Present and future Democrat strategy: In spite of a black man in the White House, it looks like Democrat strategists will continue to use claims of widespread racism among whites to demonize Republicans and their policies. And they will probably do it forever.
In the Political Brain, Drew Westin argues that Democrats must reveal the Right's very effective metanarrative for the racist ideology it is. While Republicans talk about limited government, low taxes, controlled immigration, states rights, etc., it is actually code for, "Join us and stick it to the Black Man."
Westin uses neuroscience research to show that people have conscious and unconscious motivational networks, and then links what Republicans say about race, and what they really feel about it deep down. In order to win elections, Democrats have to always bring this hatred to light. When Trent Lott praised Strom Thurmond, for example, he revealed his true feelings for blacks.
Westin says that this sort of revelation must be exploited mercilessly. According to the author, Republican strategists are such geniuses, they have been decades ahead of the science, and have been activating racist unconscious networks since Nixon. He uses the 2006 Harold Ford race to claim that Republican mad scientists knew exactly what they were doing when they ran an ad with the words, "He's just not right." The strategists knew that the phrase would activate neural networks, causing whites to interpret the phrase as "He's just not white."
With all the recent science showing that that racial bias is hardwired, we can expect Democrats to find hatred in every meaningless thing Republicans do or say. Their message will be that all conservatives are haters--fallen men, in fact--and the only way to redemption is to, say, support universal health care.
Guys like Westin want his party to use this strategy much more, not less in the future. I think they will--we saw plenty of it in 2008--and all I can hope is that it backfires in the long run. If many whites are like me, being browbeaten long enough will turn a person of good will into a rebel.
Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
Cute book, but I don't think the left isn't going to be in love with the biological sciences for too much longer:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_4.html#haidt
JONATHAN HAIDT
Psychologist, University of Virginia; Author, The Happiness Hypothesis
snip
The protective “wall” is about to come crashing down, and all sorts of uncomfortable claims are going to pour in. Skin color has no moral significance, but traits that led to Darwinian success in one of the many new niches and occupations of Holocene life — traits such as collectivism, clannishness, aggressiveness, docility, or the ability to delay gratification — are often seen as virtues or vices. Virtues are acquired slowly, by practice within a cultural context, but the discovery that there might be ethnically-linked genetic variations in the ease with which people can acquire specific virtues is — and this is my prediction — going to be a “game changing” scientific event. (By “ethnic” I mean any group of people who believe they share common descent, actually do share common descent, and that descent involved at least 500 years of a sustained selection pressure, such as sheep herding, rice farming, exposure to malaria, or a caste-based social order, which favored some heritable behavioral predispositions and not others.)
I believe that the “Bell Curve” wars of the 1990s, over race differences in intelligence, will seem genteel and short-lived compared to the coming arguments over ethnic differences in moralized traits. I predict that this “war” will break out between 2012 and 2017.
There are reasons to hope that we’ll ultimately reach a consensus that does not aid and abet racism. I expect that dozens or hundreds of ethnic differences will be found, so that any group — like any person — can be said to have many strengths and a few weaknesses, all of which are context-dependent. Furthermore, these cross-group differences are likely to be small when compared to the enormous variation within ethnic groups and the enormous and obvious effects of cultural learning. But whatever consensus we ultimately reach, the ways in which we now think about genes, groups, evolution and ethnicity will be radically changed by the unstoppable progress of the human genome project.
"I don't think the left isn't"
ReplyDeleteer,
I don't think the left is
There is "rational racism" and you have "irrational racism." Rational racism is when you or someone you know has been mugged, raped, or killed by a person of a given race, so that thereafter you show a certain caution toward all members of that race who fit an age, gender and class profile corresponding to the perpetrator of the personalized crime.
ReplyDeleteIrrational racism is when you label all members of that race as criminals, regardless of age, class, or gender.
Rational racism can help extend a person's lifespan and preserve his property. Irrational racism is of no benefit whatsoever.
Westin's viewpoints are completely irrelevant to real life. If "life is what happens when you are making other plans", Westin's life is what is happening while he is reacting to what he thinks are other people making plans. As meaningful as a goose fart, such are the day's of Westin's life.
The one thing that is undeniable is the power of calling white people "racist." This new strategy attempts to take advantage of this power. Unforchunatly most Republicans that I've seen on TV don't seem capable of defending themselves against the "racist" charge.
ReplyDeleteThey just say "we've come a long way" or "the GOP is the party of Lincoln." Instead of being on the defensive, the GOP needs to go on offense.
The GOP needs to force the racialist left to explain what a racist is, and then to explain what exactly equality will look like?
You really are a manipulative little shit, JA. You believe racism is one step worse than pedophilia, but want us to accept your definition, and accept your label with pride. Then you try to goad us into it with your cheap little coward trick.
ReplyDeleteHe uses the 2006 Harold Ford race to claim that Republican mad scientists knew exactly what they were doing when they ran an ad with the words, "He's just not right." The strategists knew that the phrase would activate neural networks, causing whites to interpret the phrase as "He's just not white."
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. Campaign theme song for '10: "Lullaby," by Shawn Mullins. "Everything's gonna be all right, rock-a-bye."
You really are a manipulative little shit, JA.
That's more effin like it, Ron. He's not just a manipulative shit, either: he's full of shit.
JA, I'm not secretly racist; I'm openly, unashamedly "racist." But I'm not crazed or hateful about it (which is silly, self-defeating and pointless). It's just reality and life's better that way. And don't worry JA, the big bad Vikings would come for me every bit as quickly as they'd come for you, but the thought of that doesn't make the pig sty we're building for our grandchildren, or even our own uprooted, disconnected existence, any more appealing.
There is "rational racism" and you have "irrational racism." Rational racism is when you or someone you know has been mugged, raped, or killed by a person of a given race, so that thereafter you show a certain caution toward all members of that race who fit an age, gender and class profile corresponding to the perpetrator of the personalized crime.
That's actually completely irrational -- pure emotion. And exactly the sort of thing they'd haul you off to re-education camp for.
Rational racism would be something like using the sense that something is amiss about racially diverse living to investigate the facts about race, base decisions on those facts and encourage others to do the same.
The discussion might potentially bear fruit if JA would define "racist". It could mean:
ReplyDeleteA. Believing a negative assertion about a racial group.
B. Believing a negative and false assertion about a racial group.
C. Believing some racial group is better, according to a universal frame of reference.
D. Preferring a certain racial group, i.e. believing some racial group is better as a matter of opinion.
E. Hating a certain racial group.
The reason the realists are balking at JA's suggestion of "owning up" is that JA won't pick a definition, and won't admit that he believes several of them are the same. I can only surmise (because he won't directly address the issue) that JA:
- believes preference for one group necessarily entails hatred of another group (specifically - for these things are never actually reversible - that preference of whites and/or low-crime groups entails hatred for blacks&Latinos and/or high-crime groups),
- believes dislike and hatred are the same thing,
- believes race realism necessarily entails a universal frame of reference,
- believes that negative assertions about certain groups (blacks & Latinos only, most likely) are automatically false, and
- believes that while "you can't compare the sins or the suffering of one group to those of another", that obviously whites/gringos have done most of the sinning, and blacks and Latinos have done most of the suffering (notwithstanding available data on noneconomic crime, the Islamic invasion of Spain, African-perpetrated slavery, Mexico's intentional shedding of its underclass into the US, etc.)
Granted, that is a lot of speculation, and if I weren't bored waiting for my potato soup to simmer I probably wouldn't have bothered, but it would be interesting to see if JA ever responds directly of if he is just content to keep calling people "nose-pickers". Or whatever it was he called us.
Pedophilia bad!? it is just a lifestyle choice!
ReplyDeleteAww nuts. Yet again, I have made a post of thread-killing length, and yet again, I have treated J. Atheist as if he ever wrote anything in good faith.
ReplyDeleteLOL, I hadn't been back to this thread until someone linked to it from another one.
ReplyDeleteLook, racism has different definitions. But by most people's definition, most of the commenters here are racists. They prefer their race, yes, but they also dislike other races and think them inferior, etc.
Which, hey, it's a free country. You're allowed to be racists. But how can you become so outraged when someone calls you what you are? I just don't get it.
You're not really disagreeing with what you are. You just don't think it's bad. So quit being dishonest about it.