by publius
David Brooks wrote a good column yesterday criticizing the GOP’s excessive anti-intellectualism. It’s a bit whitewashed, but I still commend him for writing it. Anyway, the Brooks theory goes something like this — the GOP’s criticism of narrow aspects of elitist liberalism has morphed into a broader hostility against the educated classes as a whole.
In short, conservatives told educated people to go away, and they have. Brooks writes:
[The GOP] has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away.
Well, that’s part of it. But it’s not really what’s driving educated people away. If you asked 100 educated “liberal elites” why they would never even consider voting Republican, it’s not because those mean conservatives told them to go away. It’s not even economics. It’s the social issues. For many liberals (myself included), the dealbreaker is the enthusiastic and nasty embrace of social views that we find repellant and stupid.
Don’t get me wrong — there’s nothing about college that necessarily makes you a better or even smarter person — drunker, maybe, but not better. Instead, college forces you — often for the first time — to experience diversity. Many Americans meet their first gay friends in college. Or maybe they develop their first true friendships with people of different ethnicities or religions or ideologies. I, for instance, was quite fascinated to learn that not everybody in the United States celebrates Christmas — Rosh a Whata? (I was equally fascinated to learn that some families celebrate it with adult beverages — next life, Catholic).
Anyway, once you’ve had these experiences, it’s beyond disgusting to see, for instance, the rabid gay-bashing of 2004, or the immigrant-bashing of 2005, or the “Barack Hussein Obama” business, or the audacity of an idiot vice presidential candidate claiming that Obama “pals around” with terrorists — you know, people who murder Americans. Urban educated Republicans don’t even try to defend this garbage, but instead are embarrassed by it — probably far more than they publicly acknowledge. Sometimes, though, the embarrassment spills out — see, e.g., David Brooks and David Frum.
In short, the GOP has made an unholy alliance with the mob — and now the long-term debt is coming due. And they deserve it. After all, it’s not that the GOP establishment merely tolerated them, or treated them like the crazy uncle you basically nod at but ignore. They’ve been riling them up — feeding the hate. They’ve based campaigns on things like gay marriage and immigration and terrorist appeasing. They go on the Rush Limbaugh show, and validate his venom. They tell people who don’t have time to learn otherwise things like giving mortgages to poor minority families caused the housing crisis (Daniel Gross has the appropriate response to that — essentially, “it’s not risky to lend to minority families, it’s risky to lend to rich white people.”)
And you know, it sort of makes sense. If I thought Obama was a Muslim terrorist communist committing perpetual voter fraud, I might get mad too at the prospect of an Obama presidency. And so that’s what you have — a lot of angry, proudly uninformed conservatives out there. And they’re not going away.
Like Mickey Mouse’s brooms in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, they were summoned for a specific purpose, but are now out of control. They’re like a armed heat-seeking missile gone astray in the water.
And it will be interesting to see how the GOP leadership handles it. I’m particularly interested in the GOP 2012 primary battle. It’s going to be hard for anyone credible to win with such a substantial bloc of angry Palinheads fuming and gnashing and rending their garments over Barack Hussein and the “mainstream media” who got him elected.
That’s why I think Palin very much remains a 2012 player even if McCain loses. She’s the embodiment of proudly-mindless juvenile nationalism. That’s why I hope everyone stops making fun of her — I want her to remain credible in a future GOP primary because there’s no longer any way on Earth she could win a general election.
Even better, she would drain votes from someone I really do fear (and respect) — Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is what smart conservatives like Ross Douthat want the GOP to be. They want a populist, tradition-respecting, inclusive party — one that appeals to people’s needs and aspirations, instead of to their ressentiment. Huckabee does that — and he also is respectful to liberals. I probably agree with nothing he believes, but I genuinely like him, and would have a hard time ever resenting him.
By contrast, I hate Sarah Palin — despise her. And so does about 45% of the country. It’s no accident why — she’s been exceedingly nasty from Day One bashing liberals in the most polarizing ways. And that’s because she’s ignorant and doesn’t have anything else to say. You simply can’t win a general election when almost half the country detests you. And she’s gone from zero to detest in a mere two months for liberals.
But demography is catching up to them. The combination of growing numbers of educated people and minorities means that the GOP has hitched hits wagon to a demographically-doomed horse, kept alive only by our archaic Electoral College. Maybe the party will heed the warnings of people like Brooks or Douthat. Or maybe it will — quite comically — decide that the failure to be nasty enough is what cost them 2008. To which I say — follow Andy McCarthy! That guy knows what he’s doing.
hear hear,
i dont like mike huckabee’s views, but he’s a really likeable guy. i have friends in college who are socially conservative christians, but we hang out a lot.
It seems odd that you don’t mention the famous David Brooks interview that had the blogosphere so agog on Wednesday. It’s a heck of a lot more pungent than yesterday’s column.
Publius,
the far right is anti intellectual for more reasons than merely that colleges are all full of diversity ‘n stuff. The far right and the rural right are anti intellectual because science and logic are seen as dangerous–as anti religion and anti faith. And, to a certain extent, they are. Certainly they are anti blind faith. These individuals, families, and communities are petrified of new ideas and of a comparison of ideas and religious practices. You can see it in their writings to each other where each little believing individual and family is seen as an island in a sea of frightening “otherness” that includes every modern convenience from birth control to yoga. We’ve often joked about it–that they want to reppeal the enlightenment. But that is exactly correct. They want to reppeal everything that broke humans out of their little, hide bound, communities and introduced them to the possibility that their own tribal god was not the only way to salvation. And they know, from bitter experience, that unless they can hang on to the reins in their own families and communities they will lose out, long term, to the delights of the big city, of “the gay” temptation, of the sheer love that people have for running and finding stuff out.
In fact one of the applause lines/attack lines on Obama is specifically that he is arrogant enough/upper class enough/elite enough to *try* to have answers for the questions voters are asking him–to *put* himself forward as a potential president. What can you do with people like this? The republican party has nailed its flag to the mast of these know nothings and it will, hopefully, go down with them. But we will never be read of this will to ignorance. Its all they ‘ve got.
aimai
I agree with aimai that right-wing anti-intellectualism is separate from (though related to) the diversity-bashing. When David Brooks talks about the Republican Party telling intellectuals to go away, it’s not just bashing “the liberal elite” in words: it’s also reflected in the party’s unwillingness to trust experts or expertise and its willingness to absolutely ignore evidence (that abstinence-only sex education doesn’t work, that deregulation is always a good idea). One of the things I learned in college, that I think is part of what unites people who consider themselves educated, was to trust evidence, that the world is more complicated than it seems, and that some people (often but not always professors) really do know something about the world that I don’t. The Republican Party has been railing against all those basic ideas for years, and that, rather than “those mean Republicans telling us to go away,” is part of what Brooks ought to be talking about. They didn’t just tell us to go away – they set up an entire party based on values antithetical to education.
The right is not nearly as anti-intellectual as liberal intellectuals like to think; You’ve got a real problem with conflating “disagrees with me” with “stupid”.
It isn’t the far right that got suckered by Belesilles because they liked his position on a social issue.
It isn’t the far right that is wedded to a conception of the human mind as an infinitely mailable blank slate, in the face of everything modern neuroscience and genetics has to say.
I’d say that the right is, on the margin, less ‘intellectual’ than the left, but it’s not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be: On some social issues, the anti-intellectualism is on the other foot.
I’ve been thinking about the US right’s anti-intellectualism as compared to that in other cultures and it does seem to me to be historically unusual to get an alliance of part of the ruling class of a country (in the US now increasingly big business interests) and populist anti-intellectualism. Most populist movements (left or right-wing) have been disliked heartily by those who already have political/economic power because of their policies. (For example, neither anti-immigrant sentiment nor wealth redistribution play well with big business).
This has meant that populist politicians have rarely been able to get into government and when they have, their policies normally get watered down (see e.g. Lula in Brazil).
So it’s not all together surprising that this Republican anti-intellectual alliance is starting to come apart, because it’s always relied on the delicate balance of those at the top of the Republican party misleading those lower down that they are really just like them, while never seriously implementing the populist policies they want, because those are regarded as stupid.
This facing two ways simultaneously (to the movers and shakers and to the plebs) gets harder and harder as the interests of global capitalism and small-town conservatism get ever further apart. I thought Sarah Palin’s comments on magazines was a classic symbol of that. It would have been very easy for her to lie and say she read various specific journals on the internet (so it couldn’t easily be proved she didn’t have subscriptions to them). Or she could have gone the populist route and said she didn’t have the time for sitting around and reading. But either way would have upset one section of the party and so she had to flail around.
I don’t know if a genuinely populist Republican Party might emerge if they lose this election (I don’t know enough US history to know if the current system allows it). But I would add that if politically-significant populist parties on either the right or left are going to emerge anywhere in the West, a serious recession is one of the more likely times for them.
An old post by Coturnix about the village vs. the university.
“It isn’t the far right that is wedded to a conception of the human mind as an infinitely mailable blank slate, in the face of everything modern neuroscience and genetics has to say.”
And technically speaking, this claim as worded is completely correct – the far right isn’t wedded to utter blank-slate-ism (except when it comes to sexual attraction, I guess). Of course, I’m still catching a whiff of straw , but . . .
It isn’t the far right that is wedded to a conception of the human mind as an infinitely mailable blank slate, in the face of everything modern neuroscience and genetics has to say.
Nah, they are wedded to Manichean claims that try to create black and white when everything is dark grey. Though Brett is welcome to point to the far right pundits who have a good grasp of the current state of research.
also… because college professors in general skew liberal, it’s easy to demonize the entire notion of higher education as a liberal scheme – especially easy to demonize when the people you’re trying to scare don’t know any better, having never been to college themselves.
it’s just another cynical short-sighted ploy by the party of fear.
It isn’t the far right that got suckered by Belesilles because they liked his position on a social issue.
The far right got suckered by the NRA into believing that private ownership of guns is an important civil right far exceeding any other civil right…
Interesting that people are still trying to keep alive the modern-day version of the Whig Party. But then David and Brett appear wedded to it. The GOP will crater just as the Whigs did, and it will probably be the death of the fantasy of a “free market” that does it.
Brett says:
“I’d say that the right is, on the margin, less ‘intellectual’ than the left, but it’s not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be: On some social issues, the anti-intellectualism is on the other foot.”
Which only means something if words mean nothing. Social values that are construed as moral or religious values are not *intellectual* values at all–they are an ipse dixit. The holder holds them not *because* of their education or their intellectualism but despite it. Christianist families and social groupings emphasize this all the time, preferring anti-intellectualism and even anti-education policies precisely because they see education and independent thought as antithetical to rote absorption of religious values.
And those who reject (some) moral or social values as inapplicable or useless, harmful or wrongheaded, may or may do so on the basis of the intellect, education, or a higher morality.
“On some social issues the anti intellectualism is ont he other foot” doesn’t mean what Brett wants it to mean. Certainly, on some social issues the right and the left disagree–but their disagreement can’t be put down to “intellectualism vs. anti intellectualism” because social values can’t be reasoned about and are not the subject of expert opinion. It is the case that the more educated you are, in a conventional sense–the more broadly, the more deeply, the higher the quality of your teachers, the more you will tend to have science, history, literature, and philosophy to back up or to challenge your moral views on some topics. When you come to reject other people’s social objectives as inhumane, ahistorical, non utilitarian, immoral, cruel or childish and spiteful you do so not on the basis that those people are “stupid” or “ill educated” or “not intellectual” but on the basis of the fact that you have reached your conclusions based on science, history, religion and morality in their broadest possible application and foundation and you don’t find those “values” persuasive on their merits.
aimai
the elite left exist because the Repulbicans created the conditions for them to succeed. Lowering the top tax rates from 90% to 35% created the educated, knowledge worker class. Lowering the crime rate made cities safe to live in again. Ending most busing and desegreation created suburban schools safe for white and Asian children but with few blacks or Hispanics.
The elite whites benefit because they do into career fields that do not suffer from affirmative action, set asides or immigration (such as law) as much as jobs further down the food chain.
Look at how the children of elite whites have abandon career fields such as medicine, engineerinig, or science for career fields in finance, law, or publishing.
Look at middle class jobs such as teaching, nursing, or law enforcement that probably make it much harder to care about social issues than working in Manhatten.
The educational split for white is between the directional state graduates who have to compete with blacks and Hispanics for jobs versus the elite whites who attended schools that are much less diverse than the average public school.
However, the elite white progressives should begin to consider what politics will be like when the Repubican party completes its collapse and the U.S. is a one party state. Once the Republicans no longer exist to you really expect blacks, Hispanics, and poor voters to give the rich white boys what they want?
The right is not nearly as anti-intellectual as liberal intellectuals like to think
Publius was specifically talking about politics. Are you denying that Republican politicians use more anti-intellectual slogans than Democrats? Can you give me some examples of anti-intellectual statements by prominent Democratic politicians in the last 30 years or so, comparable to sneers at ‘pointy-headed intellectuals’?
There is certainly an anti-intellectual strain in some left-wing politics (such as some forms of green politics), but such views are marginal in the US. I can’t think of any anti-intellectual leftwing views that are as politically prominent as, say, Creationism.
Right-wingers need not be anti-intellectual, but many of those in the US have deliberately chosen to be. Which seems fairly bizarre for someone like me coming from a country where a right-winger like Boris Johnson can also have fairly serious intellectual pretentions.
what politics will be like when the Repubican party completes its collapse and the U.S. is a one party state
now where have i heard that before…
I find this to be relevant to the issue, and is worth reading in its entirety if you follow the link:
“#1. The People Are Not Bamboozled
Faced with their many failures to convince even a significant minority of the American population to act in ways that they assume are in the best interests of the overwhelming majority, many leftists tend to blame this lack of success on the fact that most people do not understand the nature of the social system or their class interests.
[…]
Contrary to the theorists of consciousness who explain away left failures,…They may not understand all the details of the close working relationship between big business and government, or how and why markets currently work to the great advantage of capitalists, but they know full well they are being ripped off, and they fully believe that the circumstances they find themselves in are not fair.
[…]
it seems likely that everyday people don’t opt for social change in good part because they don’t see any plausible way to accomplish their goals, and haven’t heard any plans from anyone else that make sense to them. But why don’t they just say “the hell with it” and head to the barricades? Why aren’t they “fed up?” The answer is not in their false consciousness or a mere resigned acquiescence, as many leftists seem to believe, but in a very different set of factors. On the one hand, for all the injustices average Americans experience and perceive, there are many positive aspects to everyday life that make a regular day-to-day existence more attractive than a general strike or a commitment to building a revolutionary party. They have loved ones they like to be with, they have hobbies and sports they enjoy, and they have forms of entertainment they like to watch. In fact, many of them also report in surveys that they enjoy their jobs even though the jobs don’t pay enough or have decent benefits.
[…]
On a less positive note, many ordinary white workers have priorities that they put ahead of economic issues. As all voting and field studies show, a large number of average white Americans do many things based on their skin color. They often vote Republican, for example, especially in the South. They protest against affirmative action programs. They live in segregated neighborhoods.
[…]
It is these alternative issues, both positive and negative, rooted in their own lives and experiences, not a false consciousness created by the capitalists’ ideological hegemony, that explain why most Americans don’t rebel — or even vote their pocketbook — most of the time…They have misconstrued the problem, which has to do with structures of power and life circumstances and the compelling nature of everyday life, not the chains of consciousness… They have misunderstood everyday people, and in effect blamed them for the failures of the left, even though at the theoretical level it seems like they are blaming the overwhelming powers of the dominant class or power elite. They have made the people the problem instead of considering the possibility that what the left offers does not make any sense to most people.
Brett Bellmore prefers a better class of intellectualism; that’s why he hangs out here. 😉
I was watching some Youtube footage of Palin supporters being interviewed as they stood in line for Palin events to have their anger stoked. “Terrorist” and “Hussein”, etc, etc, etc.
A lot of young punks, who should have been suckerpunched and kicked in the nuts on the spot, and a lot of overweight middleaged sputtering guys who would have gone into immediate cardiac arrest had they needed to defend their garbage with their fists.
Young, white women too, who will probably be assigned the job of removing fillings from the mouths of Jews when the time comes. These women were very forthright about their ignorance.
I’ve a friend or two who sound like this too.
All very nice people who listen to Mozart and Beethoven while they clean their guns.
Their anti-intellectualism and every other anti they harbor make me feel like Alvey Singer in “Annie Hall”, when he visits Annie’s upper middle class Wasp family: they look at me like I’m decked out in Hasidic garb —- and I’m a Protestant for crying out loud.
“Annie Hall” is a comedy.
Here’s what’s not so funny: the Republican Party seeks out the “chicken farmer” vote and gets the “chicken farmers’ into meeting halls and stokes their “chicken farmer” anger.
These “chicken farmers” will someday make the trains run on time and probably develop new furnace technology.
When Obama is elected, he needs to turn Homeland Security’s sights on these people.
They are the terrorists. Nip it in the bud.
They’d kill US if they could.
Urban educated Republicans don’t even try to defend this garbage, but instead are embarrassed by it…
And some rural educated Republicans as well. Even some that are clingy.
And so that’s what you have — a lot of angry, proudly uninformed conservatives out there.
You also have some proudly informed conservatives out there who simply disagree with Democratic policies.
They’re like a armed heat-seeking missile gone astray in the water.
Heat seeking missiles go astray in the water 100% of the time. They just don’t work worth a damn in that environment. 😉
That’s why I think Palin very much remains a 2012 player even if McCain loses.
Guaranteed. She’ll be top of the ticket then.
Look – I agree with some of what you say here, but I’m guessing you have no idea how elitist sounding this might come across to some people, or understand that it’s this kind of elitism that actually riles up many of the folks you are discussing here. You understand that they are a significant voting block, but rather than offer some proposals to connect with these folks, your solution is to mock them and declare that they’ll be irrelevant in a few years anyway. I’m sure that will work. 😉
You simply can’t win a general election when almost half the country detests you.
Bush 2004?
Brett, there’s a lot of straw there. And going the other way a mountain of evidence: ‘he thinks he’s smarter than me’ isn’t viewed as disqualifying on the Dem side, while one heard this over and over about Gore, Kerry, and now Obama. Insult Dukakis because he went to Harvard — it totally works, because the electorate they were trying to reach thinks elite education is a bad thing.
I bet you could put all the people fooled by Bellisles in a medium sized conference room. First, you’d have to find the people who care, then the people who read, then the people who read and ignored the evidence going the other way. On the other hand, you could fill stadiums in every state with the people who think the world was created 10,000 years ago or less, and that the people who think that what is known about physics, biology, astronomy, geology, etc that makes this impossible is just wrong.
You also have some proudly informed conservatives out there who simply disagree with Democratic policies.
I absolutely agree with this. The problem is that role your side has let the Know Nothing element play in your coalition. It’s a real problem for you, because it prevents you from getting your best and brightest into office. (OCS, I re-read Bob Dole’s 1996 convention speech the other day. Find it and read it; you’ll be glad you did). It’s a problem on our side, because when you guys win, a certain amount of policy has to get allocated to this element. Not anywhere near as important as their numbers in your coalition, but more than a modern economy/nation ought to see.
I’m guessing you have no idea how elitist sounding this might come across to some people, or understand that it’s this kind of elitism that actually riles up many of the folks you are discussing here.
Not to speak for P, but I think this is very well understood. The thing is, we’ve learned that we get nothing from respecting these people either. Patience doesn’t work, respect doesn’t work, presentation of policies that might be in their interest doesn’t work. there’s an element of folks who are reacting in a tribal sense, and would take the same insult exactly from someone on their own side without complaint, but are looking for reasons to be offended by the other side. and after a while — a long while — you just get fed up walking around on egg shells, and have to call it out.
Brett, it isn’t really fair to bag on “the left” for liking Bellesiles – after all, the whole point of his book was that it was careful quantitative historical research in colonial documents, all very scientific – until his research was exposed as fraudulent, after which he had no defenders on the left. To take an exactly parallel case, on the other side of the same issue you have John Fund, who published research purporting to show that gun ownership greatly reduces crime – and who was humiliated when it was shown that he’d cooked his numbers and that he’d engaged in weird sock-puppetry online to defend himself. And Fund, unlike Bellesiles, was not forsaken by his ideological allies. You’d be on much more solid ground to more explicitly attack the new-age sympathies of some members of “the left”, or better yet Alternative Medicine. I offer up the paranoid and discredited anti-Thimerasol crusade, represented by Robert Kennedy Jr, for you to use; he doesn’t get enough stick for that nonsense.
I don’t know whether the republicans would actually nominate Sarah Palin for president, or whether conditions will ever be such that she can win. I certainly wouldn’t ever say never.
That, by the way, is a bigger insult than anything else I’ve ever written on this site.
I agree with some of what you say here, but I’m guessing you have no idea how elitist sounding this might come across to some people, or understand that it’s this kind of elitism that actually riles up many of the folks you are discussing here.
see… “elitist” is just another part of the GOP’s inane celebration of ignorance.
i have a T-shirt (from GYWO) that says:
If “elitist” just means “not the dumbest motherf*cker in the room”, I’ll be an elitist!
to me, that sums-up the situation completely. to me, the “anti-elitist” bullshyte implies a voluntary race to the left-side of the bell curve. well, count me out.
i’m no grammar elitist, but no, there should be no hyphen in “left-side”.
the elite left exist because the Repulbicans created the conditions for them to succeed. Lowering the top tax rates from 90% to 35% created the educated, knowledge worker class. Lowering the crime rate made cities safe to live in again. Ending most busing and desegreation created suburban schools safe for white and Asian children but with few blacks or Hispanics.
The elite whites benefit because they do into career fields that do not suffer from affirmative action, set asides or immigration (such as law) as much as jobs further down the food chain.
The ‘elite whites’ you describe are mainly Republicans. It is the middle class that skews Democratic.
You understand that they are a significant voting block, but rather than offer some proposals to connect with these folks
There’s no way to connect with these folks. They have deliberately severed any connection to the rest of the country. They can’t be persuaded by reason, since they reject its use. The only hope is for containment.
To take an exactly parallel case, on the other side of the same issue you have John Fund
John Lott, no?
Scott,
If you look at http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/the_numbers_on_the_white_working_class.php you will see that the upper middle class is less likely to vote Replubicans than the middle class. Middle Class whites in Alabama or Texas are much more likely to be exposed to minorities than rich whites in DC, NYC, Boston, etc. That is one of the reasons that rich whites in Boston vote Democratic and rich whites in Texas vote Republicans. It is also why liberal elite whites probably decided to live in Boston, SF, or Seattle versus Dallas. More private schools to send your kids and fewer blacks and Hispanics to deal with.
They can’t be persuaded by reason, since they reject its use
you can see that working in McCain’s campaign; knowing that he was going to take his campaign into the realm of 100% negativity, he simultaneously started telling his supporters that he was at war with the only people in a position to point out the fact that he’s completely deserted his “last honorable politician” image, that his attacks are frequently baseless, that he is 180 deg from how he pledged to run his campaign – the media.
now it’s McCain vs the world. don’t listen to reason, to facts, to logic. listen to McCain, for the only truth is his truth. everyone else is lying to you.
steve is right — i mean, i could have worded some of this more diplomatically. at the least, i should have made it more clear that there reamins a large chunk of reality-based conservatives.
but that said, i sort of agree with Charley too. i’m weary of trying to express things through a filter so as not to sound bitter toward a group of people that i frankly feel bitter toward. and that act the same toward dems regardless of how liberals talk about them. i was very concerned about this stuff circa 2004 – now i don’t care so much anymore.
i’m starting to think that the answer isn’t so much reaching out, etc., the long-term answer is that this group of people will get left behind demographically, regardless of what i say.
Some things never change….
At one time there was an American political party called the “Know Nothings”
Adlai Stevenston was decried as a ‘pointy head intellectual’ back in the 50’s.
Richard Hofstadter wrote a book on this in 1963. True! Look it up.
The whole premise of Brooks’ analysis is phony self serving conservative crappola. That he is now striving to appear “reasonable” does not obviate this in any respect. Just watch, his next book will whine that conservatism was “never really tried”…..just like the ex-communist disillusionment after Kruschev’s “secret” speech in 1956.
Hilzoy: “Huckabee is what smart conservatives like Ross Douthat want the GOP to be. They want a populist, tradition-respecting, inclusive party — one that appeals to people’s needs and aspirations, instead of to their ressentiment.”
Huckabee’s campaign strategist, longtime GOP maven Ed Rollins, got my attention last night on Anderson Cooper’s news program. (Sorry, Gary, against your advice, I tuned into cable last night — or I should say I was checking it out between innings of the Dodgers-Phillies playoff game.)
Anyway, Rollins said: “It’s over. This is going to be a landslide.”
That’s the strongest on-the-record remark I’ve heard yet by a well-known Republican about McCain’s weakening campaign.
Rollins’ point was the Ayres and Rev. Wright stuff should have been brought up weeks ago — that it is too late now, being drowned out by the extreme economic downturn.
Basically, he agreed with Obama’s assessment that McCain looks erratic — whipping up his base at rallies about Obama’s Ayres connection and trying to slip in new economic plans at the same time.
Not presidential, said Rollins, who thinks McCain should take the weekend off the campaign trail and huddle with some great economic minds, then unviel a Big Plan on Monday.
This won’t happen, Rollins said, because McCain is one of the most impatient candidates he has ever seen. Disgust was all over the former Reagan aide’s face.
Correction:
Publius wrote: “Huckabee is what smart conservatives like Ross Douthat want the GOP to be. They want a populist, tradition-respecting, inclusive party — one that appeals to people’s needs and aspirations, instead of to their ressentiment.”
“It isn’t the far right that got suckered by Belesilles….” who, by the way, was unmasked by ‘liberal’ scholarship and peer review.
I could count the number of conservative critiques of “The Bell Curve” on one raised middle finger.
“SuperDestroyer” (an odd moniker that makes it hard to take his/her postings seriously) wrote: “Middle Class whites in Alabama or Texas are much more likely to be exposed to minorities than rich whites in DC, NYC, Boston, etc.”
Really? Less exposure to minorities in Washington, DC or New York City? A scarcity of private schools in Dallas?
Warren Terra, you’re saying “John Fund,” but I think you mean John Lott. John Fund is another guy, who had some problem involving sex and alleged physical abuse of his partners, a mother-daughter team. Hard to keep all these scandals straight, I know.
This sentence of Brooks’ tells you a lot: “What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.” Note, rather than citing a disdain for liberal ideas, he cites disdain for “liberal intellectuals.” This is reactionary thinking, not the way intelligent, objective people form ideas.
My political conscience began forming in the 60’s, and by my early teens I considered myself a moderate liberal. I came to this set of beliefs without developing a disdain for conservatives (even though in those days Southern politicans stood in schoolhouse doors and spouted hate speech vile enough to warm Hannity’s or Limbaugh’s heart, so there were plenty of people to disdain), no doubt partly because my parents considered themselves conservatives, but weren’t racist, anti-Semitic or reactionary. Instead, comparing the ideas of liberals and conservatives, I decided that those of liberals were closer to my moral beliefs and empirical judgment about the steps government could take to expand opportunity as broadly as possible. In wrestling with ideas, I frequently told myself “the fact that Lester Maddox is so clearly wrong doesn’t make the opposite position clearly right. The rightness or wrongness of any idea should be judged first on its inherent rightness or wrongness, not on whether the idea is similar to something some stupid or hateful person said.” Opposing Maddox (or Ayers on the opposite side) is easy – fulfilling the promise of equal justice under law, assuring the that the US is secure in its borders and a force for good in the world, is difficult.
But, the conservative movement took the opposite approach – as Brooks lets slip, they didn’t argue that liberal ideas are bad, but rather that liberal people are bad, and you therefore shouldn’t listen to them. “If Ted Kennedy is for it, I’m agin it.” Tactically it makes sense to tie ideas you dislike to unlikeable people – the Joe Sixpacks may not know Hofstader or Niebuhr or Hayek or Friedman (or Locke or Blackstone or even the Sermon on the Mount), but they do know they don’t like “pointy-headed intellectuals” (why hasn’t Palin revived that one yet?) telling them what to do, or scary black people demanding equal rights and sometimes setting their neighborhoods on fire to make a point. Unfortunately, however, this focus on straw men and easy targets deprived conservative thought of intellectual and moral rigor, and even worse, riled up people discomforted by necessary social change by encouraging them to think of anyone challenging an obviously flawed status quo as inherently evil and unworthy of being considered good Americans.
This reactionary thinking is so ingrained in conservative “thought” that I’m not sure even serious people like Brooks see it any more. Thus, he seems to justify reactionism – “liberals had coastal condescension so conservatives developed their own anti-elitism.” This is obviously part self-serving, but I think it’s also intended as a legitimate excuse. He seems to be saying that conservatives can be both intellectual and anti-liberal, but these are incompatible. Intellectualism requires rational, objective thought. This means that conservatives can’t be content with immolating straw men and stoking bigotry against the Other, they have to actually engage with serious ideas held by serious people.
They also have to look past the fact that some liberals are condescending snobs who look down their noses at small town folks, religious people or Mr. and Mrs. Salt-of-the-Earth. Obviously, this is true of some liberals, but it’s untrue of many more – in fact, there are millions of liberal voters (and more than a few liberal elites) who fit into one or more of the groups allegedly looked down upon. Thus, in considering, for example, whether Palin is qualified to be Veep or Prez, the relevant question is whether she’s qualified, not whether some people dislike her for the wrong reasons.
Middle Class whites in Alabama or Texas are much more likely to be exposed to minorities than rich whites in DC, NYC
Have you ever been to New York City or Washington DC?
I don’t care how rich you are, you are “exposed” instantly. There is no way you could live in NYC and not be “exposed.”
Ditto DC.
MandyW,
Over 30% of the school age children in Boston attend private schools. The public schools in DC are less than 4% white. If you live in Boston or DC and are white, your chidlren attend private school. The same can probably be said for NYC, Seattle, LA, SF.
The middle class in states like Alabama and Texas send their children to shcools with signifcant black or Hispanic populations. Yet, Senator Obama sends his children to a school that is less than 10% black and less than 5% Hispanics. I wonder who has an easier time being an elitist.
Also, do the rich white kids at Williams or Haverford have an easier time support diversity or the middle class white kids at UT-Austin?
Cleek,
You have to admit that is looking more likely that the Republican Party will collapse. Any intelligent, evidence based, expert believing person who understand demographics should be able to see it coming.
goeff,
It is hard for liberals to claim that they are rational and fact based when they scream racism whenever anyone points out that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites.
If you look at the modern, pubic schools, they are based upon liberal dogma that is not based in evidence, facts, or studies at all. Modern public schools are based on dogma. Does anyone really believe that everyone can be taught quantum mechanics. The public schools are built on those ideas.
If you look at modern criminal jusitice, liberal dogma is also not built upon evidence or facts but upon dogma. That is why the crime rate went so high in the 1970’s and one of the reasons people stopped calling themselves liberals.
Just to pile on Brett a little bit more: I find it ironic that someone who says
You’ve got a real problem with conflating “disagrees with me” with “stupid”.
uses, as his example, a conflation of “disagrees with me” and “anti-intellectual”. There’s no incompatibility between being intellectual and being wrong. It happens all the friggin’ time, believe me. What’s anti-intellectual is to overturn the standard means of verification — whether historical analysis, as per Bellesisles, or the scientific method, as per the fundagelical Right — in favor of misty-eyed, ideological hocus pocus.
To put it even more bluntly: Bellesisles committed intellectual fraud, and was punished for it — by intellectuals, I might add. The Christianist Right commits anti-intellectual fraud every single day, and is rewarded for it — by vast swathes of the Republican (and often the Democratic) Party. There’s no comparison.
[A more apt comparison would be the environmentalist fringe, or (as noted above) the new anti-vaccination lunacy. As noted by magistra, though, they don’t really have any presence in American politics.]
Now JFK was a Republican?
Does anyone really believe that everyone can be taught quantum mechanics.
Yes. Whether it’s worth the effort, though, is largely contingent upon the degree to which the student will actually care.
But I’m curious: where on earth is “everyone” being taught quantum mechanics? I went to some pretty dang good schools and I’ll tell you, even at those pointy-headed elitist institutions not one in a fifty knew anything about QM…
And 99.9% of your statistics are made up on the fly.
In fact, of students in Boston attending non public schools, 45% are black, 40% white, 11% Hispanic and 3% Asian.
Additionally, these figures include charter schools which are indeed public.
Boston public schools by ethnicity.
Student Demographics:
41% Black
35% Hispanic
14% White
9% Asian
1% Multi-racial, non-Hispanic
You can look up the history of margianl tax rates.
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
In 1964, the highest rate was above 70%.
Davebo,
From the Boston Globe,
http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2003/09/02/school_study_finds_deep_racial_divide/
“White children have almost entirely escaped the city of Boston, and those who remain in the city live in increasingly advantaged city neighborhoods; half of them attend private schools,” it reads. “The vast majority of them live in the suburbs, and in the suburbs they grow up in neighborhoods and attend schools that are typically 90 percent white and remarkably affluent
superdestroyer,
Does anyone really believe that everyone can be taught quantum mechanics. [Sic!]
As a foreigner somewhat acquainted with Physics education around the world, I might say that at least the designers of the US school system do not seem to believe this. The American public school does not teach quantum physics to anyone. In fact, very few school curricula around the world cover anything but the most elementary quantum physics (Bohr model is usually covered, Schrödinger’s equation sometimes, but Heisenberg and Dirac formalisms are strictly for under-grads.)
Beside the point, the overall level of science education in American schools is pretty low, and same applies to mathematics. (Of course, with some luminous exceptions.) The freshman year science and maths curriculum of the US colleges is covered in most Continental European high schools in their advanced Physics and Mathematics courses.
SD,
That doesn’t even come close to supporting your claims. In fact, it has next to nothing to do with them.
Again, you claim Boston public schools are 4% white.
That’s patently false.
>It isn’t the far right that is wedded to a conception of the human mind as an infinitely mailable blank slate….
Jeez, Brett, what does the postage run on one of those?
Lurker,
The American school system as implemented by the left believes that all students can learn the same material and at the same rate. The left hates ability tracking or ability grouping and screams racism if blacks and Hispanics do not take AP Physics/Calculus/English at the same rate as whites and Asians. Of course, the left does this while sending their own children to elite private schoosl with few if any blacks or Hispanics.
Look at Californias plan to have all eight graders take albegra even though most of them have not mastered fractions. If you believe all eight graders can learn Algebra, then you must believe that everyone can learn Quantum Mechanics. Look at how Fairfax Virginia has changed entrance to Thomas Jefferson High School (a magnet program) because blacks and Hispanics were not scoring well enough on the entrance exam.
You can looked at how the left hates high stakes testing while their own children attend private schools with entrance exams. You can look at the left’s attack on standards while their own children attend private school with very high standards. You can look at how the left’s empahsis on critical thinking and citizenship while their own children study literature,history, and foreign languages in private schools.
One of the reasons that many of the white hold white intellecutal elites in contempt is the failure of the elite whites to lead. The left seems to say,”Do was we tell you, not as we actually do.”
Davebo,
I said that the DC schools are 4% white. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Public_Schools
The vast majority of rich white kids in northwest DC attend very white private schools.
The American school system as implemented by the left believes that all students can learn the same material and at the same rate.
Except they don’t believe that at all, which is why so many of them opposed No Child Left Behind.
Also, there’s an awful lot of “The Left” talk in your posts, which is going to need some unpacking. Which I don’t for a second believe you’re smart enough to do, but anyway.
rea, I did indeed conflate John Fund and John Lott. I thank you for the correction. My point about the continued acceptance of an exposed fraudster stands – Lott is still a member in good standing of the academic/think tank Right – but I apologize for connecting it to the name of John Fund.
superdestroyer: It is hard for liberals to claim that they are rational and fact based when they scream racism whenever anyone points out that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites.
Actually, people point out in tones varying from polite disdain to angry scream, that it is racist to claim that black Americans are by nature more criminal than white Americans, and it is racist to take crime statistics and deliberately interpret that data to make the argument that “black people commit crimes more than white people”. You’d think it would be hard for conservatives to make the claim that it’s “liberals” who are irrational when it’s conservatives who tend to push racist interpretations of data – but somehow, they do it anyway.
OCSteve: Bush 2004?
Bush lost.
As an American raised abroad, who spent the last eight years teaching (well, TAing and teaching) math(s) in the US…
Lurker: As a foreigner somewhat acquainted with Physics education around the world, I might say that at least the designers of the US school system do not seem to believe this.
I’ll stand by what I said above with some minor modifications: the designers of the system, and many (most?) within it, believe that people could learn QM if they had to, or if they really possessed both the desire and will to do what needed to be done in order to understand it.* In general, though, we don’t because it would be a waste of time; not because people can’t learn the material, but because they don’t.
The freshman year science and maths curriculum of the US colleges is covered in most Continental European high schools in their advanced Physics and Mathematics courses.
I went through the expatriate British system, not the Continental one, but that’s somewhat misleading. The freshman year science and maths curriculum of US colleges is also covered in the US high school AP courses, or their equivalents (e.g. IB); that’s what Advanced Placement means. I, for example, used my AP to place out of the conventional “freshman year” courses — i.e. Math 103-104 — into the nominally “sophomore year” courses — Math 217-218.
[Of course, that in itself is slightly misleading: every math major had placed into 217-218, so it was de facto the freshman year course for math majors, despite being officially “sophomore year”. I can assure you, however, that Continental high schools did not teach that curriculum, unless they were somehow busting out Jordan curves and Hausdorff measure.]
That being said, I think there’s absolutely no doubt that the standard advanced European high school courses are better than the standard advanced American high school courses, on the understanding that all bets are off at the upper and lower ends of the spectrum.** That doesn’t speak to Europe or the US per se — there’s a larger cultural context to consider — but it’s an important distinction nonetheless.
[Though Lurker, you’re Finnish IIRC, and I know next-to-nothing about the Scandinavian educational systems except that they’re excellent.]
* In particular, the biggest stumbling block in the US are always the mathematical prerequisites. “I really understood physics/chemistry/economics/math except for the math” — and yes, I really have heard the last of those.
** Well, at least were better. My understanding is that the British system has taken a godawful beating since last I was in it.
superdestroyer fantasizes
Lowering the top tax rates from 90% to 35% created the educated, knowledge worker class.
The existence of our technocratic class has far more to do with the college provisions of the WW-II GI Bill, which ran until Reagan.
If you believe all eight graders can learn Algebra, then you must believe that everyone can learn Quantum Mechanics.
This is perhaps the most astounding syllogism I’ve ever seen. Words fail me.
For what it’s worth, I’ve taught algebra to eighth graders, many of whom had a weak grasp of fractions. It is indeed feasible. Not easy, but possible.
Regardless, if you’re going to claim that the mathematics reform movement is led by “elite whites”, it would be nice to provide some sort of evidence. Even better would be some evidence that their opponents are not also “elite whites”.
I won’t hold my breath.
Ari,
Do you believe that everyone can learn to perform algebra? If yes, then do you believe that everyone can learn calculus? If yes, do you believe that everyone can learn quantum mechanics? Once you answer no, you will called a racist. Thus, the modern education system that is filled with people who never really learn algebra actually believes that everyone can learn qauntum mechanics if given the proper level of schooling.
Boy, this thread got ratholed in a hurry.
I just want to point out that no scientist ever had to write a book called The Democratic War On Science.
Before Bush 43, there was an appreciable minority of Republican, or at least consertative, scientists in the US, but the installation of idealogues as political officers at the heads of scientific inquiries, the stifling of valid scientific conclusions that are politically inconvenient to the Bush 43 Administration, and the defunding of scientific projects that seem likely to produce inconvenient data, have driven virtually the entire scientific commumnity firmly into the Democratic column for the forseeable future.
Boy, this thread got ratholed in a hurry.
i recommend putting superderailer in the pie works.
Once you answer no, you will called a racist.
That’s flat-out untrue, as a brief glance at the literature will show. It’s only called racist if you argue that one ethnicity is less capable than another because — wait for it — that is racist.
And I’m curious: do you have any experience whatsoever in the educational field, superdestroyer? Any teaching background? A Math Ed degree? Anything at all?
I want her to remain credible in a future GOP primary because there’s no longer any way on Earth she could win a general election.
A lot of people said this, with equal confidence, about Reagan.
Do you believe that everyone can learn to perform algebra? If yes, then do you believe that everyone can learn calculus? If yes, do you believe that everyone can learn quantum mechanics? Once you answer no, you will called a racist.
I take it back. This is the best syllogism of all time.
I certainly believe that everyone can learn algebra. Of course, it is not the case in America that everyone does learn algebra. Perhaps the question you should be asking is, “Do you believe that everyone can learn algebra in American public schools as they are today?” And then my answer, of course, is no.
The notion that mathematics is uniquely unlearnable for those without the correct predisposition is widespread and, in my opinion, outright false. Nobody asks questions like, “Can everyone learn to write a decent history paper?” or “Can everyone learn to hit 20% of their free throws?”
You somehow see a contradiction between the belief that mathematics is learnable and the reality that not everyone learns it. Why? It sounds to me like you are asserting, “Clearly, not everyone can learn algebra; if they could, they’d have learned it!”
In the liberal intellectual, elite educated world, the only answer to why blacks and Hispanics cannot learn Algebra is because of systematic racism. Any other answer is immediately called racist.
Also, if you want to amuse yourself look at the Department of Educations website on educational research. You can find thousands of articles of the effects of blacks attending majority white schools, yet you cannot find more than one or two articles, you cannot find any research of whites attending majority-minority schools. Given that kidergarten students in the U.S. are less than 50% white, that is the research that the government should be doing but refuses. And why does it refuse? Because it is afriad of the what it will find.
There was also scientific coverup during the Clinton Administration. There was a lawsuit that forced the government to release raw data used to develop EPA regulations because Industry felt that the Clinton Administration was “cooking the book.”
Cleek,
Thanks for the example of who the left supports free speech for itself but censorship for everyone else.
Ok, so superdestroyer is a racist troll. Can we get back to discussing the anti-intellectualism in the Republican Party? In particular, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to go about stopping this?
anarach,
You have showed why many people resent elite white progressives. Eventually their only answer to any discussion about the U.S. is to call people racist, tell them to shut up, and to call for censorship.
And yes, I have taught physics at the undergraduate and graduate level. There are some people who just cannot learn the concepts. it is the same idea that not everyone can learn to play the violin or be a chessmaster. To deny that different people have different capabilities is liberal dogma and has no basis in fact. But sense the dogma can be used to support progressive policies, it cannot be challenged.
I have had a hard time accounting for the ani-intellectualism. It certainly serves to highlight the “Us versus Them” mentality. I have to agree, that it is of limited political value as time goes on, and the sorcerer’s apprectice metaphor is quite fitting.
I appreciate the comments that have highlighted the idea that intellectual pursuit is antithetical to fundamental religious belief. There has always been a tension between education and religion. One teaches you HOW to think, the other teaches you WHAT to think.
There is a particular vein of Republicanism that seems quite shocked when people do not respond in lock to step when told what they should believe. I suspect these same folks despise higher education. Since they believe people are so easily indoctrinated, they would naturally believe that a university serves the same function against their interests.
On a broader note, the following academic analysis is worth a read, since it explores valid cultural disconnects:
What Makes People Vote Republican?
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html
“If Democrats want to understand what makes people vote Republican, they must first understand the full spectrum of American moral concerns. They should then consider whether they can use more of that spectrum themselves. The Democrats would lose their souls if they ever abandoned their commitment to social justice, but social justice is about getting fair relationships among the parts of the nation. This often divisive struggle among the parts must be balanced by a clear and oft-repeated commitment to guarding the precious coherence of the whole. America lacks the long history, small size, ethnic homogeneity, and soccer mania that holds many other nations together, so our flag, our founding fathers, our military, and our common language take on a moral importance that many liberals find hard to fathom.
“Unity is not the great need of the hour, it is the eternal struggle of our immigrant nation…Until Democrats understand this point, they will be vulnerable to the seductive but false belief that Americans vote for Republicans primarily because they have been duped into doing so.”
Uh, if you believe that the word “since” is spelled “sense,” let alone your thousand and one other spelling, grammar and syntax errors, then dollars to donuts you have not taught anything at the university level. Except maybe recess or nap time.
Also, using a browser plug-in to filter out someone’s blog comments is hardly “censorhip,” no matter how hard you stamp your little feet.
To deny that different people have different capabilities is liberal dogma
In shocking news, superdestroyer discovers that you can make things true just by typing them!
Okay, I’m done. DNFTT, even if it’s ostensibly about math education.
To deny that different people have different capabilities is liberal dogma and has no basis in fact.
Wrong. Of course people learn different things at different levels and with varying degrees of success.
The dreaded liberal academia does support a classroom scheme that puts students in higher or lower level classes depending on the above.
Many people, however, bristle at the suggestion that there is a corrolary between learning capacity and race or ethnicity.
why blacks and Hispanics cannot learn Algebra
But they can! Many, have, in fact learned Algebra. Why, there are even black and hispanic mathematicians! And scientists! And physisists!
Fancy that.
Phil,
The left has argued that forcing hecklers at public meetings is censorship but not wanting to have someone post on a blog is not.
Several people above have stated that the Republicans problem is that they do not want to listen to someone who does not agree with them. After your post, I do not see how liberals like yourself are any different. Remember, there are organizations to defend conservatives right to speak on college campuses but the left does not need one since they know that virtually all universities let the left have a free rein when it comes to speech.
Eventually their only answer to any discussion about the U.S. is to call people racist, tell them to shut up, and to call for censorship.
Lawdy. I didn’t tell you to shut up or call for censorship, I (implicitly) called for people to ignore you. It’s not my problem that you can’t tell the difference.
As for racist… well, given that you’re vehemently espousing racist conspiracy theories, I stand by my assessment. A devotee of rational thought such as yourself should embrace the truth, no matter its personal cost.
And yes, I have taught physics at the undergraduate and graduate level.
I would love to know where.
There are some people who just cannot learn the concepts. it is the same idea that not everyone can learn to play the violin or be a chessmaster.
If you can’t tell the difference between a) learning quantum mechanics, b) learning to play the violin, and c) being a “chessmaster”, and d) why this claim has nothing to do with race contra your fevered (and febrile) declarations that it must, there’s absolutely no point in continuing this conversation.
Come to that, there isn’t any point in continuing this conversation. *plonk*, and DNFTT.
Y’know, SD, if you don’t want to be called a racist you might try to avoid racist precepts. I think a lot of people are hardly ready to concede the ntion that Blacks and Hispanics cannot learn algebra.
P.S. Should I attempt analysis of your choice to capitalize “Hispanics”, and for that matter “Algebra”, in the same sentence in which you don’t capitalize “Blacks”?
Ari — any time you want to talk about math education, I’m game. I’m vaguely considering some kind of Math Ed MA at some point; I had a lot of friends in the Math Ed program, which was most excellent, and what little I’ve done has been really interesting. It’s really freaking hard to find useful programs, though — there are only a handful in the country that are worth a damn, IMO — so that may have to wait indefinitely.
Anarch,
When it comes to secondary education, blacks and Hispanics take and pass algebra at much lower levels than whites or Asians. The county government in Fairfax County Virginia is always trying to find a way to eliminate the 95% white and Asian student body at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (one of the best public high schools in the nation). It is not that all blacks or Hispanics cannot learn Algebra. It is that they learn it at such low levels when compared to whites or Asians. Can racism be the only reason that blacks and Hispanics perform so poorly in mathematics versus whites and Asians. Or do you attibute it to the prevailing black and Hispanic culture in the U.S.?
When looking at
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3935/is_199910/ai_n8868177 is says
… much of today’s educational literature seems to reflect a detracking consensus…
The average education school researchers, who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters, oppose tracking and ability groups. Even though virtually all of the leadership in the Democratic Party send their children to elite private schools that are the ultimate in tracking.
John Derbyshire’s latest piece of brilliance seems relevant to this thread.
“If you believe all eight graders can learn Algebra, then you must believe that everyone can learn Quantum Mechanics.”
You apparently don’t realize this claim makes no sense whatever.
“You can looked at how the left hates high stakes testing while their own children attend private schools with entrance exams.”
We could if you gave a cite. If a cite was available, you’d give one. Q.E.D.
How do you come up with a metric for what “the left” does or does not do, in any case? Answer: you can’t. Conclusion: you’re pulling your assertious out of your butt.
Way you can refute me: with a link to a reputable cite with actual metrics.
We’ll wait.
“Do you believe that everyone can learn to perform algebra? If yes, then do you believe that everyone can learn calculus? If yes, do you believe that everyone can learn quantum mechanics? Once you answer no, you will called a racist.”
In some strange other universe, I suppose that’s true.
“In the liberal intellectual, elite educated world, the only answer to why blacks and Hispanics cannot learn Algebra is” that your assertion is facially false.
Italiacto!
Ok, seriously: Italics-B-gone!
Death to italics.
I have no pity for David Brooks. He loved championing the anti-elitist cause throughout Bush’s tenure. Let him reap what he’s sown
David Brooks couldn’t out-think an Applebee’s…
“until his research was exposed as fraudulent, after which he had no defenders on the left.”
Sorry, I can understand you’d like that to be the way things went down, but that’s simply not true. Belesilles won the Bancroft award after being exposed, not before. Admittedly, he won it before his defenders admitted he’d been exposed, but that’s the point: All the problems met with massive denial.
“To put it even more bluntly: Bellesisles committed intellectual fraud, and was punished for it — by intellectuals, I might add.”
Most of whom had to be dragged kicking and screaming into even looking at the evidence.
Hhmm.
My ex-father-in-law was a Democrat back in the twenties and thirties when he needed to be. FDR’s programs were his life support. In the fifties my ex-F-i-l continued to derive his living from liberal socialist projects. He got his water from the Snake River Dams, his electircity from Bbonneville, his farm subsidies from Congress and his SS check arrived every month. But he was financially comfortable so he started voting Repubican. He wasn’t a racist toward people wh knew but he was racist toward people he didn’t know. Reagan’s santitized versions of George Wallace slogans went over very well with him–even though he had been more of a recepient of federal largesse than any welfare family ever dreamed of.
He just flat refused to bleieve anything that contracited his beliefs: Watergate wass a conspriracy, Reagan was a saint, etc. I’m sure that if he was still alive he’s be a Bush supporter and vote McCain/Palin.
What’s the theme her? Well, self interest and ego investment. He was for government programs thhat helped him and against anything else for anyone else. Once he got comfortable he voted out of his precieved self interst which was to see himself in competition with others and to vote for the politicians who would keep the others down and him up. And, since his ego, but nopt his intellect, was involved in his political decsions he could not be wrong.
There are an awful lot of voters like him.
They vote out of pervievd self interst. They either percieve themselves as needing to vote Deomcratic in ordser to get hoelp or they precieve themselves as needing to vote Republican in order to keep others down. Or they dither between the two needs.
The Deomcratic party philosophy is centered on the notion of the common good. The Rpeulcian party philosophy is centered on the notion that it is bad for the government to serve the common good.
That’s how I see it.
Ok, so superdestroyer is a racist troll.
I have an honest question, because I’ve seen posters admonished for personal insults toward other posters, and I’m not trying to pick on Anarch. This particular comment was the one that jumped out at me. I could probably have chosen another example. I’m also not sticking up for superdestroyer or espousing any of his ideas. But, is it okay to call superdestroyer a racist troll according to the posting rules in this situation? I personally have not problem with it, but I’d like to know what someone in authority at this site has to say about it.
P.S. Should I attempt analysis of your choice to capitalize “Hispanics”, and for that matter “Algebra”, in the same sentence in which you don’t capitalize “Blacks”?
Hang on: lots of African-Americans have long objected to the trend of capitalizing “Black” as racist. Others disagree equally strongly. There’s certainly no consensus, and logically, if “Blacks” gets capitalized, so does “Whites,” and how this is non-racist escapes me.
“Hispanics” gets a capital because the name is derived from the historic nation of Hispania.
“Algebra” doesn’t get a cap unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence.
One usage note. Another. Another.
(When copyediting, one might go with authorial preference; my own preference is that the notion that there’s a single “race” or even ethnic group of “white people,” or “black people” is absurd pseudo-science nonsense, but I’m also not apt to tell people they can’t self-describe as they like.)
Anarch,
The way that the Democrats are dealing with the Republican party is to bury the Republicans with a demographic avalanche. The Democrats know that putting millions of illegal aliens on the fast track to citizenship will produce millions of additional automatic Democratic voters. The higher birth rates of Hispanics and blacks also ensure that the Republicans will become irrelevant to politics.
In a country where less than half of the children in kindergarten at White, the Repulbican party has zero chance for long term viability.
However, the quesiton for all of the current Repulbicans is how much they will be forced to pay for the common good of everyone else.
Funny, but I actually thought this was a true story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver
The left has argued that forcing hecklers at public meetings is censorship but not wanting to have someone post on a blog is not.
1. What is “forcing hecklers at public meetings?”
2. Who is this “the left” of which you speak, and where has he said this? Link, please?
3. Do you not understand the difference between a public — i.e., government — meeting, and someone’s blog, which is private property? And do you not understand how free speech rights operate vis a vis each of them?
4. Don’t answer #3, because the answer to both questions is quite obviously “No, I do not understand these things.”
Several people above have stated that the Republicans problem is that they do not want to listen to someone who does not agree with them. After your post, I do not see how liberals like yourself are any different.
Liberals like myself? Son, you don’t know anything about me. To whatever extent that I am “a liberal,” I promise there are none like me.
Great thought train at 12:49, wonkie.
Davis X. Machina’s pithy summation last month of this phenomenon you describe is one of my favorite quotes of all time.
In a country where less than half of the children in kindergarten at White, the Repulbican party has zero chance for long term viability.
However, the quesiton for all of the current Repulbicans is how much they will be forced to pay for the common good of everyone else.
Hey, at least he admits that the GOP is the rich white people’s party.
And with that, I join Anarch in plonking you into the dustbin in which you belong.
Belesilles won the Bancroft award after being exposed, not before. Admittedly, he won it before his defenders admitted he’d been exposed, but that’s the point: All the problems met with massive denial.
Politically-motivated personal attacks on respected individuals will tend to meet with denial, Brett – I’ve noticed this myself. 😉 The 2nd-Amendment Firsters who were attacking Bellesile’s work were for the most part gun-mad nutcases who would have attacked anything they perceived as being a threat to their right to buy more and more guns.
But you have your facts the wrong way round. After politically-motivated attacks by Second-Amendment defenders, Bellesiles won the Bancroft Award.
After an independent panel of historians had reviewed his work and exposed the major flaws, the Bancroft Award was withdrawn.
You might like it to be the other way round, but that’s how it happened.
Look – I agree with some of what you say here, but I’m guessing you have no idea how elitist sounding this might come across to some people, or understand that it’s this kind of elitism that actually riles up many of the folks you are discussing here.
OCSteve,
I speak only for myself here. But I am sick of caring how “elitist” these my opinions appear. I’m tired of trying to save people from the consequences of their own bad judgment and ignorance of the world. If such thoughts from some random guy on the internet prompt these ignorant fools to vote for a moron to run the place, so be it – the beatings will continue until intellegence improves. I’ll do just fine regardless, thank you.
Phil,
Actually the Republican Party is the party of middle class and upper middle class whites. The Democratic Party is the party of the every rich, the upper classes, the poor, and minorities no matter their level of wealth.
What David Brooks is arguing is that the Republicans are losing the upper middle class to the Democratic Party. If the marginal tax rate was still at 70% or higher, that move would not be occuring. If the Democratic Party was still pushing for forced busing across county lines, that move would not be occuring. If the Democratic party was still the party of not building new prisons, the move would not occur.
And if you want to look at censorship, it has occured at many public and private universites and even city council meetings. Remember, the Clinton Administration using conservative community organizers for opposing HUD Housing? The last thing the Left in the U.S. wants is free debate on the issue and especially does not want free debate in an educational setting.
hairshirt,
SD has posted on many other liberal threads employing the same name, tactics, and “arguments”. There is nothing new here.
He\she\it is a troll in the classic sense of the term. As for racist, read his comments and decide for yourself.
“However, the quesiton for all of the current Repulbicans is how much they will be forced to pay for the common good of everyone else.”
Which implicitly implies that Republicans, as a general rule, have more wealth (i.e., they are the elite) than others, and generally undermines just about everything you posted.
I’m guessing you have no idea how elitist sounding this might come across to some people, or understand that it’s this kind of elitism that actually riles up many of the folks you are discussing here.
OC, with all due respect (which is considerable), what I really want to say here is that I don’t give good god damn what the folks who get bent out of shape by “elitism” think.
Or, perhaps another way to put it is: likewise, I’m sure. I’m quite sure my level of general outrage and pissed-offedness will compare quite well with that of any Joe Sixpack you care to name.
I’m happy to let it go, because we have things to get done. I really recommend that they do likewise.
It’s a plain fact that the Republican party has been running, for the last 40 years, on the resentment of folks who feel like everyone else is looking down on them. That is a shitty basis for a common public identity, and a shitty basis for making public policy.
It’s time for heartland America to get the hell over themselves, roll up their sleeves, and get freaking busy like the rest of us cleaning up the god damned mess the folks they have elected have made of this country.
If they’re very, very lucky, I will not kick them in the nuts if I should ever meet them. IMVHO, they have it coming.
If you’re among those who voted for, frex, George Bush because you thought he was someone you’d like to go fishing with, just keep it to yourself if we should ever meet. Believe me, things will go much more smoothly that way.
“You” in the last paragraph is, of course, the rhetorical “you”, and is not directed specifically at you, OC.
I hope all of that is clear enough.
Thanks –
Brett:
concerning political differences in approaches to science, I give you:
TERRY SCHIAVO
After that mess, the Republicans have a long way to go in regaining any credibility that they are the pro-science party.
I guess superdestroyer just want to prove this point for CharleyCarp’s comment above:
“The thing is, we’ve learned that we get nothing from respecting these people either. Patience doesn’t work, respect doesn’t work, presentation of policies that might be in their interest doesn’t work. there’s an element of folks who are reacting in a tribal sense, and would take the same insult exactly from someone on their own side without complaint, but are looking for reasons to be offended by the other side. and after a while — a long while — you just get fed up walking around on egg shells, and have to call it out.”
Sometimes, walking away just makes sense.
*plonk*
I haven’t heard the notional *plonk* of a troll landing in the killfile in years.
Brings back memories, it does, of long afternoons spent reading Usenet with trn while my libraries compiled, hitting the space bar over and over like a Pavlov-conditioned pigeon. Good times.
Truly, everything old is new again.
I expect to encounter Kibo or B1FF or Ludwig Plutonium or weemba or Doctress Neutopia at any moment.
Gary Farber we have always with us.
I’d just like to say that russell’s comment was a thing of rare beauty.
Ludwig Plutonium! Damn, those were the days…
Russell,
Middle American spent decades cleaning up the disaster made by the left in the 1970’s. One of the reasons that Reagan was elected was not only Carter an idiot but that most of the Democratic leadership in th e1970’s were also idiots. Look up the misery index from 1980 sometime and see what bad political leadership is like. It took Bush two terms to get to where Carter was at the end of one term.
The real question for the Democrats is how will the lead in the coming one party state and how will they hold the different parts of the Democratic party together when opposition to the Republican Party will not be the focus.
Also, I have also found it humorous that everyone hear really believes that everyone in the U.S. can be taught quantum mechanics when most of them avoided the hard math and science classes in High School and College.
I’d just like to say that russell’s comment was a thing of rare beauty.
When you throw in the Russel Amendment
, I think most will agree that Russel won the week.
It’s time for heartland America to get the hell over themselves …
… and stop divorcing, murdering, and suing each other at higher rates than us godless commies in MA do. And to cut the crap about self-reliance, when the net flow of federal tax dollars is largely to the Red states from the Blue ones.
Russell, I have occasionally suggested (tongue only halfway in cheek) that New England ought to secede from the Union. I’m not advocating another War Betwixt the States, mind you. If we play our cards right, we could get ourselves kicked out.
–TP
Gary, I’m inclined to yield to your copyediting expertise, but when the two words are used in the same sense separated by a single conjunction, capitalizing them differently seems very odd – rspecially given that this is an issue of race, with all its history of slights and diminutions. Brett, given Jes’s post I stand by my rejection of the notion that “the left” comported itself especially poorly wrt Bellesisles – and I note that you didn’t address my 2nd-amendment-fraudster counterexample, John Lott.
The Republican Party since passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Open Housing legislation in 1968:
George Wallace planted.
Richard Nixon watered.
Satan (assited by Lee Atwater and Karl Rove) gave the increase.
“Middle American spent decades cleaning up the disaster made by the left in the 1970’s. One of the reasons that Reagan was elected was not only Carter an idiot but that most of the Democratic leadership in th e1970’s were also idiots. Look up the misery index from 1980 sometime and see what bad political leadership is like. It took Bush two terms to get to where Carter was at the end of one term.”
Yes, you’re right, how dare Carter do this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Oil_Embargo
And how dare he impose wage and price controls after abandoning the Bretton Woods system!
Wait, you mean he didn’t do all those things? I’ll be damned.
He did, however, drop support for *our* dictator, resulting in this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_energy_crisis
But he also appointed an adult like Paul Volcker to the Fed to give us the necessary medicine in order to get inflation under control…
Russell, I have occasionally suggested (tongue only halfway in cheek) that New England ought to secede from the Union.
On behalf of the Empire State, can we come too?
He\she\it is a troll in the classic sense of the term. As for racist, read his comments and decide for yourself.
Yeah, but my question is about the posting rules and their application.
What Uncle Kvetch said.
CC: The problem is that role your side has let the Know Nothing element play in your coalition. It’s a real problem for you, because it prevents you from getting your best and brightest into office.
Absolutely. Although I think it’s more about the religious right. (More below.) I hope that this coming time in the wilderness will give them ample time to reflect on that.
cleek: see… “elitist” is just another part of the GOP’s inane celebration of ignorance.
They’ve certainly made use of it, but it wouldn’t get any traction if there was nothing to it.
CC: Patience doesn’t work, respect doesn’t work, presentation of policies that might be in their interest doesn’t work.
publius: i’m weary of trying to express things through a filter so as not to sound bitter toward a group of people that i frankly feel bitter toward. and that act the same toward dems regardless of how liberals talk about them.
Fledermaus: But I am sick of caring how “elitist” these my opinions appear. I’m tired of trying to save people from the consequences of their own bad judgment and ignorance of the world.
Russell: …what I really want to say here is that I don’t give good god damn what the folks who get bent out of shape by “elitism” think.
I don’t disagree that there is a contingent you’ll never reach. But I’m curious if you have any guesses on what kind of numbers we’re talking about. Personally I think that the religious right is the biggest problem on my side. You’re never going to talk them into gay marriage or supporting abortion or a bunch of other things. But even here there are people who are reachable. The “religious right” only makes up about 13% of the voting-age population. Within that group, 33% consider themselves to be moderate or even liberal. 12% of the religious right voted for Kerry in 04. And that’s the hard-core contingent… Now I think they have wielded power in disproportion to their numbers, but I also think their strength is waning. I think that this coming loss will help to slap them down for good.
So how many conservatives do you believe there are who somehow relish being uninformed or ignorant? Sure, we’ve seen some real yahoos turn up at rallies this week. But IMO, anyone who takes time away from work/family/whatever to go to one of these rallies is not representative. They’re way more into politics than a lot of the country. I follow politics closely, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to one of these events. (Maybe if it was Saturday afternoon and I was bored and it was right down the street – and they were serving free beer…) So how many conservatives really hold on to their ignorance? That seems like a rationalization to me: These people must be ignorant, or cling to being proudly uninformed – because otherwise they would plainly see how our policies are really best for them. Which leads right back into elitism…
Publius seemed to focus on the importance of education, or rather the importance of exposure to diversity that comes with a college education. The urban/rural divide has also come up. Over 24% of farmers have some college education. 20% have 4 year or graduate degrees. They’re all pretty much in flyover country by definition.
I think most will agree that Russel won the week.
I think russell has been on fire for the last month.
On behalf of the Empire State, can we come too?
The city sure. Upstate will all turn out to see you off. 😉
Carter appointing Volker does not make up for appointing Miller as both Chairman of the Fed and as Sec. of the Treasury.
Middle American spent decades cleaning up the disaster made by the left in the 1970’s.
Tell it to the Marines, dude.
One of the reasons that Reagan was elected was not only Carter an idiot but that most of the Democratic leadership in th e1970’s were also idiots
Another was that Reagan was great at making a bunch of frightened people feel happy and secure again. Kind of like a big fuzzy blanket. On policy, I make Reagan out to be kind of mediocre.
Russell, I have occasionally suggested (tongue only halfway in cheek) that New England ought to secede from the Union.
There are some cranky Vermonters who are a step ahead of you.
My personal view is that we were here first and we’ll kick the red states out before we’ll go anywhere.
It’ll save us a lot of money, for one thing.
Thanks –
Over 30% of the school age children in Boston attend private schools. The public schools in DC are less than 4% white. If you live in Boston or DC and are white, your chidlren(sic) attend private school. The same can probably be said for NYC, Seattle, LA, SF.
The Seattle’s public schools are 42% white.
So much for your ill-informed “probably”. DC is a special case, as is Boston (where many white families have been sending their children to Catholic schools for generations).
Is that one of the things you taught at college- picking a single outlying data point and then generalizing across an entire data set, ignoring the remaining data points and the overall trend?
It is hard for liberals to claim that they are rational and fact based when they scream racism whenever anyone points out that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites.
Poor people commit crimes at higher rates than non-poor people. When someone misuses statistics to slander a race, it’s pretty easy logical leap to the conclusion that they’re racists. Naming you a racist is an *example* of our fact-based thinking.
Counterexample: if I pointed out that people from Red states are more likely to be felons or get divorced & wondered what it is about Red state beliefs or Southern genetic deficiencies that causes this, you would rightly think that that statement showed bias against Republicans/Southerners- because it ignores useful distinctions in the data in favor of those that present a ideologically pleasing slanted view of reality. (nb I dont really think those things, just another example of misusing statistics).
If you look at modern criminal jusitice(sic), liberal dogma is also not built upon evidence or facts but upon dogma. That is why the crime rate went so high in the 1970’s
You say a lot of generally meaningless things such as this (“liberal dogma is built upon dogma”? wtf does that even mean?). There is no link, no statement of what ‘dogmas’ are being discussed or how many of the monolithic left actually hold those dogmas. No evidence of causal relationship between the unnamed dogmas and crime rates. etc.
Weirdly, it just sounds like a lot of fact-free dogma.
Thanks for the example of who the left supports free speech for itself but censorship for everyone else.
This is a private space. Why do trolls have such a hard time understanding that they’ve got no right to speak in someone else’s living room?
“But, is it okay to call superdestroyer a racist troll according to the posting rules in this situation?”
No.
On behalf of the Empire State, can we come too?
The city sure. Upstate will all turn out to see you off. 😉
Now see, I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to do the whole liberal coastal elitist looking haughtily down on Upstate. Besides which, the Catskills and the Hudson Valley are lovely and we need places we can repair to on the weekends so we can write our anti-capitalist tracts in peace. But if Upstate doesn’t need us, well fine, the feeling is mutual, hmph. The Berkshires are lovely too.
And we don’t need to be our own state. They can just stretch that weird little southwestern appendage of Connecticut a little ways further so that it encompasses NYC, and bob’s yer uncle. And as of today, we’ll get same-sex marriage that way too…which sure as hell beats waiting for Albany to get around to it.
I don’t disagree that there is a contingent you’ll never reach
What I’m trying to say, OC, is that I’m kind of tired of trying to reach them.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s time for them to come and try to reach me.
I’ve given up enough. How long of a list would you like? Start with torture and habeas and work back from there. You’d probably have to go back to pre-Reagan before we’d start finding a basis for common ground again.
Your guys can come my way for a change. Otherwise no deal. I’ll see them in hell on election day, and may the better side win.
Thanks –
lso, I have also found it humorous that everyone hear really believes that everyone in the U.S. can be taught quantum mechanics when most of them avoided the hard math and science classes in High School and College.
Wow, SD, projection much. I have been vacillating on whether it was worth responding to your drivel or whether it was better just to not feed the troll. Ultimately, I figured it was worth stepping in for the teachers.
We really do believe that everyone (short of a significant cognitive handicap) can learn Algebra. In fact, in some states (like crazily liberal Oklahoma, where I used to teach) they even believe everyone can learn up through Algebra II. I have never, not once, heard the fact that many people fail at this task be attributed by educators to race. In fact, short of reading you here, I hadn’t really heard that before at all.
Like many teachers, I cannot help but notice that students in many minorities do struggle with math. Like most educators, I attribute it to social factors. I also note that many of those social factors are clearly caused by persistent generational poverty and single family households. In fact, as a rule, socioeconomic factors are a much much better indicator of academic success (especially in mathematics) than race. Amazingly enough, it does happen that there is often sinificant overlap between race and SE status, which often leads those with racist inclinations to blame everything on the former and completely overlook the latter. Sometimes, we try to point out the inherent bias that is revealing itself through racist explanations. I am sorry if that offends you.
And for what it is worth, the first person I ever saw who argued that everyone should be able to do math actually argued that everyone who couldn’t do math up through calculus was an imbecilic subhuman who could barely tie his (or her, though he wouldn’t have added it) shoes. Any guesses as to who the crazy author was???
Robert Heinlein.
Please, SD, explain to me how Heinlein is a stupid liberal with no mathematics education. Inquiring minds want to know…
Carleton Wu
from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/parentsguideschools/2002435219_webskulprivate.html
“In part, this is because private education is popular in the Puget Sound area — and especially in Seattle, where a U.S. Census survey reports nearly a third of first- through 12th-graders attend private schools.”
Any place where the public schools are less than 50% white is probably a deep blue city or county.
Also, Red States have higher divorce rates because they have higher marriage rates. Connecnicut has one of the lowest marriages rates in the U.S., so it makes sense to have a low divorce rate. Washington, DC has one of the highest crimes rates in the U.S. ans is deeply blue. Even in blue states like Maryland, the most Democratic counties have the highest crime rates. However, if you look at Vermont, it has the lowest crime rate in the U.S. probably because it is the whitest state in the U.S.
hilzoy,
As a point of clarification, is it calling him racist, calling him a troll or calling him both in conjunction that isn’t okay?
I think I skirted the racist issue because I don’t like mind reading for people. Though as you can see, I am willing to note arguments that clearly have racist overtones.
I did call SD a troll, though. I know that is pushing respectability, but didn’tthink it was a violation. If so, I apologize and retract.
Along comes SD and proves my point.
However, if you look at Vermont, it has the lowest crime rate in the U.S. probably because it is the whitest state in the U.S.
See, hilzoy (and other overlords), I really don’t get how one is supposed to not point out that this is clearly a racist argument. I mean, how much clearer can SD be?
Ludwig Plutonium! Damn, those were the days…
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED
Regardless of the monetary errors of Burns and Miller in attempting to fight the energy-driven imbalances, Carter seems to have done pretty well economically compared to his peers:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/07/partisan-econom.html
An above-average record, especially considering the energy shocks.
Uncle: Kidding! I’d miss Broadway and the restaurants.
Russell: What I’m trying to say, OC, is that I’m kind of tired of trying to reach them. As far as I’m concerned, it’s time for them to come and try to reach me.
Well I certainly understand that. I’ve mostly given up trying to reach that contingent as well, some of whom are in my own family. ;(
More generally, I’m concerned about what happens next. I think it’s pretty clear that Obama is going to sail to a win at this point. Given the markets, it seems likely we’ll be in a (potentially) severe recession for his entire first term. Folks won’t remember the details of how we got into it – all they’ll know is that Obama didn’t get us out of it a month after he took office. That would seem to set the stage for a resurgent GOP (without the party learning a damned thing from this loss).
So any bridges that can be built in the next four years would seem to be worth the effort.
@socratic_me: There is a difference, however subtle, between noting that someone is making racist assertions and arguments, and calling them a racist.
Now, clearly, someone whose comments consist almost entirely of racist assertions and arguments, probably is a racist — but the prohibition on name-calling is a valuable enough civility rule that it’s worth enforcing even in this case.
SD’s posts are classically trollish, and they use racist assertions to provoke response.
Uncle: Kidding! I’d miss Broadway and the restaurants.
As Frank Burns used to say, tough toenails. A deal’s a deal. But you’ll do fine. I had a really good slice of pizza in Binghamton once, and I understand Schenectady is a veritable hotbed of cutting-edge community theatre. Enjoy!
Sure, we’ve seen some real yahoos turn up at rallies this week. But IMO, anyone who takes time away from work/family/whatever to go to one of these rallies is not representative. They’re way more into politics than a lot of the country.
I do agree with you there. There are millions of citizens in this country and I’m unlikely to meet most of them. I can’t explain why half of them voted for Bush in 2004, but I’m sure most of them were just trying to make the best decision rather than vote their resentments. But for the last 2 decades there has been a cottage industry telling them that Dems and their supporters (as well as the ever-elusive ‘Left’) who dispise them so they just shouldn’t listen to their ideas or even consider voting dem. How much influence that has on their votes I can only guess.
And four years later that same cottage industry is ramping up the machine again. Given how poorly the country has been run under almost complete GOP control for the last 8 years, if they still fall for the same game, yet again, I can only throw my hands in the air and write everything off and focus on me, my friends and improving the small urban elitist corner of the world in which I live.
But one thing I don’t want to from these people is how I, and The Left!, now have to solve all these problems which I had nothing to do with. If they didn’t want to listen then, I am not going to bother repeating myself. If they want a politician who will just to pat them on the head and tell them what good americans they are and how swell everything is going there will always be someone like that on the ticket. If they want to have a serious discussion of the problems facing the country well there is someone like that on the ticket too this time.
Neil,
I agree about the fine distinction, which is why I made it in my own response to him. I just wanted to make sure that distinction was where the line was drawn.
Is there/ should there be a similar distinction for caling someone a troll? I assume the answer is yes, and thus we should be commenting on how SD’s comments are trollish, troll-like or troll-onic while refraining from calling him/her/it a troll. I am just asking for clarification.
That seems like a rationalization to me: These people must be ignorant, or cling to being proudly uninformed – because otherwise they would plainly see how our policies are really best for them. Which leads right back into elitism…
I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, there are two separate debates going on: (1) what policies we should enact and (2) by what mechanism should we decide what policies we should enact.
There are lots of conservatives who disagree with me on various issues in debate (1). Some of them agree with me on (2) and some don’t. For those that do, I’ve got no problems whatsoever. I don’t think they suffer from anti-intellectualism. We disagree about stuff, but we can probably have a good interesting discussion and I can imagine my mind getting changed if they mount a persuasive enough case. That has happened with some issues. But that only works because we agree on (2).
For those conservatives who disagree with me on (2), well, they’re likely to disagree with me on (1), but I can’t really discuss usefully with them because they don’t accept my whole method for determining policy. If I talk about feedback loops and probabilities and climate models, they come back and say that there can be no global warming because scientists are in hock to a radical environmental movement that wants to kill everyone. Or maybe they say that there can be no global warming because God gave us dominion over the earth and therefore it is impossible for us to break the planet that way. If I talk about counterterrorism policy in terms of cost-benefit analysis, we get nowhere because they don’t accept CB analysis in that regard: for them, losing a single person to terrorism is unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs. If I try to talk about foreign policy towards Iran, we get nowhere because these people know that all Iranians are implacably obsessed with destroying the US and Israel and will stop at nothing, including their own destruction, to achieve those goals.
Now obviously, what I’ve described is a caricature and real people are never 100% in any one category, but I think it gives you a hint of where I’m coming from. I suspect that most people posting here are coming from the same place in that regard.
That seems like a rationalization to me: These people must be ignorant, or cling to being proudly uninformed – because otherwise they would plainly see how our policies are really best for them. Which leads right back into elitism…
I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, there are two separate debates going on: (1) what policies we should enact and (2) by what mechanism should we decide what policies we should enact.
There are lots of conservatives who disagree with me on various issues in debate (1). Some of them agree with me on (2) and some don’t. For those that do, I’ve got no problems whatsoever. I don’t think they suffer from anti-intellectualism. We disagree about stuff, but we can probably have a good interesting discussion and I can imagine my mind getting changed if they mount a persuasive enough case. That has happened with some issues. But that only works because we agree on (2).
For those conservatives who disagree with me on (2), well, they’re likely to disagree with me on (1), but I can’t really discuss usefully with them because they don’t accept my whole method for determining policy. If I talk about feedback loops and probabilities and climate models, they come back and say that there can be no global warming because scientists are in hock to a radical environmental movement that wants to kill everyone. Or maybe they say that there can be no global warming because God gave us dominion over the earth and therefore it is impossible for us to break the planet that way. If I talk about counterterrorism policy in terms of cost-benefit analysis, we get nowhere because they don’t accept CB analysis in that regard: for them, losing a single person to terrorism is unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs. If I try to talk about foreign policy towards Iran, we get nowhere because these people know that all Iranians are implacably obsessed with destroying the US and Israel and will stop at nothing, including their own destruction, to achieve those goals.
Now obviously, what I’ve described is a caricature and real people are never 100% in any one category, but I think it gives you a hint of where I’m coming from. I suspect that most people posting here are coming from the same place in that regard.
Grr…sorry for the double post. It didn’t show up on refresh for a few minutes so I foolishly posted again.
Uncle: Kidding! I’d miss Broadway and the restaurants.
You can always make trips abroad to get pizza. It’ll be just like Europe!
Who is this “Bellesisles” guy you’re talking about? The closest wiki could come was Francois Simars de Bellisle, and it doesn’t mention any theories.
Found him! It’s Bellesiles! Geez!
=================
Can we get back to discussing the anti-intellectualism in the Republican Party? In particular, does anyone have any suggestions as to how to go about stopping this?
Force them to look into the lamp of the “overhead projector” at the local planetarium? Just for one instance, so they can see how dumb McCain was being about complaining about this “earmark”.
and thus we should be commenting on how SD’s comments are trollish
i posted a link to a google search, way up above, that shows SD’s MO: assert that the US is going to become a one-party state because all the minorities are going to vote Dem, forever, while out-breeding all the whites who vote Republican. over and over and over, all over the place. it’s the same argument, every time he shows up. and every time, people knock down that argument. and then he comes back with it again.
that meets my definition.
@socratic_me:
Glad the distinction’s understood. Your question about the posting rules wrt calling a troll a troll is a good one, and I’ll leave it to hilzoy, publius, Eric, Sebastian, and/or von to issue the clarification you seek.
P.S. It’s ‘Nell’ not ‘Neil’, but no big thing, it happens often, especially with sans-serif typefaces.
cleek,
Actually no one ever knocks them down and people keep writing posting as if the current divide between Repulbicans and Democrats is what will continue even though the underlying demographic situaiton is changing.
Look in 2008 how the Republicans have utterly failed to appeal to Hispanics even though McCain has spent his entire career pandering to Hispanics.
Progressives keep talking about general election of the President or redistricting to beat the Repubicans when what they fail to realize is that the Republicans are already beaten. The Democrats seem to be stuck fightin old political battles instead of moving ahead but like the Republican activist were stilling fighting the anit-clinton fight in 2001 when they should have moved on.
Turb: That’s reasonable. OTOH, I think you have a remarkable ability to remain very detached when discussing policy. I rarely get the impression that emotion is driving your arguments in any way. (That’s a compliment – I wish I could manage that.) But I think many of us on both sides let emotion drive us to the point of blurring the lines you’ve drawn there.
And for what it is worth, the first person I ever saw who argued that everyone should be able to do math actually argued that everyone who couldn’t do math up through calculus was an imbecilic subhuman who could barely tie his (or her, though he wouldn’t have added it) shoes.
Funny thing about that- Heinlein went through the entire book “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” with a complete failure to understand basic probability. Everyone makes mistakes, but few people make mistakes that they themselves felt put them in the “subhuman” category…
Is there/ should there be a similar distinction for caling someone a troll? I assume the answer is yes, and thus we should be commenting on how SD’s comments are trollish, troll-like or troll-onic while refraining from calling him/her/it a troll. I am just asking for clarification.
I’ve never liked that- I was once here told that my post was ‘idiotic’ & then told that this wasn’t a violation because it wasn’t about me. Like saying “you are the son of a motherf*cker” is acceptable, bc it’s not directly about them. Or “this post could only have been written by an idiot” or something.
Id rather avoid circumlocutions; everyone says insensitive things sometimes. Someone who does it consistently is an insensitive person, and I dont see the threat in saying so.
You can always make trips abroad to get pizza. It’ll be just like Europe!
Ok! Ok! I retract and apologize.
Sorry Nell! I realized it after I posted. What is sad is that I have been writing here long enough to recognize the name “Nell” and had actually been wondering who this new “Neil” person was. Stupid sans serif.
CW,
For what it is worth, I find that it is much easier to have a basic understanding og calculus and its uses than statistics, so maybe he isn’t totally contradictory ;-}
That said, what is his horrible abuse of statistics in Moon? It has been a while since I read it, so I am a little fuzzy on the details. That said, I don’t recall anything really glaring the last time I read it.
Carleton Wu
from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/parentsguideschools/2002435219_webskulprivate.html
You claimed 4%, or something like that. Turned out to be something like 10 times that much. So your theory, that white people in blue states send almost all of their kids to private schools, was completely, utterly, totally wrong.
Pointing out that white kids are over-represented in private schools in the Seattle area isn’t what you said. To belabor the point, you were absurdly wrong & are an object of ridicule.
Any place where the public schools are less than 50% white is probably a deep blue city or county.
Or someplace with not that many white people. But yes, places with few white people tend to be very blue. Also, urban places tend to be very blue.
Did you not understand the bit about false statistical correlations, and how chasing them rather than looking at all of the facts is a good example of how racists misuse statistics?
If so, I will explain again with a different example of bad reasoning: the places where the economy lives (ie cities) are also mostly blue. What is it about the Republican ideology that produces these unproductive (rural) areas? Or is it that unproductive people are attracted to the Republican party? (nb again, this is not my actual thinking)
Also, Red States have higher divorce rates because they have higher marriage rates.
Wrong-o; they lead in divorce-per-marriage, not divorce-per-capita. Love watching you rationalize on the fly though.
Washington, DC has one of the highest crimes rates in the U.S. ans is deeply blue. Even in blue states like Maryland, the most Democratic counties have the highest crime rates. However, if you look at Vermont, it has the lowest crime rate in the U.S. probably because it is the whitest state in the U.S.
Does the fact that you had to switch up your methodology mid-paragraph clue you in that your thinking process is completely broken?
Urban centers are almost always Democratic strongholds, even in the South. They also 1)have high crime rates, 2)are the centers of the economy, 3)tend to have larger minority populations, 4)have all of the major universities, etc. Cities are different than rural areas; if you’d like to blame the negative differences on Democratic ideas, you’ll need to credit the Dems with creating the economy as well.
I would argue that it doesn’t make sense to attribute *any* of the effects that can be explained by urban-rural divides by using race or political ideology. Likewise economic status is much more useful than race or ideology. But again, if you’re going to attribute the negative set of characteristics, you’ll need to attribute the positives as well.
Like saying “you are the son of a motherf*cker” is acceptable, bc it’s not directly about them.
Not to be pedantic, but, taken literally, isn’t this true of everyone?
Turb: That’s reasonable. OTOH, I think you have a remarkable ability to remain very detached when discussing policy.
That’s very kind of you to say, but I can guarantee that most people who discuss politics with me in real life wouldn’t, um, agree with you there. To put it another way, my wife still hasn’t finished laughing since I read her your comment.
But I think many of us on both sides let emotion drive us to the point of blurring the lines you’ve drawn there.
I agree that many people, self included, let emotion drive them down all kinds of bad roads once they start talking politics. But so what? At the end of the day, no matter how emotionally invested he is, someone like publius can have very fruitful discussions with conservatives he disagrees with (provided they agree on (2)) while being totally unable to productively discuss issues with conservatives with whom he disagrees on (2). In other words, the presence of the dividing line doesn’t depend on people knowing that it exists.
That said, what is his horrible abuse of statistics in Moon?
It’s been a while for me too, but I recall this: the big computer tells the main character that they have a 1-in-10 chance of success at rebellion. After they do some stuff and it works spectacularly, the computer tells him the odds are much worse (like 1-in-100), not because anything had gone wrong but because there was inevitably (foreseeably) going to be a bad time in the middle of the process.
Of course, if the probability of event Z depends on both events X and Y, the probability of Z cannot be larger than either X or Y.
So not stats, but the grasp of probability was pretty weak- I think even people who don’t care about math could spot the error there. No sports team has a higher chance of winning the championship than they do of getting to the championship game…
Not to be pedantic, but, taken literally, isn’t this true of everyone?
It’s my stab at the eccentric use of song lyrics. Im not sure if it is- depends on whose mother is being referenced. In the song, the next line is “you are the son of an incestuous union”, so not what the writer was thinking.
But I like it.
Isn’t this a remarkably STUPID statement?
Marriage is, indeed, a necessary condition for divorce. It is not, however, a sufficient condition.
More generally, I’m concerned about what happens next.
You and me both.
Folks won’t remember the details of how we got into it – all they’ll know is that Obama didn’t get us out of it a month after he took office.
At this point, that will more or less be a baked-in occupational hazard for any Democrat in the executive. Or maybe anyone in the executive as of January 2009, period.
So any bridges that can be built in the next four years would seem to be worth the effort.
I hear that.
To be honest, I’ve put in my bridge-building time, and I don’t see that it’s made a whole lot of difference. The point of view I’ve come to is that my energy, at this point, will be better spent defending the things that are important to me, as opposed to trying to meet other folks halfway.
I really, really don’t have a problem at a personal level with folks from cultural backgrounds different than my own. I just do not.
Unfortunately, I also don’t think there’s much ground left to give if this country isn’t going to end up in the dumper.
So I more or less refuse to lose any sleep worrying about whether I’m offending people who are inclined to feel slighted by, frex, what kind of salad greens other folks eat.
I mean, seriously — the banking system is going belly up, and we need to talk about arugula? Guys are putting in their 4th or 5th tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no realistic endgame in sight, and the most important thing is whether Sarah Palin’s Newsweek picture was retouched or not?
These people are children. I’m sorry, but they are.
I just do not have the time or energy. It’s a bottomless well of self-pity, and there is no upside from my point of view.
superdestroyer, I’d say that there are many, many reasons that Vermont has a low crime rate. There just aren’t a lot of people there, there isn’t that much difference between rich and poor folks there, and the state has a very, very long and proud history of egalitarianism and general mutual respect. I’d start there, rather than with the color of folks’ skins.
Beyond that, I reckon you to be among the folks who are unlikely to be all that interested in, let alone persuaded by, anything I have to say, so I’ll leave it there.
Thanks –
Actually no one ever knocks them down
actually, they do. and i’m going to do it again, for the record.
and people keep writing posting as if the current divide between Repulbicans and Democrats is what will continue even though the underlying demographic situaiton is changing.
for some reason, you seem to think:
a) parties never change platforms in ways which alienate current members or attract new ones
b) party ID is determined by ethnicity and race
those are both false, and this has been pointed out to you countless times.
all the redistricting in the world isn’t going to change the fact that parties can lose voters as easily as they can attract new ones.
Not to be pedantic, but, taken literally, isn’t this true of everyone?
Yes, but only ex post facto.
Thanks –
A number of folks have for some mysterious reason agreed that “everyone” is a “son of a motherf*cker” (if “only ex post facto”).
Last time I checked I counted as part of “everyone,” but I’m certainly not the “son of a motherf*cker,” since I’m not the son of anyone. ;|
but I’m certainly not the “son of a motherf*cker,” since I’m not the son of anyone.
zing.
the joke has come upon them.
Friday’s Mini-Report
FRIDAY’S MINI-REPORT…. Today’s edition of quick hits: * The Dow was done as much as 700 points this morning, but closed down “only” 128 points. Over the last seven trading sessions, the Dow has lost 271 points, or 20% of…
Russell: We’re cool. I’d give you the terrorist knuckle bump if I could.
Instead, I’m going to the open thread that seems to involve drinking…
I’d always thought the term “m*therf*cker” was meant to be taken more, er Oedipal-y (meaning that it would be likely for a huge majority of people to NOT be sons or daughters of mofos).
(I’m sorry! I’m sorry! But that was fun…)
Cleek,
You have to admit that for non-whites ethnicity predicts party affiliation more than any other factor and it has been that way for decades. It is to the point that most blacks have probably never voted for a Republican.
You also have to admit that the blacks and Hispanic populations are growing much faster than the white population.
You also have to admit that the Voting Rights Act and current federally mandated majority/minority districting regulations will keep most blacks and Hispanics in heavily Democratic districts.
Now the question is can the Republicans find away to appeal to blacks and Hispanics (or even white collar whites on both coasts) without losing their current support. I believe the answer is no. Everyone here is arguing the answer is no without carrying the result of their thesis forward.
Carleton Wu
I stated before that about 1/3 of the students in Boston attend private school and gave a reference, I stated that the DC public schools are 4% white and gave a reference and stated that in Seattle about 1/3 of the students attend private schools.
Any town where the rich attend private schools and the poor attend lousy public schools is most certainly a deep blue city. It also one of the reasons that upper middle class knowledge workers are now heavily Democratic voters.
Urban centers are not the economic engines. The U.S. economy comes the suburbs these days. More people live and work in the suburbs than in urban areas. Most new businesses open in the suburbs and not in urban cores.
Russell,
Maybe Vermont has maintain a culture of egalitarianism and general mutual respect because it is overwhelmingly White. Putman at Harvard as argued as much before. Remember, the more diverse the area, the less trust develops. If you want a country based upon egalitarianism and general mutual respect you would stop immigration today.
It is to the point that most blacks have probably never voted for a Republican.
but 40 years ago that wasn’t the case. and since you can’t predict the future, you have absolutely no basis for thinking things will remain the way they are today.
cleerk
Blacks are been voting for DEmocrats since the 1930’s for the few that could manage to vote. By 1968, the black vote was solidly Democratic. Considering a 21 y/o vote in 1968 would be 61 years old, there are very few blacks who have ever voted for a Republicans even at the state or local level. Remember, one of the reason black turnout is so poor is that many blacks live in majority black district where there are no competative elections at the local leve.
Historical examples to no apply because in the past, the Democrats and Republicans were fighting over the white vote even when the Depression era Democrats were dominating. The Voting Rights Act will ensure the continuation of majority/minority districts that will be overwhelmingly Democratic. Any black who wants a career in politics has to be Democrat. The same also applies to Hispanics.
Out of the entire Repubican House delegation only three Reps (all cubans) represent districts that are majority/minority.
I stated before that about 1/3 of the students in Boston attend private school and gave a reference, I stated that the DC public schools are 4% white and gave a reference and stated that in Seattle about 1/3 of the students attend private schools.
Actually, what you said was
Over 30% of the school age children in Boston attend private schools. The public schools in DC are less than 4% white. If you live in Boston or DC and are white, your chidlren attend private school. The same can probably be said for NYC, Seattle, LA, SF.
That is, you were completely wrong, unless over 40% is “probably like” 4%. Your thesis that the vast majority of whites in blue cities were sending their kids to private school is *destroyed* by the Seattle case. 1/3 is not a vast majority.
Urban centers are not the economic engines. The U.S. economy comes the suburbs these days.
Many jobs exist in the suburbs, but lots of those jobs are at big-box stores etc. Many of the good jobs, the high-income wealth-producing jobs exist in the urban centers. Big law firms, financial firms, heavy manufacturing, medical centers, corporate HQs, etc are usually in cities. Now, those high-earners like to have grocery stores and jewelry stores etc near their suburban homes, so there are plenty of jobs in the suburbs.
But the cities are the engines of the economy- remove the suburbs, and NYC has a housing crisis. Remove the city, and the suburbs have an economic crisis (as would the US as a whole, to some extent).
Any black who wants a career in politics has to be Democrat. The same also applies to Hispanics.
Out of the entire Repubican House delegation only three Reps (all cubans) represent districts that are majority/minority.
I have no idea what your thought(?) process is- are you saying that only majority-minority districts elect minority candidates? That only minorities vote for minorities? Heard of this Obama guy yet? He seems to be getting some white folks to vote for him.
Saying that the GOP is doomed by demographics is one thing, but that shouldn’t have anything to do with the race of the candidates themselves afaict.
Historical examples to no apply
Whatever that means.
History tells us this- there will always be two major parties in the US. If one falls into decline, another will take its place. Much more often, what happens is that the declining party goes through a period in the desert, reformulates itself, and comes back strong. If the current GOP is doomed to failure because it’s caught between race-baiting whites and a growing minority population, we’ll see a minority-friendly GOP in a decade or two or another party devoted to much of their base.
I’ve been thinking about Brooks’ comments and about the Republican anti-science, anti-intellectual trend in general. What strikes me is that if you look at historical totalitarian movements (think Nazis and Soviet Communists), they always had as part of their worldview (at least the public face of their worldview) a disdain for intellectuals – a disdain that eventually spills over into control, imprisonment, etc so as to muzzle those who actually can see what’s going on. This is what I find so dangerous about the modern Republican Party. It’s playing with fire by entering these waters.
Wow. Sure a lot pointless statistics & unsupported opinion in this followup from people defending conservative hate and ignorance.
intellectualism demands rigorous honesty, independent research and a dispassionate, disinterested collection and interpretation of information and data. 40 years of critical thinking has led me to the conclusion that there is no intellectualism on the right, merely craven mental gymnastics with a primary focus toward justifying the hateful, mean-spirited selfishness practiced by fearful conservatives bent upon preserving a White elite at the expense of everyone else.
Say what you’d like about Repugniscum making cities safe, low crime rates have a direct correlation to economic conditions, so good times, low crime rates, bad times, high crime rates. The economy historically does better under Democratic administrations, so you’re wrong there as well.
As for the assertion that blacks & hispanics commit crimes at a higher rate than whites, look to the poverty line and minority populations for the explanation. Whites in corresponding economic strata are just as criminal, arrest records show. If you’re afraid of being a victim, you have far more to fear from whites, since they are the overwhelming bulk of the population and own more guns per capita. You do the math.
Furthermore blacks and hispanics are convicted of crimes at a much much higher rate than whites, receive harsher sentencing and are refused parole at a much higher rate. Many laws are specifically written in order to be arbitrarily enforced, so things like driving while black or brown means something entirely different than driving while white. That’s tyranny in my book.
The recent poll finding that employers would rather hire a white man with a prison record over a qualified black candidate shows that Jim Crow is alive and well in the private sector. America is a racist nation, period.
That America, in the 21st Century, with all the lessons of slavery and racism behind us, you’d think that electing an intelligent Constitutional scholar to the highest office in the land would be a no-brainer esp. in light of the recent assault on Liberty by the current Repugniscum administration (domestic spying, the Patriot Act, suspension of Habeas Corpus, GITMO, extraordinary rendition, TORTURE.) The fact that a person’s skin color or religious beliefs could stand in his way (any more than gender or gender preference) in what is touted to be a FREE COUNTY is immanently risible. That these impediments are staunchly defended by citizens who assert that they believe in Liberty is the height of hypocrisy.
The very reasons which Repugniscum cite for voting against Obama show their true selves. Why couldn’t we have a black or mixed-race person in the White House? Or a gay President? Or a Muslim? Why are they so willing to give a white woman a pass on experience but not a black candidate? Every and any reason they state only reflects what hateful cowards they are.
Let’s call a spade a spade: John McCain is little more than a scion of privilege and a poster-boy for assisted living, just like Bush, and has shown himself to be a rank opportunist of the first water, and I will gladly bid the last of his ilk goodbye. Sarah Palin is part and parcel of the religiously intolerant racist contingent of the sexist, anti-intellectual Republican party. That some would like to see her at the top of the ticket in 2012 shows them to be cut from the same cloth.
My two bits:
A lot of the “anti-intellectualism” arises at this point in the election as the dem candidate moves to the middle (as Obama has here). The rhetoric always seems to get ramped up and more “basic” around this time which is why I tend to tune it out from both sides from here on out except for pure entertainment value. While this discussion goes much deeper than that and goes back further historically, it seems prompted from recent reactions of nutcases at republican rallies. Not an objective or representative starting point, IMHO.
By contrast, I hate Sarah Palin — despise her.
Young, white women too, who will probably be assigned the job of removing fillings from the mouths of Jews when the time comes.
These “chicken farmers” will someday make the trains run on time and probably develop new furnace technology.
They are the terrorists. Nip it in the bud.
A lot of young punks, who should have been suckerpunched and kicked in the nuts on the spot,
If they’re very, very lucky, I will not kick them in the nuts if I should ever meet them. IMVHO, they have it coming
And the republicans are the only ones stoking hate . . .
Looks like I’m going to start wearing my sparring cup until the elections over.
@Anarch: the finnish system appearantly does not stream before 15 but their average math performance is good.
According to this article the US looses a lot of math talent in the non-immigrants.
Carleton Wu,
Please provide your reference that the public schools in Washington, DC are 40% white. I have already provide a reference that the pubilc schools in DC are less than 5% white. If you cannot provide a reference, then please provide a reference that I am wrong. I doubt that you will do it. Anyone who thninks that the public schools in DC are 40% white has no idea what they are talking about.
Motorod,
Please provide a reference that whites are arrested at the same per capita rate was whites. I could not find it on the Department of Justice Site. Considering that blacks are six times more likely to be the victims of crime than whites, I doubt that you are correct.
Crime is more correlate with race tha wealth. Poor whites in Utah do not commit crimes at the same rate as poor blacks anywhere in the U.S. the refusal to face the facts on crime must the liberals really are not as dispassionate as they claim.
Please provide your reference that the public schools in Washington, DC are 40% white…I doubt that you will do it. Anyone who thninks that the public schools in DC are 40% white has no idea what they are talking about.
Now Im not sure if you’re genuinely stupid or if you’re hiding behind faked incomprehension.
You claimed that If you live in Boston or DC and are white, your chidlren attend private school. The same can probably be said for NYC, Seattle, LA, SF.
I provided info that Seattle’s school system is over 40% white. That you were wrong about white people in blue cities not sending their kids to public schools to mingle with minorities.
I never said anything about DC (other than pointing out that DC is an unusual case & that your extrapolation from it to all other blue cities is ludicrous).
Try to follow the argument in all its simplicity: you said that DC is representative of other blue cities in having very low white participation rates in public schools. It is not. You are wrong. End of story.
Why does anyone even respond to SD? It gives him a legitimacy that he, IMHO, does not deserve.
Poor whites in Utah do not commit crimes at the same rate as poor blacks anywhere in the U.S.
Do you ever cite anything? IANYSE, I’ve already debunked one of your ‘probably’s today, so Ill just assume that you’re wrong on this point for the moment.
Why does anyone even respond to SD? It gives him a legitimacy that he, IMHO, does not deserve.
It’s not like he can put it on his resume; he’ll get bored pretty quickly and go crap on other people’s carpets soon. Meanwhile, it’s something to do with a thread that’s already been crapped on. And he’s pretty funny, in a why-are-you-liberals-always-relying-on-dogma kind of way. Im still chuckling over the “liberal dogma is built upon dogma” line- this guy may not know much, but he sure hates him some dogma.
Folks won’t remember the details of how we got into it – all they’ll know is that Obama didn’t get us out of it a month after he took office.
I don’t want to say that’s impossible, but I do think it’s very unlikely. People have seen the government try one thing after another – megaloans, the bailout, direct cash infusion – and they see it not working. This weekend the G-7 will meet, and the public will be watching that pretty keenly, too. All but Compleat Idiots realize the problem is deep, intractable and not susceptible to quick fixes- and the Compleat Idiots are already lost, anyway.
I had a nice tin-foil thought today, though: Remember when the Bushies were so eager to privatize Social Security? If they had succeeded, that would have been about another trillion dollars flowing through the investment banks and brokerages – more assets to be bundled into packets, more packets to be leveraged against, more assets inflated beyond any sustainable, realistic value. The bubble would have been even bigger, and the final bang would have taken all the funds that were once the SocSec Trust Fund.
But the infusion of the SocSec Trust Fund would also have delayed the final explosion – possibly long enough for the Bushies to flee town and the next President installed. Then it really would have been a mighty Big Bang on Someone Else’s Watch.
Like I said, a tin-foil thought. But Lordy Lordy, are we lucky that scheme to loot SocSec didn’t succeed, or what?
That’s why I hope everyone stops making fun of her — I want her to remain credible in a future GOP primary because there’s no longer any way on Earth she could win a general election.
Pardon, but I think you are DEAD WRONG about this. I think she has the opportunity, if she chooses to use it, to pull a Tom Hanks and re-invent herself as a serious politician.
While Palin is widely seen as “unqualified” to be President, I don’t think that most people think she is inherently so or incapable of becoming qualified. I think that most people understand that she never really thought much about some of these issues and would be open to supporting her later if it looks like she has put in a serious effort to educate herself over the intervening 4 years.
I’m not saying she will get “educated” from a progressive point of view. I’m saying she will learn enough, from a rightwing perspective, to be able to at least advance the rightwing point of view in a coherent and articulate fashion.
I’m also not saying that she will do this – only that I think she has the ability, drive, and ambition, to do it if she chooses.
bc:
If we don’t want restrictions on hate speech, then the only way to counter hate speech is with more hate speech.
You are, of course, correct and a good person to boot.
But the rhetoric since 1980 has been ramped up more notches every election cycle since.
Deliberately.
John McCain and Sarah Palin can call this shit off any time. They can end a speech midway when this stuff occurs and clear the hall.
They don’t.
Fuck em. They are haters.
I hate back.
“I hate back.”
I understand the feeling, but I’m really not clear how this is a path to helping in any way.
See also “abysses, looking into.”
Well, Frodo, sometimes the Balrog takes you into the abyss with him.
You continue on with the Ring. Go. Now!
I’ll join you later.
But the Balrog needs a good ass-kicking right now.
i’m educated, but by no means ‘elite.’ however, i agree with all your points about why so many of us could never vote republican, and would toss in one more, a very important one to many of us.
i love this country, not just the political institutions, but the marvelous country God gave us. i confess that i try to qualify as a serious environmentalist. one of the more distressing developments over the years started with the gipper and his secretary of the interior, james watt. watt made it republican orthodoxy that people who felt as i do are not real americans, much less real republicans. he equated members of the audubon society and the national wildlife federation with the weathermen. it all started with reagan, watts, and gorsuch. before that, concern for the environment was considered the mark of a responsible citizen, regardless of party.
so be it. i welcome their enmity and promise to return as good as i get.
Mr. Brooks is so intellectual that he can change history? Gerald Ford was elected president in 1976?
You are, of course, correct and a good person to boot.
Dang. Shows me your just hating the hate. Nice try trying to really hate. You can’t do it, you goody two shoes. And here I thought you might have gone over to the dark side, and I was SO interested in how it would affect your art . . .;)
“Repugniscum”
Please do not use this term here. It is uncivil.
Well this is some thread.
Let’s not go there.
Maybe Vermont has maintain a culture of egalitarianism and general mutual respect because it is overwhelmingly White. Putman at Harvard as argued as much before.
Maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.
And, without even knowing anything further about “Putman at Harvard” than what you’ve mentioned here, I feel comfortable saying that it’s highly likely that he is an ass.
If they’re very, very lucky, I will not kick them in the nuts if I should ever meet them. IMVHO, they have it coming
If I may, I’d like to retract my statement about kicking anyone in the nuts. Bad form on my part, my apologies.
I haven’t kicked anyone in the nuts since I was seven years old.
It is, however, still my goal to crush them utterly at the ballot. Not because I think they are bad people, but because I think they vote for people who insist on driving the country over a cliff.
I want it to be very, very clear to folks who vote for guys like George Bush because he reminds them of their drinking buddies that that just isn’t going to fly anymore.
Seriously bc, I don’t think you have any idea how angry and fed up I, and people like me, are with what has happened in this country in the last eight years.
Habeas.
Torture. Torture, for Christ’s sake.
Rescinding international treaties on weapons proliferation.
Refusal to participate in efforts to reduce land mines.
Refusal to participate constructively in efforts to curb carbon emissions.
A foreign policy that purposefully alienates our friends and needlessly provokes our enemies.
Wars started for fraudulent reasons.
Widespread corruption, at a level that makes the bad behavior that prompted the “Contract with America” seem like a game of marbles.
Politicization and general undermining and corruption of the agencies of government.
An utter — utter — lack of respect for the Constitution, and for the proper restraints and conditions it places on the exercise of power.
The pissing away of a national credibility, moral authority, goodwill, and respect that took generations, and untold sacrifice of treasure and blood, to build.
Do you have any idea how precious, not just to us, but to the world as a whole, that legacy was, and how thoroughly it’s been eroded?
Angry? My friend, you have no, absolutely no, idea.
I would really appreciate it if the folks who plan to vote based on who they’d like to go fishing with, or who reminds them of their hockey league car pool buddy, would stay the hell home and let the adults get on with it.
Just stay the f*%k home. Please. Really, I’ll buy you lunch if you’ll just stay the f*%k home on election day.
Seriously, does that seem overly harsh to you? I sure as hell hope not.
George W Bush is the worst, absolutely the worst, president of my lifetime. He’s probably in the top three worst presidents ever to hold that office. The man is a walking, talking (barely) disaster. Every time he thinks, speaks, or acts, he weakens the nation.
I didn’t vote for him. Other folks did, and did so in large numbers, but it wasn’t me.
I don’t really want to kick those folks in the nuts, and I don’t really have any personal bad feeling toward them.
I just really, really want them to stay the hell home on election day.
I don’t want to talk to them about their precious cultural signifiers, I’m not interested in their colorful folkways. Whatever floats their boat. Mazel tov.
Just stay the hell home. That’s all I ask of them.
Thanks –
I’d like to comment on what russell said.
Most of the time I’m too polite to put it that baldly, out a forlorn hope that there might be some sort of middle ground to be staked out between Dems and Republicans, but in the privacy of my own heart – yes, what he said.
And to add insult to injury, Senator McCain and Gov. Palin give every indication you could possible ask for in advance in the way of fair warning, of having it within their capacity to run an administration which is even worse than that of George W. Bush.
What the GOP has inflicted on our beloved country, and threatens to inflict more of given the chance, stacks up reasonably well vs. the indictments against King George III and his ministers laid out in the Declaration of Independence.
Which is to say that blood has been shed and wars have started over less. Be very grateful that we are more pacific and less hot blooded a people than our distant ancestors were, and that a commitment to using the electoral process to seek redress of grievances, to right wrongs, and to establish policy, runs far deeper and stronger than any other instinct.
Russell,
Putman wrote “Bowling Alone” that look at social capital and social involvement in the U.S. He has had to conclude that the cities and states with the best social involvement are the whitest areas of the U.S. such as Vermont. His other theory is that as an area becomes more diverse, people will not only stop trusting other ethnic groups but that they will stop trusting anyone (See Los Angeles).
Many people above claim that liberals are the smart people who will defer to the experts. However, the conclusions of Putman clearly show that liberals will not believe experts if it disagrees with their leftist dogma. The same has been shown on this post where people refuse to acknowledge that their own life decisions differ with standard leftist dogma on education.
Carleton Wu,
If you look at http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/crime-rate-state.html
you will see that a poor states like Utah and West Virginia have the same about the same crime rate as very rich Conn. and about 1/3 the violet crime rate of South Carolina. Of course, the difference between the low crime states and the high crime states is the percentage of the population that is black.
If you look at the Department of Justice statistics, blacks are arrested about somewhere between five and seven times the per capita rate was whites. I guess insults is what passes for facts for the really smart liberals.
Also, 1/3 of the school age children in Seattle attend private schools. If the public schools are 40% white and those are the 2/3 of the students, that means that 28% of the total students in Seattle are white students attending public school.
In Los Angeles, the public schools are 9% white. IN San Franciso, the pubilc schools are 18% white. In Chicago, the public schools are 8% white. In Philadelphia, the public schools are 13% white. Saint Louis is 14% white. Even in Minneapolis, the public schools are only 27% white. It is hard to find a deep blue city where the liberal, tolerant, diversity supporting Democrats are willing to send their children to the pubic schools. I wonder why?
You neglect to foresee the political threat of a new Depression stirring fascist nationalism. If you look at her closely you’ll notice she WALKS just like Hitler did, quick strides forward, turned slightly aside,maniacally animated, hitching up her clothes.
He has had to conclude that the cities and states with the best social involvement are the whitest areas of the U.S. such as Vermont.
Superdestroyer –
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I haven’t read “Bowling Alone”, and perhaps I should. It’s certainly a book that many folks have commented on, here and in many other places.
Not having read the book, I will simply comment from my own experience and observation.
I’m not sure what you mean by “social involvement”, but for any reasonable meaning I can give that phrase, I don’t see white communities being any better at it than any other community. Often worse, in some ways, than many others.
On the topic of experts, I personally try not to blindly accept what experts of any persuasion say, but to weigh their statements against what I can see and hear with my own eyes and ears.
To some degree that limits my thoughts to whatever passes the filter of my own experience — what some might call “anecdota” — but it also guarantees that, whatever conclusions I come to, they are rooted to some useful degree in reality.
Here is one conclusion I have come to:
There is nothing about black, brown, yellow, or red skin, in any shade or variety, that prompts its owners to act in any more or less anti-social way than do folks with white skin.
Nothing whatsoever.
Thanks –
Sorry, one more thing.
I think you’re basically right about the relative rates at which whites and other folks send their kids to private schools.
Here is my analysis.
In almost all cases, the folks that send their kids to private schools have a lot of money.
All other things being equal, folks with a lot of money tend to be white, rather than not.
The exception here is Catholic parochial schools, which are quite often reasonably priced. Whatever else folks may think of the Catholic church, we all owe them our thanks for their commitment to primary education.
And, I think if you look at the rolls of neighborhood Catholic primary schools, you will find a broader spectrum of skin color than elsewhere.
Cash rules everything around me. More’s the pity, but there you have it.
You are correct to note that there is quite often an element of liberal hypocrisy in all of this.
Nobody’s perfect.
Thanks –
I have not read Putnam’s book, but I’d hope that, if I had, I would have paid enough attention to learn how to spell his name.
I considered dyslexia as a possible explanation, but see no signs elsewhere in sd’s posts.
Russell,
A good anecdote that demonstrate whites and social involvement is participating in their childrens education. Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax recently made the news about having more Asians students in the Science and Technology magnet programs than Whites. However, if you look on-line at the lists of band boosters, choir boosters, athletic boosters, etc, officers, they are overwhelmingly white. Good schools require parents who volunteer. In most places, the Asian-American parents do not volunteer much and blacks and Hispanics parents do not volunteer at all. It is one of the reasons that schools in Prince Georges County with the largest concentration of affluent blacks in the U.S. are still poor schools.
sd —
Can’t speak to the breakdown of booster club participation by race in Fairfax County.
If you think black people are not involved in their children’s lives, or vitally interested in their community, I suggest you spend a few Sundays at any black church in your area. The church, more than schools (although not excluding schools) has been one of the real hubs of black community life for a long time. By “long time” I mean hundreds of years.
It might widen your perspective a bit.
Beyond that, I’m just really not interested in talking about skin color with you any further. I just don’t see that it would be particularly fruitful, for either of us, or probably anyone else.
Thanks –
If you look at the Department of Justice statistics, blacks are arrested about somewhere between five and seven times the per capita rate was whites. I guess insults is what passes for facts for the really smart liberals.
Now, to make your case, you would have to look at the comparative poverty rates among blacks and whites (around 4x, iirc). You may recall that you’re not just trying to show that blacks commit crimes (however much you may enjoy that), but that poor blacks commit crimes at much higher rates than poor whites.
That’s the problem with your thinking process- you aren’t thinking things through *at all*. You make no progress towards demonstrating your case. You just present a statistic that shows blacks in a poor light and then call it a day.
In other news, “insults” is plural and needs the plural verb “are”, and the percentage of folks here who think you never taught anything is approaching 100.
Also, 1/3 of the school age children in Seattle attend private schools. If the public schools are 40% white and those are the 2/3 of the students, that means that 28% of the total students in Seattle are white students attending public school.
Not sure what this is supposed to prove. You could dilute the percentage even more by calculating the % of the total population of the Seattle area are white kids in public schools, but that wouldn’t change the facts:
-most white kids attend public schools
-you were wrong in claiming that all blue urban areas are like Washington DC in having almost all of the white kids in private schools.
DC is an outlier. You’ve chosen an outlier and claimed that it represented the entire population. This is deceptive and wrong.
A good anecdote that demonstrate whites and social involvement…
The plural of anecdote is not data. If you understood this, you might be further up the intellectual food chain.
Many people above claim that liberals are the smart people who will defer to the experts.
Did anyone actually say that above, or are you high? Smart people (hopefully) dispassionately weight the evidence and listen to the experts and then form well-informed opinions. They do not do what you do: leap to predetermined conclusions based on half-baked theories and anecdotes.
You bizarre caricature that ‘liberals’ ought to defer to a single expert quoted by a moron without a single piece of statistical evidence to back it up- well, I think ‘moron’ does kind of sum that up.
Carleton Wu,
Perform you start talking about data, you should admit that your original claim that whites and blacks are arrested at the same rate was falses.
You scream moron but you make a wild claim, that whites and blacks commit crimes at the same rate once you correct for family income or wealth but you give no reference, cite no expert, and present no study.
Please provide the reference or admit you do not know what you are talking about. If class was the only part of crime, West Virginia would not have the same crime rate as Conneticut and have 1/3 the crime rate as South Carolina.
Like I said, Liberals have their own dogma that they will not allowed to be questioned. Two areas where no discussionis allowed are education and crime. What is most hypocritical is that the elite white progressive live their own personal lives in accordance with what I have cited in education, crime, and housing but claim to not believe it.
russell,
If you really do spend some time in a black church AME or Baptist, what any upper middle class white should immediately notice is the absence of men. It is kind of hard to have a community with so few men participating.
Perform you start talking about data, you should admit that your original claim that whites and blacks are arrested at the same rate was falses.
Yeah, I’ve already played search engine for you once- you thought that Seattle was ‘probably’ like DC, and I demonstrated that that wasn’t the case.
Im not going to continuously look up statistics to debunk your bogus claims; once is enough for me. So if you want to make a claim, by all means go find some numbers to support that claim.
(Ive found that it’s much easier for the fool in the room to make stuff up than it is for everyone else to go through the trouble to debunk it).
Here’s a hint while looking for data: trying to look at things a the statewide level is unlikely to tell you things about individual behavior; it relies on the assumption that- other than race- there is no difference between people in West Virginia and people in Connecticut. This is obviously a very stupid assumption, and it basically assumes the conclusion (ie that race explains much of the difference in behavior).
[Trivial example of this being wrong: % of blacks in a state is positively correlated with GOP vote, ergo blacks tend to vote for the GOP].
I never claimed that whites and blacks are arrested at the same rate. You are a liar, and an idiot for not realizing that anyone can check the veracity of this claim by scrolling back up the page. Just as I never claimed that 40% of the students in the DC public school system were white.
Your reading comprehension is, if possible, worse than your grammar and spelling. But both take a back seat to your inability to think coherently. Please go away now, the only way you’ll ever add to the conversation here is if you accidentally misspell so many words that your sentence becomes coherent despite your best efforts.
Since superdestroyer seems incapable of giving a link, let me point out that’s referring to Robert D. Putnam. I’ve read reviews, but not the book. I’m pretty sure Putnam is no kind of racist, and would strongly object to the claims superdestroyer makes. Putnam is about civic renewal, not racial claims.
Stuff like this:
“He has had to conclude that the cities and states with the best social involvement are the whitest areas of the U.S. such as Vermont. His other theory is that as an area becomes more diverse, people will not only stop trusting other ethnic groups but that they will stop trusting anyone (See Los Angeles).”
Why don’t you try excerpting those passages, eh?
“A good anecdote that demonstrate whites and social involvement is participating in their childrens education. Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax recently made the news about having more Asians students in the Science and Technology magnet programs than Whites. However, if you look on-line at the lists of band boosters, choir boosters, athletic boosters, etc, officers, they are overwhelmingly white. Good schools require parents who volunteer. In most places, the Asian-American parents do not volunteer much and blacks and Hispanics parents do not volunteer at all. It is one of the reasons that schools in Prince Georges County with the largest concentration of affluent blacks in the U.S. are still poor schools.”
Is there some point to this anecdote other than straight out racism?
I used to respond to SD thoughtfully, but then I realized he’s a one-note borderline troll who enjoys threadjacking every interesting conversation that anyone else might have. He’s not as downright moronic like LoneWacko is, but he is just as obsessive, disruptive, and uninformative. One notes that SD never questions whether the Palin debacle and the reams of anti-intellectual culture and hate whipped up at McCain/Palin rallies reflects poorly on white Americans.
If you really do spend some time in a black church AME or Baptist, what any upper middle class white should immediately notice is the absence of men.
Have done, for both those denominations, as well as Plymouth Brethren, AoG, and Holiness, and I did not note an absence of men.
Greek Orthodox, different story, but I draw no negative conclusion from that.
Basically sd, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. I think you read stuff in books, and understand them according to your pre-existing prejudices.
I could be wrong, I’m just judging from your contributions here.
Thanks-
As an aside — the thing that *really* struck me in the Holiness church was the beautiful way that the young women would wear their hair.
A lot of Holiness churches prohibit makeup and jewelry, and many also encourage young women to wear their hair long. Whatever energy the typical young woman might put into her makeup or accessorizing, these young women put into their hairstyles.
They were stunning. A thing of beauty.
Maybe that’s why the men were there, at least the young ones. It certainly got my attention.
Thanks –
Greek Orthodox, different story, but I draw no negative conclusion from that.
Explanation: the husbands were busy Sunday morning running the family diner.
In any case, this phenomenon is pretty consistent across religious denominations of many races. While the religious leadership is dominated by men, the actual workaday business of teaching sunday school, running the choir, and attending church is considered “women’s work.”
What this has to do with McCain/Palin’s unleashing of America’s dark side among white Americans is, of course, not clear.
Well, yeah.
Church isn’t just a religious thing. It’s a community. And that’s where a lot of courtin’ goes on, under the watchful and approving eyes of the elders.
And about Asian American parents not volunteering?
BWAH HAHA HAH HAH HAH!
What this has to do with McCain/Palin’s unleashing of America’s dark side among white Americans is, of course, not clear.
Nothing whatsoever, it was about as far off topic as could be.
When I was a very young man, my first real girlfriend was a lovely young woman whose father was born in Crete. The Greek Orthodox thing was just a wistful trip down memory lane.
And yes, Sunday dinner was superb.
Thanks –
Church isn’t just a religious thing. It’s a community.
One might even say: at it’s best, it’s where the two are indistinguishable.
Thanks –
There is a difference, however subtle, between noting that someone is making racist assertions and arguments, and calling them a racist.
This is completely correct — and I stand by what I said.
Nonetheless, since hilzoy has spoken, I shan’t further.
Gary,
If you look at Figure 81 in Bowling Alone, it the states with high social capital index (where people work together and participate in their community), the top states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Minnestoa, Montana, and Nebraska. The states at the bottom are Nevada, Mississippie, Alabama, and Georgia.
I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out the different. Putnam was too afriad to mention the reason in “Bowling Alone” and had to write another book before he would admit the reason. What is odd is that the progressive white elite Democrats keep making proposals to make the U.S. less like Vermont and more like Nevada. The elite progressives seem to believe, like yourself, that government programs can create social capital when is reality current government programs are destroying social capital.
From http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/
“political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings”
So much for diversity being a good thing. If diversity was good,the government would not have to create programs to fix the problems caused by diversity. Even elite whites know that diversity is bad for them personally and that is why they send their children to private schools that are overwhelmingly white.
From:
http://www.law.upenn.edu/blogs/dskeel/archives/2008/03/race_and_crimestuntz.html
“the black murder rate in 2006 stood at 23.7 per 100,000. The white murder rate stood at 3.1. (The links to the relevant sources of data are here and here. I allocated the cases in which the race of the offender is unknown proportionately to the relevant racial groups, as is customary in discussions of these data.) The belief that one of those two groups poses a greater risk of criminal violence is not racist; it’s rational—just as it’s rational to believe that a man of any race poses a greater risk than a woman: the male and female murder rates in 2006 were 10.7 and 1.0. The belief that race and sex have nothing to do with the risk of violent crime isn’t enlightened or virtuous. It’s just wrong.”
So, no blacks and whites do not commit crimes at the same rate and there is a huge racial component to crime. And like I predicted above, just pointing that out to progressive whites will cause them to deny it and scream racism. so much for being fact and expert driven.
Unbelievably, there is actually someone who has studied the difference between White and Asian Parents.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/45899/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
“Results indicate that both Asian immigrants and Asian Americans spent significantly more time on homework and perceived higher parental educational expectation than did White American students. White American students, on the other hand, reported more parental involvement in school activities.”
Asian parents concentrate on what benefits their children while Whites are more likely to perform work that actually benefits children other than their own.
To tie this to McCain/Palin and the dark side. Many Blue collar and middle class whites feel that they are being left behind in an Amierca that does not want them (See Barack Obama, who does not speak a second language, stating that Americans should learn Spanish). They believe that the progressive, liberal elites in the U.S. are hypocrites that will force the white middle class to do things (like busing in Louisville) that they will never do themselves.
If the progressive elite whites want to mitigate the anger of blue collar and middle class whites, then the elites should align their politics with their personal actions. If elites believe diversity is good then they should stop moving to Vermont and Portland and maybe start moving to El Paso, Texas.
I used to really believe in the value of communication. I thought that people could engage in the exchange of information and ideas and that people’s ideas would actually adapt and evolve.
I am tentatively coming to the conclusioon that at least in reagrd to political ideas there is a subset of people who are incapable of this. Impervious to facts. Indeed, prone to inventing their own facts. Deep, faith-based loyalty to an ideology or to a simple set of assumptions that gives the believer a comforting sense of knowing it all, understanding everything better that other people. This combined with a viseral fear of anything or anyone that contradicts the faith. In other words such deep ego-invovement in one’s opinions that the posibility of learning or changing or adapting is simply out of the question.
I don’t think that modern conservatism in America is a political philosophy. I think it is a habit of mind: the habit of prefering simple solutions to complex situations which become a belief system impervious to information which gives the believer a way to simitaneously feel smarter thatn everyone else without having to ever bother thinking again.
“If you look at Figure 81 in Bowling Alone, it the states with high social capital index (where people work together and participate in their community), the top states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Minnestoa, Montana, and Nebraska. The states at the bottom are Nevada, Mississippie, Alabama, and Georgia.
I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out the different [sic].
Well, we know what difference sd thinks is all-important, but of course, there are others – history and economics and ‘environment’ are also important, not just albedo. Certainly there’s a lot of geographical proximity – with one exception each, the high social capital index states are clustered in the northern plains/upper midwest region, while the low SCI states are the heart of the Deep South. (The outliers keeping to the North/South pattern, at least). Certainly this does correspond roughly to “diversity” (esp. in the way it’s often used), but there’s also shared cultural traits, etc. (thinking of Albion’s Seed-style fun). If nothing else, the ‘core’ high SCI states aren’t just pretty white, they’re specifically pretty German/Scandinavian, descended from immigrant farming communities facing relatively harsh conditions. The low SCI outlier, Nevada – well, I suspect we’re looking at Las Vegas, among other things. Vt. – well, it’s interesting that the rest of New England – esp. N. New England – scores pretty high as well, and there are various explanations for that besides ‘low diversity’.
“So much for diversity being a good thing. If diversity was good,the government would not have to create programs to fix the problems caused by diversity.”
SD: supposing for the moment that everything Putnam says is right: it would not follow that diversity was not a good thing unless the stuff you listed was the sum total of goodness. Nor would it follow that there would not have to be government programs to support it: there are plenty of things that are good that cannot be provided by private individuals. National defense, for one; a system of laws for another.
Besides, I’m still curious what government programs promote diversity in communities. If you’re talking about things like enforcement of fair housing laws, that’s not about promoting diversity, but about making sure everyone operates on a level playing field.
the top states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Minnestoa, Montana, and Nebraska. The states at the bottom are Nevada, Mississippie, Alabama, and Georgia.
Yes, and BLACK PEOPLE LIVE IN THOSE BAD, BAD STATES!
We understand.
Here is a simple thought experiment.
Imagine that, in the places where blacks live in large numbers, they are less engaged in the society at large than whites because lots of white people hate them, can’t stand to be in the same room with them, and will resist the engagement of blacks in their communities with every fiber of their being.
Hmmm, has anything like that ever happened?
Facts can have many explanations. Sometimes it’s useful to consider the ones that aren’t the first freaking ones that pop into your head before deciding that you actually understand what’s going on.
And with that, I’m really and truly done talking with you, superdestroyer, about anything that has to do with black people. You appear to have some kind of allergic reaction to them, and I have no desire to make your condition worse.
Thanks –
“Putnam was too afriad to mention the reason in ‘Bowling Alone'”
Yeah, I’m sure he confided that in you.
“From [here]” you nicely selectively quote, omitting, for instance:
I don’t think Putnam likes you, superdestroyer. Or your selective reading.
I’m sure you agree with Putnam. Right?
“ The states at the bottom are Nevada, Mississippie, Alabama, and Georgia.
The SCI bottom 10 (from the bowling alone website ranking):
Rank—Name—-Score
40 Kentucky -0.79
41 North Carolina -0.82
42 West Virginia -0.83
43 South Carolina -0.88
44 Tennessee -0.96
45 Louisiana -0.99
46 Alabama -1.07
47 Georgia -1.15
48 Mississippi -1.17
49 Nevada -1.43
Using 2005 data, TN is 81.5% white, WV is 95.9% white, KY 91.2% white (almost entirely non-Hispanic white).
Some of the high scoring states, I’d almost think that some of it is just that we’re talking about whomever’s left at this point – Vermont has had waves of emigration since a bit after the Civil War, and out on the Plains large chunks have reverted back to (demographic definitions of) frontier, with populations dwindling since the early 20thC century. It wouldn’t be surprising if the remaining population, both in terms of individuals and local culture, was very much invested in community structure. On the other hand, it’s possible that regions which have had certain kinds of rapid and fractured growth – for example, exurban sprawl, which some have suggested as fostering a kind of rootless, communityless anomie – are esp. at risk for collapsing social capital. But both sides of this are clearly way too simplistic, with no easy fit and numerous counterexamples. It’s probably best to think of networks of causation and risk factors – and to be fair, ethnic homogeneity likely does help some, given that we’ve had here – as russell points out – so many things working to break down relationships between peoples, not to mention centuries of salting any piece of earth they might grow from, and such a short time trying to cultivate them.
Community diversity is particularly interesting to me because (among the usual reasons), we live in Philly’s Mt. Airy neighborhood, which (W. Mt, Airy specifically) is an (academically, at least) famous example of neighborhood integration, in part because starting in the 1950s community leaders saw what was happening in other areas – frantic white flight – and decided to fight for a strong, stable and diverse community. (Some of the things suggested as making this possible include diverse housing stock, relatively low housing density, liberal values, and generally relatively high SES on both ends, which does sorta speak to the more palatable bits of what sd’s been saying – as one study of the area suggests:
“ The post-World War II experience of continuous appreciation of property values transformed homeownership, for vast segments of the working and middle classes, into a solid form of preretirement savings. Their houses constituted their financial security. Thus, African-American movement into a neighborhood, which is often portrayed as tantamount to falling property values, is perceived as a great financial risk. For families with a financial cushion beyond their house, perceptions of risk may differ.
When combined with high levels of education and liberal values, financial stability may facilitate racial diversity in yet another way. In his study of early integration in West Mount Airy, Heumann (1973) suggested that residing in a segregated neighborhood was a mechanism whereby certain working- and middle-class Whites acquired status among their peers. A similar theme was revealed in a Michigan study that found that many working-class Whites felt that “not being African-American is what constitutes being middle class; [and that] not living with African-Americans is what makes a neighborhood a decent place to live” (Greenberg, 1985) Thus one would expect to find a high level of resistance to integration among such populations. In contrast, Whites who derive significant status from their occupational and/or educational success do not have the same status needs to live in an all-White community (Heumann, 1973). Their preexisting status combined with their financial stability makes them much more receptive to living in a racially diverse neighborhood.
In turn, this position may have a spillover effect, to the extent that it encourages Whites of lower socioeconomic means to remain in the neighborhood. The operative assumption is that the commitment of higher status Whites to a neighborhood keeps property values fairly stable and thus decreases the perceived risk factor for Whites with fewer economic resources. ”
I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out the different. Putnam was too afriad to mention the reason in “Bowling Alone” and had to write another book before he would admit the reason. What is odd is that the progressive white elite Democrats keep making proposals to make the U.S. less like Vermont and more like Nevada.
Nevada is 85% white. I leave it as an exercise to you to figure out what point you think you’re trying to make here.
You know another state that has a really high crime rate? Alaska. Interestingly, this indicates that Alaska’s crime rate is about 50% higher per capita than Alabama; it also shows that, for 2005, Minnesota’s crime rate had edged slightly above that of Mississippi. Kansas and Iowa also have higher crime rates than Mississippi.
Guess you’ll conclude that white folks are just criminal by nature- how else can you explain this data, using your bizarro-world logic?
If elites believe diversity is good then they should stop moving to Vermont and Portland
Portland (77% white) is an example of a ‘white’ location. Nevada (85% white) is an example of a ‘non-white’ place.
Why does this apparent mismatch occur? Becuase Nevada has a high crime rate, and you want to blame that on the n*****s. High crimes rates, you think, are solely caused by n*****s ruining the neighborhood. So, in your mind, Nevada becomes racially mixed.
You are a sick, sick puppy.
Carleton Wu,
Nevada is White persons not Hispanic, percent, 2006 58.9% See http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/32000.html Nevada has had a huge influx of illegal aliens from Mexico and Hispanics from California. Of course Las Vegas has lousy public schools and a public universtiy system that is straining with teaching http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/28365419.html
Dan S.
If upper class whites have no need to live in majority white neighborhoods, then why do they and then why do they send their children to all white schools. Look at the Demographics of a place like Northwest Washington versus Northeast Washington.
Also, it is hard to believe that the governments goal in full integration of minority and immigrant groups. When the government has programs such as affirmative action, black mentoring progras at colleges, minority set aside contracting, separate and unequal admissions at universities, and the old race norming on civil service exams, the government has promote the separateness of minorities. If you look at most flagship state universities, they have programs to suport and mentor blacks, Hispanics, and even Asians but always lack mentoring and support groups for whites.
If you want to know why middle class whites are so angry, look at the difference between an Ivy League schools and a direcitonal state where their children go to college. A middle class white attending a directional state can choose between law enforcement, teaching, nursing, or low level business management. Jobs in fields such as Law, finance, publishing, and entertainment are basically cut off to them. The middle and blue collar whites feel that they are squeezed between poor blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants for blue collar jobs and elite whites and Asians for high level jobs. And the only answer the Democrats have for their concerns is to call them racist and tell them to shut up and live with being second class citizens.
To bring it back to the beginning point. It does not matter that white middle class Republicans are mad. They are a shrinking demographic groups that will soon have zero affect on government policy. Instead of worrying about what mad Republicans will do, think about what happens after the Republican Party collapses and all of the disguntled former Republicans start voting in the Democratic Primary. My guess is that the DEmocratic Party will adopt some fairly undemocratic ideas such as closed primaries, more caucuses, and party approval of candidates to limite the impact. I also guess that as the Democratic Party becomes dominate that they will find a way to eliminate initative and referendum from the states that have it. Why give a group of whites who will sign petitions a means to still affect policy in the coming one party state.
“See [superdestroyer’s inactive link:
Apparently sd has as much trouble reading English as writing it. So, superdestroyer, at what university do you teach that they let your inability to write, punctuate, or spell get by?
What university lets past ignorance of how to use an apostrophe, or turns a blind eye to sentences such as “Also, it is hard to believe that the governments goal in full integration of minority and immigrant groups”? Where do they teach random capitalizations of words like “Demographics,” “Primary,” and “Law”? Where do they hire teachers who couldn’t pass an eighth grade writing test?
Enlighten and impress us with your fabled teaching credits, by all means, please.
Thanks!
If you want to know why middle class whites are so angry, look at the difference between an Ivy League schools and a direcitonal state where their children go to college. A middle class white attending a directional state can choose between law enforcement, teaching, nursing, or low level business management. Jobs in fields such as Law, finance, publishing, and entertainment are basically cut off to them.
Anyone with decent grades and standardized test scores can get into their state university system, where they can major in economics or get an undergrad degree leading to law school. The CEO of Lehman Brothers graduated from Colorado-Boulder, so even my local state school can lead you to ignominy.
If your kids can only get into the local community college, then the elites aren’t keeping them down…
Now, Id admit that getting into the elite levels of the business work or into the top law schools in the country is easier from the Ivies- but there’s nothing stopping smart people from getting MBAs from their state systems and making it, even on Wall St.
As for entertainment- I have no idea what you’re smoking, but I can’t think of an entertainment career path that demands an Ivy League-class education (except perhaps ‘classical musician’). Do you think that David Letterman, Brittany Spears, or Dr.Dre went to Ivies?
As for the rest, I noticed that you’ve not followed your logic(?) to its conclusion and decided that white people cause crime- based on the Mississippi having a lower violent crime rate than Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Alaska (more than 2x as much), and Montana. Heck, those dangerous whites in Alaska have a higher violent crime rate than either multicultural New York or California.
And you haven’t used the word “dogma” in a while, check your meds. We worry.
demands an Ivy League-class education (except perhaps ‘classical musician’).
This is an interesting observation. If by ‘Ivy-class’, you mean places like Julliard and Eastman, that may be true, but I think that is more true for string players than wind players, because the US has such a tradition of school bands, so you have this huge population of wind players moving up thru state institutions.
People,
You seem to think you hold the monopoly on education. What I find liberals to hold the monopoly on are ‘soft’ degrees in English, Art, Humanities, Social Science, etc. I am a conservative college educated individual with a hard science degree. The degree that took great sacrifice to achieve. One that opened up a great many doors and led me to make more money then I should be allowed according to some of my liberal peers.
Liberals should look at the core constituency of the Democratic Party before tossing stones about education.
You seem to think you hold the monopoly on education.
Are you quoting a statement written by a participant on this blog?
If so, may we see the citation please? If not, what group of “People” exactly are you addressing here?
What I find liberals to hold the monopoly on are ‘soft’ degrees in English, Art, Humanities, Social Science, etc.
Do you have a citation or link to some stats backing up this assertion? People trained in the “hard sciences” normally expect to see numbers supporting an argument such as this, or so it has been my experience in the past, speaking as a fellow holder of a “hard science” degree.
I am a conservative college educated individual with a hard science degree.
I’m confused – are you an individual who obtained a college education and who also has conservative political views, or are you someone who obtained an education from a conservative college?
The degree that took great sacrifice to achieve.
You mean you got the only one? Wow, I’m impressed.
One that opened up a great many doors and led me to make more money then I should be allowed according to some of my liberal peers.
Why did you go into a career field where people are so mean? It must be unpleasant having other people opine about how much money you should be allowed to make, especially your peer group.
Liberals should look at the core constituency of the Democratic Party before tossing stones about education.
And what exactly is the “core constituency” of the Democratic Party, as you see it? I mean your rhetoric is so persuasive that I’m going to get right onto that as soon as I know where to look, but I could use some pointers on where to start.
kthxbai.
I am a conservative college educated individual with a hard science degree.
Just one? Never mind. I see, upon previewing, that TLT beat me to it.
Liberals should look at the core constituency of the Democratic Party before tossing stones about education.
As a liberal, I look at the core constituency of the Republican Party, when it comes to “education”. I am not amused.
–TP
Dana,
I get a chuckle out of the idea that the party that denies global climate change and evolution is the party of hard scientists.
Not sure where your screed came from; try adjusting your molar radio.
“There is a significant political divide in beliefs about the origin of human beings, with 60% of Republicans saying humans were created in their present form by God 10,000 years ago, a belief shared by only 40% of independents and 38% of Democrats.” Gallup poll conducted May 2008
“Recent Gallup Poll results suggest that this [global warming] skepticism among Republican and conservative elites has led rank-and-file Republicans to follow suit, as currently there is a large gap between self-identified Republicans and Democrats in terms of perceptions of global warming. The growing gap is apparent in results from a decade of Gallup polling on the issue, including the results from this year’s Gallup Environment Poll, conducted March 6-9, 2008.” link
Gary,
The difference between your cite of 81% and by cite of 58% is the number you cited includes Hispanics and if you would have looked a few lines fewer down, you would have notice the white, non-Hispanic number of 58%. Thus, Nevada is less white than the U.S. as a whole with a much larger Hispanic population that all of those northern, whiters states. That is one of the reasons that the social capital index is so low (in addition to the transitory nature and the low number of locally born people). I bet that in most of the public schools in Nevada, the PTA meetings are thin in the number of parents.
On a side note, to comply with new DHS regulations, many academics had to be fingerprinted. On the federal fingerprint card, one has to put your race. There is not space for ethnicity. It was funny to tell people from Iran, Pakistan, India, and Columbia that for that day, they were honorary white people as far as the government was concerned.
I bet that in most of the public schools in Nevada, the PTA meetings are thin in the number of parents.
Dan.
Becareful about linking creationsim and political party. Blacks are the most Democratic Party supporting demographic groups in the U.S., yet only six percent believe in evolution. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
Liberals should look at the core constituency of the Democratic Party before tossing stones about education.
And what exactly is the “core constituency” of the Democratic Party, as you see it?
Teacher unions. Duh.
Becareful about linking creationsim and political party.
Why? Cause if the Dems really let African-Americans know that they support evolution, the African-Americans are going to run to a party that tries to disenfranchise them and has members who long for the days of Strom Thurmond and call them ‘uppity’? And they are going to go running into the arms of people who try and suggest, oh so subtly, that it is genetic deficiencies that keep them back? It’s a chance I’m willing to take.
This is a most ignorant comment. Which party supported “intelligent design” and “teach the controversy”? Republicans, not Democrats.
I bet that in most of the public schools in Nevada, the PTA meetings are thin in the number of parents.
We’ve seen what happens with your ‘hunches’ before- eg your hunch that almost all of the white people in Seattle send their kids to public schools didn’t turn out so well.
As I pointed out above, it takes a lot longer to debunk your racist nonsense than it does for you to ignore those debunkings (eg you *still* haven’t responded to the bit about Alaska, Iowa, et al being more violent than Mississippi) and make up more racist stuff.
A middle class white attending a directional state can choose between law enforcement, teaching, nursing, or low level business management. Jobs in fields such as Law, finance, publishing, and entertainment are basically cut off to them.
I’m not sure what a “directional” state is, but if you’re talking about plain old state colleges and universities, this statement is utter crap.
I went to a state university. It was excellent, in every way. The reason it was so good was because the State of New York decided they wanted to have a state university system that was excellent, and they invested money to make that happen.
And that’s the whole state, including the dairy farmers and the factory workers, not just the “liberal elites” in the Upper West Side. And the dairy farmer and factory worker kids went to them, right alongside the kids from the Upper West Side.
If that’s not available in your state, contact your state legislature and let them know you’d like some better offerings in higher education. It ain’t “liberal elites” that are holding you back, dude.
My wife went to Kent State in OH. We get their alumni publication. That school has excellent programs, sponsors important research in a number of fields, and is still reasonably affordable. I emphasize “reasonably”. My wife’s nephew is there now as a pharmaceutical student.
My Congressional Rep went to the state university that is around the corner from where I live now. He then went on to law school, and thence to Congress. I’ve taken a number of math classes there since I’ve lived in the area, and they were all great. And cheap.
Basically, sd, you’re just making crap up. You have some kind of issue with black and brown people, and you want to convince the rest of us that all the nation’s problems are their fault.
Well, that’s a lie. And, your issue with black people is *your issue*. Go deal with it somewhere else, please, and quit wasting everybody’s time by expecting us to fact-check every insane gust that blows out of your behind.
Please.
Dana, I have no idea, on earth, what point you are trying to make.
Thanks –
Russell,
You must not be a college sports fan if you do not know what directional state refers to. They are the state schools with directions are hyphens in their name. They are the non-flagship state universities that produce the mid-level managers, teachers, allied healthcare workers. They are not competative for admission, have a high drop out rate, and usually have over 90% of their students from public schools. Think the California State University System.
You mentioned your nephew in pharmacy schools. That is the sterotypical middle class major at directional state (like Kent State University). There is not a pharmacy school at any of the Ivy leagues (only one Ivy league has an undergraduate nursing school and only three have graduate nursing schools). See http://www.uspharmd.com/school/. People who go to private prep schools do not go to pharmacy school because it is hard,long, it is a degree where classes build on one another, and these days, it is filled with immigrants.
If you want to entertain yourself look at the bios on the websites at Bain, McKinsey, for the Big Law firms in NYC or DC. You will have to look a long time to find many of the schools that have pharmacy schools.
I am also surprised that you mentioned the SUNY system since there have been some controvery because New York will not pick a university to be a flagship university. When you look at US News, New York state universities are not at the top of the list. What is also odd is that the blue states of the north east lead the nation in students leaving the state to attend college elsewhere. See http://www.ctdhe.org/info/oldreports/rptexportstudents.htm That is a sign of rich, white elites who know that a degree from UCONN, Rhode Island, or UMAss-Amherst makes it much harder to land a job in finance consulting, or to get a position in top ten B-Schools or top 14 law schools.
I have not said that all problems are cause by minorities. I have used minorities as an example of why middle class whites are worried about the future and as an example of why elite, white progressive have a crediblity problem with middle class and blue collar whites. The actions of posters here with the constant screams of racism and the refusal to face facts or the opinionsof experts have helped prove that point.
liberal japonicus,
I was making a point that a large demographic group that are significant players in the Democratic Party are even less likely to believe in creationism than the average Republican. It demonstrates than when elite, white progressive call Republicans stupid or ignorant and DEmocrats smart, that they are making the claim by excluding blacks and Hispanics from their calcuations. Remember, the chance that a high school drop out is a Democratic voter is is greater than his being a Republican voter http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html
It demonstrates than when elite, white progressive call Republicans stupid or ignorant and DEmocrats smart, that they are making the claim by excluding blacks and Hispanics from their calcuations.
sd, you seem to have some serious issues. The crux is not whether someone believes in creationism or not, it is whether a party uses it to try and win elections, as the Republicans have. In other words, you are only ignorant if you believe in creationism AND you let it influence who you vote for. So in that regard, all of those creationism believing AAs have a leg up on you.
I have used minorities as an example of why middle class whites are worried about the future and as an example of why elite, white progressive have a crediblity problem with middle class and blue collar whites.
If minority participation in public school booster clubs are what’s keeping middle class and blue collar whites up nights nowadays, they need to find something else to worry about.
I’m not sure exactly who it is you’re talking about when you refer to “middle class and blue collar whites”. I’m a middle class white person, FWIW.
If you’re referring to folks who vote for guys like George Bush because they think he’d be fun to hang out with, or who will vote for Sarah Palin because she shoots and rides a Harley, then my personal opinion is that those folks need to establish some credibility with me, rather than the other way around, because I think they are largely responsible for running this country into the dumper.
Other than the way they vote, I have no problem with them. If they have a problem with me, they need to go sort themselves out, because I’m not the cause of their troubles. Nor are the blacks, the Mexicans, or any of the 100 other things you seem to think they believe are getting in their way.
There are lots of problems facing working people in this country. Liberals, blacks, and Hispanics are not even close to the top of the list.
You can tell them I said so.
Thanks –
What is also odd is that the blue states of the north east lead the nation in students leaving the state to attend college elsewhere. See http://www.ctdhe.org/info/oldreports/rptexportstudents.htm That is a sign of rich, white elites who know that a degree from UCONN, Rhode Island, or UMAss-Amherst makes it much harder to land a job in finance consulting, or to get a position in top ten B-Schools or top 14 law schools.
This is my last comment to you; I want to point out that your thinking is basically composed of nuggets like this one- a fact, followed by a completely unsupported guess that fits your bizarre theories. I don’t know where you think these kids are going (or that they’re white!)- if they can’t get into the best schools of the NE, they aren’t going to Stanford either. And, of course, one can go from UNCONN to Harvard, it’s just not as easy as Dartmouth to Harvard. Probably no more difficult than Tulane to Harvard.
Your jump in this case is not just completely unjustified by the fact you present, it is also contradicted by the second chart on the page, which shows that all of the top 18 destinations for Connecticut undergrads out of state are still in the Northeast (nb this is as far as the chart goes). In a humiliating reversal for you, the University of Rhode Island tops the list, and UMASS-Amherst is 12th (UCONN doesn’t make the list bc it wouldn’t be out of state). If they’re fleeing Connecticut, it’s not because they find the 2nd-tier of NE schools to be below par.
You can’t think straight, and you can’t see a fact 2 inches from your nose if it contracts what you think about black people and white people.
But Carleton, you have to realize that sd is motivated by fear. What initially seemed like concern trolling, his assertions in earlier threads that the US was on the path to becoming a one party state because the Republican brand had become so toxic, was actually an true expression of his beliefs. It illustrates the fear that motivates sd and blogs out the possibility for logical thinking. For sd, the country is being overrun by minorities and soon, god-fearing white folks are going to be in the same position as the minorities. The question is whether it is worth the time and effort to convince him that his analysis is nothing more than grabbing onto factoids and weaving a story that, when one string is pulled, falls completely apart, or not. Given his vehemence, I suspect not.
“ Blacks are the most Democratic Party supporting demographic groups in the U.S., yet only six percent believe in evolution. http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm”
I don’t get over to religioustolerance.org enough nowadays – it was one of my major go-to sites before blogs, back in the 90s – fond memories of coming home on break and sitting (at that point) in Tenafly watching it slooooooowly load on aol w/dialup (right around the time aol got a bit overextended . . . ).
But – while I *am* skimming, I’m not seeing that figure. What I do see is poll results from ’91 basically:
Group of adults Creationism Theistic Evo Naturalistic Evo . . .
Caucasians 46% 40% 9%
African Americans 53% 41% 4%
Theistic evolution the idea, more or less, that evolution is how God works (with, in this case, some guidance); naturalistic evolution is that God was not involved (The question is phrased a bit trickily because it focuses on human evolution, which probably inflates the creationist side.) A few folks *do* insist that Theistic Evo. isn’t really accepting evolution, but that’s kinda silly – at the same time, *nowadays* some IDers might end up here – not a problem in ’91. You’ll note that at that point African Americans were somewhat more creationist than ‘Caucasians’, but not by very much. (Most likely these numbers haven’t changed much over the years, but if you have more recent poll data . . .). If so, than the percentage of African Americans who think God created people 10,000 years ago – poof! – is lower than the percentage of GOPpers who think so (and yes, those are two almost entirely non-overlapping groups). According to a 2005 Pew poll,70% of white evangelicals said “that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time“.
Also, you seem to have utterly missed the point of the original post, which isn’t that “Republicans are retarded”, but that they’ve not just played to, but encouraged ignorance and anti-intellectualism as hallmarks of their party, until people who best represent these traits are running around screaming to the cameras about how Obama is a Muslim terrorist, booing their own candidate when he tries to inject a tiny bit of toolittletoolate common sense, and apparently driving away more educated folks . And it’s an incredibly harmful thing to do to their members . We’re all incredibly, almost infinitely ignorant, and the most we can hope for is becoming a tiny bit less so in some minute & extremely specific areas – but help convince people that education and learning is for pointy-headed Godless elites, and you virtually destroy any chance of them doing so at all, virtually destroy any chance they have at making informed choices in the face of the various vast industries dedicated to manipulation, from faith healers to bubble-era mortgage brokers to politicians to oil companies paying for AGW denialism to the folks making those asinine corn syrup commercials. They might well decide they and their children’s values/ hopes/ aspirations etc. are best served by Gramps/Alaska Disasta ’08, but if they’re supporting to them because otherwise the scary secret Muslim terrorist will destroy America in a nightmare of socialism and sharia, that’s not what’s happening – instead, they’re getting played. Wolves like sheep keeping the wool over their eyes.
Surprise, surprise.
I have no doubt in my mond that if sd had been around in the 1800’s he would have been talking about the influx of the non-white Irish and if in the early 20th century the non-white Italians and Greeks.
All three groups were seen the same as Hispanics are now by the anti-immigration forces. And yes, it is the anti-immigrationists, not anti-illegal-immigrationists.
“Surprise, surprise.”
What’s odd is that if sd wanted just to count naturalistic evolution, they could push a 4% figure, which is even better for their argument, if meaningless and misleading. Don’t know where the 6% came from – I’m honestly not finding it. Seems like extra work for less effort.
John Miller,
What government policies existed in the 1800’s to encourage the irish to remain separate. Was their a voting rights acted that require government to develop majority/minority districts. Was there minority set aside programs in government contracts, government hiring, college admissions, or even deciding high school magent attendance.
When you see how the left has resisted English immersion education for Hispanics and propose bilingual that limits integration.
When you see how the left has resisted English immersion education for Hispanics and propose bilingual that limits integration.
Hey, can I be on the left?
I’ve consistently voted for English immersion, and against extended bilingual ed programs, here in MA.
The reason for that is you ain’t going nowhere in this country if you can’t speak English.
Thought you’d be pleased to know.
Nothing magic about English, it’s just the language most of us speak here. If I thought that bilingual ed was, net/net, more constructive for foreign-speaking immigrants, I’d vote the other way.
Are you going to have change your argument now, or does your dialectic admit of people who don’t comply with your prejudices?
Thanks –
When you see how the left has resisted English immersion education for Hispanics and propose bilingual that limits integration.
Beyond the fact that the last half of this statement isn’t grammatical, which is kind of embarrassing when you rant about people not being able to speak English, precisely what type of immersion education are you talking about? Full immersion, partial immersion, structured immersion, FLEX, FLES, or two-way immersion? Or is it that you don’t really know anything about immersion programs and are just advocating a sink or swim approach that fits with something that, for all appearances, seems to be a racist mindset?
liberal juponicus,
The left in California has resisted immersion language educatin and have proposed ways to keep Hispanics isolated.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneweb/mb_020208.htm
In looking up the definitions of all of ther immersion programs, what is clear is that most of them are not immersion programs.
And if you really wanted to find a program to scare middle class whites, it would be two way immersion. While the children of elite whites
If you want to see what middle class parents resent compare two way immersion education with what 10th graders read at Sidwell Friends School in DC: epic heroism of Beowulf,British Literature through the words of Chaucer, Shakespeare,Milton, Swift, Austen, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, and other eminent writers.
Another reason why the middle class does not trust the elite whites. The elite whites was to bus middle class children to bad schools (See Seattle and Louisville) or use their children to teach English to the children of immigrants, while the children of the rich read dead, white males that are no longer read in public schools. but then again, this kind of social engineering government policy is what should be expect from the left.
Russell,
Ask yourself this, if I put 100 people in a room who support bilingual education and believe that immersion is evil, who many would be voting for Obama. My guess is 100 of them would be.
Nothing magic about English, it’s just the language most of us speak here. If I thought that bilingual ed was, net/net, more constructive for foreign-speaking immigrants, I’d vote the other way.
Russell,
There are very few things about which I can speak with authority, but learning English as a second language is one of them.
I came to the states at age 9, in April of 1966. I attended school in Chelmsford, tagging along with my cousin, for the last couple of months of the school year. It was English immersion with a vengeance: nobody in the entire school spoke a word of Greek, not even my cousin. I spoke no English going in, I spoke no English coming out.
Over the summer, I watched Major Mudd, and a lot of Three Stooges on TV. The experience shaped my world view to a large extent, but hardly improved my English.
In the fall, I started school in Lowell. There was a fair crop of immigrant kids in the Lowell system that year — maybe 100 or so. Around the first of October, there started up a special program for us. I don’t know if it was local, state, or federal. Buses would collect us from our regular schools around lunchtime and bring us to one central location, where we spent the rest of the day in intensive English language instruction. Luckily for me, I was in the section taught by a Greek seminary student, so I had a leg up on the Spanish-speaking kids. At any rate, by Thanksgiving my English was good enough to return to the regular classroom. I was in 4th grade, BTW. The older kids certainly had a harder time of it.
FWIW, I draw certain conclusions from this experience:
1) Sink-or-swim immersion is pretty useless.
2) Intensive language instruction works well, if you catch’em young enough.
3) It helps to have an instructor who knows your native language.
4) The half-day thing worked well for me. Returning full-time to the regular classroom was far easier than it might have been otherwise.
5) Learning English was a Good Thing (TM).
By contrast, it took me 3 years (including a year in France) to learn French in my teens, and in 30 years of trying I never learned Japanese as an adult. Age matters. In elementary school, missing a couple of months of arithmetic in favor of English language instruction is a good trade-off. In high school, missing a year or two of algebra is more costly. So I favor teaching high-schoolers subjects like math in their native language, alongside of teaching them English.
Incidentally, the richest man I know personally is a neighbor of yours on the North Shore. He is barely literate in two languages. But I have certainly known native-born Americans who were even less literate than him — and English was their only language 🙂
–TP
The hilarity of superdestroyer talking about who should be learning English and how they should be learning it is really making my afternoon. Physician . . .
Hey superdestroyer –
I’m trying to figure out what your actual point is. It appears to be this:
Wealthy white people tend to be liberal, or maybe white liberals tend to be wealthy, it’s not clear which.
Those liberals advocate policies that advantage black and brown people at the expense of whites.
Those liberals are *not* the whites who end up being disadvantaged. Rather, middle and lower class whites bear the brunt.
Middle and lower class whites therefore resent them.
Do I get the gist of it?
Here are my comments.
I’m not sure all that many liberal people are wealthy or “elite”, or that all that many wealthy whites are liberal.
But, certainly the demographics overlap, so I’ll spot you that one.
Liberals do, in fact, often advocate for policies that help black and brown people, sometimes at the expense of whites. It’s a subspecies of a more general liberal inclination to help folks who are, generally, at a disadvantage in society.
What a bunch of saps, eh?
It’s a sad fact of history that many of those folks are black and brown. Whites do, however, also benefit from liberal efforts.
It’s definitely true that upper middle class and wealthy folks escape many of the consequences of policies that they advocate. That’s because people with money are, generally, able to insulate themselves from the vicissitudes of life. It comes along with having money.
This may, in fact, seem hypocritical in a lot of cases. It may, in fact, *be* hypocritical in some cases.
Nobody’s perfect.
All of the above may, in fact, cause resentment among, and generally piss off, middle to lower class whites.
I make that out to be their problem, not mine. It ain’t me, the blacks, or the brown folks that are holding them back. They need to think a little harder about the causes of their problems.
Things are tough all over, believe it or not. Folks need to quit worrying about whether someone else is dissing them. They need to roll their sleeves up, and pitch in on some solutions. If they can’t do that, they need to just STFU and let the rest of us get on with it.
Everybody has someone who doesn’t like them, and everybody just has to get past it. This is no time for whiners.
Either you think it’s good to help folks who are less well off, or you don’t. Liberals do, and they are comfortable using the agencies of government to do so.
If that gets up your nose, vote for conservatives.
In any case, please do not bother replying to me with another 10 examples of all the reasons that middle and lower class whites resent the liberal elites. I ALREADY KNOW THEY RESENT LIBERAL ELITES, whoever the hell those people are.
They need to get over it. The sooner the better.
Thanks –
There are very few things about which I can speak with authority, but learning English as a second language is one of them.
Hey Tony –
Thanks for this comment. I will certainly keep it in mind whenever the issue comes up again (as it, no doubt, will).
Thanks again –
Whatever happened to the ancient – and wise – doctrine: DNFTT?
“When you see how the left has resisted English immersion education for Hispanics and propose bilingual that limits integration.”
So when will you take to writing in coherent English, sd?
“Whatever happened to the ancient – and wise – doctrine: DNFTT?”
A good idea, but sometimes one is tempted to play with one’s food.
Trying to actually argue with a troll like sd is pointless.
Whatever happened to the ancient – and wise – doctrine: DNFTT?
The really good trolls know how to get under your skin. It’s an evolutionary mechanism – the comments must make you scratch that itch in order to reproduce. So their ability to irritate you must improve faster than your ability to ignore them. Lots of infections work that way.
Russell,
I wonder how anyone could justify that policy of “shut up and do as your told” as being good leadership. i guess that Democratic party’s big tent is limited to those who hold only certain views.
The thing you left out is that many of the policies that are meant to help blacks and Hispanics and that harm blue collar whites also help the white progressive elites. Things like immigration will produce millions of more automatic voters for the progressive Democrats while not harming their children’s education, their career prospects, or the quality of life. However, million of additional immigrants will lower the standard of living of blue collar whites, lower their education prospects, and hurt their chances for a job.
What many of the scared blue collar whites are those who produce poll numbers that show that 90% of Americans believe America is on the wrong track. However, they just believe that coming progressive policies of huge entitlements, more regulation, and open borders will just make their lives worse.