The Fall Harvest of Books

— by Wombat-socho

When last we visited the Tonopah town library, I was fortunate enough to find Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files anthology Brief Cases; this time I found a copy of Galaxy: Thirty Years Of Innovative Science Fiction. Essentially a compilation of the various Galaxy Reader anthologies published throughout the 1950s and 60s, with some stories from the 1970s added, this is a good sampler of the kind of SF that Galaxy published until its demise in the late 1970s. Edited by former editor Fred Pohl along with Martin Greenburg and Joseph Olander, this is an all-star collection of stories from the magazine that was founded as a deliberate counterpoint to John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction, and includes short stories by Isaac Asimov, Algis Budrys, Jerome Bixby, Larry Niven, Zenna Henderson, and many other outstanding authors. Out of print, but used copies are widely available for cheap.

Alexis Gilliland is probably better known as a BNF* and cartoonist, but the man could write. In addition to the excellent Rosinante trilogy, he penned a fantasy trilogy about the adventures of the water mage** and (reluctant) adviser to royalty Wizenbeak. W.W. Wizenbeak is originally sent off to the northern wastes to found a farming colony for the kingdom of Guhland, but just as he manages to get things started, a civil war breaks out and he finds himself the target of the vengeful Witchfinder General and protector of the heirs to the throne. Managing to survive this and place his apprentice on the throne as Regent, Wizenbeak finds his troubles have only begun in the sequel, The Shadow Shaia, and they only get worse in the trilogy’s conclusion, Lord of the Troll-Bats.*** Unfortunately, the latter two books aren’t available from Amazon, but you can find them very easily and somewhat inexpensively through Alibris, which a lot of used book stores deal with in preference to Amazon. The flavor of the trilogy is more Three Musketeers than the usual medieval elf & dwarf crap (N.B.: there are no elves or dwarves in the trilogy, but there are dragons) and there’s plenty of political skulduggery if you like that sort of thing, and I strongly recommend it.

Since I’m currently in a protracted struggle with the 1969 major league baseball rosters, it occurs to me that I should recommend a few of my favorite baseball books. starting with Bill James’ New Historical Baseball Abstract. This is a huge mulligan stew of a book, containing snapshots of baseball history through the decades, spiced with sly jokes, amusing and terrifying anecdotes about the players, and pages upon pages of comments about the hundred best players at each position. Since it’s not trying to be the exhaustive reference book that Total Baseball is, the Kindle edition is probably okay, more so if big thick books strain you arms and your bookshelves. Another excellent read from Bill James is Whatever Happened To The Hall Of Fame? Frankly, I liked the original title, The Politics Of Glory, better, but it’s not my book so I don’t get a say. Anyhow, this is a history of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the players elected to it, and how they got there, along with some ways of thinking about what players are likely to go into the Hall, what players probably should have been elected, and quite a few players who arguably don’t belong there but were lucky enough to have friends in the right places. All of the preceding will probably piss people off, along with his comments on the Negro League players (in the Hall and out), but like almost all of Bill’s books, it will make you think. 

There are three newer editions of Jim Bouton’s Ball Four out there, not to mention the sequel I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally, which is mostly about the screams of outrage and other reactions to the original book, which is a fun and funny look at Bouton’s season with the hapless expansion Seattle Pilots and contending Houston Astros in 1969 as a knuckleball pitcher. The great thing about Ball Four, you see, is that Bouton told the truth – he didn’t sugarcoat anything, he didn’t lie, and quite a few people – not all of them his teammates – never forgave him for it. 

There has been very little good baseball fiction, in my opinion. Robert Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association is the kind of self-indulgent mainstream garbage you would expect from a third-rate Professor of Literary Arts at a second-rate Ivy League school, so of course the critics loved it. The UBA is the creation of a miserable accountant who loses himself in a self-invented baseball game and becomes entirely too wrapped up in his fantasies about the imaginary players in the eponymous early 20th-century league. Couldn’t finish it. Bernard Malamud’s The Natural is better, but still a downer with a depressing ending; the movie with Robert Redford is orders of magnitude better. On the other hand, W.P. Kinsella’s The Iowa Baseball Confederacy is arguably better than his better known Shoeless Joe, perhaps because it’s less tied down to reality. A tale of one man’s quest to prove that a 2000-inning game between the 1908 World Champion Chicago Cubs and the amateur players of the I.B.C. actually happened, this surrealistic tale immerses you in the superstitions of the age and takes you on a strange trip into a fantastic world where a good-natured challenge leads to a seemingly endless nightmare – and yet, all ends well, for almost everyone concerned. I was also amused by his story collection Box Socials, which is mostly about small-town semi-pro baseball players and their lives off the diamond. 

*Big Name Fan.
**”Like a civil engineer, except with spells instead of bulldozers,” as one reviewer put it.
***How was this not a Meat Loaf album title? Jim Steinman, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!

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Category: Books

In The Mailbox: 09.29.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | September 29, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.29.21 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

4chan’s solution for obnoxious camgirls

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Of Course There’s A Live Action Cowboy Bebop
EBL: Separated By Karma
Twitchy: The Onion Forgets It Used To Be A Humor Site
Louder With Crowder: Not Just For College Football Any More
Vox Popoli: Convergence Has Its Costs, also, Kneecapping The Tech Giants

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Suffering For Our Sins As A Nation


American Conservative: A Bald Man Loses His Toupee, also, The Most Dangerous Man In America
American Greatness: Kristi Noem Shows Why Republicans Can’t Have Nice Things, also, Top Generals Contradict Biden, Testify He Was Advised Not To Withdraw All Troops From Afghanistan
American Power: LAUSD Shows Sharp Decline In Attendance, also, Stocks Close Sharply Lower As Bond Yields Hover Near Three-Year High
American Thinker: COVID-19 Is The New Global Warming, also, The Case for Optimism
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Spanish Court Asked To Investigate Links Between Cuban Dictatorship & Basque Terrorists, Seventh Player Defects From Cuban National Baseball Team While Playing In Mexico, and Meme Of The Day – Manager of Cuban National Team Waits For His Players
BattleSwarm: Border Crisis Update
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, Government Shutdown Endangers Lucy Asteroid Mission
Cafe Hayek: Fighting Back Against Panic Porn Reporting, also, Choice In Markets & Choice Under Government Compulsion
CDR Salamander: Oh, So The UN Will Make Afghanistan Work?
Da Tech Guy: The Very Best Thread Of COVID I Have Read, also, How Can People Continue To Be Shocked At Democrat Marxists Acting Like…Marxists?
Don Surber: Lies They Told Us About COVID, If Navel-Gazing Were An Olympic Sport CNN Would Be The Dream Team, and Hatriotism
First Street Journal: Judge Emmet Sullivan Needs To Recuse Himself From All 1/6 Cases, also, Biology Is Politically Incorrect
The Geller Report: FL Gov DeSantis Orders Investigation Into Facebook’s Election Law Violations, also, Sen. Tom Cotton Makes General Milley Squirm – “Why Haven’t You Resigned?”
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day, also, An Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxy
Hollywood In Toto: Why Ghost World Is One Of The Best Comic-Book Movies Ever, also, (Mostly) Woke-Free Bond Sparks No Time To Die
The Lid: We’re On The Verge Of The Greatest Shortage Of Healthcare Workers In American History
Legal Insurrection: Despite Local Pushback, Obama Breaks Ground On “Presidential Center” In Chicago, Poll Finds Majority Of Jewish Students Feel Unsafe On Campus, and UCLA Prof Sues After Suspension And Smears For Refusing To Provide Preferential Exam Treatment For Black Students
Nebraska Energy Observer: Not Fear Mongering
Outkick: Bears Sign Agreement For Arlington Park Property – Exit From Soldier Field Looms, Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin Fires Back At ESPN’s Michael Wilbon For Calling Him “A Clown” & “An Embarrassment”, and Katie Nolan Done At ESPN
Power Line: Hispanics Hate Biden, also, Break On Through (To The Other Side)
Shark Tank: Scott Says Biden’s Foreign Policy Is “To Leave Americans Behind”
Shot In The Dark: Point Of Light, Coming Soon To A DFL Meeting Near You, and Watching The Tectonic Plates Shift
STUMP: Revisualizing The Financial State Of The States, 2021 Edition
The Political Hat: Open Advocacy Of Eco-Terrorism
This Ain’t Hell: Wednesday FGS, Last Marine WSOs Get Their Wings, and Generals Testify To Congress That POTUS Lied
Transterrestrial Musings: Facebook, The “Space Cowboys”, and Early Voting In Virginia
Victory Girls: Terry McAuliffe Thinks Parents Should Have No Say In What Schools Teach
Volokh Conspiracy: Today In Supreme Court History
Weasel Zippers: VA Governor’s Race Is A Dumpster Fire, NY Dem Gov – God Wants You To Get Vaccinated, also, Texas Troopers Arrest Thousands Of Illegals, Democrats Big Mad
The Federalist: Kash Patel, The Trump Staffer Who Exposed The Russia Hoax, Aims New Fire At The Deep State, also, Pelosi Echoes White House Lie That Democrats’ Spending Spree Costs “Zero”
Mark Steyn: Gender-Neutral Human Sacrifices, also, The Decoupling Party

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In The Mailbox: 09.29.21 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | September 29, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 09.29.21 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Vox Day notwithstanding

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: Quick Takes
357 Magnum: Women & Minorities Embrace Self-Defense – Leftist Stereotypes Hardest Hit
Ninety Mils From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1490
EBL: Whip It
Twitchy: Terry McAuliffe’s Comments On Who Shouldn’t Have A Say In What Schools Teach “Should Frighten Every Parent” 
Louder With Crowder: Pelosi’s Brain Turns To Mush, Forgets Who’s President, Says They’ll be Voting On The Obama Agenda This Week
Vox Popoli: The End Of Avoidance, also, And Which God Is That?
Gab News: Building Technology To Power A Parallel Christian Society

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Death of Doctors, also, Do Not Succumb To The Black Pill
American Conservative: Why Aren’t Men Going To College? also, It Looks Like We Forgot
American Greatness: Democrats Repeat The Mistakes Of 2016, also, Marine Officer Who Demanded Accountability From Pentagon Leaders Thrown In Brig
American Power: Red China Plays Hardball To Get Back Arrested Executive, also, Krysten Sinema – The Enigma At The Center Of Democrats’ Spending Talks
American Thinker: Does Biden Believe That Laws Should Only Be Observed Selectively?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Dog Trade News
Babalu Blog: Dissident Cuban Artist Forced Into Exile In Poland Speaks To Press, also, Cuba’s Socialist Revolution – Over 70% Of Families Must Survive On Less Than $4/Day
BattleSwarm: What If There Was An Austin Shootout & Nobody Noticed? also, Supply Chain Disruption Update
Behind The Black: Red Chinese Long March 3B Successfully Launches Satellite – Which Immediately Fails, UK’s New Comprehensive Space Strategy – Develop A Robust Private Sector, and Today’s Blacklisted Americans
Cafe Hayek: Asking “Why Don’t You Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is?” Is A Test Of Legitimacy
Da Tech Guy: Report From Louisiana – Bouncing Back After Ida, Musings About 7-0, and I’m Old Enough To Remember
Don Surber: 54% Of Black Parents Want CRT Removed, also, We’re Preparing To Bomb The Hell Out Of Afghanistan
First Street Journal: Killadelphia Passes The 400 Mark, also, Another Capitol Kerfluffler Pleads Guilty
The Geller Report: Sports Fans Aren’t The Only Ones Ramping Up The “F*** Joe Biden” Chants, also, Trucker Blockade Developing, Ohio Highway Patrol On Notice
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Moving Back To The Third World?
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The Lid: NY Governor Hochul Says God Wants Us To Get The Jab – Did They Talk On The Phone?
Legal Insurrection: Legal Insurrection Now On Telegram, also, McKenzie, Milley, & Austin All Confirm Biden Received Recommendation To Leave 2500 Troops In Afghanistan
Michelle Malkin: What Every Parent Must Know About Pfizer
Nebraska Energy Observer: Manhood & The Green Knight, also, Lupus Tenebrosus, Chapter 8
Outkick: NBA Players Continue To Reject League’s Jab Mandate, Dez Bryant Blasts Colin Kaepernick For Creating Awareness But Doing Nothing, and Sexual Assault Charges Against Don Lemon Finally Going To Court
Power Line: Joe Biden’s Free Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner, Chamber Of Commerce Tries To Rein In Democrats It Endorsed, and New Frontiers In The Whopper
Shark Tank: Mucarsel-Powell Endorses Janelle Perez For Congress
Shot In The Dark: Prophets Of Manufactured Rage, also, When Reality Is Absurd, Parody Is Impossible
The Political Hat: Adoption Is Racist Now
This Ain’t Hell: Marine LTC Who Went Viral Speaking Against Biden’s Bugout Arrested, Tuesday FGS, and Update On Slapped Sailor Incident
Transterrestrial Musings: Biden’s World
Victory Girls: Democrats Sending Country Off A Fiscal Cliff, Republicans Finally Unite
Volokh Conspiracy: City-Organized Veterans’ Parade Can Exclude Confederate Flags
Weasel Zippers: WH Defends Biden Banning Horse Patrols Based On Lies, also, Autistic Green Jesus Babbles 
The Federalist: The Texas Heartbeat Act Is Saving 100 Babies Every Single Day, Americans Are Done With Biden’s Pandemic Incompetence, and Media Outlets That Called Hunter Biden Laptop Russian Disinformation Ignore Confirmation It Was Real
Mark Steyn: A Greasepaint Medley, also, Lost In Translation

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Category: Linkagery

‘The Negro Problem,’ Then and Now

Posted on | September 28, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘The Negro Problem,’ Then and Now

For about four decades, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (1841-1906) was among the leading professors of science at Harvard University. In 1884, Professor Shaler published in The Atlantic Monthly a lengthy article entitled “The Negro Problem,” which begins with this paragraph:

When the civil war determined by its result the political position of the black people in the Southern States, there was a general belief among their friends that the race had thereby received a complete enfranchisement as American citizens; that they were made free to all our national inheritances; that all the problems of their future involved only questions of a detached nature — such slight matters as their rights in hotels and railways, in fields of labor, or at the polling booths. But those who by their eagerness to bid the negro welcome to his new place in the state did so much credit to the spirit of hope and friendship of our time could not see the gravity of this problem. Never before in the history of peoples had so grave an experiment been tried as was then set about with a joyous confidence of success. Only their great military triumph could have given to our hard-minded, practical people such rash confidence. Here, on the one hand, was a people, whose written history shows that the way to the self-government on which alone a state can be founded is through slowly and toilfully gained lessons, handed from father to son — lessons learned on hard tilled and often hard fought fields. The least knowledge of the way in which their own position in the world had been won would have made it clear that such a national character as theirs could be formed only by marvelous toil of generations after generations, and an almost equally marvelous good fortune that brought fruit to their labor. There, on the other hand, was a folk, bred first in a savagery that had never been broken by the least effort towards a higher state, and then in a slavery that tended almost as little to fit them for a place in the structure of a self-controlling society. Surely, the effort to blend these two peoples by a proclamation and a constitutional amendment will sound strangely in the time to come, when men see that they are what their fathers have made them, and that resolutions cannot help this rooted nature of man. . . .

You may read the rest, and I suppose both the current editors of The Atlantic and the current leadership of Harvard University would vehemently disavow the entirety of Professor Shaler’s arguments. Nevertheless it is always helpful, in studying the origins of social problems, to consult in the original text the opinions of our predecessors, rather than to rely on modern interlocutors to summarize or interpret those views. One of the problems with the teaching of history nowadays is that most students just absorb the Cliff Notes summary of the past — reading only whatever is assigned, as necessary to obtain the desired grade — and thus we have millions of “educated” Americans who are almost entirely ignorant of vast amounts of history, despite having gotten A’s in the subject, even at our most prestigious universities.

Professor Glenn Reynolds today calls attention to a dispute between Princeton Professor Sean Wilentz and Nikole Hannah-Jones of the infamous “1619 Project.” The latter’s authorial purpose was to impugn the United State, per se and in toto, as hopelessly stained by “white supremacy.” Wilentz’s criticism is that Hannah-Jones goes too far — indeed, she goes so far as to completely outrace the historical evidence, which does not support her outlandish claim that our War of Independence was waged to prevent a threat to slavery from the British homeland (a fictitious threat that Hannah-Jones manufactures from whole cloth, a threat which the Patriots in such places as Vermont and Massachusetts certainly never mentioned). Wilentz is correct in this. However, I would argue that the real issue is not that Hannah-Jones goes too far, but rather that she is going in the wrong direction.

Hannah-Jones’s argument is wrong because her intentions are wicked — motivated by a hatred of America which is, in turn, informed by a hatred of white people (never mind or, at least, leave to examination by psychoanalysts, the fact that her own mother is white). Hannah-Jones began her project with an anti-American (and anti-white) agenda, and having made hatred the premise of her argument, everything else followed logically. Wilentz speaks of Hannah-Jones’s argument as exhibiting such “perversity” that, if it were submitted as a high school history paper, would automatically receive an “F” grade.

It can be easily demonstrated that Hannah-Jones is factually wrong about America, but why and how did she get it so wrong? And the answer is that her hateful purpose led her into these errors. She is wrong because she wants to judge the America of 1619-1776 by a standard of radical egalitarianism by which our forefathers are condemned as racists, and never mind that the word “racist” did not even exist at the time.

Anyone familiar with the history of England would see, in the Patriot cause of 1776, a sentiment that can be traced back through the Whig cause in the Glorious Revolution — principles delineated by John Locke — and further to the Parliamentary cause as exemplified by the heroic figures of Algernon Sidney and John Hampden, among others.

What the Patriots believed was that the home government was denying to them the rights which their English ancestors had fought so hard to obtain. Even while proclaiming it to be a “self-evident” truth that “all men” were “endowed by their Creator” with these rights, the signers of the Declaration were aware that such rights were not recognized in most of Europe, to say nothing of the lack of recognition of these “self-evident” rights in more remote regions of the globe. But I digress . . .

What is important is that we try to see the past as it actually was, rather than trying to impose our moralistic views on the past, in order to congratulate ourselves on our superiority to dead men who are not here to defend themselves against our accusations of “racism,” etc.

Read the original texts, let dead men speak in their own voices, and you’ll learn a lot more than you can from any tendentious intellectual presuming to interpret (and usually, to condemn) the motives of historic figures. For example, Ibram X. Kendi, author of the popular BLM/CRT diatribe How to Be an Anti-Racist, previously published Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (2016). In the process of explaining how he got the title of his first book, Kendi linked an online text of The Congressional Record from April 1860. What he meant to call attention to was the “Racist Ideas” of one of the senators who was participating in that debate. There was a proposal to use federal funds for public schools in the District of Columbia, a measure that the Senator opposed. But someone (and I haven’t gone through the entire legislative history of that bill) then amended the legislation to specify that the proposed public schools would be for both white and black children.

Here is an excerpt from the Senator’s remarks:

“Mr. President, the propositions, both the main one contained in the bill and that contained in the amendment, I think, rest on two fundamental errors: in the first place, that our Government was instituted for eleemosynary purposes, and in the next place, that it was instituted for a mixed race. This Government was not founded by negroes nor for negroes, but by white men for white men. It was not founded for eleemosynary purposes, but as an agent of the States; and there is no right to take one dollar from the Treasury to appropriate it to public schools. . . .
“The errors are fundamental on which the bill rests; and these errors have been developed by the alliance which it has brought from the other side, developing, as a consequence of the very proposition, this controversy as to the rights of whites, and the equality of the negroes. I do not choose to argue with any one who thinks proper to assert the equality of the negro and the white man. The man who makes the assertion may prove to me his equality with the negro. He proves to me no more; and I accept his argument only for so much.” [Emphasis added.]
— Sen. Jefferson Davis, April 12, 1860

The highlighted sentence, you see, is offered by Davis as a statement of fact — the same fact that Chief Justice Roger Taney expressed in the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision. So far as I am aware, no one has ever provided evidence that Justice Taney and Senator Davis were wrong about this. Examine the writings of the Founding Fathers and see if you can find anything indicating that they desired or intended (or even imagined in their wildest dreams) a future in which the descendants of African slaves would obtain, en masse, full political equality with whites.

What has happened, you see, is that most Americans have been taught our own history in such a way that they don’t even recognize the importance of something that was apparent to Professor Shaler in 1884 when he spoke of the “experiment” that necessarily followed emancipation.

If we experience difficulties — political, social and economic — as a result of trying to integrate such diverse people into a single body politic, this should not cause surprise or dismay, simply because no one else anywhere has ever attempted anything remotely like it. Well, yes, you can speak of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as an experiment in “diversity,” but how did that work out? Our problem in America, I suggest, is that our expectations are too high, that we have been encouraged to think it should be easy to arrive at some utopian ideal of Equality (with a capital “E,” denoting its religious significance to liberals).

Utilized as a weapon by dishonest partisan agitators, “Equality” tends to make people unhappy, to cause resentment and suspicion — those evil rich people are exploiting us, we are told, as we sit in our air-conditioned homes with high-speed Internet connections and giant flat-screen TVs. It’s not just racial hatred that is incited by these “Equality” agitators, but every imaginable species of hatred, fear and envy.

We must live in reality, rather than in our political fantasies of an ideal condition of “Equality” that, so far as I know, has never existed anywhere at any time in all of human history. This utopian fantasy is harmful in that it breeds irrational discontentment, no matter how objectively splendid our actual circumstances may be. Some of the most bitter people in America are rich liberals whose affluent lifestyles would have been unimaginable to their grandparents or more remote ancestors. My own grandfather plowed the red clay hills of east Alabama behind a mule team. He had no indoor plumbing or electricity or central heat. Rather than make myself miserable by comparing my situation to that of Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, I prefer to make myself happy by thinking how much easier my life is than that of my grandfather. Right now, I’m drinking a fruit smoothie and eating a meal I warmed up in the microwave, while preparing to hit the “publish” button and communicate with a readership of thousands. What have I got to complain about, if I pause to compare my situation to my grandfather’s life in rural Alabama?

Couldn’t the same be said for Nikole Hannah-Jones? She’s employed by the most influential newspaper in the world, yet it seems she’s made herself miserable by dwelling upon her alleged oppression.

“The errors are fundamental,” as Jefferson Davis said, and I don’t think Nikole Hannah-Jones is doing much to prove Davis wrong.

But “I do not choose to argue,” et cetera.




 

Category: History, Intellectuals, New York Times, Racism
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