A miscellany of recent comments
Below are comments that were sent on or around July 6 but weren’t posted at the time. Instead of being posted in their respective threads which are now several days old, they are gathered here, with links to the original entries. There are also comments on new topics.
CODEVILLA’S MEXICAN MADNESS
Joe Catechissimo writes:
I think we need to look at history and take our cues on how to combat Mexicanization PROPERLY and EFFECTIVELY. Costs and taxes. It is simply too expensive to incorporate tens of millions of relatively low IQ Mexicans into our society. Regardless of how nice and warm they are, Mexicans are three times more likely to go on welfare, drop out of school, and commit crime.
Charles T. writes:
Joe Catechissimo wrote: “We need something comparable to shame our fellow white conseratives back into reality.”
Yes. May I suggest: “Grima Wormtongue?”
This name can be used to describe someone who 1) counsels us to ignore danger rather than prepare for and confront it, and 2) against those whose verbal and oratorical skill are almost like a spell of darkness over our rational thinking abilities and our will to survive. In sum, this is someone who is speaking for our aversary while acting as our counselor.
Ridicule is powerful. Let’s use it against our adversaries.
Additionally: The name Grima Wormtongue is a character in The “Lord of the Rings” films.
Paul Nachman sent this letter to the Houston Chronicle in response to typical pro-open border
statements by Geraldo Rivera blaming America for Hispanics feeling “beseiged” as a result of the immigration debate. Does he suggest a way the debate can be conducted and not bother Hispanics? No, he simply wants America to surrender to mass immigration, and if it doesn’t do that, it’s hateful.
Editor:
Geraldo Rivera complains that the debate over immigration has “demonized an entire race of people in this country.” But given statements by putative Hispanic leaders like Rivera, other Americans have ample reason to look askance at Hispanics.
For example, in 2006, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Gerardo Sandoval wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle, “[T]he $6 billion border fence now under construction is not just a wasteful boondoggle, but an affront to all Latinos.”
Or consider famous words by California Democratic Party chair Art Torres: Shortly after 1994’s landslide passage of Proposition 187 to end most public benefits for illegal aliens in California (later snuffed in the courts), Torres told a large audience of Hispanics at UC Riverside, “Remember, 187 is the last gasp of white America in California. Understand that.”
These prominent quotes, along with legions of others in the same vein, suggest that Hispanics, as a group, don’t grasp a bedrock American principle: The rule of law. Indeed, if eminences like Rivera, Sandoval, and Torres are actually regarded as leaders by most Hispanics, the rest of us have obvious grounds for questioning the motives and patriotism of that population. On the other hand, if such people don’t really speak for Hispanics, we can ignore their noisy utterances.
It’s clearly one or the other. So Hispanics need to choose between being Americans or being foreigners demanding special treatment, notably the winking at our immigration laws.
Paul Nachman
NEW YORK STATE SENATE ENGULFED BY THIRD WORLD-STYLE THUGGISHNESS
Sage McLaughlin writes:
Dicker makes a comment I find illuminating. He says that, “The Empire State—once a beacon of progressive state government to the nation—is on the brink of ruin.” That there could be a connection between the first part of this statement and the second never occurs to him, or at least, he never indicates as much in his column. It reminds me of that headline from about a year or so ago which read, “In spite of decline in crime, incarceration rates on the rise.” That “in spite of” was just so revealing. Dicker complains about the mass firing of whites in Albany and their replacement by a swell of unqualified minorities, but it never occurs to him that as a matter of policy, this is as “progressive” as it gets. Perhaps serving as a beacon of progressive government is exactly what lies behind the ruin of New York. This isn’t a partisan point, by the way—nobody ever accused Giuliani, Pataki, and the rest of that worthless crowd of being rock-ribbed conservatives.
PS—I don’t know this for a fact, but 10 to 1 odds say that Dicker has not pulled the lever for a single real conservative these last 30 years.
OBAMA
PRELIMINARY REPLY ON PALIN AND LETTERMAN
Lydia McGrew writes:
That response seems fair enough.
I’m inclined to think that the initial perception that he was talking about a 14-year-old girl is an excuse for a certain amount of editorializing on Palin’s part, since America does have a severe and growing problem with a sexualized view of young girls. But I think she got carried away with it. I tend to think there is now a sort of “blog culture” in public life such that every time something happens, one is tempted to think, “Hmmm, what generalization can I make from this? What moral can I draw that is bigger than just my reaction to the event itself?” Palin seems to have fallen into this in her response to Letterman.
WHO IS SARAH PALIN TO COMPLAIN ABOUT LETTERMAN’S TASTELESSNESS
Laura W. replies to Mark P.:
It is not impossible for parents to supervise their daughters. People do it today. It does not entail keeping a daughter under lock and key. Supervision is more than physical. It’s providing the constant message that sex too soon will bring disapproval and disastrous consequences. Even with supervision, no parent can absolutely guarantee their daughter’s chastity. It appears the Palins, however, gave too much freedom. They then failed to acknowledge their own role in her situation and publicly celebrated her condition.
My point was that the Sarah Palin model of career success typically brings pre-martial promiscuity for all the reasons I listed.
It’s not men who singularly made Western Civilization. It was a complex of ideas that emphasized duty, self-sacrifice and eternal rewards. Women and men accepted those ideas. Yes, men understood some of those ideas better than women, who are more empathic and emotional, but women embraced them all the same. Women have always been the custodians of less easily defined mores as essential to civilization as rational formulas. The women who live in patriarchal societies today—such as those in Hasidic and Amish communities—are not forcibly restrained from public roles and from ambition by men. They accept the ideas that sustain their worlds. They do not try to run away.
Some reassertion of male authority is necessary for our society to survive, but not the all-out conquest of feminine nature Mark foresees.
Clark Coleman writes:
The discussion has turned a very simple matter into a complex matter of numerous facets involving all kinds of issues.
Sarah Palin was the fourth and final selection to the major parties’ electoral slate. At the time she was named, flyover America had been given McCain, Obama, and Biden, three men who despise the ordinary American, who despise our culture, who celebrate the loss of our culture, who look down their noses at all those rednecks and conservatives in general and whites in particular. Rumors abounded that some uninspiring choice such as Tim Pawlenty would be made. Conservatives were pretty dispirited at that point.
Then Palin was chosen. In the first 24 hours, we heard some details of her life story. She had lived in the kind of places that the coastal elites look down upon, such as Idaho and Alaska. She was described as a hockey mom, resonating with moms everywhere who spend a good bit of their time chauffeuring kids around. She had lived in small towns. She talked small town talk, you betcha she did.
The revelations that many of us did NOT like came out after those first few hours. By then, most GOP voters had committed to Palin, and few voters ever vote third party, so they were not prepared to reject McCain/Palin because of Bristol and other social concerns. The discussion in this thread seems to assume that Palin supporters did not make up their minds until they had all the facts about Palin (false), then chose at that time to support her. Hence, we are getting bogged down in talking about all the details of Palin’s life and which ones should be supported and which details criticized by conservatives. That is an interesting philosophical discussion, but it has nothing to do with the original question: Why the strong positive reaction to Palin?
In a discussion at Chronicles at the time, a commenter reminded everyone that Sam Francis once said that, even though populism and Middle American identity politics can be distasteful, we should be encouraged that Middle America still feels an identity, for any conservative restoration of our civilization will depend on a populist revolt by just such people. In that sense, we can be thankful that many American had a visceral identification with Sarah Palin in those first 24 hours. If they did not have any such reaction, after years of scorn and abuse from the elites of America, then we could pretty much declare America dead.
WHY PALIN IS STEPPING DOWN
A reader writes:
Ya know, there’s another possibility. Maybe she doesn’t like her job. Or doesn’t feel well-suited for it. Governing, when taken seriously, is hard and complex.
I wasn’t at a computer this weekend, so didn’t write more in my response to you. I mentioned to someone this weekend that the snippets of her press conference that I heard (while driving unfamiliar roads, so I wasn’t totally focused) seemed disjointed and jumped from one incomplete thought to another. I thought she might be on speed, because it seemed to me she was taking short but audible breaths every few words. The other person pointed out that Alaska is the meth capital of the world.
David N. Friedman writes:
I am afraid to admit that, indeed, Lawrence Auster was correct to criticize the selection of Sarah Palin in the first place. She has been revealed to be largely unsuited to carry the torch of political conservatism. I admire her life story and what she has accomplished in her position in Alaska and yet these accomplishments are not enough.
Palin appears to have no future in Presidential politics and she is comparable to Joe Biden—a rather bumbling and somewhat incoherent mess. Her abuse of the English language which makes Bush seem eloquent by comparion is an uncomfortable justiposition with her attractive physique. The defense of Palin in terfms of comparison with Obama’s meager qualifications or Biden’s verbal gaffe’s effectively dumbs down our standards. As a former Palin supporter, it is hard to acknowledge the truth and if conservatives are entranced with the notion of finding an attractive spokesperson for homegrown conservatism, I regret to say we can do much better.
The elevation of Obama has forced conservatives into a panic regarding the selling of ideas. Obama has been able to put an attractive face on an ugly philosophy and this has duped conservatives into thinking, in response, we require a pretty face or some kind of gimmick in the form of a female to sell conservatism. I say—let them have their gimmicks and their empty suits and as Palin herself has reminded us—we have a “higher calling.”
“AMERICAN THINKER” J.R. DUNN’S BRAINLESS APOLOGIA FOR PALIN
Paul Mulshine writes:
Dunn writes:
“Her eldest daughter is dealing with the twin burdens of a failed marriage and single motherhood, while also serving as a national joke for the same type of people who insisted that Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls are off limits.”
I missed that story about how Michele Obama had let her daughter get knocked up by a trashy thug. Do you have any idea where Dunn found it? I guess the MSM are sitting on it. Also Chelsea’s kid must be practically entering high school by now. Why does the MSM ignore these stories.
LA replies:
Good catch.
PM replies:
Seriously, can you iamgine the outcry among the Palin crowd if a black girl got pregnant at 17? All the morality missing in the Palin debate would spring to the surface.
And could you imagine Michelle letting a character like Levi Johnston within a city block of her precious daughters?
Unthinkable.
Laura W. writes:
I don’t agree Dunn is an idiot. I’ve read articles of his that I have liked.
PALIN GENERAL
James N. writes:
I’ve been away from the computer for the last day and a half. My youngest was baptized yesterday, and we had a lot of people over.
I agree that I regard the fact that Sarah Palin drives leftists crazy as a plus. More exactly, I regard the combination of making leftists batty without folding under their attacks, without structuring the political life to conciliate them, while retaining popularity with voters as a plus—a great big one.
This is of course what I loved about Giuliani. I now acknowledge that his voter appeal didn’t extend beyond the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan. But, nevertheless, he could poke the left in the eye with a sharp stick AND STILL WIN ELECTIONS.
I’m not sure that some of your commenters regard winning elections as a plus, at least not if a less-than-perfect candidate is what is required. These are the Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo voters. There’s nothing wrong with Messrs. Hunter or Tancredo, but the idea of either of them moving into the White House is more of a theoretical, fictional construct than it is real politics.
I’m confident that if Rudy Giuliani or Sarah Palin were President, the country would be better off than it is now. And, in the case of Mrs. Palin, I used to regard that as a feasible proposition. Of course, that view is now under re-analysis. But she definitely has “it” in terms of the voters, and that is more important than some of your commenters seem to allow.
LA replies:
She has “it” in terms of a set of voters. That set of voters is not enough to make her president.
WHAT IT IS LIKE TO TEACH BLACKS
Stephen H. writes:
I read Christopher Jackson’s article and I found it to be spot on with what I was told by high school teachers who teach in the black sections of Philadelphia. Most of these teachers leaned Left center. Their comments confirm what my brother-in-law who is also a teacher, a flaming liberal to boot, has discovered upon his transfer to a black high school which is also in a black section of Philadelphia. That is they all agree that it is hopeless to teach these students and that they are incapable of receiving an education in our country. Jackson’s comments about their bizarre, rude, animalistic behavior coincide with everything that they have said about these students and this comes from teachers who are literally on the front lines. Remember that these teachers are dealing with blacks in a totally black controlled environment If they would find Jackson overstating anything it would be that these teachers seem to find two or three students that they can focus on in order to make it seem worthwhile. Even that they say is difficult. Some over statement by Jackson. He stated that there are exceptions. That should suffice. Jackson nor the teachers I know even touch on their intellect, IQ or ability. These discussions would only bolster Jackson’s position. I’ve lived in Philadelphia most of my life. Jackson is telling it like it is and that makes many people uncomfortable. Yes, he could have thrown in a few more politically correct caveats to placate the ill informed but the entirety of his statements and essence of his essay is true. I pray for some these poor white children that are stuck in these predominately black racist hellholes.
Clem P. writes:
Jackson’s piece may be harsh but as you indicated it makes a point.
A. Zarkov said: “”My daughter went to an elite college preparatory middle and high school. While the school was mostly white it did have some middle class black students, and for the most part they fit in perfectly. But my daughter was stunned at the different response the black students had to the announcement of O.J. Simpson verdict. They cheered. Not a single white student cheered. These students were the sons and daughters of fairly well-to-do black professionals living in nice houses in good neighborhoods. In other words, they lived and worked in the white world yet they still had the “us versus them” attitude found among ghetto blacks””
I think that is an outstanding illustration of the racial lies. BS and outright delusion we(meaning whites) live under. Even most of the so called “good” blacks will to a person support their race when push comes to shove. Kind of like most of the so called “conservative” blacks supporting Obama.
Irv P. writes:
There was nothing overstated in Mr. Jackson’s article. Nothing at all. I know. I spent 33 years of my life banging my head on the wall trying to teach “them” (what to call them has changed a half dozen times, so I don’t really know what the proper term is). Sure, I had some really good kids. They’re exceptions. Sure some kids learn. Many have fairly high degrees of intelligence. But on the whole, it’s depressing, demoralizing and embarrassing.
About 15 years ago, a new janitor came to work. He asked me about the school. My response was to tell him to “get out”. “The blood is going to be drained from your body working here”. Naturally, he looked at me like I was insane, and walked away shaking his head. About three years ago he moved to a different state and we still keep in touch. He never fails to remind me of how right I was in that first encounter, how I helped to open his eyes, how happy he is now and how miserable he would be if he was still “in prison”.
Mr. Jackson left and got to a predominately white school. Good for him. As hard as I tried, I could never get out…that’s a whole other story. Yes, I’m bitter but with good reason. When I retired a few years ago, I was asked to speak at the final faculty conference. Most of my colleagues were now black, but I let them know the truth. I had come into teaching with a rose colored view of the world, and wanted to help black kids realize their potentials and becomne an integral part of the real world. Not only did I fail, the system is failing, refuses to acknowledge why, and things are much worse than the were in 1970.
No matter what Bloomberg and his stooge Klein say, Shakeem still can’t understand what he’s reading, can’t write a cogent paragraph, hasn’t the foggiest idea how America got to be what it is, (except that they’re all victims of racism), can’t think on his feet to solve a problem, (unless it’s to further scam the system to get even more “entitlements”) and certainly doesn’t think of him or herself as your “countryman”.
It’s all so sad but so true!
MIGRATION TO FACEBOOK FROM MYSPACE CALLED “MODERN INCARNATION OF WHITE FLIGHT”
A. Zarkov writes:
Social media researcher Danah Boyd speaking at the Personal Democracy Forum presented elements of her dissertation on “white flight” from the social networking site Myspace to its competitor Facebook. The New York Observer reports on her talk. Boyd said “MySpace has become the ghetto of the digital landscape,” and calls the migration to Facebook “a modern incarnation of White Flight.” Speaking in what were probably ominous tones, Boyd issued a kind of warning:
“The fact that digital migration is revealing the same social patterns as urban white flight should send warning signals to all of us,” she said. “It should scare the hell out of us.”
“When people are structurally divided, they do not share space with one another, they do not communicate with one another; this canon does breed intolerance,…” [emphasis added]
As usual the liberal mind cannot cope with the realities of human behavior and the differences among the world’s races. I noticed long ago the racial, sexual, and professional self segregation in the company cafeteria. A mere glance at several hundred people sitting in a large open space reveals obvious racial clusterings. Why should anyone regard the same phenomenon in the digital world as scary? Of course we know the answer. It threatens the liberal multicultural agenda. If the races are incompatible then their ambitious program for a happy multiracial society is doomed to failure.
Finally a few words on her terminology. What does “structurally divided” mean? Is this some kind of libspeak or an actual social science term? I also take issue with “white flight” in this context. Blacks have real barriers in trying to move from the poor inner city to a more wealthy suburb—they can’t afford to buy the housing. That’s not the case with a move to Facebook. Injecting this inappropriate phrase into her research results seems like an attempt to manipulate the public.
LA replies:
I’m familiar with the term “structural pluralism” from Milton Gordon’s 1964 book Assimilation in American Life. Gordon said (approvingly) that America was structurally pluralistic and culturally assimilationist, meaning that ethnic groups tended to reside and socialize by ethnicity, but in the public space of work, school, and citizenship shared a common American culture.
I discuss and quote Gordon’s ideas at length in chapter two The Path to Nationao Suicide.
PALIN
Mark P. writes:
Laura W. writes:
It is not impossible for parents to supervise their daughters. People do it today. It does not entail keeping a daughter under lock and key. Supervision is more than physical. It’s providing the constant message that sex too soon will bring disapproval and disastrous consequences. Even with supervision, no parent can absolutely guarantee their daughter’s chastity. It appears the Palins, however, gave too much freedom. They then failed to acknowledge their own role in her situation and publicly celebrated her condition.
Laura, teenagers are constantly bombarded by the message that sex too soon will bring disapproval and disastrous consequences. Schools constantly preach that mantra. Parents do the same.
The problem is that children are not raised by schools and parents. They are raised by their peers … peers that have been empowered by the same society to “be independent” and to “find themselves” (notice how this is the same language as feminism.) In the past, it was unheard of for mixed groups of boys and girls to hang out unchaperoned. Civil authorities like police used to take it upon themselves to break up any shenanigans at “Makeout Point.” Now, everything has changed. Sure, a daughter can be prevented from having sex if she is under the watchful eye of a parent or teacher. But outside that, what authority extends the reach of the parent’s supervision outside the home … that is, an authority that is not subversive?
You are also missing an important point: Traditionalist Western conservatism is about looking at matters from a Western man’s perspective. The proper starting point, then, is Todd Palin. Todd managed to snag an attractive woman who agreed to the lifestyle that he could provide; who gave him five kids; who stayed with him for 20 years through thick and thin; and who then decided to pursue her little political hobbies after providing him with hearth and home. Given the current society of no-fault divorce, empowered shrews, biased family law, and a host of other minefields, the only way Todd could manage the kind of life he has is if he selected a proper conservative woman.
I don’t understand why no one can see this.
Laura, your gynocentric concern over out-of-wedlock births misses some further points: First, the purpose of a daughter is to look pretty and not embarrass her father. Since it is no longer an embarrassment to have a daughter pregnant out-of-wedlock, it is not damaging to Todd’s reputation. Second, a large majority of men have no families. Family life, furthermore, is becoming increasingly unlikely for a growing segment of the male population. It is, therefore, hard to get worked-up over a tertiary matter of family life when most men are unlikely to acquire a wife, let alone a stable marriage with kids about whom one would worry.
Laura W. writes:
It’s not men who singularly made Western Civilization. It was a complex of ideas that emphasized duty, self-sacrifice and eternal rewards. Women and men accepted those ideas. Yes, men understood some of those ideas better than women, who are more empathic and emotional, but women embraced them all the same. Women have always been the custodians of less easily defined mores as essential to civilization as rational formulas. The women who live in patriarchal societies today—such as those in Hasidic and Amish communities—are not forcibly restrained from public roles and from ambition by men. They accept the ideas that sustain their worlds. They do not try to run away.
Uh … every civilization emphasized duty, self-sacrifice and eternal rewards. Differences in civilization are due to differences in how patriarchy operates. Women don’t accept ideas … they just conform to whatever patriarchy takes hold. They usually don’t have a choice and simply learn to accept reality.
Clark Coleman writes:
In a discussion at Chronicles at the time, a commenter reminded everyone that Sam Francis once said that, even though populism and Middle American identity politics can be distasteful, we should be encouraged that Middle America still feels an identity, for any conservative restoration of our civilization will depend on a populist revolt by just such people. In that sense, we can be thankful that many American had a visceral identification with Sarah Palin in those first 24 hours. If they did not have any such reaction, after years of scorn and abuse from the elites of America, then we could pretty much declare America dead.
BINGO. The identity politics that Sarah Palin represents is far more important than the technical details of either government or traditionalism.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 08, 2009 08:06 PM | Send