Canadian Cincinnatus

Happy Lenin’s Birthday! er, I mean Earth Day

Once again, its that time of year. Every year on this day, I take the time out to remind everyone that April 22 - Earth Day - is Vladimir Lenin’s birthday.

Lest you think this is just a 1 in 365 coincidence exploited by right-wing hate-mongers such as myself, consider the fact that the first Earth Day - April 22, 1970 – was the one hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s birth.

To be fair, Earth Day is increasingly being celebrated on the spring equinox. This is a positive development that helps distance the environmentalist movement from the ideals of a bloodthirsty killer.

Why is nobody paying attention to the racist mass murders in Tulsa, Oklahoma?

Over the weekend, two white men were charged in the shooting deaths of three black people and the wounding of two others in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The killers were both charged with murder and “hate crime charges”. They have both confessed to the killings but have pled not guilty to murder. The killings appear to be random in that there is no known connection between the victims and the killers. Given this and the fact that the only common denominator between the victims is that they are all black, it is reasonable to assume that racial hatred was the motive (in spite of protestations to the contrary by one of the accused).

So, if the media is so concerned about anti-black racism, where is the collective outrage over this slam-dunk case of racial hate-crime? Where is the sustained moral indignation?

Considering the fact that the circumstances of the Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman case are much more ambiguous, why is that case garnering so much more media oxygen? Why didn’t the New Black Panther Party issue a bounty on the heads of the two white killers? Why hasn’t Mike Tyson called for them to be shot? And why hasn’t Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson organized demonstrations and threatened riots? 

Could it be that the problem with the Tulsa case is that it is too uncontroversial? Not uncontroversial in that people aren’t morally outraged by it, but uncontroversial in that a vast majority of the people are outraged over it in the same way. In other words, if everybody – black and white - finds these killings utterly deplorable, there is no opportunity to sow racial discord. At best, you have a Dead Man Walking – style debate about capital punishment. These days, ho hum.

In contrast, recent polls show the opinions of whites and blacks divergent on the Martin – Zimmerman case, with whites lining up behind the neighbourhood watch volunteer and blacks lining up behind the innocent victim. Lots of potential for controversy – and getting your name in the paper. Just like the O J Simpson trial!

Something to consider when pondering the motives of those sensationalizing the events in Sanford, Florida.

 

 

A most excellent definition of racism

My last post about political correctness, prompted by the Derbyshire affair, got me thinking about the definition of racism itself. For a long time, I have had the vague notion that the word ‘racism’ has been redefined by the Political Indoctrinators to mean something more than what most people mean by that word, and that this ambiguity is used by the PC-heads to their advantage. In other words, they have a wide-ranging, hazy definition that they use to ensnare victims but have a narrow, specific definition that they use to describe the general concept of racism to the general public. In this way, people who are not really paying attention (i.e. centrists or moderates) end up assuming that people charged with racism are guilty according to an exacting definition (that they were never accused of).

To my rescue comes Eric S Raymond, who has cut to the heart of the matter by analyzing the current definition racism, determining what is wrong with it and positing an improved definition in its place.

So fasten your seatbelts, here we go:

“One of the most important reasons not to tell ourselves pretty lies about unpleasant realities is so that we do not hand evil people the power of being the only ones who are willing to speak the truth.”

“A rather larger number [of commenters to his blog] accused of me of holding to a standard for “racism” and “racist thinking” that is too narrow, because I reject ever describing as “racist” people who speak beliefs that are factually justified – even if those beliefs are negative about specific racial groups and even if they are expressed with intent to provoke. I hold that truth should be considered a sufficient defense against charges of racism just as it is against slander and libel.”

“[M]any commenters were willing to condemn him [Derbyshire] as a racist even though they conceded that his fact base is largely sound and there is no evidence that his errors (if any) are dishonest. I even had one person defend this expansive definition of “racist” on the grounds that this is how almost everyone understands the word.

I am writing to argue that such a loose definition of “racist” is a dangerous mistake.”

“Nobody sane wants to hand power and credibility to neo-Nazis or the Christian Identity movement or Confederate revanchists or any of the other tiny clusters of bigoted wack jobs at the fringes of American politics. But that is exactly what we do every time we tell pretty lies about race. It is exactly what we do every time we use “racist” as a verbal cudgel against people who deviate in the slightest from politically-correct thinking. And it is exactly what we do when we honk endlessly about the need for a “national conversation about race”, then run the likes of John Derbyshire out of town on a rail for speaking honestly.

To avoid putting bigots and racists on the right and truthful side of the argument, we need a strict definition of “racist” claims as those which (a) prejudice individual judgment of individuals, and (b) are based on false generalizations. We cannot allow true generalizations to be considered racist. If we do that, either (a) we can no longer condemn racism as such, or (b) we get stuck in a situation where we’re not allowed to notice that white men can’t jump and black men can’t swim, wondering why our sports teams aren’t “balanced”, and falsely ascribing to bigotry what arises from natural differences in distributions of ability. And the poison spreads.

Only the haters and creeps and race-hustlers of all colors win under either of those outcomes. So please do not give evil people the gift of being sloppy in your thinking and your language [emphasis added].”

My only quibble with Raymond’s definition is the addition of the phrase “even if they are expressed with intent to provoke” to “I reject ever describing as ‘racist’ people who speak beliefs that are factually justified – even if those beliefs are negative about specific racial groups.” I think we have a civic duty to be polite to our fellow citizens and not provoke them unnecessarily. The truth should be sacred but picking a fight has nothing to do with a search for truth. Legally, there is such a thing as ‘fighting words’.

 

Obama’s elitist war on stay-at-home moms

At this point in the US Presidential campaign, the Team Obama strategy is coming into clear focus: create a series of divisive crises to drive a wedge between the proletariat masses and the governing elites. Many conservative commentators attributed this to Obama’s desire to avoid his own record. As the legal saying goes, if your case is strong on facts, argue the facts; if your case is strong on the law, argue the law; and if your case is strong on neither, attack the witnesses.

I think they are only partly right. Stanley Kurtz predicted in his book, Radical in Chief, that Obama would do this and his book appeared before the 2010 midterms. Kurtz based his prediction on the fact that this is the classic community organizer strategy and Barack Obama is a community organizer. This is what community organizers do; it’s straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. 

The contraception mandate (clearly designed to antagonize the Catholic Church), the Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh dustup, the Travyon Martin-George Zimmerman-O J Simpson fiasco and now the attack on Ann Romney because she is a stay-at-home mother are all media events that Team Obama has either manufactured, amplified or latched on to. Unfortunately for Obama, in driving a wedge between one group of Americans and another, he invariably ends up lumping himself with the minority.

The Hilary Rosen affair is very instructive. As many readers doubtlessly already know, last Wednesday, Obama surrogate Hilary Rosen opined on CNN that Ann Romney is out of touch with average America because she “has never worked a day in her life”. The Drudge Report promptly posted a picture of Mitt and Ann sitting with their brood five boys. How out of touch do you have to be to think it is a good idea to get an elitist Washington lawyer to criticize the institution of motherhood. Could you imagine Bill Clinton making such a mistake?

(Of course, to be fair, disavowals from key Team Obama players like David Axelrod came quickly. Still, who was the twit that green-lighted Rosen in the first place?)

This kind of mistake happens because Barack Obama is too self-unaware to appreciate his utter disconnect with mainstream America. It is not that he is a rich elitist like Mitt Romney. It is worse than that because I think the average American can identify with Romney’s life a lot easier than Obama’s. Obama’s life isn’t so much privileged, as it is weird. He has been a lifelong intellectual ideologue and therefore understands people only in terms of Marxist class-structure. In contrast, Bill Clinton understands people as they really are.

So keep at Barack! By the time you are finished with him, Mitt Romney will come across like the reincarnation of Tom Joad.

 

Jonathan Kay: the National Post’s moralistic PC scold

You know, one of the most noxious and morally toxic intellectual concepts at work in our society today is the doctrine of Political Correctness. It is nothing more than a way of stifling intellectual debate in the guise of moral purity. While it does occasionally suppress the genuine hatemonger, it also empowers smug moral preeners, petty tyrants and a rogue’s gallery of bounders and phoneys at the expense of genuinely reasonable men.

All of this loathsomeness was on display in the reaction to John Derbyshire’s article that appeared last Thursday in Taki's Magazine.  In his article, which was inspired by the Trayvon Martin – George Zimmerman fiasco, Derb gave the following advice, “Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods” as well as other similar admonitions. This got the PC scolds heading for the fainting couch, though I hasten to add, none of them had the integrity to assert that places like the South Bronx and Camden, New Jersey are perfectly safe, as in “hey, I jog there all the time.”

True to form, instead of challenging Derbyshire on particulars, they demanded his resignation from National Review (even though the offending article didn’t appear there, but hey, he’s got to be fired from somewhere and Takimag ain’t that important relative to his thoughtcrime).

Left unstated was an explanation of how this two-minute hate could be reconciled with the near universal applause that Jesse Jackson received for saying essentially the same thing when he told the story about how he was walking down the street late one night and felt relieved when he turned around and saw that the footsteps behind him were made by a white man.

Also left unstated was an explanation of how the racism charge is consistent with Derb’s evident sympathy for the Hermann Cain presidential campaign. But PC inquisitors never seem to feel the need to justify their serious accusations at a man’s character.

To add insult to injury, while chiding Derbyshire for his lack of racial sophistication, they silently pass over key passages in his offending article, things like:

“The default principle in everyday personal encounters is, that as a fellow citizen, with the same rights and obligations as yourself, any individual black is entitled to the same courtesies you would extend to a nonblack citizen. That is basic good manners and good citizenship.”

“As with any population of such a size, there is great variation among blacks in every human trait (except, obviously, the trait of identifying oneself as black). They come fat, thin, tall, short, dumb, smart, introverted, extroverted, honest, crooked, athletic, sedentary, fastidious, sloppy, amiable, and obnoxious. There are black geniuses and black morons. There are black saints and black psychopaths.”

“Thus, while always attentive to the particular qualities of individuals, on the many occasions where you have nothing to guide you but knowledge of those mean differences, use statistical common sense:”

These are important qualifiers to the advice Derbyshire gave. If you consciously fail to mention them while condemning his advice, you are being dishonest.

A partial exception to this rule was made by moral pygmy Jonathan Kay over at the National Post. While refraining from actually stating his qualifiers, he elliptically alluded to them thus:

“This is not ordinary racism. It is more interesting and antique than that: explicitly racialist in substance, but also ornamented with editorial grace notes and exhortations to humane acts of tokenism. One is reminded of, say, old-fashioned British types putting up their slide show from a safari in South Africa, or a charity trip to an inner-city school.”

You know what Jonathan? Here’s a piece of advice: since you are very unlikely to have a window into John Derbyshire’s soul, why don’t you confine your criticism to what he has actually written and said, and refrain from conflating him with the strawmen that inhabit your psycho-racial masturbatory fantasies.

Oh... I don’t have a window onto your soul? So that I don’t have any direct knowledge of your psycho-racial masturbatory fantasies, assuming there are any? Sorry about that, old boy.

Kay’s description of Derbyshire as an “old-fashioned British type” and a “crank” that is “out of touch with the times” evokes the image of the stereotypical xenophobic loser, sitting in his basement all day while occasionally peering out the window at all these strange, new-fangled foreigners who are mysteriously popping up in his neighbourhood; which (by comparison) makes ‘nice people’ like Kay look compassionate, cosmopolitan and worldly-wise. Oh Jonathan, what a swell guy you are!

Left out of this narrative is the fact that in his early 20’s, Derbyshire departed his native England for a non-white place (Hong Kong), where he lived for a many years, mastering the Chinese language and learning its culture (his articles often contain references to classic Chinese poetry). He also married a Chinese woman with the result that his two children are only half-white.

Yep, racist stuff here. Since Derb’s life story closely parallels the biography of Bull Connor, I wonder why Jonathan Kay left this detail out? Sure is more damning than Kay’s comparatively lilly-white biography of hanging out with one-percenters.

Kay then made one of the most idiotic accusations in this whole affair:

“His writings about blacks, in particular, were full of references drawn from comparative-intelligence studies that, however disreputable, at least suggested a nominal quest for fact-finding and testable hypotheses. 

Ever the mathematician, Derbyshire endlessly spouts the language of percentiles and cohorts and standard deviations.”

So data and reason are now racist tricks? Who knew? Thanks Jonathan! I’ll be sure to avoid these ‘dog whistles’ in the future.

(I suppose Chinese poetry is another dog whistle.)

In spite of Kay’s assertion that Derb is “out of touch with the times” (which Derb freely acknowledges – say? can you really be out of touch with the times if you know you are out of touch with the times?), history is often not kind to the enforcers of orthodoxy. Times change; priorities change; unreasonable, ideologically driven hysterias change. The inquisitors in the Galileo trail - even the Pope himself - are only remembered these days as the men who persecuted one of the greatest scientists of all time; the accused in the Salem witch trials are remembered as poor victims while the men who tried them are viewed as vicious, stupid fanatics; and these days, Oscar Wilde’s indecency trial is widely seen to be a miscarriage of justice. 

A hundred years hence, when politics has changed and therefore the standards of political correctness have changed, I wonder if today’s PC transgressors will be viewed in better light and whether their accusers, if they are remembered at all, will be seen to be inhabiting the dung-heap of history.

 

The George Zimmerman – Trayvon Martin media fiasco

Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, reports what the far-left Mother Jones magazine says about the media circus surrounding that killing in Florida: 

KEVIN DRUM AT MOTHER JONES ON NBC’S ZIMMERMAN DECEPTION: “This is now fated to be Exhibit A in conservative charges of mainstream media bias for about the next century or so. And who can blame them? What a cockup.”

Specifically, what Kevin Drum was referring to was the police dispatch tape of Zimmerman’s 911 call that NBC had edited. This is what they did:

To refresh our memories, here’s what transpired during the call and is recorded on the audio:

ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he’s up to no good, [begin ellipsis] or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic? [end ellipsis]

ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

And here’s how NBC’s “error” rendered that sequence:

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black,” Zimmerman told a police dispatcher from his car.

You know, I think this kind of thing used to happen all the time but there was nobody to notice. The difference these days is that now there is an alternate media, as well as conservative activists who understand political war and know how to push back.

 

Because the mainstream media is not used to that, they end up being caught flat-footed and exposed.

 

What Mitt Romney should do if the Supreme Court cans Obamacare

If the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare or the individual mandate, this will be a grievous blow to President Obama. Pace Democratic strategist James Carville, who opined that a Supreme Court loss for Obamacare would actually help Obama’s re-election prospects because it would give his followers something to rally around (reinstating socialized medicine), it would hurt Obama. A lot. As unpopular as it is, Obamacare remains President Obama’s signature achievement. If that gets declared unconstitutional, he will look impotent and incompetent – not attractive qualities in a leader. Political strategist, Dick Morris agrees.

But if Mitt Romney wants to be more than a passive recipient of good news, he has to do more than pop the champaign cork - particularly with the spectre of Romneycare in his past. If he wants to hits the ball out of the park he has to articulate an alternative. Because that’s what real statesmen do: they lead the way forward. A “I’m not as bad as the other guy” candidate - which is what he is now - will never attract more than tepid enthusiasm, regardless of how favourable the electoral environment is.

For a vision, he could do worse than follow the proscription given by Investor’s Business Daily:

• “End the tax discrimination against individual insurance buyers. 

• Let consumers buy plans across state lines, giving states an incentive to rein in their out-of-control benefit mandates.

• Let small groups establish association health plans to get benefits of scale.

• Ease the rules that are choking off the medical savings account market.

• Reform the nation's tort laws.”

In politics he who frames the debate, wins the debate. If he talks positively about the future, with concrete proposals, Romney will leave Obama in the dust, fumbling on the roadside with his broken-down, Rube Goldberg contraption.

 

How to make sure Obamacare is struck down universally

The votes have been taken and the decision made in the Supreme Court of the United States, but those votes can still be changed before June. As one would expect, the Democrat appointed justices have likely voted in favour of  Obamacare; four of the Republican appointed justices have likely voted with the U.S. Constitution, and therefore against Obamacare; with the Republican appointed Justice Kennedy being the sole swing vote. Reading some of the questions from Justice Kagan makes it clear that she sees her appointment to the SCOTUS as a political appointment. This is probably how each of the Democrat appointees see themselves.

There is a simple method that, if publicly announced, could make the defeat unanimous. The trick is to make it obvious to everyone, including the SCOTUS, that the "Individual Mandate" can be used by later governments in a way that they haven't considered.

President Romney's first term may suffer from an unexpected crime spree resulting from the "Individual Mandate" to buy health insurance, and the inability of poor Americans to pay for the insurance or the IRS fines for non-purchase. The nearly bankrupt Treasury would also find it difficult to increase funding for law enforcement. A simpler solution might be to invoke the "Individual Mandate" and require all Americans to buy a handgun. Clearly 100% ownership of handguns would reduce violent crime and break-&-enters to near zero. To make this measure universally effective, anybody who refuses to buy a handgun could be imprisoned, thus guaranteeing their safety (and healthcare).

An argument like this would be far more effective at convincing the justices to overturn Obamacare than the example of Americans being forced to buy broccoli or Chevy Volts.

 

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