Posted on 04/07/2012 4:24:15 PM PDT by cartan
Anyone who has read Derb in our pages knows he’s a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer. I direct anyone who doubts his talents to his delightful first novel, “Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream, or any one of his “Straggler” columns in the books section of NR. Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. His latest provocation, in a webzine, lurches from the politically incorrect to the nasty and indefensible. We never would have published it, but the main reason that people noticed it is that it is by a National Review writer. Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation. It’s a free country, and Derb can write whatever he wants, wherever he wants. Just not in the pages of NR or NRO, or as someone associated with NR any longer.
” I feel sorry for a lot of FReepers who became “conservative” in the last decade or so. They never knew what it was like to LEARN something from conservative sources that won’t fit on a bumper sticker. Remember how excited we were when the new NR came to our mailbox?”
I do.
what sort of poster pings JR to their every utterance about who or who is not an appropriate poster here with regards to race?
a wishful tattletale maybe?
some folks are prisoner to the cultural narrative or they have personal reasons..
You just want somebody to talk "sharply" to you.
No, I just admire a woman with mettle.
LOL, I must need more coffee....it took me a minute.
Good post
You wrote: “..I think a better subject would be the relationship between cultural values and intelligence rather than between gene pools and intelligence, since I believe the way parents raise their children is the primary factor in how children turn out.”
That has already been done by Charles Murray in his just published book, “Coming Apart”:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2843097/posts?page=21#21
bttt
” Travis, I have trouble seeing why you think I’m “afraid to violate PC taboos” because I say Jim Robinson, not me, gets to define the meaning of his words when he says “Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts.”
Travis has been here 12 years, and if Jim Rob wants to speak to him, he knows how to do it. We don’t need your santimonious verbosity either.
Thanks...but I’m just fed up beyond the point of all return, you know? Taking crap is not an option or I’ll explode.
If you do explode, you will be labeled a female suicide bomber.
That would be great for conservatives, but socialists like Obama cannot permit it.
Businesses in all the socialist states would flee to the conservative, free market ones...leaving Obama's blue states (California comes to mind) holding the bag.
In my experience, the people claiming to NOT be racists in the most pious language, and especially those who are pointing quavering fingers at others claiming they are racists... are the worst racists of all. They’re just oh-so-much more polite and genteel about it.
That’s well seen in the bluebloods from the northeast... eg, the NR/NRO staff.
Too many Americans bleat on endlessly about racism, as tho we alone invented it. I’ve got a newsflash for them: Go to Asia. You’ll see the varsity league racists out in force.
Quite frankly, I’ve heard this crap about “XYZ is raaaacist” as an attempt to shield Obama and his political cronies from critical review so often, I’m now of a mind to say “Yes, and *so what?* Are the facts stated by this racist wrong? Then you’re not going to make them go away by calling him a racist.”
True...can’t have that. So to continue not taking crap is the only avenue.
I believe it is quite obvious that intelligence is largely though not exclusively inherited. We all know that some people are born geniuses and others mentally retarded. It is reasonable to assume all other humans differ in intelligence between these extremes on the standard bell curve for most distributions of traits.
IQ, which is an attempt to measure intelligence, is indeed found on such a curve.
I believe the evidence is very strong that each human is born with a particular intelligence potential. That potential can be achieved under ideal circumstances. Any circumstances less than ideal will result in a level of intelligence at adulthood something less.
This is similar to height and other physical characteristics. Growth can be stunted by malnutrition, disease and other things, but the genetic potential cannot be exceeded regardless of the environment.
Now whether average genetic potential for intelligence differs by race is an entirely different question. It is fairly obvious, at least to me, that it could be answered by an appropriately designed investigation.
Whether as a society we find the potential for disruption so great that we ban such studies is again a different question.
A third question is what other fields of study do we ban because we are afraid of what we might find.
On some other points here, this thread went into directions I'm not at all happy about, and I'm not going to hide that. But anyone who thinks I want to ban people or try to get them in trouble for what they've posted doesn't know me — I believe in debating people when I disagree, not shutting down discussions. I think free discussion of ideas is usually how we move forward as a society. I don't remember ever hitting the abuse button on any thread on Free Republic, you won't hear calls for banning coming from me, and that is precisely why I didn't want to get into the details of defining the meaning of something like “racism” which is specifically forbidden by the posting rules.
I have major concerns with the Atlantic's attack on Free Republic because I believe it is both false and dangerous. Fortunately some of that seems to have been shot down on the Atlantic's own comment board by a number of different people saying the truth, namely, that Free Republic isn't racist.
I asked for a response from Free Republic's management, not to what is being said here on this thread, but to what was said about Free Republic on the Atlantic. It's been made clear over on the other Derbyshire thread that there won't be an official response to the Atlantic. That's their call, not mine. End of issue regarding responding to the Atlantic, as far as I'm concerned.
Back on track: I wouldn't be surprised if John Derbyshire and possibly Charles Murray are reading and perhaps posting here. Discussing these issues with them might be interesting. It's the old nature-nurture debate, and that's been going on for a very long time. They can do and should be able to do any research they want and write about it in any publication that wants to print their views. That's what the First Amendment is for.
It's difficult for me to think how discovering indisputable scientific evidence that ethnic groups differ in average intelligence, and that this difference is rooted in genetics will somehow improve race relations. I wouldn't be surprised if it made them worse.
That said, I think it's like putting the nuclear genie back in the ignorance bottle. If something can be done, sooner or later someone will do it. Can't be prevented without a system of control that would require a truly all-powerful government, which would be a cure a great deal worse than the disease.
What I find most interesting is the implication of thinking that fewer legal and political rights for blacks would be proper if they were shown indisputably to have lower average intelligence. What does this say about our attitudes towards those, of any race, who realy do have less intelligence? Lincoln had a highly applicable quote as to this point, but I haven't been able to find it.
” On some other points here, this thread went into directions I’m not at all happy about, and I’m not going to hide that. But anyone who thinks I want to ban people or try to get them in trouble for what they’ve posted doesn’t know me “
We only know what you post, and pinging Jim Rob to every disagreement you have with a given FReeper is not my idea of “not trying to get people in trouble”
“I asked for a response from Free Republic’s management, not to what is being said here on this thread, but to what was said about Free Republic on the Atlantic. It’s been made clear over on the other Derbyshire thread that there won’t be an official response to the Atlantic. That’s their call, not mine “
Thank you for your magnaminity. Who cares what The Atlantic writes about anything?
If "The Atlantic" tried to sully Free Republic for being racist, it'll likely have the same result as in the past whenever FR has been either praised or sullied: a rise in membership, which can be both good and bad, dependent upon the crowd it attracts.
In this particular case, who the heck reads The Atlantic? Furthermore, who cares? LOL.
” In this particular case, who the heck reads The Atlantic? Furthermore, who cares? LOL. “
Exactly : )
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