"The enormous advances in genome studies have effectively discredited the whole idea of "race" as a means of categorizing humans. And however ethnicity may be defined or subdivided, it is utterly unscientific and retrograde to confuse it with color. The number of subjective definitions of "racist" is almost infinite but the only objective definition of the word is "one who believes that there are human races.""
Obviously, Hitchens is an ignoramus about genome studies. It's fascinating how Hitch, America's most famous atheist, has made a tenet of religious faith out of a scientific theory -- and a wrong scientific theory, at that! As a G.K. Chesterton scholar summarized, when a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing, he believes in anything.
Moreover, this is revealing for the lack of self-awareness that political correctness induces. Hitchens is America's most famous atheist and used to call himself, in his cups, "the world's biggest anti-Semite," yet his entire life was turned inside out -- to the point that he now drops by synagogues -- when he discovered his mother was part-Jewish. Hitchens' own life betrays the falsity of Hitchens' theory.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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129 comments:
Understanding why and how race exists is really quite simple. Giant desert? Virtually impassable mountain range? Giant sheet of frozen tundra? Ocean? What a remarkable coincidence that every barrier between races coincides with one or more of these geographical barriers. Sure, people occasionally get through, so occasionally the races will mix - but not in any proportion to the overall population size.
Duh Steve you don't get it.
And Hitch does but won't say it.
Hitch having even partial Jewish ancestry would make him in the "one drop" rule "a Jew" which had some fairly bad consequences circa 1933-45.
The central lesson of the Holocaust was that it didn't matter even if a guy was like Hitch, the most distant Jewish heritage. He'd still end up in a death camp, sent there by French or Dutch or Polish or Greek neighbors. Let alone German ones. Nothing else mattered BUT race.
And it's the Holocaust legacy that colors reasonable, rational discussion of race (people are afraid) and why Hitch mouths PC platitudes.
Yeah Hitch is wrong. But I get why he mouths the cant.
Someone should send Christopher Hitchens the link to the "Ancestry by DNA" testing company website.
http://www.ancestrybydna.com/welcome/
And another to their FAQ:
http://www.ancestrybydna.com/welcome/faq/#q1
For a mere 250$ we can get our autosomal DNA classified into various racial categories.
Hitch can write all he wants about getting over race, gender and ethnicity. But mass immigration only serves to make it more relevant, not less. People are simply more inclined to think about it, even subcosnciously, when they're worrying that they're being displaced.
Ten years ago, before I had really grasped the consequences of our current immigration policies, I would've had no problem at all voting for a Chinaman, an Indian, or a Hispanic. All else equal, I would've been thrilled to do so, in fact. Nowadays I'd scarcely consider it, because all the time I worried about their attitudes towards immigration.
And I do think its somewhat ironic that as we talk about all the ceilings being broken that the 4 leading presidential contenders are folks with the surnames Romney, Rodham, Huckabee, and McCain - every last one of them from the dear old Isles. Even the half of Obama that is white is British white.
Actually, for whatever it's worth, Hitchens is less Jewish by ancestry than was Hitler's best general, Erich von Mannstein.
Hitchens' neoconism is tied up with all sorts of harrowing emotions going back to his childhood rivalry with his younger brother Peter and his mother's subsequent suicide.
The nuremberg laws weren't based on the one drop rule. For example, people who were 1/4th jewish were required to dilute it into the "aryan" population (they were forbidden from marrying fellow 1/4 or 1/2 jews ). I'm willing to bet that they were less strict about black african ancestry than many US states . Only in organisations like the SS did the nazis really go very deep into the genealogical trees in search of jews, for some occultish kind of reasons i think (religion of the blood etc). I'm willing to bet that the 15th century spanish, with their concept of limpieza de sangre, were stricter than the nazis about this .
Such a trifling piece by Hitchens, and the WSJ published it? Oh, how the mighty have fallen...
I'm not sure that the notion that von Mannstein was part Jewish is correct. At least, I've never seen a definitive source. What's yours?
For a high ranking Nazi officer who definitely was, try Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch.
And, when it came to turning a blind eye, even Hitler had his exceptions.
I hate to say it but Hitchens' British accent is what makes him a pundit in this country. He can speak with great authority on any and all topics without fear of being challenged. Why this persists I don't know. I've tried explaining it to Brits who assured me they had lower class accents. But to American ears, they're all posh graduates of Cambridge or Oxford and we're just grateful they come here to bestow their wisdom on us. (Oh, I see Hitchens attended both illustrious institutions.)
Thank you, Christopher, for ministering the socialist gospel to your ignorant American country bumpkin cousins. England's loss is our gain. Of course in the UK, they're all more thoroughly indoc, er, more highly evolved so have much less need of you.
What is this “one drop” rule for Jews within the Third Reich? Hollywood movies and the History Channel are entertainment, not really history.
The Nuremberg Laws defined a Jew as someone who (a) had 3 of 4 Jewish grandparents regardless of religious affiliation or self-identification or (b) had 2 Jewish grandparents and either practiced Judaism or was married to another Jew.
Anyone else was considered a Mischlings (or mixed, half-breed). Some famous Mischlings:
• the future federal chancellor Helmut Schmidt, 2nd degree Mischling
• Kriegsmarine captain Bernhard Rogge, 2nd degree Mischling
• Wehrmacht soldier and Nazi model Werner Goldberg, 1st-degree Mischling
• Luftwaffe builder Erhard Milch (Jewish father and Christian mother, 1st degree Mischling) reclassified as Aryan by Adolf Hitler.
• Luftwaffe general Helmut Wilberg, 1st degree Mischling and declared Aryan in 1935 by Hitler.
• last rank general Johannes Zukertort, 1st degree Mischling receiving the German Blood Certificate.
• Colonel Walter H. Hollaender, 1st degree Mischling receiving the German Blood Certificate.
• Commander Paul Ascher, 1st degree Mischling receiving the German Blood Certificate.
• Iron Cross-awarded soldier Horst Geitner, 1st degree Mischling
Someone like Hitch, if he was ambitious to rise within the Reich, would've probably done quite well for himself given his talents. He has so little Jewish blood he would be taken as a full on master race Aryan.
Big John,
Right, the historical record is vague on whether von Manstein had a significant fraction of Jewish ancestry. He seemed to think that might be true, but his son doesn't seem to think so.
Why is anyone suprised that a neo-Trotskyite like Hitchens, who supports world-wide revolution (that is "making the world safe for democracy with the American military) wants all humanity to be united under a single banner and dismisses any notions of disparate racial and national characters?
He is ideologically consitent, thus why he would also be "open-borders" like the rest of the neo-cons are. They didn't go anywhere folks, the reassembled under a different banner.
Hitler had a number of part Jewish generals and officers, but I don’t think Erich von Manstein was one of them. I think you’re thinking of Field Marshal Erhard Milch who Hitler personally selected. Milch was also the Air Inspector General and his mismanagement of airplane production were key to the loss of German air superiority (5,000 Nazi vs 40,000 Soviet in 1942). The Allied officer he surrendered to broke Milch’s Field Marshal baton over his head because of what he saw at Bergen-Belson.
Using newly opened archives and reexamining old evidence, historian Bryan Mark Rigg estimates as many as 150,000 part-Jewish Mischlinge served as soldiers, sailors and airmen for Nazi Germany.
I think there was even for a time speculation that Hitler's convoluted Nuremberg laws left a loophole on the maternal (or paternal, I don't remember) grandparent side because of his own uncertain heritage.
That's from John Toland's biography of the Corporal.
Hitch's definition, borrowed from a Soc 101 textbook, shows how upside down everything is. I thought it was bad to, you know, to hate people, to want them to suffer, to want them dead. It turns out that what's really evil is to take one particular scientific view over another. "Gasp! He's a monster. He believes in PHLOGISTON!!!"
Hitchens doens't know what he's talking about. The recent Witherspoon et al. paper from the Jorde lab demonstrated that, with ~ 1000 + markers studied, there is ~ ZERO genetic overlap between members of the major continental races.
William -
I would've had no problem at all voting for a Chinaman, an Indian, or a Hispanic.
The chinaman is not the issue here!
Also, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian american, please...
Von Manstein's supposed Jewish ancestry is myth. His birth name (Lewinski) obviously made people do a double take before 1998, and after 1998, a triple take. But the Jewish-sounding quality of Lewinski is just a coincidence: his birth parents were absolutely pure-bred Prussian aristocracy who could accurately trace their lines without a hint of non-blue blood, let alone non-Gentile blood, back to the Teutonic Knights. Other commenters have noted that other Feldmarschalls like Milch were not so certain.
It's a little like the case of the film director Norman Jewison. He's got that name, he makes films with liberal viewpoints (Heat of the Night, The Hurricane) and he directed Fiddler on the Roof. He *must* be Jewish, right?
But he's actually a Canadian of purely gentile Magyar (Hungarian) descent. The name is just coincidental.
The first time Hitchens appeared on my radar screen, live so to speak, was on one of the McLaughlin shows in the late 1980s or early 1990s. He was retailing some bromides about the class struggle as applied to Republican budget plans and complained that aid to the Metroliner that runs between New York and Washington was being cut, and it was poor people who rode the train while rich people could drive between the two cities.
Uh?
It took me a second to realize that Hitchens was probably generalizing about a country he had already lived in for a number of years from his childhood memories of England in the 1950s and 1960s, where it really was low-income people who used public transportation, including trains, because these were heavily subsidized and they ran just about everywhere, while only the better off could afford to drive cars, which need highly taxed gasoline and also places to park, which were generally unavailable in places the poor lived and worked.
The American situation, at least on the New York-Washington corridor, is the reverse. It is upper-income people who take the train because it only runs city center to city center, and only well-off people live or work in Manhattan and downtown Washington. People of moderate incomes pile four or five family members in cars and drive the long, boring route up I95 and the Jersey Turnpike between the two ties.
And I wondered. Hitchens had undoubtedly traveled between the two cities frequently. Hadn't he noticed this rather large departure from his childhood memories displayed by the class divisions in American transportation? I figured he must have taken the Delta Shuttle on his forays to Washington, paid for by some naïve publisher, or gotten onto the Metroliner so hung over he had not noticed who he was riding with.
I don't understand the people that are 500% politically correct all the time. William above said that he would hesitate now to vote for a person of a different background than his. I think that he realized, as I have, that just because you are politically correct doesn't mean that anybody else is. All peoples have their own self interest in mind first. No matter how much you wish that the whole world will be a beautiful place where we all get along, it just is not so. This is not the White man's fault this is true among all people. Just pretending that there are no races doesn't make it so!
"As a G.K. Chesterton scholar summarized, when a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing, he believes in anything."
Nice slogan. Care to actually argue your case?
Hitchens' fatal flaw is the need to morally grandstand on every subject, so that the opposing view is not just wrong but evil, twisted, and inhuman. Thus it is not enough to disagree with someone's views about race and ethnicity, they must be evil, lying racists--objectively!--and no quarter be spared in ejecting them from polite company.
But the distinction between someone like Hitchens and someone better educated about genes and race like, say, Robert Wright, is mainly one of bellicosity of rhetoric. The will to believe what one wants to believe is as intense in their hearts as it is in any Christian Scientist or Jehovah's Witness.
Also I suspect Hitchens was gleeful at the news that he had some distant Jewish ancestor (he brings it up every chance he gets).
Besides the ignorant line about "genome studies," it's otherwise a pretty good op-ed piece.
"the plain fact about the senator from New York is surely that she is a known quantity who has already been in the White House purely as the result of a relationship with a man, and not at all a quixotic outsider who represents the aspirations of an "out" group, let alone a whole sex or gender."
That's an interesting perspective.
I guess a sexist is one who believes different human sexes exist, right?
The title of Hitchens' piece is "The Perils of Identity Politics," which really means "The Perils of 'Whites Having An Identity as Whites' Politics." Hitch's Trottism proves that when religion is kicked out the front door, it often sneaks in the back. Hitchens and Dawkins seem far more religious to me than most theists, and far more irrational too.
for god's sakes, guys. the article is called the perils of identity politics! his main point is that we should treat obama's race and hillary's gender like we treat giuliani's italianness - it shouldn't matter. this seems perfectly sailerite 'citizenist' to me.
he has one ignorant paragraph about race, and an embarrassing aside about how he heroically refuses to say which race he is on the census, though it breaks the law. but this is the hitch. galactic self-regard is part of the big, sweaty drunk package.
(also, for those 'jewish is destiny' folks: hitch once wrote a book with edward said about palestinians called 'blaming the victims'. although i believe he wrote this before he knew he was jewish, to my knowledge he has never disavowed this book, or changed his position on israel at all.)
"Ten years ago, before I had really grasped the consequences of our current immigration policies, I would've had no problem at all voting for a Chinaman, an Indian, or a Hispanic. All else equal, I would've been thrilled to do so, in fact. Nowadays I'd scarcely consider it, because all the time I worried about their attitudes towards immigration."
This is how I view the matter as well.
"Ten years ago, before I had really grasped the consequences of our current immigration policies, I would've had no problem at all voting for a Chinaman, an Indian, or a Hispanic. All else equal, I would've been thrilled to do so, in fact. Nowadays I'd scarcely consider it, because all the time I worried about their attitudes towards immigration."
Same white supremacy attitudes that isolate the HBD community from the rest of the intellectuals out there. Judge people on their IQ, character, or policies. NOT their race. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Anyway, it would be supremely unfair to denigrate all atheists just because Hitchens, an atheist, parrots what virtually the entire American left believes. Dawkins, also a hardcore atheist, has been instrumental in putting forward theories of evolutionary psychology that conflict with liberal blank-slate ideology.
Hitchens wrote a beautiful piece here on his conflicting feelings about advocating the Iraq war. Check it out. Hitchens may be a crazy neocon, but he's far better than most of the current Republican party pundits.
Johnson,
It isn't white supremacy, more like white wariness. I agree to an extent with the original poster. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to vote for, say, a Hispanic president. Today, however, that Hispanic president would have to go out of his way to allay my fears on immigration by saying something along the lines of, "Yes, I'm Hispanic, but I'm an American first, and I'm not going to grant amnesty to Hispanics just because they are Hispanic, any more than an Italian-American candidate would grant amnesty to mob bosses just because they are Italian." Once he said that, though, and if he seemed sincere (and was the best candidate) I would have no problem voting for such a candidate though.
People can and do put their American identity above their ethnic identity, but it's not expected of them the way it used to be, particularly not among minorities. So I think a little wariness is justified.
Then again, Bush was a WASP and look where that got us!
I work as a data analyst at a major cancer clinic. In most of the reports that I pull on cancer statistics race is a factor in who gets what type of cancer. Cancer is a genetic disease and in most areas of cancer research, race is is one factor used to screen who gets what type of cancer. For example, being of African descent is a risk factor in Prostate Cancer. If we are to pretend that race does not exist do we now just say that people with dark skin have a higher risk of Prostate Cancer? What about people from India who may have skin as dark as people of African descent? Since they do not have the same risk how do we exclude them? Since it is well documented that genetic background plays a part in cancer, whether it is family or nationality or overall race wouldn't it be easier to aknowledge that race does exist? How do liberals like Christopher Hitchens celebrate diversity and at the same time announce that it does not exist?
Very likely Hitch's personality was shaped by his childhood environment, but what people don't get is the impact of the Holocaust. It's essentially the one-drop rule. Some connected higher-ups concealed their Jewish ancestry well, but ordinary people in nation after nation were rounded up by their neighbors to the death camps.
Only Italy, Denmark, and Bulgaria seemed immune from this. It didn't matter if someone with a Jewish grandparent had an Iron Cross personally awarded by the Kaiser, or fought for France in WWI, or whatever.
In the back of Hitch's mind must be the idea "hey *I* could be sent to the gas chambers" and Ahmadnutjob ranting on about "exterminating the Jews" constantly has to be scary. Given Iran's habit of bombing Jews into pieces in places like Argentina.
Hitch is not wrong to be scared about talking about race. Historically, it didn't matter if you were atheist, Catholic, Protestant, whatever. If you had "enough" Jewish ancestry and lacked heavy-weight connections you ended up in Auschwitz. That's close enough to the "one-drop" rule to be without any significant distinction.
And for Muslims and Leftists it's the same. Wheelchair bound American Jew Leon Klinghoffer's murder on the Achille Lauro is pretty much what the future holds. It tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully.
"Judge people on their IQ, character, or policies. NOT their race. That's not too much to ask, is it?"
They would have to make very explicit statements opposed to all the different forms of immigration. I might consider voting for George Borjas, for instance, just as a hypothetical example.
When the people I identify with are being displaced on such a massive scale around the world I find it tiresome to have to keep repeating the PC mantras.
I do not want more immigration because I do not identify with people from other countries and ethnic groups. Non-whites by and large do want more immigration because they identify with non-whites. They also vote for their own kind out of ethnic loyalty.
Dear Chrissy is an asshole. His brother is much more sensible. Please keep him - we don't want him back.
Just to clarify my previous comment, I do identify somewhat with whites in Europe, etc., but they are not the ones who are immigrating in large numbers to the U.S., currently.
If there were millions of Europeans coming here, I would be concerned as well, just as many in Britain are concerned about the influx of Eastern Europeans.
It is all relative. If whites became a minority in the U.S., and if it happened (extremely unlikely) that Europe had a huge surplus white population, then I might welcome immigration from Europe. The point is that whites are being made to think that they aren't entitled to ethnic loyalty, and the current demographic displacement taking place is one of the consequences.
This isn't about character or IQ. It isn't even about right and wrong. It is about a group of people having the will to survive, in the sense of having descendents and being able to pass on something of value to their descendents.
johnson instructs:
Same white supremacy attitudes that isolate the HBD community from the rest of the intellectuals out there. Judge people on their IQ, character, or policies. NOT their race. That's not too much to ask, is it?
Yes, it is. The "same white supremacy attitudes" created America and might -- might -- rescue it if they're re-adopted in time. As you'd know if you pulled your head out of your ideology, IQ, character and policies are closely connected with race. I'd bet race is closely connected with your own "policies," either because you have some ethnic agenda or because, as a white, you're susceptible to the universalism preached by people who are often very far from universalist in private.
R.I.P. Bobby Fischer
Since Hitchens has proved that races don't exist, I suppose he might want to have himself tested for sickle-cell anemia. After all, he's at as much risk of the disease as anyone else on this planet. Fortunately, he is no more at risk of being a carrier of Tay-Sachs trait than anyone else on this planet.
Races exists.
Babies don't come out randomly. They have their parents' race
Anon
Enough with the “one drop” of Jewish blood as an express ticket to a Nazi concentration camp. It’s simply not true as has been documented here by the Nazi’s own Nuremberg Laws which codified exactly who is a German and who is a Jew. This fact was reflected in many notable Nazi Jewish Mischling including a Field Marshal and future Chancellor along with 150,000 Mischling who served in the Nazi armed forces.
What is disturbing about your ranting paranoia is that I’ve met other Jews who actually fear similar persecution even in today’s world. It's astounding.
If Jews today are so powerful to be the one special group that can’t be criticized or portrayed negatively in mass media and they *still* worry about imaginary Nazis under their beds at night there will never be any sanity.
This isn't about character or IQ. It isn't even about right and wrong. It is about a group of people having the will to survive, in the sense of having descendents and being able to pass on something of value to their descendents.
As you'd know if you pulled your head out of your ideology, IQ, character and policies are closely connected with race. I'd bet race is closely connected with your own "policies," either because you have some ethnic agenda or because, as a white, you're susceptible to the universalism preached by people who are often very far from universalist in private.
Actually the same exact debate happened in a previous Sailer post. I'm Indian American, and ONLY identify with American political institutions and ideas. It's not necessarily offensive, but I'm surprised by the idea that white people are the only ones who can integrate into America.
I'd favor this:
1) Have an IQ that makes you a net gain in the US (e.g. put more into the government in taxes than you take in benefits).
2) Renounce other loyalties to your ethnic group or native country
3) Don't be Muslim
And I think with that formula, you will have a very integrable immigrants pool.
The EU has a population of 450 million. China has a population of 1.3 BILLION. If the US wants to remain a superpower and keep the world hospitable to American ideals in a flat world, it has to grow.
I've read Huntington's view of the American identity. He was very explicit in saying that Hispanics and Muslims posed a direct threat to American ideals, but also realized that we're just not going to get large immigrants from the old Protestant nations like we did before. There are countries, though, that can supply people that will integrate well.
Ultimately, my point is that if you oppose immigration because of white ethnic nepotism, you will NEVER gain the support of the left. However, with a more nuanced view that we want good immigrants, regardless of their identity, then the anti Mexican movement will have more traction.
I do not advocate citizenship for people who can't speak English or came here illegally. But I also think that if someone has the IQ and affection for our political ideals that make him easily integrable, then his country of origin shouldn't be an issue.
"Judge people on their IQ, character, or policies. NOT their race. That's not too much to ask, is it?"
For some of the usual commenters here, it is, unfortunately -- even though, as I've argued here before -- they could accomplish much of their political goals without the self-marginalizing racial fixations. For example, an immigration policy favoring those with college degrees would, in practice, screen out 99% of Mexican immigrants. And unlike a race-based immigration policy, one based on skills, education, or other non-racial factors would have at least a chance of making it into law.
To acknowledge that would require a sense of pragmatism and flexibility of thought that many of the soi disant 'white nationalists', and those who share their opinions, apparently lack*.
*Let me anticipate and respond to their objection: they don't advocate a non-racial skills-based immigration policy because they prefer "Euros" to "Chinamen" and other highly skilled non-white groups. Fair enough, if that's what floats your boat, but it's a dogmatic position and one which, since it offends non-whites and non-racist whites (who, together, outnumber you), is doomed to failure. A pragmatic racist would advocate for a skills-based immigration policy as a first step. The de facto effect would stabilize America's white population, since it would exclude many unskilled non-whites. It would buy you more time to convert more whites to your race-based policy.
johnson:
It's not necessarily offensive, but I'm surprised by the idea that white people are the only ones who can integrate into America.
I'm glad you are not offended, but you are extrapolating beyond what I, at least, was saying. The immigration issue is of major concern to me. You say that renouncing loyalty to another country should be one of the criteria for being considered American. When you say that you want immigration to continue, however, I have to suspect that it is at least in part due to identifying with foreigners. So, you may not be loyal to another country, but you probably are still loyal to another nationality. This is a double game that white Americans are not allowed to play because of the accusation of racism. Tell me that you are prepared to advocate for a more or less complete halt to immigration and then I will consider you a true American, because then I will know that your loyalty is truly to the people who were generous enough to allow you to come here. Then please forgive me if I sometimes vote based on ethnic loyalty. If the situation were reversed I think you would understand.
In light of all this discussion of immigration and race, you might want to take a look at my recent data analysis which shows that non-white immigrants in general (not just Mexicans) move this country left--as soon as they get here and even more as they assimilate--and white immigrants lean only slighly to the right. Anyone who hopes to have conservative victories in the future should favor a shutdown of all immigration--or at least the non-white kind.
http://www.inductivist.blogspot.com
"The de facto effect would stabilize America's white population, since it would exclude many unskilled non-whites. It would buy you more time to convert more whites to your race-based policy."
What a bunch of cranky multiculturalists on iSteve tonight. I think the point is that the formerly dominant race in this country has stopped having children. This leaves us at the mercy of whoever the government allows to immigrate in large numbers or whoever decides to populate the US with their offspring. That's when cultural vs racial differences emerge to make you regret your country's open borders policy. You know the burkas, the person who stands 2 inches away from you to have a conversation, the sitar music blaring at 2am, women you have to marry if you make eye contact with them, things that make you feel as if you've been moved to a foreign country in the middle of the night. Get off your high horse, Fred. How many children have you had?
That Hitchens is even raising the subject proves that race exists in fact, regardless of the science, and it is the fact, not the science, that we deal with. For something that doesn't exist, blacks certainly obsess out it, to the exclusion of virtually anything else, in politics, academics, literature, etc. That's what makes black candidates like Obama problematic as national leaders.
Race deniers are ideologues and moral supremacists who employ science programmatically, much as did the Nazis, to advance their own racial agendas (which they also deny exist).
Sorry Steve - Hitch is actually correct on this topic.
Even Spencer Wells (National Geographic) and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza would back him up on this.
"mutt said...
"As a G.K. Chesterton scholar summarized, when a man stops believing in God, he doesn't believe in nothing, he believes in anything."
Nice slogan. Care to actually argue your case?"
It's not a slogan. It's a saying. And it is nice one. Much better than juvenile snarkiness.
It truly is a mad world, when a basic and concrete thing like race, a concept intuitively grasped by everyone as recently as 30 years ago, is now disputed as if it were the conceit of medieval scholars.
Race is who your related to, back to some time antedating recorded history. I think that Steve has given the best concise definition of race: an extended partially-inbred family.
Why does Hitchens think England is almost entirely people by the English. Shouldn't a few Phillipinos, or Uzbeks, or Malians pop up now and again, just by accident? And if race is a concept with no meaning, then family must be as well. I guess it was just coincidence that my white, english-scottish parents didn't happen to have a child who was chinese, or a hottentot.
And if race is a meaningless social construct, then how do who all those racists know whom to hate? Does David Duke walk up to strangers on the street, and ask "Excuse me, Sir, are you black? Because, if you are, I would greatly appreciate the oppurtunity to hate you today - me being a former Grand Kleagle and all. Please, help me out here...who's black and whose white? I can't tell. You dudes all look alike to me."
And why is it that Hitchens now seeks to ingratiate himself with people who are ostensibly conservatives?
Go away, Hitch. We don't like you. You're a commie rat. Just because you don't like Bill Clinton, doesn't mean that we like you. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend - he's just another enemy that I haven't gotten round to yet.
Johnson -- "High IQ" immigration is damaging for two reasons:
1) Reversion to the mean for the offspring of high-IQ members of low-IQ races.
2) Ethnocentric immigrants with high IQs are more effective at self-serving politics, fraud, espionage for their homelands, etc, etc.
Renounce other loyalties to your ethnic group or native country...
Human nature. We can ignore it. What's to stop them lying or going back on their word at a later date? Are we going to spy on them to make sure they don't have a disproportionate number of same-race friends, aren't taking holidays back "home," maintaining contact with their relatives there, etc, etc?
This "Let's Ignore Race" line is plugged only by deluded whites and by those with a minority agenda, such as yourself. It's never found among "minorities" when they aren't actually in the minority.
Martin- was the juvenile snarkiness mine? Making sweeping, unsupported statements about Atheists isn’t smart and makes Atheists less likely to read the ideas presented in this blog charitably. And trust me I know that most readers of this blog could care less how readers like myself view the bias in this blog.
So make your case, or my prior that this blog is more about feeling good about your prejudices than discovering truth will be confirmed.
South Asian commentators like Fred and Johnson refuse to understand that their "solution" is part of the problem. Some here, yes, don't want Mexicans, but don't want Asians either.
Talk about "pragmatism" is silly, when the "pragmatic solution" is self-defeating.
It's like conservatives supporting liberal-moderate Republicans because these Republicans are "electable" - and then, on all the issues that count, these Republicans are, in office, no better than Democrats.
A "pragmatic solution" is pragmatic when it actually helps to achieve a desired goal, not when it replaces one undesirable goal with another.
Trying to combat white dispossesion with color-blindness is what conservatives have been doing with out success for decades. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting America to have an immigrantion policy that preserves white people as a large majority of the population.
Johnson -- "High IQ" immigration is damaging for two reasons:
1) Reversion to the mean for the offspring of high-IQ members of low-IQ races.
2) Ethnocentric immigrants with high IQs are more effective at self-serving politics, fraud, espionage for their homelands, etc, etc.
That is absolutely idiotic. Other than Muslims, name one immigrant group that's been treasonous or lost their IQ on a large scale.
When you say that you want immigration to continue, however, I have to suspect that it is at least in part due to identifying with foreigners. So, you may not be loyal to another country, but you probably are still loyal to another nationality.
Tell me that you are prepared to advocate for a more or less complete halt to immigration and then I will consider you a true American, because then I will know that your loyalty is truly to the people who were generous enough to allow you to come here.
That is unfair. I do, somewhat identify with other Indian Americans, but because of religious and cultural factors, not at all in terms of political ideology. And I don't even know if I'll marry an Indian. And stopping immigration?
How many times do I have to say it? America's future power depends on having a large body of intellectual power. It was immigrants who helped build the atomic bomb. It was Indian immigrants who led the internet revolution in the 90's. I advocate immigration because it is essential to maintaining our smart fraction given lower birth rates, not out of any loyalty to foreigners.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting America to have an immigration policy that preserves white people as a large majority of the population.
Allright. I was trying to reason with people on this board, thinking we have the same objectives. My objective is a strong America, with the intellectual resources and institutions to dominate and continue to be a beacon of freedom and decency to the rest of the world. And the way to do that was to have a selective immigration policy, by restricting uneducated Mexicans and potential terrorist Muslims.
Apparently the other people don't care about what America truly is. They just don't want more minorities.
And because they represent a big slice of the American population, there will be no selective immigration because the left CAN cry racism. And America goes to shit since they'd rather not compromise on white purity rather than get something good done legislatively. And so the US becomes new Mexico.
The EU has a population of 450 million. China has a population of 1.3 BILLION. If the US wants to remain a superpower and keep the world hospitable to American ideals in a flat world, it has to grow.
Statements like this make sane white people nervous, Johnson. We don't like it when non-whites tell us that whites need them to survive.
It's offensive, for one thing. It doesn't seem to make sense, for another. We didn't need you to put a man on the moon. Why do we need you now?
Cognitive elitism is for suckers.
In light of all this discussion of immigration and race, you might want to take a look at my recent data analysis which shows that non-white immigrants in general (not just Mexicans) move this country left--as soon as they get here and even more as they assimilate--and white immigrants lean only slighly to the right. Anyone who hopes to have conservative victories in the future should favor a shutdown of all immigration--or at least the non-white kind.
Which is, of course, roughly the rub with "cognitive elitism"; world demographics and economics being what they are, it would simply mean a much more intelligent and well-behaved invasion.
"mutt said...
Martin- was the juvenile snarkiness mine?"
Yes, it was.
There is nothing wrong with occasionally quoting the collective wisdom of our elders (such as Chesterton). Why? Because they are our elders. And they were wise.
The ab-initio assumption of most every youth cohort since the baby-boom - the belief that every generation that came before were a bunch of rubes, and it is only us annointed young'uns who know anything worth knowing - contributes to the ruination of our world.
I happen to be an athiest myself, and I realize that I live in an overwhelmingly christian country. Moreover, I am glad that I live in one. The society I grew up in was
formed by it's religion, and that religion helped to form me - whether I still believe or not.
The cold empirical fact is that athieism is not a good basis for a good society. Actually, it is a good basis for a very bad society. So athieists should mostly shut up and appreciate what they have, instead of constantly prating about how G-D enlightened they are compared to all of the saps out in jesus-land.
Oh and by the way, I did make a case for why I thought Hitchens was wrong. And I noticed that - in the case you think he's right - you never did. Aphorisms are no substitute for a rational argument. And neither is snarky attitude, kid.
"I guess a sexist is one who believes different human sexes exist, right?"
Very good!
"So make your case, or my prior that this blog is more about feeling good about your prejudices than discovering truth will be confirmed." - mutt
I thought athiests didn't believe in objective truth or an underlying order to the universe. Most of us are aware that growing our population by importing foreigners will displace us whereas population growth by reproduction will allow our culture to continue as well as our race. Any other perspective is nihilism. Those who don't care what culture or political system exists in this country are the ones who have to make a great effort to delude themselves into believing that "it's all good". Go live in Afghanistan if that's what you truly believe, logic boy.
"It was Indian immigrants who led the internet revolution in the 90's. I advocate immigration because it is essential to maintaining our smart fraction given lower birth rates, not out of any loyalty to foreigners."
What a pack of lies. The internet came into being because of the scientific efforts of native born white Americans. Indians had nothing to do with developing computers or the internet. They just provided a lot of cheap labor once the interent had already come into being.
You can keep telling us you favor open borders for the good of America and not because you want more of your own kind here, it's still a lie.
"In light of all this discussion of immigration and race, you might want to take a look at my recent data analysis which shows that non-white immigrants in general (not just Mexicans) move this country left--as soon as they get here and even more as they assimilate--and white immigrants lean only slighly to the right."
I don't find your analysis convincing, for a several reasons.
First, voting against President Bush doesn't define someone as a leftist. There were many centrists in 2000 who preferred Gore, who they thought would be a competent technocrat.
Second, entrepreneurial non-white groups, such as Indians and Koreans, are a natural constituency for the conservative, pro-business party that the GOP is supposed to be.
Third, hostility toward non-whites by conservatives can make it a self-fulfilling prophecy that higher-IQ non-whites will veer left. Political views aren't determined by ethnic background. If you engage high-IQ non-whites on shared values, they can become conservatives, like our first Indian-American governor, Bobby Jindahl. Or you can drive them away with your hostility and they may vote, against their economic interests, for leftist candidates who don't reject them because of their ethnic background.
For those of you who question Johnson's loyalty to America as an Indian-American, how loyal are you to this country as a 'white nationalist'? It seems that you are more loyal to your definition of whiteness than to America itself. If you wanted American to be stronger and more prosperous, you would want it to have the high-quality immigrants who have made it stronger and more prosperous already and will continue to do so.
The one country in our hemisphere that, until recently, had a whites-only immigration policy is Argentina. How has that worked out? A hundred years ago, it was considered essentially a first world country, its capital city beckoning as a cosmopolitan destination for European immigrants. Today, after many decades of restricting non-white immigration, Argentina has finally opened its doors to non-white immigrants. But now it's a third world country to which few high-IQ whites or non-whites are eager to immigrate. Incidentally, Argentina has managed to move to the left politically with no help from non-whites.
"1) Reversion to the mean for the offspring of high-IQ members of low-IQ races."
Then how come 2nd generation Indian-Americans are doing so well (medicine, law, enginering, science, banking, finance, etc.)? They're not reverting to any mean below 115....
Fred:
1)When I used the word left, it was meant as direction, not location. I was addressing conservatives, so my use of voting for Bush as an indicator of conservative was a generous one since it includes many centrists. You seem to be arguing that high status immigrants will grow the center; my analysis indicates that they will shrink the right and benefit Democrats.
2) Look at my analysis: Asian Indians vote majority Democrat and that number increases with their status. Same is true for Chinese, so I doubt you are right about Koreans.
3) Where is your evidence that pandering to immigrants turns them into Republicans (or conservatives)? Assimilated non-white immigrants should be less threatened by the Republican Party than their lower status counterparts. Just the opposite is true, according to the General Social Survey: low-status, non-white immigrants lean Democrat; their high-status counterparts vote Democrat 2 to 1. There is zero support here for your ideas. You're mouthing neocon dreaminess.
johnson:
First of all, every immigrant group has their own story line to explain why the U.S. should be grateful to them and not vice versa. The Mexicans also think they are making the U.S. a better place, for example.
Next, going back to the Ellis Island wave around the turn of the century, immigrants and their descendents have always tended to want to maintain high levels of immigration. What is wrong with this picture? What this means is that the more immigrants we let in the greater the demand is for more immigration. I view this as a betrayal and the height of ingratitude. Obviously this process has to end somewhere, unless you are counting on the people who are already here to have low birthrates to make room for the immigrants.
Can't you understand why people would want to save a country for their own descendents and not someone else's? India does not allow immigration the way the U.S. does. Would you say this is because they are hung up on Indian purity? Maybe not. Maybe you would come up with some economic rationale for why India does not need immigrants. Meanwhile Western Europe is filling up with nonwhites, and similarly for other countries that currently have white majorities. Do you have any idea what this would be like? What if India was getting flooded with non-Indian immigrant while Indians were being fed propaganda about how they are racist if they don't go along with it? Please try to have some empathy. Do you think it is natural that Europeans have below replacement-level fertility while inviting in millions of non-Europeans? How can you not see the great insanity and injustice in this? If you don't, maybe it is because you are not European, but again, try to have some empathy.
Johnson:
I wouldn't let the white supremacist yahoos get to you. From my perspective as a math professsor in the Bay Area, I can attest to the following facts:
1. As the proportion of Asian students in our courses has gone, scores have risen, classes are quieter, and, to be impolitic, the females became much easier on the eye (excepting the Wonder Years girl, can any of the yahoos name a white female exceptional at math who doesn't look like a troll?)
2. In my city, as the proportion of Asians have increased, crime has gone down, test scores have risen, and the food has become immeasurably better.
3. There is now talk, in my town, of White parents taking their children out of public schools because they have become too competitive owing to the influx of Asian students.
In sum, HBD yes, White supremacist yahoos, NO. To them, a paraphrase of a famous dictum is well applied: One standard deviation (at best) above the norm can be a dangerous thing.
Sorry Steve - Hitch is actually correct on this topic.
Even Spencer Wells (National Geographic) and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza would back him up on this.
Cavalli-Sforza would back Hitchens in public and snicker at Hitchens in private. Unlike Christopher, Luigi is no fool.
Johnson: "excepting the Wonder Years girl, can any of the yahoos name a white female exceptional at math who doesn't look like a troll?"
Hedy Lamarr
the article is called the perils of identity politics! his main point is that we should treat obama's race and hillary's gender like we treat giuliani's italianness - it shouldn't matter. this seems perfectly sailerite 'citizenist' to me.
I will treat Obama's race as irrelevant only when he proves to me that it's irrelevant to him. His choice of churches, his support for affirmative action, and his support for open borders all prove to me that it is not irrelevant to him. Whether he uses his race in his campaigning is of minor concern - its how it affects his policy positions.
Also, I'd like to point out that when I mentioned that "I'd scarcely consider" voting for an Indian, etc. I meant that I would, but that said candidate would have to cross a very high bar in regards to their position on immigration, etc. Experience has taught me to be wary.
I'm Indian American, and ONLY identify with American political institutions and ideas. It's not necessarily offensive, but I'm surprised by the idea that white people are the only ones who can integrate into America. - Johnson
Sorry, Johnson, but you're acting as if we're the ones with something to prove. Indians have experienced almost zero discrimination in this country, legal or otherwise, but they have shown themselves to be extremely ethnocentric and have formed many ethnically exclusive business/political/social organizations. Don't then point to something I say as if I'm the one guilty of racism. Whites don't have such organizations - we aren't allowed to anymore.
I'd favor this: 1) Have an IQ that makes you a net gain in the US (e.g. put more into the government in taxes than you take in benefits).
Whites had a higher IQ than Native Americans. How'd that turn out for the natives?
Also, this: the white populations of Europe, America, Canada, and Australia are currently on a collision course for minority status before the end of the century. How many non-white countries are on such a trajectory, and how would you feel if Indians were about to become a minority in India? Would you be willing to answer that question while connected to a polygraph?
The EU has a population of 450 million. China has a population of 1.3 BILLION. If the US wants to remain a superpower and keep the world hospitable to American ideals in a flat world, it has to grow.
I don't care to remain a superpower. I care to remain strong enough to protect our territorial integrity, which, in spite of our alleged superpowerness, already isn't happening. What the hell's the point of being a superpower if you can't even protect your own territory and can't use that power for territorial expansion? No point at all, really.
And as for the "American ideals" part, folks in the rest of the world can keep or reject them for all I care. Given what the embrace of those ideals has meant for us - increased competition for natural resources and soaring trade deficits - I kinda wish they'd revert to Marxist-Leninist-Maoism. It made life so much easier.
excepting the Wonder Years girl, can any of the yahoos name a white female exceptional at math who doesn't look like a troll?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer
Pretty white girl math geniuses may be rare in the Bay Area, but not out here in the heartland. Miss Mayer is originally from Wisconsin. Plenty of girls like her, too.
Even Spencer Wells (National Geographic) and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza would back him up on this.
The cover of cavalli-Sforza's book The History and Geography of Human Genes. Like Steve once wrote, it kinda looks like a racial map of the world as drawn with a crayon by Jesse Helms.
I'm an atheist, but not the militant variety. Those kind of atheists tire me even more than the faithful they so conspicuously despise. It doesn't help that most such atheists tend to be die-hard members of the Cult of Political Correctness. Some men are selective listeners; militant atheists are often selective thinkers.
If you want a good example of the militant atheist at his most profound, a blogger posed the following question to PC Myers:
What social question do you think religion has had the most distorting, negative effect on?
His answer:
Anything to do with sex and reproduction. The most repressive religions are all about controlling sexual behavior.
I couldn't help but think of a recent post by Half Sigma and a recent government study as I read Professor Myers' thoughtful reply.
May God save us from the only true sins of this world: self-control and sexual restraint.
William, Steve said CS's map resembled a racial map drawn on a napkin by an unreconstructed Strom Thurmond.
"Anonymous wrote:
As the proportion of Asian students in our courses has gone, scores have risen, classes are quieter, and, to be impolitic, the females became much easier on the eye (excepting the Wonder Years girl, can any of the yahoos name a white female exceptional at math who doesn't look like a troll?)"
What if your son was not living up to your expectations for him, and you came to the conclusion that he wouldn't amount to much. Would you boot the underperforming child out of your family, and replace him with another kid? One with better prospects?
"We didn't need you to put a man on the moon."
We did need an immigrant though, at least to accelerate the process: Wernher von Braun. And given the stagnation at NASA, if we get to Mars in our lifetimes it will probably be thanks to another, immigrant (one who didn't come here just to save his ass from the Russians), Elon Musk.
"Pretty white girl math geniuses may be rare in the Bay Area, but not out here in the heartland. Miss Mayer is originally from Wisconsin."
An immigrant (a Jew, at that) created her job: Sergei Brin.
Fred,
Are you advocating open borders so that we can harvest the occasional pearl of rocket scientist or female math genius?
Remember Oppenheimer, another famous import, had to be watched like a hawk so he wouldn't divulge secrets to the Commies. Without looking it up, wasn't that von Braun guy a Nazi? Hmmmm. Seems to me that without sufficient care immigration can be as much a curse as a blessing.
Destablization, factionalization are some possible outcomes to mass uncontrolled immigration. The point is you have no control of the outcome when you refuse to analyze the result of different levels of immigration and make policy accordingly. Oh, yes, you must enforce those policies as well.
Herein lies the problem. I, and others, can effectively refute the illogic of Sailer's buddy "Fred" and his coethnic "johnson" - but cannot do so while Steve protects them by censoring posts. I've lost count of the number of posts I've had censored on this site over the last couple of months.
Yeah, Steve, I was going to send you a donation, but guess what, the donation got "censored."
"The one country in our hemisphere that, until recently, had a whites-only immigration policy is Argentina. How has that worked out? A hundred years ago, it was considered essentially a first world country, its capital city beckoning as a cosmopolitan destination for European immigrants. Today, after many decades of restricting non-white immigration, Argentina has finally opened its doors to non-white immigrants. But now it's a third world country to which few high-IQ whites or non-whites are eager to immigrate. Incidentally, Argentina has managed to move to the left politically with no help from non-whites."
This is not true. Argentina is a Latin American country with a different definition of white than the USA. Many "whites" in Argentina are mestizos who would not be considered white in the US or in Spain. Many other "whites" in Argentina are Middle-Eastern people such as Arabs and Turks. Furthermore, whatever the official immigration policy, Argentina has had heavy mestizo and indigenous immigrantion from other parts of South America for decades.
Argentina is not a third world country in any meaningful sense of the term. It's also much more prosperous and developed than India.
Good stuff martin.
Did I say anything about Hitchens? I was taking issue with the random Atheist saying, which is obviously stupid.
But that's groovy. If you're happier being wise with other wise people then great. Being so proud and so active in proclaiming the truth, I would have thought that you would have been more eager to persuade people who don't share your priors. But I guess it's more fun throwing random jibes.
Martin: thanks for your beautiful comments. At least IMO they are. As a fellow atheist, I too have to deal with my demons on this subject, and I almost thought I dropped them myself :) (...while I was drunk, that is; but I generally say very regrettable things after I crawl out of the bottle, so that couldn't have happened :D)
I couldn't get it through the thick skull of my friends (almost all of whom are lefties) the logic you've so succinctly summarized. The following fallacies inherent in the militant atheism (characterized by nothing other than "juvenile snarkiness") just doesn't occur to them:
1) if you claim that [name-of-holy-book] isn't God's word...; and if you claim Man is the center of the universe... then how does it follow that by definition a man-made book is supposed to be nonsensical?
2) More importantly, accepting that the old timers were wrong about say the movement of the stars or how the earth was created, how does it follow that that renders the dictum "do unto others..." invalid?
Humans, being what they are -- primates --, have evolved so that the exact position of this or that star or the knowledge of how the earth was created has normally zero impact on how they sort out, say, lactose tolerance or who's word speaks louder than others'. On the other hand, how we do unto others has a HUGE impact. Ergo, the longer a belief or ethical principle has survived, you can bet the more critical it is for our societal existence. It's all a matter of priorty. Where Mars stands in the sky at night is still hardly a priority to anyone.
Which is where the "wise elder" and tradition notion enters the picture. What the leftie (juvenile) mind doesn't understand is, not only is our language or beliefs but even our DNA is a tradition. It may be (and is) imperfect ("perfect" being a ridiculous goal that happens to be figment of the imperfect imagination of the snarkiest monkey), but it has survived for long enough to tell us that it has greater value than smart alec beliefs that may help you score in classroom discussions but don't get you much further than that in life.
This juvenile, boomer posturing, this "old timer, thou are stupider than I because you're wrinkled." This silly belief that "the pen is mightier than the sword, ergo I, the snarkier prick, am righter than thou." Whenever I hear this, I get an urge to grab my gun, shoot the smartass in the foot, and then say "might is swordier than the pen, now STFU."
JD
Fred:
You give the impression that "immigrant" is the name of a very gifted race. I'd hate to break it to you but being mobile doesn't qualify as a genetic profile. Wernher von Braun was a GERMAN (not a Sudanese or Yemeni or Mayan). If I knew my genes would instantly mutate to give me a 185 IQ if only I immigrated, believe me I'd start packing in a minute.
It also seems to have escaped you that the Moon Landing wasn't done by a team of one German physicist; hundreds worked in it (if you include the manufacture of parts, maybe thousands). If you believe one smart guy -- someone from Upper East Immigratia -- can do this sort of thing all by himself with the power growing on the hairs of his cojones, I know places in Turkey where a single such guy could tip the IQ average by 2-3 standard deviations. Maybe he can go there and try the Neptune landing with them.
Ever heard of the notion of "honesty" in constructing your arguments, Fred, or is that too goy for your taste?
And then I look at the other names you mention, boy, you must be THE ultra-narcissist tribe. Such self-adulation. So if Sergei had not "created" Marissa's job (whatever the heck "creating" a job means), she would be what, a peregrine bird heading for Patagonia? And you really believe the destiny of space travel hinges on Elon Musk? Seriously?
Are you familiar with that English expression using surreal imagery with a head and a butt interacting in a strange way?
JD
I'm a little late to this discussion, but some of the cognitive elitists here just don't get it.
Suppose Indians and other Asians are both smarter than whites and assimilable. It does not follow that the average white shmuck should favor massive immigration. It means that whitey's kids will either have to become boring academic grinds who don't know the meaning of the word "fun," like their Asian superiors, or they'll be shut out of things like good schools and programs that lead to highly paid jobs.
Given the number of Asian medical professionals licensed in the last few decades, younger whites who would have been doctors in the 70s are probably nurses now, for example.
As for our competitiveness with China and the EU, who cares? Are we going to have EU stormtroopers with jackboots on our heads if we don't get 100 million high IQ immigrants? Our population is high enough, rush hour sucks enough, and our cities are sprawling enough as it is.
So, with no malice towards Indians or other Asians, why should we celebrate our own displacement by them?
I wouldn't let the white supremacist yahoos get to you. From my perspective as a math professsor in the Bay Area, I can attest to the following facts:
"White supremacist" is a handy label for those hostile to WNs, but it doesn't really fit; supremacists want supremacy, WNs don't; many of us regard supremacism as what got us into this mess in the first place.
1. As the proportion of Asian students in our courses has gone, scores have risen, classes are quieter, and, to be impolitic, the females became much easier on the eye (excepting the Wonder Years girl, can any of the yahoos name a white female exceptional at math who doesn't look like a troll?)
Would you advise white parents to give their kids up for adoption, and adopt "superior" yellow kids in their stead? If not, why would you argue for whites to race-replace their posterity?
Are you arguing that yellow females are more attractive, in general? It doesn't seem so. Seems you're arguing that more attractive females find their way into your classes as yellow immigration rises; that's great for the horny math teachers of the world but what good is it doing the rest of us?
(The idea that yellow females are more attractive than white females is ludicrous)
2. In my city, as the proportion of Asians have increased, crime has gone down, test scores have risen, and the food has become immeasurably better.
Yellow immigrants are more law-abiding (and intelligent) than white natives; I'd be willing to bet that white immigrants to Asia are more law-abiding (and wealthy, and intelligent) than the yellow natives. I'd also bet the yellows bring the corruption and love of despotism common in their homelands. (I'd also bet the white immigrants bring their loopy diversity and liberal nonsense to Asia, and that the yellows scoff at them and keep the numbers of white immigrants as low as possible)
But if yellows are so wonderful, why are they flocking to our countries, and not the other way around? Why didn't they put a man on the moon? Why didn't they create the modern world?
So, we're left with foreign cuisine, the usual reason for diversity left standing in these discussions. Bravo.
3. There is now talk, in my town, of White parents taking their children out of public schools because they have become too competitive owing to the influx of Asian students.
They're cooking up a new white flight because they feel as if the schools are no longer theirs. To you this is because of some kind of defect amongst the whites; to us, your position is due to some kind of defect in you.
Btw, no need to write "there is now talk, in my town," when you really mean, "I read an article about".
Those nodding their heads to this guy's post should read up on one-way gene flow; he's pushing an agenda of Asian colonization.
Whites have done very well for themselves in the last 500 years. Yellows, not nearly as well. So where's the sense in putting all our eggs in one (dubious) basket and playing craps with our future? Anon's experiment has potential, but not that much potential; put them all on an island and let them try it out for a few hundred years. If it works out, then we'll discuss the matter further.
P.S., Anon, if you're not Birch Barlow, maybe someone here could give you his number. You guys can get together and leer at yellow girls. Hell, with the low masculinity of yellow males, you guys probably have a great shot at the their females.
An immigrant (a Jew, at that) created her job: Sergei Brin.
Larry Page is not an immigrant. Eric Schmidt is not an immigrant. Steve Jobs is not an immigrant. Bill Gates is not an immigrant. Paul Allen is not an immigrant. Jim Clark is not an immigrant. John Warnock is not an immigrant. Gordon Moore is not an immigrant. Michael Dell is not an immigrant.
Yes, quite a few folks in high tech are immigrants. But the US has been holding it's own innovatively since the 18th century, and mostly without immigrants. Review the list of major inventions and innovations and you will find that so many of their inventors were Americans.
But, ah, what I wouldn't give to have a 19th century federal government - one that took $1 in 20 from the taxpayers rather than $1 in 3. An ever-expanding government appears to be an immigrant invention, too.
And now this message from Barack Obama:
For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
And thus he uses ethnic chauvinism in an alleged appeal to end chauvinism.
And note the suggestion that immigrants come here to "fight for opportunity."
They do? If the had to fight they wouldn't be coming here at all. They come here because white Americans treat them better than their own races in their own countries.
Half Sigma: I'll give you Heddy Lamarr, but William, Marissa Mayer is certainly nice looking, but 'lots of women in the heartland'? Sorry--I went to grad school at Michigan and I see more great looking female Asian math and science students in one day here in the Bay Area than I did great looking females, period, in 4 years in Ann Arbor, though again, it was the foreign students there who are doing the bulk of the visual appeal work.
Of course, we are talking about distributions here, but let's be serious. You can't be pro high IQ and down on high IQ immigration. It's a preposterous combination of attitudes. For those of us who value intelligence sopra tutto, all this talk about 'preserving white culture' is idiotic nonsense. Preserve what can stand on its own, rationally speaking, regardless of geographic origin, lose the rest, regardless of origin.
And as for what I would do with an underachieving child, I might well take him out of a school of hyper achieving, high IQ Asians, but then I wouldn't be on blogs talking about the imminent threat to all that is good and just posed by those kids who beat the pants off of mine at the Math tournament.
"My objective is a strong America, with the intellectual resources and institutions to dominate and continue to be a beacon of freedom and decency to the rest of the world."
What is the point in a "strong" country that cannot maintain its own borders? What will this putative strength be used for? Why should American's care if their country is beacon to other countries or not? Of course it's flattering to hear that other people want to mimic you but only egotistical people would consciously wish for it. We all know that the Soviet Union had a major preoccupation with having other countries adopt their ideology. I'm aware of the statue of liberty but I've always hated it and what it stood for, whether it was liberty enlightening the world or the infinitely more odious Emma Lazarus "wretched refuse" ideal.
I don't agree with the Chesterton quote, about atheists believing anything. I consider myself agnostic, verging on atheistic. What has happened is that certain pillars of Judeo-Christianity have been undermined, such as Creationism etc. Leftists eager to fill the priestly vacuum (like Marx) have tried to have their own pet ideas associated with science in the popular imagination, since they know that science will trump theology should the two come into conflict. The irony is that these same leftists are the de facto ideological heirs of the authoritarian religious dogmatists of the past. Their view of humanity is decidedly unscientific and creationist. Their loud professions of moral relativism are the similar, when we discover that leftists are actually moral absolutists in a state of cognitive dissonance.
martin said:
Would you boot the underperforming child out of your family, and replace him with another kid?
I think this is an excellent analogy, and comes close to the truth of our ruling class's position.
Their position, I think, is this:
They (essentially, the government) own the country. We are the peasants working their land, improving their homes which we live in, turning the cranks that belong lock stock and barrel to THEM.
The ruling class has decided to fire us. To replace us with cheaper workers, more malleable peasants. So they're dispossessing us, on purpose. "Get those White people off our land and businesses - get them outta here!"
The theory that the government owns the means of production is socialism. What prevents a socialist manager from flushing "disreputable, anti-social, counterrevolutionary elements"?
It's not our country. It's their country - according to them.
Of course, we are talking about distributions here, but let's be serious. You can't be pro high IQ and down on high IQ immigration. It's a preposterous combination of attitudes.
The problem here is that high IQ immigration has been joined at the political hip with low IQ immigration of the legal or illegal kind. Take out all the other immigrants and would I support specifically high IQ immigration at its present levels? Probably perhaps, if I had a chance to reevaluate immigration's affect on our politics, environment, culture, and economics.
But at this point I'm just tired of all of it. I think that's what the H1b lobbyists should understand. At this point the only real shot they have at boosting H1b numbers is to start supporting a rational family reunification policy and lobbying for border enforcement.
If you really want to be serious about boosting America's IQ, you have to admit that the biggest drag is the influx of all sorts of low IQ people. One fewer low IQ immigrant is, dollar for dollar, as good as (or better than) one more high IQ immigrant. It's a question of proportion. Switzerland and Finland and Japan manage to do quite well because the proportion of low IQ folks to high IQ folks is low.
I, and others, can effectively refute the illogic of Sailer's buddy "Fred" and his coethnic "johnson" - but cannot do so while Steve protects them by censoring posts.
When Steve goes on vacation his friend from the Indian consulate pinch hits for him.
"When Steve goes on vacation ..."
Vacation?
What's that?
I spent three days in a tent at Morro Bay last summer. That was it for 2007.
But I do apologize that I sometimes go as long as 16 hours before being able to moderate comments.
Vacation? What's that?...
But I do apologize that I sometimes go as long as 16 hours before being able to moderate comments.
Hey, it's OK. I sometimes take naps longer than that.
William,
For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man.
Given that Obama has slave-holding ancestors but no slave ancestors, he might better be said to belong to that community which has been at the giving end of man's inhumanity to man.
nobody,
If you really want to be serious about boosting America's IQ, you have to admit that the biggest drag is the influx of all sorts of low IQ people. One fewer low IQ immigrant is, dollar for dollar, as good as (or better than) one more high IQ immigrant. It's a question of proportion. Switzerland and Finland and Japan manage to do quite well because the proportion of low IQ folks to high IQ folks is low.
Yes, that raises a good point; namely, how can anyone honestly talk about the need for high IQ immigrants while failing to acknowledge the harm caused by low IQ immigrants? I guess the answer is that honesty is anathema to immigration advocates.
Of course, we are talking about distributions here, but let's be serious. You can't be pro high IQ and down on high IQ immigration.
Let's be really serious: there is no such thing as "high IQ immigration." That's just silly talk. There's homogeneity, and there's panmixia, and there are states in between that are always in motion toward one pole or the other.
At least, for highly altruistic (or whatever you want to call it) dunderheads like whites. Maybe more disciplined groups could play with that kind of fire without getting burned, I dunno.
Even if that wasn't true, you're pretending being pro-high IQ must exist in a vacuum or not at all, which isn't the case; I'm pro-high-IQ too, but I don't go around shopping for high-IQ strangers to replace my less-qualified relatives.
P.S., thanks to the guy who gave us the "one drop rule circa 1944" fantasy - good stuff. I've chuckled every time I load this page.
"So, we're left with foreign cuisine, the usual reason for diversity left standing in these discussions. Bravo."
And various types of Asian food are way overrated (especially Chinese). The weakest argument imaginable.
Fifi,
"Are you advocating open borders so that we can harvest the occasional pearl of rocket scientist or female math genius?"
When did I ever advocated "open borders"? I think we should stop unskilled immigration, and selectively welcome highly-skilled immigrants who will pay significantly more in taxes, on average, than they consume in government resources.
"Remember Oppenheimer, another famous import..."
Import? He was born in New York.
"Without looking it up, wasn't that von Braun guy a Nazi? Hmmmm."
He was certainly a member of the Nazi Party, though he argued that he joined only to maintain his research position. The Nazis had enough doubts about his loyalty to have him arrested at one point, but who knows what his true beliefs were.
"Seems to me that without sufficient care immigration can be as much a curse as a blessing."
Have I suggested we apply insufficient care to our immigration policy?
"Destablization, factionalization are some possible outcomes to mass uncontrolled immigration."
This is your straw man. I'm not arguing for "mass, uncontrolled immigration". I look at it more like the NFL draft: let's accept a limited number of the most talented and capable immigrants available.
Anonymous,
"This is not true. Argentina is a Latin American country with a different definition of white than the USA. Many "whites" in Argentina are mestizos who would not be considered white in the US or in Spain."
Nonsense. Nearly all Argentines are descendants solely of European immigrants, mainly from Spain and Italy, but also significant numbers from Germany and Poland. The CIA World Fact Book categorizes Argentina as 97% white. That's consistent with my observations from traveling there.
David,
"Thanks for your racism. Your implication that Whites are inferior-IQ yahoos who need all the help they can get is loud and clear."
Have you borrowed this tactic of falsely accusing an opponent of racism from the Obama campaign? I haven't made one invidious comment about white IQs.
Other Anonymous:
"You give the impression that "immigrant" is the name of a very gifted race. I'd hate to break it to you but being mobile doesn't qualify as a genetic profile."
I never said it did, only that we should welcome a number of that subset of immigrants that has high-IQs.
"It also seems to have escaped you that the Moon Landing wasn't done by a team of one German physicist; hundreds worked in it (if you include the manufacture of parts, maybe thousands)."
True, there were many minds behind the effort. Minds like that of Abe Silverstein. But certainly von Braun's knowledge accelerated the process. Germany's Society for Space Travel was the center of rocket research in the 1930s, before it was co-opted by the Nazis for their A- and V-rocket programs.
"And then I look at the other names you mention, boy, you must be THE ultra-narcissist tribe. Such self-adulation."
Just for this bit of ad hominem nonsense (leading off with Wernher von Braun is an example of ultra-narcissism?), I threw in Abe Silverstein's name above.
"So if Sergei had not "created" Marissa's job (whatever the heck "creating" a job means), she would be what, a peregrine bird heading for Patagonia?"
You really don't understand the concept of job creation? If you start a successful business and hire people you have created jobs. If Sergei Brin and Larry Page hadn't founded Google, Marissa wouldn't have a job there. Might she have a job somewhere else? Probably so. One with the influence and pay of the Google job? Probably not.
"And you really believe the destiny of space travel hinges on Elon Musk? Seriously?"
It appears to depend on a small number of men like him, Richard Branson being another example (though not an American one, which is why I referred to Musk instead above).
"When did I ever advocated "open borders"? I think we should stop unskilled immigration, and selectively welcome highly-skilled immigrants who will pay significantly more in taxes, on average, than they consume in government resources. " - Fred
Thanks for clarifying your position. I was considering having you brought up on Thought Crime charges as well as finding out your birthdate to see if you qualified for relocation under the Boomer Retirement and Sedition Act of 2008.
Steve, is the following "mild" enough for you?
How about some facts about Argentina - apart from government publications - that sheds light upon the fairly extensive non-white admixture there.
Am J Phys Anthrop 2007; 132 455-62
Medicina (B Aires) 2006, 66 113-8
Human Biology 2004, 76, 543-57
Fairly significant Amerindian admixture, with some African as well. A somewhat "whiter" form of Mexican; hence a somewhat more orderly and successful nation. But, no, not "97% white."
Argentines are not "97% white" - they are no more similar to the original European stocks than are African Americans to the original west African stocks.
Granted, there is variability, and of course some Argentines are unmixed. But the population as a whole, no.
What's "nonsense" here is more likely "Fred's" scientific "qualifications" than others' comments about reality in Latin America.
fred said,
I haven't made one invidious comment about white IQs.
Prior to that he said,
If you wanted American to be stronger and more prosperous, you would want it to have the high-quality immigrants who have made it stronger and more prosperous already and will continue to do so.
Now let's go through this real slow. Without high-quality immigrants, America would be weaker and less prosperous - why? Might it be because only high-quality immigrants can make America stronger and more prosperous? What about the native population? How much positive attention is paid to White kids here? (I mention Whites because a lot of attention is paid to black kids.) It isn't 1950 anymore: the public education system is, generally, a hellhole where high-IQ natives are doing low-IQ natives' work for them ("group learning").
By stating your point in conditional form (if-then), you ignore - in fact, give up on - a native population as a source of further strength and prosperity; ONLY high-quality immigrants will do, as stated thusly: "If you [want] America to be stronger and more prosperous," you want "high quality immigrants." So we're chopped liver; immigrants are saviors.
That's not all. Not only is our future strength and prosperity dependant upon "high-quality immigrants"; our past and present strength and properity are as well. "[H]igh-quality immigrants [...] have made [America] stronger and more prosperous already and will continue to do so." Man, these immigrants are Jesus!
Let's fill up America with East Indians and Asians! (And mestizos, too, since we can't filter 'em out.) (Plus, forget about letting more Nazis in. Not exactly in keeping with the spirit of the 1965 Immigration Act.) The faster we replace the native populations, the better America will be. Death to my sons, grandsons, and all of my line. I wish them replaced with superior, high-quality people who will write code for $10 an hour. Having more prosperous corporations in the USA will confer a greater benefit on, er, themselves. (Or maybe I can breed with the conquerors, I mean the high-quality immigrants! Or, at least, with the low-quality immigrants?)
Fred, are the high-quality immigrants doing the jobs Americans just don't want to do? Say it. I dare you.
HEY! (I've been offline, so I just noticed this post)
I'm no Putnam fellow, but I rate higher than 99+% of men, forget about women. I don't look like a troll.
Oh wait, I =am= pretty scary-looking.
FWIW, having been a chick at various math competitions and the US Physics Olympiad, most of the females (white or otherwise) looked fine. Our hygiene was definitely better than the vast majority of teenage boys on hand. I dropped out of the academic track to become an actuary, but of my female math friends who have continued on to the professorate, none of us have had trouble getting dates (and some of us have reproduced... shock!)
I do remember the assholes in math/engineering depts complaining that the math/engineering chicks were dogs. Yes, but if those guys were so attractive they wouldn't have to "settle" on asking us and getting turned down for dates, eh?
Argentines are not "97% white" - they are no more similar to the original European stocks than are African Americans to the original west African stocks.
Correctamundo. Uruguay is also more mixed than previously imagined according to genetic studies. Possibly Indian admixture is less noticeable in Argentinians because the Indian populations in southern South America, particularly Patagonia, are often physically atypical from what I understand.
"I'm no Putnam fellow, but I rate higher than 99+% of men, forget about women. I don't look like a troll. "
Glad to hear from you Mary Pat. I knew you were a hottie just from your responses on iSteve. Self-confidence correlates highly with good looks. I was gonna comment that none of the Asian chicks who took calculus at my high school were babes neither were there any among the Science/Math majors in college so I don't know where these guys found this hot Asian chick mathematical cohort.
They also failed to mention Cindy Crawford who has a degree in chemistry (counts as math to me). Then I started thinking about some of the guys who majored in math & science at college and shuddered (not in a good way) to think they had sexual desires at all. Ewwwwww!
David,
"High quality immigrants" includes immigrants of any race, who happen to be intelligent and able to contribute to this country. Similarly, "Americans" includes Americans of all races. I have made no invidious comparison of white versus non-white intelligence, despite your repeated attempts to feign insult.
"Fred, are the high-quality immigrants doing the jobs Americans just don't want to do?"
High-quality immigrants like Sergei Brin, Elon Musk, Vinod Khosla, etc., are creating the high-paying jobs that Americans are thrilled to have. Why wouldn't you want more high-quality immigrants creating more high-paying jobs here?
Fred - "high-quality immigrants like Sergei Brin, Elon Musk, Vinod Khosla, etc., are creating the high-paying jobs that Americans are thrilled to have. Why wouldn't you want more high-quality immigrants creating more high-paying jobs here?"
OK, thats three people. Im sure we could bend the rules to cope with, oh...tens of people like that, maybe even hundreds and that would be enough. Now explain away the millions who come as well.
fred said,
creating the high-paying jobs that H-B1 VISA HOLDERS are thrilled to have.
Fixed that for ya.
My question for you: "high-quality" of what race?
It matters because of groupism. Quality is no one's first standard: for all peoples, the first criterion is: "one of our race?" Within that set, then quality is considered. Else why affirmative action? (Exceptions are.)
Fred, you seem a bit out of touch. While you're waving the star-spangled banner in celebration of the miniscule fraction of White Americans who still have high-paying jobs, the rest of us live next door to Mexicans. And work our a** off to "compete" against East Indians who pull down all of $10/hour. Some government jobs pay well, if you're a placid politician and connected.
It's not 1965 any longer.
Lurker,
"OK, thats three people. Im sure we could bend the rules to cope with, oh...tens of people like that, maybe even hundreds and that would be enough. Now explain away the millions who come as well."
OK, some progress finally: you agree in principle that it's a good thing to welcome highly-skilled immigrants who can contribute to this country. As for how many we should welcome, that's a good question, but probably beyond the scope of this discussion.
David,
"creating the high-paying jobs that H-B1 VISA HOLDERS are thrilled to have."
It's an H-1B visa, smart guy, and the vast majority of the high-paying tech jobs created by immigrant entrepreneurs have gone to Americans, not H-1B visa holders. Americans like the previously mentioned Marissa Mayer.
"My question for you: "high-quality" of what race?"
My answer for you, for at least the second time: any race. I think the immigrants should be selected based on ability to contribute to this country, not on race.
"
Fred, you seem a bit out of touch. While you're waving the star-spangled banner in celebration of the miniscule fraction of White Americans who still have high-paying jobs, the rest of us live next door to Mexicans. And work our a** off to "compete" against East Indians who pull down all of $10/hour"
I'm sorry that you aren't doing well financially, but if you are getting paid $10 per hour, you aren't competing with highly-skilled immigrants. Low-skilled immigrants, to be sure, may be depressing your wages, and I am against low-skilled immigration partly for that reason (the other reason I am against it is that they consume more in government benefits on average than they pay in taxes, and are thus a net fiscal drain).
"Why wouldn't you want more high-quality immigrants creating more high-paying jobs here?"
They are not white. You are looking only at "benefits" and not "costs": genetic damage to native interests done by the influx of aliens, disruption of organic solidarity and social cohesion of society, the fact that these "high-IQ immigrants" will be in the position to utilize their "intelligence" and professional status to promote their own racial interests at white expense, displacement of intelligent whites by ethnocentric Asian "competition" (i.e., actually rank ethnic nepotism), loss of social and political status and upward mobility...
If we are going to invoke "economics" as the rationale, then why not "unskilled immigrants" and those really low fruit prices we get at the supermarket? Negative externalities? Sure.
The problem: there are negative externalities for high-IQ "skilled" immigrants as well. Some of us have decided that the costs outweigh the benefits.
And, by the way, is a policy of "tens" or "hundreds" *only* practical? It is not.
Fred, marvelous ideas. You've convinced me. Let's start with Israel. We'll only import those with IQs over 130. There'd be at least 10 million qualified takers.
This is a brilliant plan!
Why hasn't Israel done so already?
C'mon Fred, let's "help" Israel to "greatness" before we help America. Jews the world over should be clamoring for this. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why such a brilliant people can't see the obvious perfection of our plan.
"C'mon Fred, let's "help" Israel to "greatness" before we help America."
Svigor,
I'm an American, not an Israeli, so I really don't care what immigration policy Israel pursues. Why do you?
And what do you have against high-IQ immigrants like Brin and Khosla creating high-paying jobs and wealth for your fellow Americans?
"Correctamundo. Uruguay is also more mixed than previously imagined according to genetic studies. Possibly Indian admixture is less noticeable in Argentinians because the Indian populations in southern South America, particularly Patagonia, are often physically atypical from what I understand."
The vast majority of Argentines are descendants of European immigrants who arrived in the second half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Just like European immigration to the U.S. during that time period, most of the immigrants settled in cities, where there were few indigenous Indians, and as in the U.S., by the mid-19th century there weren't enough Indians left in Argentina to make much of a demographic dent even if they did mix with the European immigrants.
Go to Argentina sometime and see for yourself. It's one of the few countries where the U.S. dollar still goes a long way. Most of the people look like typical southern Europeans, but blue-eyed blonds aren't uncommon either.
From The Encyclopedia Britannica:
"Heavy immigration, particularly from Spain and Italy, has produced in Argentina a people who are almost all of European ancestry...
...Almost half of the European immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were Italian, and about one-third were Spanish. Substantial numbers also came from France, Poland, Russia, Germany, and Great Britain. In 1869 the foreign-born made up 12 percent of the population; this grew to about one-third by 1914, and in large cities foreigners outnumbered natives by as much as 2 to 1."
the vast majority of the high-paying tech jobs created by immigrant entrepreneurs have gone to Americans, not H-1B visa holders.
Couldn't you employ that argument in reverse, though? Microsoft was founded by non-immigrants, but many of its jobs have gone to H1b's. So isn't that bad?
Of course in that case you'd say that the H1b workers "contributed" to Microsoft's success. Americans, in your view, are always leaches, whether they are employers or employees. Immigrants are always contributors.
And they all want to come here so we Americans can leach off of them.
High-quality immigrants like Sergei Brin, Elon Musk, Vinod Khosla, etc., are creating the high-paying jobs that Americans are thrilled to have.
Many of these "high quality immigrants" are also in the vanguard of the movement to shift jobs and technology overseas. A study of Silicon Valley start-ups founded by Indians found that over half have outsourced work to India. So they're not only creating wealth, they're reducing (here) it by shifting the work abroad.
I was gonna comment that none of the Asian chicks who took calculus at my high school were babes neither were there any among the Science/Math majors in college so I don't know where these guys found this hot Asian chick mathematical cohort.
In high school I knew one Asian brain who was pretty hot, and I had some pretty racy fantasies of her that I won't share. But on average I find smart Oriental chicks to be no better looking than smart white chicks. Maybe even (slightly) worse looking. Part of it's all personal preference, though.
Fred, you have already completely ignored the peer-reviewed scientific articles I posted citing *extensive* admixture in Argentina. You can ignore this as well:
http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2007/vol2-6/images/gmr0330tab1.jpg
Let's see, compared to encyclopedia articles and your personal judgements, I think I'll stick with several genetic studies by different labs which ALL say the SAME thing, thank you very much.
Your question to Svigor was already answered by one of my previous posts.
"Couldn't you employ that argument in reverse, though? Microsoft was founded by non-immigrants, but many of its jobs have gone to H1b's. So isn't that bad?"
If the net result is more jobs for Americans, which it is, then, no, that isn't bad.
"Americans, in your view, are always leaches, whether they are employers or employees. Immigrants are always contributors."
I never made either claim, and you know it. Why not argue honestly?
"Many of these "high quality immigrants" are also in the vanguard of the movement to shift jobs and technology overseas. A study of Silicon Valley start-ups founded by Indians found that over half have outsourced work to India. So they're not only creating wealth, they're reducing (here) it by shifting the work abroad."
Again, what's the net result? If an Indian entrepreneur creates 500 jobs in Silicon Valley and 500 jobs in Bangalore, he has still created a net 500 jobs in America. For that matter, if American entrepreneurs (e.g. Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer) create tens of thousands of jobs in America and thousands of jobs in India and other countries, the net result is still more jobs created in America than if they hadn't founded their companies.
The problem, Fred, is that jobs are both being created and destroyed. They have to be, otherwise you end up in a world with 20 billion jobs but only 5 billion workers.
So where are the jobs being created, on average, and where are the better jobs being created?
The result of high levels of H1b immigration has been a massive shift of jobs and knowledge to competing countries.
Svigor,
I'm an American, not an Israeli, so I really don't care what immigration policy Israel pursues. Why do you?
I don't need you to rephrase my questions/arguments. My point was, Israel needs the "help" of our plan for "greatness" far more than the USA. I'm a fair-minded kind of guy so I think we should dispense our "help" to those most in need. C'mon Fred, let's "help" Israel onto the path to "greatness." Once she's been "helped" as much as possible, then we'll concentrate on "helping" the USA.
More to the point, why can't brilliant Jewry figure this out without our help?
And what do you have against high-IQ immigrants like Brin and Khosla creating high-paying jobs and wealth for your fellow Americans?
Fred, as another commenter pointed out, I've already answered this question - several times, in fact; I have roughly the same problem with them as I would selling myself into slavery for a billion dollars, making a million off the rope that's going to hang me, etc.
Put another way:
I have a problem with it to roughly the same extent, and for roughly the same reasons, that Israel has a problem with it Fred.
"I don't need you to rephrase my questions/arguments."
And I don't need you to dodge my arguments with non-sequiturs. The argument was about American immigration policy. I couldn't care less about other countries' immigration policies; America's immigration policy should be based on what's best for America, not on what's best for Israel, Japan, or any other country.
"Fred, as another commenter pointed out, I've already answered this question - several times, in fact; I have roughly the same problem with them as I would selling myself into slavery for a billion dollars, making a million off the rope that's going to hang me, etc."
So working for Google makes an American a slave? If this is your idea of an answer to the question of why you are against high-quality immigrants creating high-paying jobs for Americans, it's a pathetically incoherent one.
"Fred, you have already completely ignored the peer-reviewed scientific articles I posted citing *extensive* admixture in Argentina. You can ignore this as well:
http://www.funpecrp.com.br/gmr/year2007/vol2-6/images/gmr0330tab1.jpg"
That link doesn't seem to work. Fix it, and I'll be happy to take a look.
"Let's see, compared to encyclopedia articles and your personal judgements, I think I'll stick with several genetic studies by different labs which ALL say the SAME thing, thank you very much."
Personal judgments -- you mean my lying eyes that saw European-looking whites everywhere I looked when I was in Argentina? FYI, unless you're British, "judgments" should have one "e".
And I don't need you to dodge my arguments with non-sequiturs.
Not that it impacts your argument, but you've been dodging central arguments on this matter from day one. Have you ever even acknowledged the arguments about EGI at all, much less responded?
The argument was about American immigration policy.
Part of that argument is what motivates Jewish immigration-boosting. I think the case that this motivation doesn't include European best interests (to put it generously) has been well made here and elsewhere.
I couldn't care less about other countries' immigration policies
And I couldn't care less about your opinion, sans its impact on the gullible,
but obviously your great recommendations are fairly opposite what Israel's doing. More to the point, they're fairly opposite what American Jewry seems to want for Israel. If you're trying to convince European Americans that you're on the level, you might want to address the this.
"Fred, as another commenter pointed out, I've already answered this question - several times, in fact; I have roughly the same problem with them as I would selling myself into slavery for a billion dollars, making a million off the rope that's going to hang me, etc."
So working for Google makes an American a slave?
It was an analogy, and hyperbolic for illustrative purposes.
Why would we want to be Paleos when Paleos like you give us the finger? Paleo-populism is, like all forms of populism, an ideology for economic under-achievers.
I don't take this as being worth a response but if you like I'll waste some time on it.
We Jews tend to be empathetic and philanthropic to have-nots, which is why we often support policies to help other groups (e.g., Civil Rights for blacks) or those which go against our economic interests (progressive taxation and generous social spending for the poor).
Actually, Jews tend to lack empathy toward outgroups, relative to Europeans (ethnocentric groups tend to lack empathy for outgroups). The role of Jewries as middleman-exploiter groups is the prime historical example (Russia, former Soviet satellites, Medieval Europe (particularly eastern Europe), etc.).
(Do you have any evidence that Jews are more generous to outgroups than Europeans?)
Jews are rather generous with one another, though. As for blacks and civil rights, that was in pursuit of Jewish interests. Btw, what's the rate of marriage between Jews and blacks? Is anyone who knows telling?
But if you hate us
That's a complex question/proposition. To use an analogy, Jews currently have Euros face down in a choke hold. Euros who perceive this "hate" Jews in the sense that they want to escape the lock and, ideally, bloody their opponent's nose for good measure - to dissuade a repeat performance (all in a rhetorical sense of course).
But, do I hate Jews for being Jews? Absolutely not. I know a few Jews personally and I hate none of them (on the other hand, I do hate Abe Foxman, Mo Dees, Alan Dershowitz, etc., etc., etc.). Much of my advice to fellow WNs is along the lines of emulating Jews (though often not stated as such for purposes of packaging). You don't emulate people you hate, at least I don't consciously seek to do so.
If Jews tomorrow reversed course and started working as well for European interests as they have worked against them in the past...well, I'd throw a party!
why would you expect us to go out of our way to advance your agenda?
I wouldn't. My point, really, is that Paleo interests are relatively opposite Jewish interests, at least as (very) commonly perceived by Jews, and that the "boo hoo, we were made to feel unwelcome so we quit and took our ball home" line is laughable to anyone who knows a bit about critical Jewish history and personality tendencies.
If Jews are such shrinking violets, shouldn't they be leaving the American left wing in droves? That's where the anti-Semitism is, these days.
How did they achieve the societal dominance they did, btw? I mean the evil "WASPs" definitely gave off an anti-Jewish vibe or two, no? Didn't stop the Jews from doing what they were about. If anything, it motivated them.
We're not shrinking violets, but were not all masochists either.
I dunno, seem to be sucking it up from the far left a lot these days.
P.S., it isn't a proxy for empathy, but it's probably not entirely unrelated either; Jews are waaaaay less trusting of outgroups than any other European denomination:
Irish Catholic 2.506
Scandinavian Protestant 1.583
Slavic Catholic 1.481
German Protestant 0.767
German Catholic 0.757
Italian Catholic 0.502
White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant 0.242
Jewish - 3.106
http://www.whitenationalism.com/rj/rj-16.htm
"That link doesn't seem to work. Fix it, and I'll be happy to take a look."
Do you know how to copy and paste?
"Personal judgments -- you mean my lying eyes that saw European-looking whites everywhere I looked when I was in Argentina?"
Yes, your eyes certainly are lying if you think mestizos are "white." The genetic evidence has been confirmed by different labs using different methodologies. Argentines are mixed - significantly mixed. What you think they look like doesn't change the genetic data.
"FYI, unless you're British, "judgments" should have one "e"."
FYI: irrelevant.
"America's immigration policy should be based on what's best for America"
As living humans, we should be interested in what's best for people, not an abstract concept like "America," which likely means different things to different people. I'm sure that a parent wants their childrens' school to do well - for the benefit of their children, not for the benefit of an abstract concept of "the school," or to help others' children at their childrens' expense, or to the benefit of the bricks and plumbing that make up the school building.
The question that needs to be asked: taking *all* costs and benefits into consideration, is "skilled immigration" a *net* gain or loss for *white* Americans.
Balancing it all out, guys like Svigor and I see a loss.
"Arguments" that concentrate only on putative benefits, and which ignore major costs, are not convincing.
An unmistakenly white Argentine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGFfajeUBmY
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/114025749/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
My mistake, my last post was meant for the "They Knew They Were Right" thread. Wish I'd seen it before I went through typing it again. :(
"And I couldn't care less about your opinion"
If that were true, then you wouldn't keep soliciting it. I'll chalk that comment up to your frustration at having to trudge along dogmatically with such weak arguments here.
"I think the case that this motivation doesn't include European best interests (to put it generously) has been well made here and elsewhere."
You seem to be confused again. The argument was about what's in Americans' best interests, not Europeans' best interests.
"It was an analogy, and hyperbolic for illustrative purposes."
It was incoherent because it didn't illustrate anything. Hyperbole has its uses in illustrating a point, only when there is an underlying point. If you were trying to argue that accepting a high-paying job at a company founded or co-founded by an immigrant -- a company considered one of the best places in America to work -- is somehow harmful to you, you have utterly failed in the attempt.
"Do you know how to copy and paste?"
Do you know how to embed a link, or are the most basic elements of HTML beyond your capabilities? FWIW, I did copy and paste the link, and it didn't work.
"FYI: irrelevant."
I think it's relevant that someone who can't spell or compose the most basic HTML is so against welcoming high-IQ immigrants who can do both.
Fred, no, HTML is not "beyond my capabilities." However, with Sailer routinely censoring my posts, to defend your "cognitive elitist" mindset, I have no incentive whatsoever to spend any more than the minimum on answering the likes of you.
In your case, knowing in advance that citizenist Steve will post whatever swill you compose, you can take the time to format to your heart's content.
I don't have that luxury.
And, perhaps, "Fred," you can stop being a snide ass, and address that there are costs as well as benefits to "high-IQ" immigration, and that genetically alien South Asians, East Asians, and Levantines impose a cost that some deem unacceptable.
By the way, perhaps some of your "high-IQ" immigrant friends can help you obtain, and read, the cited peer-reviewed scientific articles that demonstrate that Argentines are mestizo mongrels.
If that were true, then you wouldn't keep soliciting it. I'll chalk that comment up to your frustration at having to trudge along dogmatically with such weak arguments here.
Heh, you had to pull a hostile edit (remove my clause) to make that one work so I'll just smile and nod here.
You seem to be confused again. The argument was about what's in Americans' best interests, not Europeans' best interests.
Heh, now you're taking refuge in deliberate obtuseness? I noticed, as part of this schtick, that you've avoided even the existence of the EGI argument, again. Hehehe.
It was incoherent because it didn't illustrate anything. Hyperbole has its uses in illustrating a point, only when there is an underlying point. If you were trying to argue that accepting a high-paying job at a company founded or co-founded by an immigrant -- a company considered one of the best places in America to work -- is somehow harmful to you, you have utterly failed in the attempt.
The point was pretty clear and simple, and even expanded to the level of tedium by freddy above (externalities; no offense intended freddy). It's obvious by now that you won't touch EGI with a ten foot cattle prod, even in layman's terms, and that you're arguing in something less than good faith.
If anyone else has any issues understanding my point, please speak up and I'll belabor it; otherwise this is starting to feel like a familiar old semantics game that I don't like to play.
Hehehe, this is pretty good. I don't like to initiate this kind of thing but you opened the door:
I think it's relevant that someone who can't spell or compose the most basic HTML is so against welcoming high-IQ immigrants who can do both.
So I'll walk through it: it's one of the idiosyncracies of this blog that you have to double-click pasted URLs in order to select them. My g got me through that roughly ten seconds after the first time I had trouble copying and pasting a link from here.
So, does this failure of yours reflect poorly on cognitive elitism?
Stumbled upon this blog. Reading through the comments, I found that Hal K said "India does not allow immigration the way the U.S. does." This is true only in the sense that Indian immigration laws are more liberal than American ones.
India experiences a ton of immigration from countries poorer or more unstable than India in the neighborhood (Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Burma, Nepal and Afghanistan). This numbers about 50 million. There is also some from more developed countries - Tom Alter (US-origin Indian citizen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Alter), Romulus Whittaker (US-origin Indian citizen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romulus_Whitaker), JBS Haldane (British-origin Indian citizen, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane), Maxine Bernstein (US-origin Indian citizen, http://www.ashoka.org/node/2561), Guy Poitevin (French-origin Indian citizen, http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/~belbernard/misc/ccrss/Guy-biodata-en.htm), Laurie Baker (British-origin Indian citizen, http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/30/stories/2003113004960400.htm) are only a few of the famous ones. There are thousands more. One of them (not yet an Indian national, though I am pretty sure he'll become one) was recently elected college leader at one of India's top universities - Tyler Walker Williams (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7338523). Hell, an Italian woman is basically running the country.
India doesn't require unique skills for anyone to migrate to the country. It's purely based on how long you live there (12 consecutive years, or 11 years residency over a period of 14 years), or alternatively parentage/grandparentage (i.e. the old British system). In fact, if you to go to Bangalore now, you'll see tonnes of non-Indians living and working there. Over 20-30K Americans live and work in India at this point. This number is bound to swell the more India liberalizes and grows economically.
This has no bearing on what you Americans (of any color/origin) should do - shut down, open up, go sideways, whatever. We (i.e. India) do this out of our own self-interest, obviously. It's obvious that immigrants are usually more motivated than natives, almost everywhere you go. And it seems to be the same bloody question everywhere - prejudice vs a brighter future for the country.
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