Here's part of my VDARE.com column outlining a potential breakthrough in long-term political strategy:
Read the whole thing at VDARE.com and comment about it below
Although we are constantly instructed in the teeth of all the evidence that race is “just a social construct,” the reality is that “Hispanic” ethnicity is certainly less of a natural inevitability. Instead, it’s just a bureaucratic construct of the Nixon Administration’s Office of Management and Budget.
While the government allows all individuals to self-identify as a member of a wide selection of races (including “Guamanian or Chamorro” on the 2000 Census short form), it only recognizes a single ethnicity: Hispanic. Nobody else is allowed an ethnicity. All others get lumped together as a nullity: merely Non-Hispanics. ...
The Hispanic electoral tidal wave you always hear about actually consists of an artificial agglomeration of people who don’t share the elemental ties of race, looks, national origin, cuisine—or even language ...
What “Hispanics” do share now is legal privilege. By granting Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Paraguayans etc. etc. preferences for being “Hispanic,” Nixon and the federal bureaucracy conjured up a pan-Hispanic political class dedicated to uniting together to defend this special treatment. ...
As long as Hispanic-only ethnicity exists, this Hispanic elite will side overwhelmingly with the party more favorable to affirmative action, the Democrats. Thus, while Republicans typically lose about 2 to 1 among Latino voters, they are outnumbered 12 to 1 among Latino elected officials.
Nevertheless, decisive action can declaw and defund a seemingly powerful lobby. For example, for 30 years “bilingual” educators grew more numerous and better organized off the taxpayers’ money. Essentially no politicians, least of all the hapless California GOP, dared take on this ever-growing lobby. In 1998, though, Ron Unz’s Proposition 227 put the abolition of bilingual education directly to the voters of California. And they agreed with Unz 61-39.
With the bilingual Ed lobby’s myth of inevitable triumph punctured, the Bush Administration’s 2001 No Child Left Behind Act—otherwise so softheaded—cut back on bilingualism’s federal mandates. Today, bilingual Ed is far from dead, but Unz’s well-placed blow has left it close to dead in the water politically.
How should we offer Ethnic Equality?
- Either, everybody should be allowed to choose an ethnicity—Italian, Okinawan, German, Guatemalan, Barbadian, Navajo, or whatever—and all laws and regulations, including the EEOC's Four-Fifths Rule, should apply equally to all ethnicities. (Administratively, data collection would be simple: the Census Bureau currently asks about “ancestry,” which could simply be renamed “ethnicity.”)
- Or, nobody should have a legally recognized ethnicity. Ethnicity would be treated by the government like religion rather than like race. You can win a discrimination lawsuit over disparate treatment due to your religion, but you can’t win one based on disparate impact on your co-religionists -- the government doesn't collect statistics on religion, so statistical impact can't be calculated. Hence, there are no religious quotas.
Note that the public doesn’t have to understand the concept of “disparate impact.” (How many New York Times columnists do you think understand it?) All that voters need is to have an opinion on the unfairness of one ethnicity being more equal than all other ethnicities.
And unfairness is something that people can’t help having feelings about.
Which form of Ethnic Equality should we have: Ethnicity for Everybody or for Nobody?
Well, in the spirit of bipartisanship upon which Barack Obama ran for President, I think we should let him make the choice between Everybody and Nobody.
What could be more just than that? It’s like when you have to divide one desert between two children. The fairest way is to announce that one will cut and the other will pick which piece he wants.
To make the deal even better, I’d go so far as to offer the President a historic compromise: permanent racial preferences for the descendants of American slaves (and for tribally registered American Indians, while we’re at it) in return for Ethnic Equality.
Mr. Obama, you can achieve a historic victory for the black race, you can fulfill the “dreams from your father,” just by choosing either Ethnicity for Everybody or Ethnicity for Nobody.
Take your time, Mr. President. Talk it over with the public! Let’s have a national conversation on ethnic preferences!
After all, as an old discrimination lawyer, that’s your field of professional expertise.
Seriously…taking preferences away from Hispanics in return for preserving them for blacks is the last thing David Axelrod wants Obama to talk about—an “alliance of the diverse” always threatens to dissolve into an oxymoron (which is exactly why making him talk about it should be a GOP priority).
Read the whole thing at VDARE.com and comment about it below
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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78 comments:
"To make the deal even better, I’d go so far as to offer the President a historic compromise: permanent racial preferences for the descendants of American slaves (and for tribally registered American Indians, while we’re at it) in return for Ethnic Equality."
I can probably support this. I always believed there was a reason to help American Indians and descendants of slavery and segregation.
However, the current system is ridiculous. You have people entering this country and immediately qualifying for affirmative action despite the fact that they or none of their ancestors ever lived here, or were oppressed by the US government.
In my system a guy like Obama would not qualify for affirmative action. The same would be true even for Colin Powell. Although his family went through slavery, his parents came here from Jamaica. So if they have problems they can take it up with the British.
In my system, a native American would mean a native American indigenous of the 50 US states. Therefore, any native Americans from indigenous tribes in current day Mexico, Guatemala, etc. would not qualify for preferences. If they have problems with that, they can take it up with their own governments or Spain.
I've often wondered why opponents of affirmative action/quotas don't demand that Jews and Asians be limited to about a five percent share of society's plum positions. Given that these groups currently get almost 50 percent of enrollment at some of the best colleges, this would be quite a change.
In other words, just make the 4/5s rule applicable to whatever is left over after you subtract the blacks and Hispanics with their guaranteed share, and the Jews and Asians. The resulting white gentile majority makes up about 72 percent of society, but gets far, far less than that when it comes to enrollment at top colleges or controll of major corporations.
In other words, let's have a quota for everyone.
Steve Sailer: Either, everybody...Or, nobody
"Who? Whom?" doesn't work under either of those constraints.
It's pretty hard to argue with the concept of treating everyone the same. Yes, the ancestors of African-Americans and Native Americans were treated badly, but that ended a long time ago. Anti-affirmative action initiatives have passed even in Blue states such as Michigan and California. If the GOP had any sense, the Republican members of Congress would propose the same thing on a national basis. Force the Democrats to defend their racial spoils system and see how far it gets them.
-Black Death
This paper suggests the Hispanic ethnicity is more real than you give it credit for.
One thing I've always wondered is what's to stop just about anyone from claiming that they are "Hispanic." For instance, do I qualify by virtue of having lived in Puerto Rico for 4 years? Surnames seems to be the obvious identifier. But I once knew a guy from Argentina whose last name was "Heinz." And what do you do if only one of your parents is Hispanic? Anyway, this seems way too vague an area for so much to be riding on (like jobs and scholarships).
The Democrat's electoral strategy has been "everybody against white males" for a while now. I'd be pleasantly suprised to see this change.
By the way Steve,
Borat Hussien O'Chicago mentioned the new meme-framing-phrase I noticed in the Brit-media a while back yesterday: He spoke of IRREVERSIBLE Catastrophe if we "do nothing" on the Climate Change.
Get it? Something that is "irreversible" is something that you MUST act on, or it will be "too late", and you wont be able to repair it. This is the single-most-freedom-constricting proposal the left has ever made here (personal carbon footprints, trading allowances as per state to other states--enriching blue states at red state expense, etc) that Ive ever seen. Not much on it in the right blogosphere, but its an enormous initiative from the left for a reason. That reason is not that the world is getting warmer. Actually the opposite is true.
For those of you who feel reeealll bad for blacks and Indians, there is a great remedy: your own checkbook.
What makes you think you have the right to spend my money on your emotional problems?
To make the deal even better, I’d go so far as to offer the President a historic compromise: permanent racial preferences for the descendants of American slaves (and for tribally registered American Indians, while we’re at it) in return for Ethnic Equality.
Huh? Infinite compensation for finite damage?
Well, I guess we have that already, and you're just "offering" to narrow the qualifications.
I'd like liberals to tell us when racial preferences for blacks will end, a hard limit on how long this "remedy" will be attempted. Put a way these retards can understand: how long will racial preferences fail to achieve statistical equality for blacks before you admit it will never work?
Here's another (ancient) question to make these mental mendicants squirm: if you like racial preferences so much, why don't you pay for them? I don't like them; why do I have to pay for them?
I've often wondered why opponents of affirmative action/quotas don't demand that Jews and Asians be limited to about a five percent share of society's plum positions.
Because you haven't internalized who/whom yet (I know it was probably a rhetorical observation).
The even larger privileged social construct of which hispanics are only a subset is "people of color".
Is there any better example of the anti-White nature of the current regime than non-Whites (for which "people of color" is a euphemism) grouping together to advance their political interests, but Whites being pathologized and attacked for doing the same?
James,
I did not read the whole study. I only skimmed it. From what I read, it treats hispanics as Mexican.
In this study, we examined the genetic structure between and within major racial/ethnic groups by use of data from a large, ethnically diverse sample, the Family Blood Pressure Program (FBPP), which includes self-identified white, African American, Hispanic (Mexican), and East Asian (Chinese and Japanese)
To many Americans we associate hispanic with the Mexican mestizos that are predominant in this nation. However, hispanic can include anyone who lives between Mexico and Argentina, excluding Brazil. This includes Blacks like Sammy Sosa, Japanese like Alberto Fujimore, if he decided to immigrate, and blondes like Cameron Diaz.
There is a chart on this page with a breakdown of the racial groups in latin america. Granted it includes Brazil, whose immigrants aren't considered hispanic, but it does give a good idea of the population for each of the other nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America
Maybe it's time for Irish, Polish, and Scots-Irish Americans to start demonstrating outside Ivy League admissions offices, tea-party style?
Of course this is eminently sensible and reasonable -- which is why it isn't politically feasible, sadly.
Add Italian and German Americans to the above.
How about those of English ancestry like Carter, Clinton, Bush?
In other words, just make the 4/5s rule applicable to whatever is left over after you subtract the blacks and Hispanics with their guaranteed share, and the Jews and Asians. The resulting white gentile majority makes up about 72 percent of society, but gets far, far less than that when it comes to enrollment at top colleges or controll of major corporations.
The irony is that initial Jewish involvement in the civil rights struggle was in no small part due to attacks on anti-Jewish quotas at elite universities. The end result was that the anti-Jewish quotas were replaced with anti-white quotas.
Defenders of affirmative action should be pressed to explain why wealthy Jewish and Asian students shouldn't give up some of their spots at elite universities to make room for economically disadvantaged whites. This would be in line with Obama's prior support for using class as a determinant in affirmative action.
You'd have to set limits as to who qualifies as a descendant of American slaves or a tribally registered native american. How much Indian or american black slave blood does one have to have? Do Obama's daughters qualify through their mother?
You bring to the table something the Dems already have while offering to trade for it something you want to take away.
Why would any Dem consider this?
Interesting statistic from the Buchanan article.
"Italian Americans, 8 percent of America's population, are 3 percent of Ivy League student bodies and less than 1 percent of the faculties."
It's interesting that there aren't too many highly visible signs of Italian underachievement but it exists.
http://www.amren.com/ar/2002/01/index.html
Here is a sensible proposal made in American Renaissance back in 2002. It would basically abolish Hispanic ethnicity and instead make it one of five primary racial classifications (alongside White, Middle Eastern, Asian, and Black). Individuals would choose one primary classification and one secondary classification within the primary group. Example - White people would mark White as their primary and choose between Nordic, Slavic, or Mediterranean as their secondary group.
By some accounts, Irish, Welsh and English can trace their ancestry to colinazation from groups that once inhabited the Iberian Penninsula. Everybody with any of those ancestories should go ahead and check Hispanic, celebrating their ancestory. Also, race is just a social construct, and we all came out of Africa, that means that an Obama has no more claim at being an African American than a McCain. So maybe everybody should check whatever they feel, and not give into these social constructs, that might make it harder to bean count...
You can win a discrimination lawsuit over disparate treatment due to your religion, but you can’t win one based on disparate impact on your co-religionists -- the government doesn't collect statistics on religion, so statistical impact can't be calculated. Hence, there are no religious quotas.
Gee, that seems like a huge oversight. I thought there were some smart people crunching the numbers, and I thought they were all committed to the proposition nation.
Maybe they aren't really that smart, and they just never considered that this is unfair. I can't see any other explanation...
I work in the health care industry at a place where we ask about race and ethnicity and the categories are considered a joke by everyone, us and the clients. Puerto Rican Mainlander is different from Puerto Rican Islander. Africa is one big block and the Carribean, as I recall is a blizzard of options.
This stuff makes no sense to us. I dont' really know where these categories come from. Maybe the govt.
I'd be all for getting rid of them compeletely, race and ethnicity. At least as far as were concerned it doesn't matter.
BTW, Didn't Ward Connelly get rid of this stuff in Cali? That's the way to go. I'd love to see supposed liberals defending Nuremberg like racial classifications. For the humor if nothing else.
It's worth remembering that the U.S. Constitution includes only an "enumeration" of citizens (not residents), not asking a bunch of nosy questions, including "race," or "ethnicity," or whatever. Asking any such questions is unconstitutional. It's only supposed to be a head count to draw congressional districts.
So the best strategy is to cancel everything but the enumeration.
"es, the ancestors of African-Americans and Native Americans were treated badly, but that ended a long time ago."
The ancestors of the Irish were treated badly in England, that ended a long time ago, but they didn't catch up until 2001. (and that was with HUGE subsidies from the 'smart' Europeans)
Do portugese descendents qualify as "hispanic"? What is the defining characteristic? That they speak spanish? Or spanish and portugese? Or that they come from a place like Guatemala, which is nominally a hispanophone country?
That's some mutable category that covers a Mayan who only speaks a pre-columbian indian language (but not spanish), a hindi-speaking, mostly indian descendent of portugese colonists in Goa, or an Argentine named Horst Grueber.
Why can't we non-hispanics have our own racial/ethnic classification of white/european?
"Anonymous said...
Yes, the ancestors of African-Americans and Native Americans were treated badly, but that ended a long time ago."
When it comes to black Americans at least, this is immaterial. Those alive now did not suffer from slavery. And while it certainly stinks to be a slave, being the descendent of a slave is not such a bad deal. If it isn't, why aren't there more (or even one, for that matter) black Americans who are willing to trade places with a modern day Nigerian?
This proposal will be sure to rally all Americans who care passionately about Census Bureau statistics. Those who don't - i.e., about 99.999% of the population - will answer, "Huh?".
Don't be too clever. Talking about race is a good thing, but there's already a perfectly good way to approach it: affirmative action. That issue has the advantage that white people actually care about it, and that the target audience - moderate white independents - don't view opposition to it as "racist".
Another existing issue is of course "illegal" immigrants, where race/ethnicity is implicit. This topic as well has been proven effective and safe as a political issue - as long as the race/ethnicity angle remains unstated.
So by all means talk about race either explicitly (affirmative action) or implicitly (immigration) in ways that will attract moderate whites. You don't need policy-geek gimmicks like "ethnic equality".
Well, we have been talking about affirmative action for 40 years, but how many people grasp that statistical disparate impact causes affirmative action?
A more useful and effective remedy for the real issue would be to limit Ivy League grads to a small percent of appointed positions.
Britain did well under the regiment of talented amateurs, and we will do well with moderately talented grads of fairly decent but nonelite Southern, Northwestern and Midwestern schools.
I have a rock solid policy, I NEVER vote for ANY candidate who is Ivy league connected.
It's a prejudice which few have yet been educated on how to object to it .
I read a comment on your site a while ago where a commenter suggested the term Hispanic allows indigenous peoples from Latin America to claim a grand cultural heritage that belongs to European peoples.
I see evidence of this. The Army is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by listing the achievements of Hispanics throughout our history. However, the achievements they list in the Revolution, War of 1812 and Civil War appear to be of European Spaniards. Take this passage about Admiral Farragut:
The best-known Hispanic during the war was Adm. David Farragut, who commanded Union naval forces during the battle at Mobile Bay, Ala. Incidentally, Farragut's father, Jorge, assisted the U.S. Army during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
http://www.army.mil/hispanicamericans/english/about/about.html
I would bet dollars to pesos Admiral Farragut had more in common with the guys posting on this blog than the members of La Raza. But now they get to claim him as one of their own.
Now from the State of New York comes a guy whose grand parents were born in Spain and who wanted to be treated as Hispanic for minority business purposes. A court dismissed his case because NY law does not include in its definition of "Hispanic" people of Spanish or Portuguese descent unless they also come from Latin America.
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/438/438.F3d.195.04-6328.html
So, it appears European Spaniards are only Hispanic when it comes to claiming their achievements. When it comes to special, privileged treatment, they are just regular white guys.
Rebelyell sez:
The resulting white gentile majority makes up about 72 percent of society, but gets far, far less than that when it comes to enrollment at top colleges or controll of major corporations.
That's coz the whites are forever wringing their hands and searching their consciences, whilst the other groups you mention are straight-out jockeying for max influence and gaming the system. I doubt any of them ever bothered with such a thing as a conscience. That's crap for whitey.
Steve: Jeez, I hope you didn't write tht headline. Do we really need "ethnic equality" both before and after the colon?
Truth: what's it like to go through life clueless? For example, subsidies did nothing for Ireland.
truf sez:
The ancestors of the Irish were treated badly in England, that ended a long time ago, but they didn't catch up until 2001. (and that was with HUGE subsidies from the 'smart' Europeans)
eh eh, troofie at it again. Trying to pull our strings again. The Irish "bubble" is just that. Ireland had certain tax perks which caused many Europeans banks to relocate there. In addition they scraped the EU transfer barrel. Ireland did well coz EUrocrats wanted it to, not because the Irish suddenly got smarter. And with the meltdown Ireland is also going down with it, waddayeknow.
But of course what you're after is that whites should support blacks for a time-period extending over our lifetimes so that we cannot contend the issue and you can just collectively flop back onto your asses and not have to bother with pulling your own weight.
All this race classification is just a smokescreen. Dems will classify people whichever way they need them as a clientele in order to win elections. It's that simple. And they are getting away with it coz racism is somehow indirectly tied to that Über-no-no: anti-semitism.
So far their classification of blacks as a racial group, which in itself flies in the face of all the non-racialism we keep hearing about, has the sole purpose of tying blacks to the Dem-AA-gravy train. Blacks trade their votes to the Dems for a free lunch in return. I bet if significant blacks were to start voting GOP or independent, Dems would drop the black race category instantaneously.
Another great example is the racist ANC regime in South Africa. The blacks were howling about the Race Registration Act under Apartheid, but now that they are in power exact a much more stringent race classification scheme in order to administer their racial discrimination system against whites. All that teary-eyed talk about non-racialism which whites were forever subjected to in the media, universities and churches just evaporated overnight when the ANC came into power. It’s just about getting into power and staying there so they can forever put their filthy paws into the public goodies bag.
being the descendent of a slave is not such a bad deal.
I'm going to state the obvious here - we are all descended from slaves somewhere along the line.
It's interesting that there aren't too many highly visible signs of Italian underachievement but it exists.
Working class urban 'ethnic' and Southern rural Whites have suffered the most from AA. Wealthy White liberals call that "social justice."
So you advocated racial discrimination against whites, as long as Hispanics don't benefit from it?
That's probably the stupidest thing you ever wrote, Steve.
How about we have no racial discrimination against whites of any kind and only policies that are in whites' racial interests? Kind of like what every non-white country has.
> we are all descended from slaves somewhere along the line. <
Yes. The ancestor of my father's people came from Britain to America in the late 1600s as an indentured servant. My paternal grandfather lived in a cage, as an agricultural slave, until his early boyhood in 1915. Where my reparations at?
Seriously, as long as we're forced to live in a multiracial state, I vote for Ethnicity for Everybody. It is the least bad strategy for social peace, because it explicitly, legally puts a lid on any one race's winning the perennial racial struggle.
For our Jewish friends, remember that Hitler's antisemitic program had among common Germans one of its most persuasive points of purchase in the grossly disproportionate representation of Jews in the key professions. The mob's dislike of unfairness is not to be dismissed with a shrug.
Of course the best solution is racially separate states with trade. I.e., the basic arrangement (more or less) of humanity since the fall of (mulitracial) Rome until approximately the Napoleonic Age. But this is not on the Obamamama table.
Steve Sailer replies:
Well, we have been talking about affirmative action for 40 years, but how many people grasp that statistical disparate impact causes affirmative action?
Nobody cares what causes affirmative action, at least not since the 1970s. White people know that it confers an "unfair" advantage, even if they can't formulate it in terms of statistical disparity. (I assume that by "disparate impact" you meant just "disparity".)
The main point is that a large number of whites, presumably including lots of independents, already oppose AA. And whether someone supports AA or not, he's not going to say, "Yeah, I love/hate AA, but if we could just straighten out that Hispanic ethnicity thing it would be a lot fairer."
While your point about disparities causing AA is logically and historically true, it's not relevant to the best future course of action. You don't abolish AA by showing that racial/ethnic disparities occur naturally. You abolish AA by getting the majority of white people who already oppose AA to care more about it and to believe that abolishing it is politically possible. With AA gone, racial disparities will, as a side effect, become less important, and it won't matter whether ethnicity is categorized as Hispanic/non-Hispanic.
By the way, I agree with you 100% that the right needs to talk about race, and talk about it a lot, in a way that will attract white moderates. I just disagree on your particular choice of topic.
I think it would be better to replace the Hispanic ethnicity label with the Mestizo racial category. Yes, I know there is a category for mixed (which is what Mestizo means) but Mestizo is implicitly white-Indian, Spanish speaking.
Off-Topic again: Sarah Palin just pwned the 2012 nomination [as if there were ever any question about it]:
Palin, Sounding Like Ron Paul, Takes on the Fed
By Alex Frangos
September 23, 2009, 8:46 AM ET
blogs.wsj.com
..."How can we discuss reform without addressing the government policies at the root of the problems? The root of the collapse? And how can we think that setting up the Fed as the monitor of systemic risk in the financial sector will result in meaningful reform?" she said. "The words 'fox' and 'henhouse' come to mind. The Fed's decisions helped create the bubble. Look at the root cause of most asset bubbles, and you'll see the Fed somewhere in the background."
More generally, Mrs. Palin took the tack that the financial crisis occurred because government got in the way of free enterprise.
"Lack of government wasn't the problem, government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn't fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to," she said. "The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who as I say, couldn't afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks. So many to be blamed on so many different levels, but the fact remains that these people were responding to a market solution created by government policies that ran contrary to common sense," she said...
I don't know how the iSteveosphere could possibly axe for a more perfect candidate than that.
Sarah "Barbie" Palin 2012.
I agree with ATBOTL. Steve is positioning himself as an elite social engineer, not just in this, but in a number of blog articles lately. Quite distastful really.
"How much Indian or american black slave blood does one have to have?"
None at all, if you play the who/whom game the right way!
Jim - I dont think you can say subsidies have done nothing for Ireland.
There was a time when the EU was hosing Ireland with money. At least some of that money went on useful stuff, stuff that Irish taxpayers didnt then have to pay for, infrastructure etc.
Headache - is there some easily-available reference for SA's current race classification system. That would so cool to cite when battling our leftie pals online.
"Truth: what's it like to go through life clueless? For example, subsidies did nothing for Ireland."
Well I guess you know more than an Irish Prime Minister.
I for one don't even know more than an English Journalist
One problem is that while they make the Hispanic "ethnicity", about half of Hispanics call themselves "white" on the census forms, including about 45% of Mexican Americans (despite the fact Mexico itself is only 10% white), and about 80% of the people in Puerto Rico. To make things worse, the vast majority of other Hispanics answer an ethnic group as their race and get put into the "Some other race" category... and since no federal agency but the Census Bureau (and only in the decennial censuses themselves) keep "Some other race" separate but lump it in with white, this would lead to the absurd situation where 90%+ of all Hispanics are counted as "white".
Unfortunately, the Census Bureau has not yet thought up of a race category such as "Mixed Race, Mestizo, or Mulatto" to put on the form, which might solve this problem (barring outright snobbish lying by Hispanics who really do think they are white).
I think one rationale for keeping the "Hispanic" category is to prevent adulteration of the "white" category.
So you advocated racial discrimination against whites, as long as Hispanics don't benefit from it?
That's probably the stupidest thing you ever wrote, Steve.
How about we have no racial discrimination against whites of any kind and only policies that are in whites' racial interests? Kind of like what every non-white country has.
I agree with this poster... I would only accept AA against whites if the benefiting group's fertility rate was lower than whites and they had negligible immigration... neither of which conditions are met for blacks.
Steve, as usual, you are full of capital ideas. The question, though, is who is going to implement them? Were you planning on writing a letter to Obama?
The liberal legend is that, once upon a time, ol' Tricky Dick managed to pull the South into the GOP with the Southern Strategy using blacks as a foil. Whatever the truth of this is, it's clear that today's GOP has no ability to think and operate in the clear and calculating way you suggest. Are we expecting John "They're God's Children" McCain to pitch this?
>>>
Interesting statistic from the Buchanan article.
"Italian Americans, 8 percent of America's population, are 3 percent of Ivy League student bodies and less than 1 percent of the faculties."
It's interesting that there aren't too many highly visible signs of Italian underachievement but it exists.
>>>
Only if you judge achievement solely as a function of higher ed participation. Which is daft.
From U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 survey info: Avg. household income for Italian-Americans is $59,877, 116% of the white avg. ($51,429) and 123.5% of national avg. ($48,451).
Not too fond of the eyeties I take it? You seem a bit a resistant to Pat's theme, which certainly was not about Italian underachievement. Actually, the Italians have been overachieving, especially relative to education level.
The only two ethnic groups the Constitution single out are Indians and descendants of the African slave trade. So even with a general rule of no racial classifications, I think Congress is within its power to give preferences to Indians and the descendants of American slaves (but not the children of African or Carribbean immigrants).
Steve's point is a sound one, affirmative action policies are tolerable when there's a small class of beneficiaries, but if the "minority class" gets too large, it becomes both economically intolerable and politically untouchable.
The Small Business Administration goes the furthest, also giving minority preference to Asians (who have above average IQ and income) and all women (who happen to be a majority of the population). Steve's idea of limiting affirmative action to the only two constitutionally defensible categories really is the best way to handle it.
In fact, the country would probably benefit from "hard quotas" for blacks and Indians (which I'll refer to hereafter as "minorities"). Let's say you needed to hire 10 new employees and you could give everyone the ASVAB-- the military version of the IQ test that also includes subtests like Shop Knowledge and Electronic Information.
If the hard quota for that job category was, say, 10%-- take the 9 highest scorers (whether IQ or relevant subtest) plus the highest scoring minority, if one of top 9 is a minority, just take the next candidate off the combined list. Problem solved, but that'd be an illegal "hard quota" under current law. And because of "disparate impact" rules, private sector employers are all but forbidden from using exam scores for hiring.
Instead of efficiency and fairness of hiring by exam, HR departments use college degrees and other paper credentials when they hire. The worst part of our current "soft quota" system isn't the unqualified minorities who are hired, its the far larger group of unqualified (but credentialed!) whites who get hired too.
The irony is that initial Jewish involvement in the civil rights struggle was in no small part due to attacks on anti-Jewish quotas at elite universities. The end result was that the anti-Jewish quotas were replaced with anti-white quotas.
That's not irony, that's who/whom. Quotas against Jews? Bad. Quotas (tacitly) for Jews? Good.
The ancestors of the Irish were treated badly in England, that ended a long time ago, but they didn't catch up until 2001. (and that was with HUGE subsidies from the 'smart' Europeans)
How long should non-Irish groups be given subsidies before the rest of us are allowed to opt out of the pocket-picking?
being the descendent of a slave is not such a bad deal.
I'm going to state the obvious here - we are all descended from slaves somewhere along the line.
Ceteris paribus, if I'm going to be born black I take "a descendant of slaves" over "not a descendant of slaves", 10 times out of 10, and so does everyone else not a few fries short of a happy meal.
Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks.
She is so transcendentally perfect that I think she must have come from Central Casting of Elysium:
Frog-Boiling
by Steve Sailer
Friday, December 26, 2008
steve.blogspot.com
Slippery slopes and boiling frogs
by Steve Sailer
Thursday, February 26, 2009
steve.blogspot.com
etc etc etc
Okay, nobody mentioned the primary flaw in Steve's thinking (the generality, "ethnicity for everyone or ethnicity for no one," not the particularity, census data), so I will.
This is tantamount to "arms for everyone, or arms for no one." The problem is we run the risk of deception from some parties. "Sure, I'll disarm"; then he brings a gun to the signing party.
No, I'm afraid "guns for everyone" is the only way forward; this way whites don't end up the only saps not packing, and others whinging about disarmament (unilateral disarmament, in other words) are simply derelict in their duty and no concern of ours.
Jewish involvement in promoting racial equality, multiculturalism(originally called "pluralism") and open borders predates Jewish quotas at universities. By the way, those quotas were only at a few schools, didn't last very long and were set at many times higher than the Jewish percentage in the population.
Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants had a hostile and aggressive stance towards the majority Anglo-Protestant culture as soon as they stepped off the boat.
Whatever the issue is that's being discussed, I always ask myself: "I wonder how the Swedes would handle this."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt77xc8ESkE
"Only if you judge achievement solely as a function of higher ed participation. Which is daft.
From U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 survey info: Avg. household income for Italian-Americans is $59,877, 116% of the white avg. ($51,429) and 123.5% of national avg. ($48,451)."
Yes, but Italian Americans tend to be urban and live in the Northeast and industrial Great Lakes States where wages and cost of living are higher. The same would apply to Irish Catholics, Poles, etc. Cost-of-living-adjusted income would be more telling. (Before you accuse me of disliking the Eyeties, I am part Eyetie and I'm not self hating. ;-)
Truth, is that the best you could come up with? EU membership is not a subsidy, and citing Fitzgerald's opinion about what improved the Irish economy is like citing Jimmy Carter's opinion on why the American hostages in Iran were released. Fitzerald is a Europeanist like Mary Robinson, whose views have been rejected by the Irish public. Look what they did when asked to vote on the Lisbon treaty.
And you cite an opinion jounalist to refute someone else's opinion? Oy. You are such a bore.
Actually, affirmative action for all makes a lot of sense at our elite liberal arts colleges and universities where the future leaders of our nation are recruited and trained, not least because it would be so difficult to mount a coherent argument against the idea. On what grounds could one oppose equal representation of all ethnic groups in the governance of our democratic institutions.
"Truth, is that the best you could come up with? EU membership is not a subsidy,"
Oh of course not and having dark skin does not make one a recipient of affirmative action...but it's a whole hell of a lot easier to get it if you apply for it.
troof sez:
Oh of course not and having dark skin does not make one a recipient of affirmative action...but it's a whole hell of a lot easier to get it if you apply for it.
so?
It really chaps my butt to hear someone spouting about native Americans, as if they have any rights inherent in a claim of being the first humanoids in the Western Hemisphere.
A better descriptor is First Americans, and why give them a pass for the genocide perpetrated on large mammalian species here when they arrived with their little clovis points and fire?
Paging Cass Sunstein, animal rights czar ASAP. How about some affirmative action love for squirrels?
If people think there was ever a single "Anglo-Protestant" culture in America, they have never read Fischer's "Albion's Seed."
It talks about the differences between the New England Puritan culture (with roots in southeastern England) and the 2 Southern cultures, the Lowcountry (with roots in the aristocracy of southwestern England) and Backcountry (with roots among the Covenanters and Border Reivers of southern Scotland and the Anglo-Scottish border.)
It wasn't until after civil rights were granted in the 1960s that the movement perverted into one seeking permanent preferences for blacks, but by that point, Jews had largely been purged from civil rights organizations such as the NAACP.
Purged or left of their own accord?
On what grounds could one oppose equal representation of all ethnic groups in the governance of our democratic institutions.
I assume you mean proportional representation, not equal, since equal representation would be loopy. (Either way, the power passes to whomever decides who gets to be a group)
If so, then liberals would just play hear-no-evil. A great example of who/whom; they have the power so they don't have to worry about such consistencies.
A better descriptor is First Americans
But for the fact that they weren't the first Americans...
the Lowcountry (with roots in the aristocracy of southwestern England)
Funny, I was born, raised, and now live in the Low Country, and my paternal line comes from southwestern England; not aristocracy though, not as far as I know. I started Albion's Seed but put it down early and haven't taken it back up yet.
False. First, there wasn't one "Anglo-Protestant" culture: the culture of white Protestants in the South was different from that of New England WASPs. Ashkenazi Jews shared New England WASPs' concerns about the plight of African Americans, who were being lynched and otherwise persecuted in the South. As New England WASPs led the charge for abolition in the 19th century, so did Ashkenazi Jews lead the charge for civil rights for African Americans during the 20th. This was driven not by an antipathy toward WASPs but, on the contrary, by a shared sense of justice.
It wasn't until after civil rights were granted in the 1960s that the movement perverted into one seeking permanent preferences for blacks, but by that point, Jews had largely been purged from civil rights organizations such as the NAACP.
Fascinating. What's your spin on Hart-Celler?
Jewish love of "civil rights" is born of Jewish ethnocentrism, a position that fits the facts better than yours.
Screw David Hackett Fischer.
a shared sense of justice
Brother, can you spare a dime?
"Not too fond of the eyeties I take it?"
This is not about hating on people. Rather its getting at all the differences of HBD.
It seems to me that all the Italian contributions to America in science/tech for instance are from Northern Italian immigrants. It's interesting to note that although Italians have assimilated, they aren't high achieving.
OK, let me get this straight: Jews helped out a different ethnic group that was being persecuted out of ethnocentrism?
Yes. Did I stutter?
P.S., persecution/smersecution. Jews are still guns a-blazin' for blacks. Persecution? We don't need no stinking persecution!
What's your spin on Hart-Celler? Total lack of civil rights for the Occupied Territories? Nobody even to fight for that one; granting "civil rights" would be a roll in the clover.
My explanation works throughout. Yours doesn't.
Does that sound logical even when you read it?
Can we get a sandwich with that?
.
Fred - "OK, let me get this straight: Jews helped out a different ethnic group that was being persecuted out of ethnocentrism? Does that sound logical even when you read it?"
Fred, listen to yourself!
Group A is in conflict with Group B, meanwhile Group C is in conflict with Group B. Group A can help its own cause by aiding Group C against Group B. Its not rocket science.
Of course Group A may well have issues with Group C itself, but if they can persuade Group C that there is no real conflict with Group A and that its grievances are only with Group B, so much the better.
The use of A,B & C implies no hierarchy of value.
"Yes. Did I stutter?"
No, you wrote something logically incoherent. And you still haven't explained why working to end the persecution of another ethnic group is an example of ethnocentrism. You're a verbally facile one, but not verbally facile enough to dig yourself out of that hole, so I understand if you want to change the subject. But I'll bite anyway.
"What's your spin on Hart-Celler?"
I happen to think it was a bad idea as written, and the consequences of it have been bad, overall, for this country. If your question is about the motivations of Hart and Celler, I imagine one of the Celler's motivations was his memory of this.
You could claim (and I assume you will) that Celler's advocacy for the plight of refugees from the Holocaust during WWII was ethnocentric on his part, but he was part German Catholic, so maybe it was partly motivated by guilt relating to what some of his German co-ethnics were doing in the old country. Or maybe it was motivated by a sense of compassion for the suffering of others. You may be unfamiliar with this feeling, but some humans have it. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above.
Without knowing more about Philip Aloysius Hart, I can't speculate on his motivations for co-sponsoring the legislation.
"Total lack of civil rights for the Occupied Territories? Nobody even to fight for that one; granting "civil rights" would be a roll in the clover."
You're in a tendentious mood tonight! I can't sleep, so that's OK. First, by any objective reading of historic international law, the "territories" (a grandiose term for such small pieces of land) aren't occupied, they're disputed. Second, one of the territories is under the control of the Palestinians. The civil rights (or lack thereof) there are on them. Third, in the other territory, the Palestinians' freedom (chiefly, their freedom of movement) is limited to the extent necessary to prevent attacks by them.
I am not an Israeli, so it's not really my business, but if they were asking my advice, I'd suggest that they unilaterally draw a border that roughly follows the armistice line, finish building their fence on it, abandon any settlements to the east of it, and leave the Palestinians to their own affairs.
"Can we get a sandwich with that?"
Ask Stalin. But why not ask for a pierogi instead? It would make your trolling sound more authentic. Of course, you've probably never even met a Ukrainian. Thanks to the Hart-Celler act though, I have met a number of them. Good people.
Fred, you seem like a good guy, so if any of this strikes you as personal, rest assured it is not intended so. I broke the character-count barrier in my response, so I'll submit part 2 next.
No, you wrote something logically incoherent.
How so? (That isn't a rhetorical question)
And you still haven't explained why working to end the persecution of another ethnic group is an example of ethnocentrism. You're a verbally facile one, but not verbally facile enough to dig yourself out of that hole, so I understand if you want to change the subject. But I'll bite anyway.
:) There's no hole. I suppose I can explain the obvious in several ways, but I'll pace myself. Here's one: if whites and blacks are at one another's throats, Jews are camouflaged. There goes altruism. Want more? This is plowed ground here but I'll belabor the subject if necessary.
I happen to think it was a bad idea as written, and the consequences of it have been bad, overall, for this country. If your question is about the motivations of Hart and Celler, I imagine one of the Celler's motivations was his memory of this.
If your suggested motive is accurate, then I suppose the Act was spectacularly poorly-written, and its consequences similarly off-target. I don't think it's accurate. Jews are nothing if not good at getting what they want politically. If they'd wanted an American escape hatch for Jews, I suppose they could've gotten one much more easily than they got Hart-Celler. Also, Jewish lobbying for immigration "reform" goes back to the 19th century (MacDonald), though I suppose we could blame the czars or something. (Also, I've read that Zionists were lobbying against anyone taking in the Jews, since they wanted Palestine as the only escape hatch for Jews for obvious reasons; you might want to look into that, I don't know the specifics). I suggest that the Act was well-written, and achieved its authors' goals.
You could claim (and I assume you will) that Celler's advocacy for the plight of refugees from the Holocaust during WWII was ethnocentric on his part, but he was part German Catholic, so maybe it was partly motivated by guilt relating to what some of his German co-ethnics were doing in the old country. Or maybe it was motivated by a sense of compassion for the suffering of others. You may be unfamiliar with this feeling, but some humans have it. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the above.
Questioning my motives, or my humanity, won't slice any bread. I have sound motives and score well in "humanity," but I don't lead with either when I debate. And since you broached the subject, I have compassion for the suffering of others, but I have more compassion of the suffering of me and mine, and have learned not to be taken in by this feint; insofar as it's cover for my own dispossession, no, I don't have much sympathy for the suffering of others. Funny how that works, how often I find it necessary to parry a move for my backside the moment I'm warned of the suffering of others. It's axiomatic that the Devil, no doubt a keen student of human nature, ever has at the ready a sermon on the suffering of others.
(By the way, your parenthetical assumption vis-a-vis Celler is more or less correct, but it bears pointing out that I suppose his actions were ultimately down to ethnocentrism; whether he was bought, or self-deceptively ethnocentric, or a combination of the two, or something else is anyone's guess)
Without knowing more about Philip Aloysius Hart, I can't speculate on his motivations for co-sponsoring the legislation.
A good segue into my next point: cui bono? People have all sorts of interesting motives and justifications and rationalizations for the things they do (and not to be rude, but in my experience Jews are exceptional players at this game, second to none). Often they aspire to far greater heights than would be suggested by answering, cui bono?
I am not an Israeli, so it's not really my business, but if they were asking my advice, I'd suggest that they unilaterally draw a border that roughly follows the armistice line, finish building their fence on it, abandon any settlements to the east of it, and leave the Palestinians to their own affairs.
I see no need to delve into the particulars. Just look at the general attitude of Israelis toward Palestinian "civil rights." Then compare the attitude of American Jewry toward black "civil rights." Night and day.
Ask Stalin. But why not ask for a pierogi instead? It would make your trolling sound more authentic. Of course, you've probably never even met a Ukrainian. Thanks to the Hart-Celler act though, I have met a number of them. Good people.
That's another point where ethnocentrism has more explanatory power, the dramatic proportion of Jews in secret police forces behind the Iron Curtain. I don't suppose that was down to altruism or a quest for "civil rights."
Fred refers w/exasperation to Svigor's comment and asks,
"OK, let me get this straight: Jews helped out a different ethnic group that was being persecuted out of ethnocentrism? Does that sound logical even when you read it?"
I think Svigor's is expressing, in an indirect sense, the concept of "your enemy is my friend", and the view that some non-whites are just natural enemies of whites, or vice versa. Sad worldview, but it does state reality for a lot of people.
Personally I think it's been a good thing for people to throw off "ethnicities." In a sense the American melting pot has occurred for persons of European descent, including most Italians, and even some Greeks. I just know too many people who are a mixture of these nationalities plus things like English, Irish, Dutch, Polish, Laplander, Swabian, Ukrainien, Portagee, etc., for the sense of separateness to keep on keeping on among Euro-descended persons. Sure, they are proud of their particular culture and hisotry, but when it comes down to what music you listen to in America (aside from that anomaly, rap), things do breakdown this way: white music, and black music. Whites will listen to black music but blacks don't go out of their way to get white music.
Whatever the ethnic sympathies of Jews, Greeks, Italians or Armenians (Cher anyone), their music as made in America is white music, appreciated mainly by whites and, often, westernized Asians of the south and eastern variety. It's my personal criteria. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, great American band, popular among all classes of whites, were about half Jewish in numbers. They would never had blacks, not because of "bigotry" but because of the kind of music they made. Jews are well-represented (suprise, surprise), in rock and folk, alternative, jazz, etc. But by and large they make music whites will listen to. Not blacks, not hispanic mestizos. Whites and some browns from Asia.
That's how race breaks down in America according to the music criteria.
That's how race breaks down
"It's interesting to note that although Italians have assimilated, they aren't high achieving."
I take exception to that. Not because I am Italian but because I don't think it's true--while I don't have stats it does seem that an awful lot of Italian names ending in "o" (sure sign of a southerner) turn up in the world of law, finance, and science. A Sicilian (very religious man--wanted to be a priest but found himself married with a child; wife left him and I used to see him praying in his office) once told me that the IQ averaged higher in Sicily than elsewhere in Italy. I have never seen data to back this up, but with their vibrant cuisine and colorful recent history, I sort of doubt the place is full of technocrats. Steve has pointed out that places with good food are usually unethical and disorganized, though France is certainly an exception to that, n'est-ce pas?
Anyway, my point is, southern Italians are fairly high achieving in the U.S., and I don't mean mafia.
I'm not sure if there is any data on Sicilians so looking at the Wikipedia "list of hypenated-American" may be the closest way to survey Sicilian ability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sicilian_Americans
You can see from the list that there are a ton Sicilians in the arts. However, they are seriously unaccomplished in law, business, science, etc.
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