September 7, 2012

How do Asian Indians vote?

During election years, everybody is supposed to genuflect to Hispanic Numbers, although the usual acts of obeisance are often inept. For example, the Obama Administration engineered that the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Arizona go to Richard Carmona, a guy with a remarkable track record: high school dropout; Vietnam vet; sheriff; nurse; doctor; surgeon; was shot by a lunatic but the wounded Carmona pulled his gun and killed the shooter; Surgeon General under Bush; the GOP wanted him to run for Congress in 2006; but he then changed from Republican to Independent in protest over various Bush policies. 

The only problem is: Carmona's not Mexican. He's a Puerto Rican from New York City. This is a general problem: 35 million Mexicans in the U.S. and not a lot of amazing individuals. Thus, the recent silliness of everybody pretending the ceremonial mayor of San Antonio is really a powerhouse executive.

All immigrant groups are not created equal. Polish Catholics, for instance, appear roughly equal in number to Jews in the U.S., but have negligible clout in U.S. culture outside of maybe outfielders. Consider the Borat episode in 2006, in which Polish-American complaints about being assaulted with a giant old-fashioned Polish Joke of the kind that Yiddish-speakers brought to the U.S., and having Borat wildly celebrated by Jewish critics went virtually unheard.

Likewise, I've often argued that in the long run, the most important element of the current immigration mix in terms of setting the tone of politics in the future are not Mexicans, but South Asians. They are articulate in English, and are one of the few groups who seem to like to argue in public. Indians, though, seem to lack the edge, that motor of internal hostility and aggression that makes male Jews the reigning World's Heavyweight Champs at both getting the last word and at being funny.  For example, on the Atlantic Magazine's 2009 list of the most important pundits in America, Jewish men were over-represented by a factor of about 50.

But it's easy to imagine a future in which Asian Indians rank second among ethnic groups in opinion-molding in America.

So, it's important to study the voting and ideology of South Asians. They are a high income group from a socially conservative part of the world, so they are natural Republicans, right.?From the Guardian:
An impressive 84% of the 2.85 million-strong Indian-American community voted for Mr Obama in 2008, second perhaps only to African-Americans as a minority group. 
Has he still got their love? It appears so. 
According to a Pew Research Center survey released in June, 65% of Indian-Americans approve of the way Mr Obama is handling the presidency. 
Of all the Asian American groups surveyed, Indian-Americans were the most Democratic-leaning, again at 65%. Only 18% favoured Republicans.

Well, good luck Republicans with the rest of the 21st Century. You will need it.

The most obvious step is to take away South Asians' valuable status as minorities eligible for various minority-only benefits to business. Go back to pre-1982 when they were just Caucasians not entitled to racial spoils. Right now, South Asians have a financial incentive to identify as victimized minorities -- indeed, the applications Indian entrepreneurs have to fill out for government benefits in terms of procurement and loans often demand that they concoct narratives about how discriminated against they are by whites. Remove this destructive incentive and the traditional South Asian aspiration to whiteness will re-emerge.

214 comments:

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Anonymous said...

That would be news to many in Northern Indian ,particularly those who populate Bollywood! Many of whom are paler than say Southern Italians or Spaniards

No they are not. The fact that you all get off on such bollywood delusions shows how screwed up you are.

Anonymous said...

In his criticism he doesn't spare Indian middle to upper castes such as Jats and Patels!

He hates them because the Patels and Jats are sudras or low caste who are doing better than brahmins economically. Doing better economically does not make a sudra an upper caste in the brahminical system. But in modern India it makes them a "forward" caste.

Btw, your buddy rec1man, who claims to be a tamil brahmin, is probably a sudra himself based on the judgement of the true orthodox nambudiri brahmins. Look it up.

Anonymous said...

Krishna traced his descent from Yadu kings with impeccable Vedic Arya lineage.

So you believe that the Vedic Aryans were negritos?

After all Krishna is described as shyama sundara or black and handsome...

Was Sathya Sai Baba whose photographs and videos we have, also a negrito:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/8z83956

Anonymous said...

Mahavir Jain ,founder of Jainism,Siddhartha Gautama, of Buddhism and Guru Nanak of Sikhism had only improved and clarified some concepts in existing Hinduism while doing away with others.In that they were merely following old Hindu traditions of examining and spring cleaning the Vedas as it were.

A shameless lie. They didn't "spring clean" the Vedas they rejected it outright. They rejected its cruel sacrifices, they rejected its caste system, they rejected its superstitious nonsense, they rejected its gods...

It was brahminism that borrowed extensively from the sramanic or self-reliant religions, Jainism and Buddhism, not vice versa.

You are also lying when you claim that the Vedas are not the "word of God" to hindus. :

http://www.bradfordmandir.org/6.html

The Vedas are eternal truths revealed by God to the great ancient Rishis of India.

So you are forced to explain how the human and animal sacrifices of the Vedas can be considered "eternal truths". Go ahead give it a shot. :)

Anonymous said...

The Portuguese were so loathed that Hindus and Muslims temporarily forgot their differences and attacked together.

All your loathing could not dislodge the portuguese from their tiny colony of Goa for 550 years! Says a lot about the martial spirit of hindus.

It was only in 1961 that India took Goa by force using the british trained modern army it inherited from its erstwhile colonizers..

Btw, Goa makes the rest of India look like a giant slum. It has the highest per capita income of any indian state. It also has the highest percentage of christians. On the other hand the states with the highest percentage of brahmins, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, are the poorest, filthiest, most backward, most dehumanizing. Coincidence? I think not...

Anonymous said...

If I had my way ,I would storm the Basilica of Bom Jesus and thoroughly desecrate this pirate Francis Xaviers tomb

Your ancestors already had their way with the temples and monasteries of the Jains and Buddhists in South India centuries before Xavier landed in Goa. It is a shameful record that your kind is still itching to replicate...

Anonymous said...

Francis Xavier had to resort to the tired lame Catholic strategy of bashing heathens by spreading ill informed propaganda and falsehoods

Which part of Xavier's description of the brahmin is a falsehood:

They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found.....They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is, how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people.

That description is true to this day. One can even see it in the posts of brahmins on internet forums.

A recent poll showed that 3/4 indians agree that brahmins are a deceitful caste...

Dr Van Nostrand said...

So you are forced to explain how the human and animal sacrifices of the Vedas can be considered "eternal truths". Go ahead give it a shot. :)"

Err I didn't make that quote! Are you so deranged that you take a quote that someone else made and ascribe it to me?



A shameless lie. They didn't "spring clean" the Vedas they rejected it outright. They rejected its cruel sacrifices, they rejected its caste system, they rejected its superstitious nonsense, they rejected its gods..."

Evidence please that Buddha ,Mahavira and Nanak stated that "We hereby reject the wicked Brahmanic Vedas and their superstitious falsehoods" or something to that effect!
You can call a truth a lie or vice versa ,it doesn't make it so!

It was brahminism that borrowed extensively from the sramanic or self-reliant religions, Jainism and Buddhism, not vice versa. "

Self reliant? Hahaha! The Buddhists,Jains and Sikhs are as devoted to their clergy as Hindus to their Brahmins perhaps even more so!


...
They are as perverse and wicked a set as can anywhere be found.....They are liars and cheats to the very backbone. Their whole study is, how to deceive most cunningly the simplicity and ignorance of the people.

That description is true to this day. One can even see it in the posts of brahmins on internet forums.

A recent poll showed that 3/4 indians agree that brahmins are a deceitful caste..."

THIS is your evidence? Hearsay, your anecdotal finds from forums and surveys?You are a sad,pathetic man!



All your loathing could not dislodge the portuguese from their tiny colony of Goa for 550 years! Says a lot about the martial spirit of hindus."

They had been restricted to Goa not by choice, I hope you realize that some Pope in the 1500s assigned West Indies to Spain and East Indies to Portugal!

The Portuguese were welcomed as traders but very soon they broke this trust and conducted war on their patrons.You may impressed by such "martial" practices but we are not.
Their plans in South India were thwarted despite Hindus having to worry about driving back Muslim invasions.
Spain and Portugal were ruled by Muslims for 700 years.Hungary,Greece and much of Eastern Europe were under Turkish rule for 400 years
The British were under Norman French rule.
Only someone with such appallingly bad knowledge of history would make such a tenuous connection between martial spirit and occupation!

It was only in 1961 that India took Goa by force using the british trained modern army it inherited from its erstwhile colonizers.. "

Yes the very army that helped it win both the world wars ,sorry I really don't have the need to feel any gratitude towards Britain in this matter.


Btw, Goa makes the rest of India look like a giant slum. It has the highest per capita income of any indian state. It also has the highest percentage of christians. On the other hand the states with the highest percentage of brahmins, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, are the poorest, filthiest, most backward, most dehumanizing. Coincidence? I think not...

Catholics are a minority in Goa genius! Furthemore Goa was ruled as union territories well in the 90s i.e. rule was for most part from the central government!
And who were the administrators those evvvvilll Brahmins from UP and Bihar!

Dr Van Nostrand said...


Your ancestors already had their way with the temples and monasteries of the Jains and Buddhists in South India centuries before Xavier landed in Goa. It is a shameful record that your kind is still itching to replicate..."

Someone has been reading too much leftwing propaganda, who beside Pushyamitra Sunga and Shashanka has persecuted Buddhists.
In the former case it was more likely political than religious as he had usurped the Maurya dynasty by assassinating the last king Brihidranatha Maurya who was a Buddhist and this had more to do with purging the Maurya loyalists.

There was one stray Chola king in the south who persecuted Jains and that was instigated by a Jain king who did the same to Vedic Brahmins.

I hate to break it to you but Buddhist and Jain kings were just as ferocious and bloodthirsty as Vedic Kshatriya kings so much as when that Bactrian Greek interloper Menander invaded Northern India, he simply retreated when he learnt that Kharavela the Jain king of Kalinga was intent on engaging him.

I really don't have a problem with Jains or Buddhists,more power to them... but you seem to have serious issues with Brahmins...get some help!

Dr Van Nostrand said...


No they are not. The fact that you all get off on such bollywood delusions shows how screwed up you are"

I simply commented on the actors who constitute Bollywood, I never issued any judgement or their product(which I don't quite care for BTW).So how exactly is that "Bollywood delusions"?

You seriously have to come up with better counter arguments than "no it is not" or "you are deluded, screwed up"

You are not exactly Cicero with your utter lack of persuasion,wit,facts or erudition!

Anonymous said...

Err I didn't make that quote! Are you so deranged that you take a quote that someone else made and ascribe it to me?

That quote from a hindu organization makes a liar out of you (yet again!) for claiming that hindus do not consider the Vedas to be the eternal truth revealed by God. That was a shameless lie since you surely knew that the in hinduism the Vedas are considered Sruthi or revealed scripture and sanatana or eternal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Śruti

The name for revelation in Sanskrit is Sruti, which means hearing; and this title distinguished the Vedic hymns and, at a later time, the Brahmanas also, from all other works, which however sacred and authoritative to the Hindu mind, are admitted to have been composed by human authors. The Laws of Manu, for instance, are not revelation; they are not Sruti, but only Smriti, which means recollection of tradition. If these laws or any other work of authority can be proved on any point to be at variance with a single passage of the Veda, their authority is at once overruled. According to the orthodox views of Indian theologians, not a single line of the Veda was the work of human authors. The whole Veda is in some way or the other the work of the Deity


So if you do not believe that the Vedas are eternal and infallible, why do you still call yourself a brahmin?

The question remains: what eternal infallible truths do hindus find in the human sacrifices aka purushamedha of the Vedas? What is infallible about the bestiality and necrophilia that is part of the horse sacrifice or ashvamedha???

Anonymous said...

"What are Goan Catholics going to do? Fight us? Hahahahaha...well they can try when they are not hung over from the liquor they purchased thanks to the uh efforts of their wives.
"
Van Nostrand is a bigoted ignoramus parroting silly Bollywood sterotypes.

Gmorbgmibgnikgnok said...

The Republican base is poorer and less-educated than American of South Asian descent (specifically, Hindus -- see Pew).

Nevertheless, this same group manages to look down on South Asians with the same contempt aimed at blacks and Latinos.

As Mr. Sailer points out, South Asians are quite fluent in English. They remember campaign questions about whether candidate X is *really* a Christian, or references to Nikki Haley being a "raghead".

All of that tasty goodness comes from one side of the aisle.

Good luck getting South Asians to lock arms with the GOP base. Seriously, give it your best shot if only for the comedic effect.

In 20 years, they'll have enough money and clout to make the Jewish lobby look like the Jehovah's Witnesses. And they won't be voting Republican.

Anonymous said...

Legendary Linda said: "Among the Mongoloids, Hong Kongoids are the brightest (IQ 110) and Native Americans are the dullest (genetic IQ around 90), but because East Asains so outnumber Amerindians, the overall mongoloid mean is 105.


Among caucasoids, Ashkenazi are the brightest (IQ 110), Roma are the dullest (genetic IQ probably 80), with an overall caucasoid mean around 95. Ashkenazis have a lot of genetic diseases caused by centuries of artifiticial selection for intelligence; perhaps natures way of saying no Caucasoid people is meant to have a mean IQ as high as the superior Mongoloids."

Did this crazy left over from the 1920s eugenics craze woman actually say "Hong Kongoids"? LOL! Genetically race counts for less than 1% of a person's DNA characteristics. One certainly cannot base race upon something so flexible as "phenotype"!

Thank goodness for this blog, because this is one of the few spaces in the world where this junk can even remotely be taken seriously giving the crazies an out so that society is somewhat protected from their lunacy. This comment more than any other perfectly illuminates why Southeast Asians don't vote Republican:

1. No one wants to align themselves with the losers...sorry.
2. Many of you might have gained a bit more savoir fair and recognized the need for the intelligent suit wearing guy as your front man but we colored people know that the ignorant rhetoric usually isn't too far behind. "Hide Billy Bob, company is coming!" Yeah, well we know Billy Bob is still in your ranks.

This woman actually pulled out flawed pseudo science from the early 20th century eugenics movement which has been COMPLETELY discounted by any established and reputable scientific source---hilarious! I am printing this out and using it in a blanket email to all of my friends and co-workers with the title: "Why you should definitely vote for Obama in the 2012 election." Keep it coming--you're making it too easy.

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