“In building a movement to roll back State power and drive a stake through the heart of the Empire, anything that limits the scope and reach of that movement has to be rejected out of hand.”

Yes, I agree. This includes your latest post sadly.

Can someone get Steve Sailer over here to explain to Justin the difference between an individual IQ score and a mean score for a group, as well as the concept of IQ distribution within/across a population?

Seriously.

We don’t need to make the issue this complex. The question that needs to be posed to Raimondo is why should anyone conclude that the different races, on average, have the same mean intelligence?

One doesn’t need to “believe” in racial differences, because we all observe racial differences. Why do I conclude that the Cheetah can sprint faster than the turtle? Because we can observe that Cheetahs are faster than turtles. There’s nothing to believe.

When it comes to racial differences in intelligence we can observe—through history, performance, IQ tests or any measure you choose—that whites have more of it than blacks.

What aspect of history, of culture, or of society is better explained if we start with the premise of racial equality? It explains nothing.

Raimondo doesn’t like the subject for the obvious reasons, and I can understand his main concern about wanting to drive a stake through the heart of the Empire, but we shouldn’t make science hostage to politics.

I think I agree with Justin, race can be overcome. Both white and black races in this country are headed backwards. The problem is morals. When you have a mixed up family with many males moving in and out, the kids are mostly screwed up. White illigetimacy rates are more than 10 times what they were in 1940. Black rates have gone up from about 17% to over 70%. Obama comes from a messed up family. His father abandoned him early and his mother’s second marriage also collapsed. His mother seems to have been on the cusp of modern family life. What I believe saved Obama were his white grandparents who took over and raised him. That’s why he acts white . He wasn’t raised in a ghetto with no broad outlook for the future. I have always believed more in nurture than nature. You don’t have to be genius, to contribute and be a good citizen. To Dr. Gottfried: I have known a lot of intelligent Ashkanazi Jews, who haven’t got a lick of common sense. The old black population in this country is so mixed with other races. That it is really impossible to call them African. I read that Obama had Jefferson Davis as an ancestor. That’s some pretty good bloodlines. John McCain messed up his own family and what can we call the Clinton’s.
Of the three Obama seems to be the
most stable.

The essay by Justin Raimondo demonstrates very well why there can never be lasting
unity between traditionalists and libertarians. My mentor Russell Kirk’ label is correct:
these folks are “chirping sectaries.” Although Mr. Raimondo, to his credit, has clearly indicated
that he rejects some of the more extreme anarcho-formulations of libertarian philosophy, some
of his friends over at Lew Rockwell continue to inch closer to full-blown anarchism,
including full “open border” views, embracing pacificism (based on an incomplete interpretation
of Holy Scripture, and without any reference to the constant teaching Magisterium of the
Church), the positing of “property rights” (and the primacy of the economic) as the chief
object ("happiness") in life, etc.

To suggest that there are indeed verifiable racial differences does not per se imply determinism, nor does does it
necessarily imply resultant prejudice or hatred based solely on one’s race. It does mean that various
explanations for social actions and interactions, without reference to racial differences,
may well be faulty, and that such faulty reasoning (and resultant applications of flawed
social programs) may well have a lot to do with race and the social disasters we have seen in past
decades. Race and racial difference is the 900 pound gorilla in the American room:
both the Left and the soft-minded Right would like to ignore the fact that he IS in the room. Until we begin to recognize that fact, we will continue to recede into the backwaters of history.

One last note: Obama, in my opinion, is a complete fraud. He (and his handlers) presents himself
as a “new Messiah,” when in fact he is a leftist demogogue. Traditional conservatives have
no option this year in our managerial state, except perhaps to vote for Chuck Baldwin (or
in my case, where Democrats and Republican impede any other party from getting on the ballot)
writing in a name.

Oh, and I did notice the photo of the “Beverly Hillbillies” (complete with
a Confederate Battle Flag). The stereotypical application is obvious. Frankly, I
would much prefer to be governed by the votes of a million “Beverly Hillbillies”
(with their lower IQ) than all the intellect from Palo Alto....so, indeed, a high
IQ is not everything. Tradition, orthodox relgious faith, family, custom have always supplemented
and protected the poor. Give me a government elected by poor white anytime over Harvard
or Stanford or Duke graduates....

“The racialists can’t answer that, because it refutes their worldview, and shows that racialism is not a guide to evaluating individuals.”

I’m a racialist. I’ll answer: he’s likely among the best of mulattoes.

Were he fully black, he’d really be intriguing.

---

Btw, African blacks have an average IQ lower than 85. American blacks are thought to have a higher IQ due to their mixed ancestry.

OBAMA LAUNDRY LIST OF LIES.
1.) Selma Got Me Born - LIAR, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 - Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965.
2.) Father Was A Goat Herder - LIAR, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government.
3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter - LIAR, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had
4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom - LIAR, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades.
5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian - LIAR, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn’t allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man.
6.) My Name is African Swahili - LIAR, your name is Arabic and ‘Baraka’ (from which Barack came) means ‘blessed’ in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama.
7.) I Never Practiced Islam - LIAR, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years,until your wife made you change, so you could run for office.
8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian - LIAR, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (check your own book).
9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian - LIAR, not one teacher says you could speak the language.
10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience - LIAR, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn’t even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons.
11.) I Am Stronger On Foreign Affairs - LIAR, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies.
12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use On Ethnic Confusion - LIAR, you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify - your classmates said you were just fine.
13.)An Ebony Article Moved Me To Run For Office - LIAR, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn’t, and never did, exist.
14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My Outlook On Life - LIAR, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn’t, and never did, exist.
15.) I Won’t Run On A National Ticket In ‘08 - LIAR, here you are, despite saying, live on TV, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first.
16.) Present Votes Are Common In Illinois - LIAR, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.
17.) Oops, I Misvoted - LIAR, only when caught by church groups and democrats, did you beg to change your misvote.
18.) I Was A Professor Of Law - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.
19.) I Was A Constitutional Lawyer - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.
20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill - LIAR, you didn’t write it,introduce it, change it, or create it.
21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard To Pass - LIAR, it took just 14 days from start to finish.
22.) I Wrote A Tough Nuclear Bill - LIAR, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation - mainly because of your Nuclear Donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came.
23.) I Have Released My State Records - LIAR, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interests pork hidden within.
24.) I Took On The Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess - LIAR, you were part of a large group of people who remedied Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention anyone else but yourself, in your books.
25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America - LIAR, your 111 economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost 99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill.
26.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois - LIAR, even your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part.
27.) I Passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year - LIAR, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.
28.) No One Contacted Canada About NAFTA - LIAR, the Candian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.
29.) I Am Tough On Terrorism - LIAR, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel.
30.) I Am Not Acting As President Yet - LIAR, after the NAFTA Memo, a dead terrorist in the FARC, in Colombia, was found with a letter stating how you and he were working together on getting FARC recognized officially.
31.) I Didn’t Run Ads In Florida - LIAR, you allowed national ads to run 8-12 times per day for two weeks - and you still lost.
32.) I Won Michigan - LIAR, no you didn’t.
33.) I won Nevada - LIAR, no you did not.
34.) I Want All Votes To Count - LIAR, you said let the delegates decide.
35.) I Want Americans To Decide - LIAR, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time.
36.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate - LIAR, you passed 26, most of which you didn’t write yourself.
37.) My Campaign Was Extorted By A Friend - LIAR, that friend is threatening to sue if you do not stop saying this. Obama has stopped saying this.
38.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics - LIAR, you used tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you.
39.) I Don’t Take PAC Money - LIAR, you take loads of it.
40.) I don’t Have Lobbysists - LIAR, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting.
41.) My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The 1984 Ad - LIAR, your own campaign worker made the ad on his Apple in one afternoon.
42.) My Campaign Never Took Over MySpace - LIAR, Tom, who started MySpace issued a warning about this advertising to MySpace clients.
43.) I Inspire People With My Words - LIAR, you inspire people with other people’s words.
44.) I Have Passed Bills In The U.S. Senate - LIAR, you have passed A BILL in the U.S. Senate - for Africa, which shows YOUR priorities.
45.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq - LIAR, you weren’t in office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every single time, unlike Kucinich, who seems to be out gutting you Obama. You also seem to be stepping back from your departure date - AGAIN.
46.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care - LIAR, your plan leaves us all to pay the 15,000,000 who don’t have to buy it.
47.) I Only Found Out About My Investment Conflicts Via Mail - LIAR, both companies you site as having sent you letters about this conflict have no record of any such letter ever being created or sent.
48.) I Am As Patriotic As Anyone - LIAR, you won’t wear a flag pin and you don’t put your hand over your heart during the Anthem.
49.) My Wife Didn’t Mean What She Said About Pride In Country - LIAR, your wife’s words follow lock-step in the vain of Wright and Farrahkan, in relation to their contempt and hatred of America.
50.) Wal-Mart Is A Company I Wouldn’t Support - LIAR, your wife has received nearly a quater of a million dollars through Treehouse, which is connected to Wal-Mart.
51.) Treehouse Is A Small Company - LIAR, the CEO of Treehouse last year, made more than the CEO of Wal-Mart, according to public records.
52.) University Of Chicago Hospital Pay Is Fair - LIAR, your wife’s pay raise was nearly 150% her already bloated rate and the hospital is a Non-Profit Hospital, which made $100,000,000 in the last 3 years. They overcharge blacks VS whites for services, and overcharge everyone in general by 538%!
53.)I Barely Know Rezko - Only 5 Billed Hours - LIAR, you have known him for 17 years, and decided to do a real estate deal with him during a time when he was proven to be under investigation. Despite this, you divided your property and had them take off $300K before the mortgage problems started. Then Rezko’s wife buys the lot beside it that you can’t afford, saving you $625,000.
54.) My Donations Have Been Checked Thoroughly - LIAR, you only gave back Hsu ($72K) and Rezko ($150K) their money when publically called on their involvement in your campaigns.
55.) My Church Is Like Any Other Christian Church - LIAR, your church is so extreme, the pastor who married you, Rev. Wright, just got done blaming the US for 9/11 and named Louis Farrahkan their person of the year.
56.) I Disagree With My Church All The Time - LIAR, you still have yet to repudiate Wright, who married you and your wife, and you still donate large sums of money to assist the church in furthering its message - hatred and revenge. You donated in 2006 alone, $22,500 to the church that you so terribly disagree with. That is nearly $500 PER WEEK - that sure is disagreement, Senator Obama.
57.) I Have Clean Connections Despite Rezko - LIAR, you are not only connected to Exelon and Rezko, you are also connected to Hillary PAC supporter Mr. Hsu, AND an Iraqi Billionaire of ill repute, Nadhmi Auchi, who ripped off people in the Food For Oil, Iraqi deal. Seems Mr. Auchi may have helped Obama buy his million dollar property long before Obama had millions of dollars. Wonder what favors Mr. Auchi expects, when Obama leaves Iraq free to be taken over by special interests such as him.
58.) I never heard sermons like Rev. Wright’s, that have been in videos all day, You Tube - LIAR! 3 days later during your Mea Culpa BS speech you said “Did I hear controversial statements while I sat in that church? Yes I did.”

John , Chicago
Apr 17, 2008 @ 02:16 AM

What garbage. Obama is proving the racialists correct:

“Typical whites”
“bitter people”
The racist Rev. Wright
his racist wife
blacks voting for him by 92-8%

As for “poor whites” being no better than blacks, consider the crime stats, welfare stats, illegitimacy stats and IQ scores.

I also noticed the racist Beverly Hillbillies photo. Would Raimondo ever run a photo of Amos & Andy to poke fun at the black racists supporting their half-white, affirmative action beneficiary?

I’ll side with Rothbard, Epstein, Sailer, Taylor, Murray over Raimondo on this one.

Justin should learn something about race and IQ before making an oaf o himself again. He would do well to start here:
http://www.amren.com/ar/1992/08/index.html

I’ll focus on Raimondo’s conception of science.

It is true that model building is important in science, but its only half of science. Empirical testing to evaluate , adjust, and at times reject models is more important. Von Mises’s paradigm, I forget the name now, of deduction without testing can not tell us anything about reality. It is indeed like ptolmeic cosmology, engaged in ever more elaborate elaborations of the same paradigm. Thus, blacks are behind in schools because of teachers unions, blacks are behind at work because trade unions keep them out, black are ahead in vioolent crime because the ‘state’ likes to lock them up to show power. How about this: blacks are worse on these indicators because that is the way they are, on average. Of course millions of blacks are better than the average white in a sense. But that doesn’t refute the larger point.

As of illegitimacy stats, I’d suggest a better gage would be single mom’s raising kids from a father (or several fathers) alone. While there are plenty of illegitimate white kids, in my experience many of those are born to white couples who either don’t believe in marriage or haven’t gotten around to it.

As for Rothbard’s support for Black Power—I don’t see the inconsistency. The other day I was watching Malcolm X on youtube, and the guy made sense. A lot of his history had been taken from him, the history even the names of his people. That’s arguable of course, blacks in the US are a distinct community—one that has benefited enormously from living in a white majority country btw , at least economically. But as I see my history stripped away from me, my country turned into the third world, I think Malcolm was right to fight for his heritage , and that whites would be right to fight.

Finally, libertarians have to admit that one of the biggest, most intrusive areas of state intervention in private affairs has been the enforcement of anti-discrimiation legislation. Thus Barry Goldwater voted against the 1964 civil rights act. Indeed what most racialists want is simply two things—end immigration and end anti-discrimiation laws. There will always be a few white cosmopolitans, but the vast majority will chose to stick with their own kind given half the chance.

Alright, then, he’s half white: but if blacks are so low on the IQ totem pole, then how did the Great Transcender get to where he is, and sound the way he sounds, with half his genetic heritage supposedly dragging him down? The racialists can’t answer that, because it refutes their worldview, and shows that racialism is not a guide to evaluating individuals.

Mr. Raimondo,

I’m usually a fan of yours, but when you speak on this topic with this kind of “logic” I begin to cringe. 

Imagine I said “man are taller than women”.  You go find a tall female and say HA!  Your entire world view is refuted!”

What would you think of a person who made such an argument?  You’d think they were A) stupid or B) have such an emotional need to believe women are as tall as men that they’re willing to throw regular rules of logic out the window.  Readers can decide which option applies here.

“It is true that model building is important in science, but its only half of science. Empirical testing to evaluate , adjust, and at times reject models is more important. Von Mises’s paradigm, I forget the name now, of deduction without testing can not tell us anything about reality.”

Posted by stari_momak on May 17, 2008.

stari_momak, you have misstated von Mises’ epistemological framework. Far from denying the role of experiment in physical science, he embraces it as the foundation of the scientific method. In contrast, for social sciences von Mises argues –to me, persuasively- that no experiment or historic event can possibly demonstrate the scientific truth of any hypothesis. This subtle and complex argument is elaborated in his book “Theory and History” which, thanks to Lew Rockwell, is available online at

http://mises.org/th.asp

Eric’s comments expose the fallacies that Justin is exhibiting well.  They should be required in school and tested, starting with professors.  Many other good comments too.  When common sense and science agree, libertarians disagree.

@cognate
fair enough, I am not an expert on Von Mises.

First, the term “racialist” is not a one-way street, some meme held by diverse white Americans to denigrate diverse black Americans as Raimondo appears to believe. Anyone can be a racialist. It is a body of ideas and beliefs that relegate race itself to a high degree of saliency in evaluating members of demographic groups in which usually the racialist does not see himself or herself as a member. Raimondo misunderstands “racialist” as a “whites-only” mental defect, something like the Rev. Wright does.

Second, the notion that “Race is Destiny” is most certainly not something that Paul Gottfried argued. It is remarkably unfair to link Gottfried with a philosophy “which is reductionist, arid, and almost comically one-dimensional.” I am surprised to see Raimondo stoop to attributing such a position to Gottfried. Third, Raimondo started this whole mini-tsunami with a name-calling essay which did not escape everyone’s eyes. His use of hostile and dehumanizing terms for lower-income, lesser-educated white Americans showed his own bias and reductionist tastes. The term for slurring those you don’t like on these terms (education & income) is “classist.”

Race is at best a “rubbery” concept. “Intelligence” is an even more “rubbery” concept. Multiply one rubbery concept by another rubbery concept and you get results that are even more rubbery than the originals.

“Race is at best a “rubbery” concept.”

Tell that to the NAACP, Obama, Rev. Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, Louis Farrakhan, Julian Bond, Cornel West and the over 90% of blacks who put their race before anything else.

When you have success explaining this concept to any blacks, then you can come back and lecture us.

Tommy Watts: Your long laundry list against Obama seeems to be mostly true. What does that say for this country, because he is by far the best person running? I am of course voting for Baldwin or Barr.

There is very strong evidence relevant to the race vs culture question:  in history civilizations have risen and fallen much faster than a genetic mutation could possibly have spread through the population, i.e., the traits that have made some groups of people “successful” must have been cultural, not genetical/racial.

The evidence supporting this view is so strong that Darwin himself acknowledged his theory of evolution cannot expain the rise of modern West, and within West the rise and decline of Spain and the rise of England. (A century and a half after Darwin wrote, one can add the decline of England to the list of changes far too rapid to be explained by a change in Englishmen’s genetic makeup.)

It seems to me this is the point Justin made when he worried about some groups of whites becoming backward.  One can add the observation that the development Justin worries about only closes a circle:  Huizinga’s description of late medieval life in his famous first chapter of “The Waning of the Middle Ages” shows that the “white race” used to be just as primitive, volatile and violent as the best “barbarians” we know of.

“The Austrian School of economics, of which Rothbard was the preeminent advocate after Ludwig von Mises, is deductive science: that is, the Austrians deduce economic truisms from axiomatic concepts, i.e. basic assumptions about the nature of reality and of man. Empirical evidence is secondary.”
Could there be a better definition of ideology? Evidence be damned, full speed ahead!

West Virginia has an age distribution skewed to the right due to “brain drain.” Many intelligent mountaineers leave for education and careers elsewhere, which is appropriate given the state’s focus on trades.  This can explain low incidence of bachelor’s degree status within the population.  This does not condemn WV, rather, it identifies it as a state that is choosing a non-academic niche.

Intelligence is an amalgam of multiple abilities.  We have historically focused on abstract reasoning, what the psychologist would term “g.” This is one aspect of intelligence.  This has proven a reasonable approach for a homogenos group, however, one must acknowledge that particular hroups may inherit other aspects of intelligence out of proportion to “g.” Certain professions and trades may be influenced by other aspects of intelligence, thus, a member of one race whose “g” may be lower may be just as capable at a particular task not requiring “g” as a member of another race with a higher “g.” In a multicultural reality we need more focused aptitude tests that predict what particular abilities predict sucess in sundry occupations.

Needless to say, the divide between paleos (both conservatives and libertarians) on matters of race and racialism are deep and real. Sam Francis, who has probably influenced my own thinking more than anyone, was a true believer in white nationalism and regularly contributed to American Renaissance, while his friend and Chronicles Magazine editor Thomas Fleming rejected the racialists, writing “White Like Me” (couldn’t find a link, sorry). Fleming’s piece remains one of my favorite on the subject.

I even remember the first time I became familiar with the name “Llewellyn Rockwell,” when he wrote in Chronicles - a magazine I had never heard of but became interested in because of the Pat Buchanan campaign of 1996 - that even segregation was more humane and better than the federal regulation that was to follow.

No doubt, race matters. But neither Raimondo nor Epstein are completely wrong here.

Let’s pretend that everything Epstein, Jared Taylor and even the late Sam Francis believed concerning heredity, IQ and genetics pertaining to race is completely true. As such men often point out - there is much evidence to suggest it is.

Let’s pretend that Raimondo is correct - that science alone should be questioned because it changes so rapidly, and today’s genetic determinism is akin to yesterday’s professional medical opinions on the benefits of bloodletting. History provides much evidence to prove Raimondo’s point.

Russell Kirk (the man who took me from Dittohead to paleo, my eternal thanks Russell) frequently described conservatism as the absence of ideology. To paraphrase Fleming - for too many racialists and libertarians alike - faith dictates facts.

As Raimondo (and Dylan Waco, who Raimondo references) points out, for too many on the paleo side there is an obsession with race, unhealthy in my opinion, where genetics determine everything.

By the same token, too many libertarians of the paleo persuasion (as opposed to the Reason crowd, etc.) are so obsessed with free markets and stateless conceptions, that even the local constable is eternally the enemy and culture, identity and race “determine” nothing. This is absurd.

The mistake in both camps, it seems, is the inability to see beyond their niche politics.

Cannot there be a moral realm that overlaps the scientific realm on race? In other words, what would the racialists propose we do about their base assumptions?

Reinstitute segregation? If their goal is to rid white Americans of their white guilt so they can make rational decisions - then I wholeheartedly agree - and I consider Jared Taylor one of the best speakers on the subject of multiculturalism.

If racialists’ goal is to get rid of, or suppress non-whites, then I cannot agree, can’t imagine the practicality of enforcing such a policy and can’t imagine how anyone who describes himself as a “conservative” would even find this worthwhile.

Such politics are morally wrong, from a humane standpoint. Science or no science.

For libertarians, cannot there not be a practical realm that overlaps their base assumptions?

Libertarians are absolutely correct that only decentralization and a drastic reduction of the state can truly solve the cultural, economic, political (and racial, frankly) problems that ail us. Raimondo, Rockwell, Rothbard and co. are often the best, and more importantly most practical, guides to a revolutionary brand of politics that might actually make some headway. Just ask Ron Paul.

But is Wal-Mart really good for the American middle class? While police are indeed Tazer happy these days, is my friend’s Dad, a 30-year police veteran, a storm trooper for the Empire? And does anyone really believe the gargantuan mass of Hispanic immigrants invading the U.S. will have no affect on our future, politically, culturally and racially?

As I have said often - diversity isn’t a “strength” - it’s a bitch. The biracial history of the U.S. proves as much. It makes no sense to import another problem en masse.

Instead of ripping each other to shreds at a moment in time when we might finally break out of the blogosphere - thanks to the Ron Paul campaign - can we concede that all camps of the paleo political world aren’t entirely unreasonable, while resisting our own temptations to go off the deep end? A “no enemies on the paleo Right” policy might serve us well.

Takimag is my favorite site currently because of the broad array of perspectives and healthy debate. Paul Gottfried is also invaluable in conceding points from everyone, standing firm in his convictions, and yet is never hysterical about his own facts.

We need to debate. We need to constantly refresh, review and reinvigorate what we believe in.

But paleos of all stripes agree on much more than not, especially when compared with the neoconservatives and their media might – our clearest and first enemy.

To quote the great humanitarian ( and perhaps genetically questionable, c’mon, afford me one joke!) Rodney King “can’t we all just get along?”

This might be a tall order, but certainly no more utopian than racial separatism or anarcho-capitalism.

Jack

I don’t consider myself either a racialist or a white nationalist, and I think any characterization of the original post or Marcus Epstein’s posting as such is not a fair characterization. I am no more a “white nationalist” than most Americans were in the 1920s and 1930s when it was obvious that cultural and moral leadership should be provided by the most educated and historically grounded cohorts in the community:  the WASP. I do, however, think there are relevant differences of the races, that the sources of these differences are some combination of genetics, history, culture, loyalty, modern political correctness, state action, state inaction, and the interaction of these factors. 

My very modest point in the original post was that whites are less racially conscious than blacks in America’s political life, but that this modest amount of concern for one’s group as expressed by certain West Virginia voters, including their unease with rule by a long-time advocate/member of a minority group, a group that has had an explosion of various social pathologies since the 1950s, is not a bad thing, nor worthy of the “pile on” of criticism brought on by pseudoconservatives like Andrew Sullivan and media liberals.  More important, the behavior of white voters stands in sharp contrast to the rarely-criticized extreme degrees of black solidarity and political consciousness--tribal behavior that is out of step with the historic, ideological, economic, and regional differences that created great diversity among white voters, with many members of the same families famously voting differently from one another. I connected this different treatment of white and black voting behavior (and in particular the much greater expression of black tribalism) as a signal indicator of the dominant multiculturalist-diversit ideology and Democratic Party politics.

Others above have made mince-meat of Raimando’s innumerate attempt to refute median differences by the single example of Obama.  I can’t add much to it, other than to say that Raimando’s observations on this point would have been quite at home in a high school Social Studies course circa 1979.  I also believe his mere repetition of Rothbard’s criticism of statistics is anti-intellectual.  What would Raimando say to retrospective statistical analysis like John Lott’s use of regression analysis to analyze concealed carry legislation or the use of statistics in a field like epidemiology?  I believe others above effectively expose the real inherent problems with Austrian “praxeology” which, by its own method, is immune to facts and cannot be refuted by the same. This method has stumbled upon truisms of economic policy (though I’m not sure this is because of the method or in spite of it), but this unease with facts allows the spinning of elaborate and unproveable hypotheses about the Mansions of the Future where everything will right with the world through anarcho-capitalism.

Amen Jack.

“When a people accept futility
and the absurd as normal, the
culture is decadent” -Jaques Barzun

One thing the white community
has never grown short of is people
willing to excoriate its short-
comings. The change occurs when
we stop excusing ourselves and
hold each other accountable.

Genetics is just the latest
futile absurdity being used to
excuse those who either refuse
to measure up to unrealistic
expectations, those who are
displaced by a retarded socio-
economic system or worst of all,
to lend pseudo credibility to those
who won’t listen to afore-
mentioned excoriations.

Interesting how people here reacted defensively when Raimondo pointed out lower class nature of some Whites in this country, yet this is exactly what many people are saying about all other non-white people.

Now you know how it feels to be on the other side, huh?

“I am no more a “white nationalist” than most Americans were in the 1920s and 1930s when it was obvious that cultural and moral leadership should be provided by the most educated and historically grounded cohorts in the community:  the WASP.”

Mr. Roach, cultural and moral leadership should not belong to people who are heretics.
So the P in WASP is a problem.  It is not that being WAS (white Anglo-Saxon) is wrong,
but being P(rotestant) most certainly is.  If it is a question of *moral* leadership,
then the leaders should be the ones God appoints, that is to say, the hierarchs of the
Catholic Church.  That the majority of the American populace is Protesant is to the
detriment of the country.  Having Catholic minority rule is not realistic of course, and
who would be qualified today?  But as long as we are dealing with the word “should,”
the country should convert to a the true religion and leave the dross behind.  And before
someone says, “Protestants built this country!” remember that pagans built Greece and
Rome.  Building a great *secular* civilization is not a defense when one happens to belong to
the wrong religion.  Yes, objective truth requires that the immoral traditions of men
be rejected.

Caper, even if we agree that the Catholic church is the one God appointed, that does not mean there can’t be a moral non-Catholic.

“Raimando’s innumerate attempt to refute median differences by the single example of Obama.

[...]

I believe others above effectively expose the real inherent problems with Austrian “praxeology” which, by its own method, is immune to facts and cannot be refuted by the same.”

Posted by Christopher Roach on May 17, 2008.

:)
:))
:)))

That’s not one but two straw men, Mr. Roach, that -to quote you- “would have been quite at home in a high school Social Studies”.

Not defensively. I think one measure—illegitimacy—is not good in and of itself. It fails to take into account permanent couples—common law marriages --- which I suspect are much more common among whites than blacks (long term common law marriages). That poverty programs were sold to help poor whites is well known. Still, black reliance on such programs is all out of proportion to their percentage of the population. As with violent crime rates, rape rates, interracial crime rates. It’s a sad litany.

Jack’s post is well considered. We’ll, it is in fact a matter of debate, the solution. Jared Taylor was asked by John Derbyshire what it would take for him to ‘close up shop’. Answer: End immigration, and anti-discrimination laws. While some libertarians would disagree with 1, and don’t see how they can disagree with 2.

Others think we should set up a white homeland, or small scale white communities. Check out Amren for some ideas. I personally simply want mass immigration stopped, I want heavily reduced numbers and a rebalance that would allow modest numbers of whites from Eastern Europe (heck, even Western Europe, Brits are leaving in droves) into the US and illegals sent home. It seems to me that none of these ideas are about repression, and all about preservation.

@congnate

Yes, Roach has the name ... praxeology. As I understand it, this is an attempt at understanding, or rather making a model, of self-conscious actors in a system. Well, there has been a lot, a whole lot, of work done on this since the mid-1950s (i.e. Mises’ time) . Rational choice models, agent-based modeling. But always, always, models are tested against reality. A good example is Thomas Schelling’s tipping point. He ran a totally artificial model basically saying that individuals would like to be surrounded by people like themselves on 3 of four sides (think of the Japanese game Go). Well, you let actors move one by one, iterate that a hundred times, and you get residential segregation. The model is then checked against reality—there is non coerced residential segregtion, people do move with increasing frequency when their neighborhoods start to reach a certain point of ‘not them’, and so on. But the reality check has to be there.

“But the reality check has to be there.”

Posted by stari_momak on May 17, 2008.

stari_momak, it’s not possible to discuss the epistemological foundations of von Mises’ approach to economics, or more generally all human action, within the confines of this format.

I merely assert that the issue is not one of “reality check”, and I repeat my earlier recommendation of von Mises’ “Theory and History”.

I realize that a sound-bite answer has a certain fleeting appeal, but I fear it would only add to the confusion.
I am a scientist and have familiarity with instrumentation, data collection, statistical analysis, mathematical modeling, numerical methods, prediction and verification by new experiment.

“not possible to debate”

You’ve obviously not been on H-Net then… but fair enough, work to do.

Can someone please explain to me just why the hell proving racial based IQ is real is so important around here?  How does the fact that one race most the time is slightly smarter than another tie in with anything of real importance?  affirmative action is bad regardless, big government and welfare are bad regardless, the Iraq war is bad regardless.

I swear I get the sneaky feeling that white nationalist’s like this whole IQ thing only because they are confident things will work in their race’s direction.  I bet anything if the IQ race based results were in favor of, let’s say oriental over white, then I bet everything here would be the opposite, with the majority of people saying that IQ race based research is “dangerous and not relevant”

Jerry,

you’re wrong.

Most white racialists (there are many types) readily admit East Asians (your term “Oriental” is offensive) score higher on IQ tests.

IQ isn’t everything, but it’s an important indicator that race does exist.

Raimondo even acknowledge this in 2000:

“J. Philippe Rushton, a University of Western Ontario professor and author of books “scientifically” proving the racial superiority of whites over non-whites (but not Asians!), spoke at the conference and addressed the general feeling of despair that necessarily hovers over such a gathering.”

Source: NEO-NAZIS AND NEOCONS: AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE.

Yet I again ask, even if IQ is linked in some ways to genetics, why the desperation to prove it?  What is the whole point?  How does it have any relevance in society?

P.S. I don’t know why Oriental would be considered offensive, seeing how so many people here still use phrases like “mohammadean”

Ah, that is to say Raimondo acknowledged one leading racialist writes of the high East Asian IQ. Such is an accurate indicator though of the predominant thinking within racialist groups.

---

A mother loves her child because the child is hers.

A man loves his kin because they are his own.

A man loves his home, community, and surrounding environment because it is familiar and his.

Belief of superiority is not always or even often the motivation for love of one’s own particular attachments and natural affinities.

You can oppose affirmative action based on abstract principles, but if you don’t give it to blacks, they will not get into any good colleges or jobs.  Then the question becomes why aren’t they succeeding?  If you can’t say IQ, then it must be racism, so we must remedy the problem with...Affirmative Action.

Jerry,

there is no desperation to prove IQ is linked to genetics… rather there is desperation to prove IQ isn’t linked to genetics.

Obviously the environment is involved in IQ. No one seriously questions this.

The issue is not environment vs. genetics but “environment & genetics” vs. “only environment”.

Raimondo yet again sides with the globalists on that issue…

---

“P.S. I don’t know why Oriental would be considered offensive, seeing how so many people here still use phrases like ‘mohammadean’”

It seems rather unfair that the k word and n word are not allowed while these other slurs are tolerated. Muslims are not popular among Americans, especially American Christians, largely because they (Muslims) are in the way of globalism, though also because they are a threat to Christianity and the West. So slurs against Muslims are currently tolerated.

When the neocon machine revs up against Chinese nationalism, expect “Oriental” and other East Asian slurs to become the vogue…

“Raimondo yet again sides with the globalists on that issue…”

Raimondo has not taken “any side” in this debate, he has never said one extreme or the other, he is simply saying that in the long run we must always base a person on their individuality, not whatever class or race they are part of.

Justin Raimundo is so far to the left of all the other paleos that I stopped reading his website a long time ago, and cringe when I have to see him on this one.

I wish he would join the other Obama cheerleaders in the MSM and just get it over with.

The IQ debate is done and over with, and the racialists won. Its just that this truth is so painful that it is hidden and thrown down the memory hole just like so much other difficult truths that the empire builders dislike.

Just when did ‘Oriental’ become offensive?  I don’t have any trouble with ‘Occidental.’ And ‘Asian’ is very ambiguous — Gandhi and Moshe Dayan were Asians.  ‘Mongoloid’ has obvious problems, too.  Is the correct term ‘East Asian’ now?  Orwell would be delighted.

Jack, excellent post.  I agree with virtually every word of it.

Jerry, I agree with you, that the key question is WHY does the IQ issue consistently come up and what does it actually mean? 

Justin, thanks for the link to my piece.

I’ll try to give a short description of my understanding of the role of mathematics in the Austrian theory of economics, or more generally human action in von Mises’ formulation. It’s not true that quantitative analysis is deemed useless but that its power to make accurate and precise prediction is a priori denied.

I’d like to use the stock market, or the behavior of a single stock to illustrate the point. Data about past behavior can be analyzed and interpreted according to any number of quantitative deterministic, statistical, heuristic or stochastic models. These models could include a large number of parameters meant to describe all that is known about the company itself, its competitors, its market sector, general market conditions, political events, natural events, and so on. Based on these analyses some general expectations about the future price of the stock can be laid out with a relatively high degree of confidence, but the ability to make precise reliable predictions will always remain unattainable.

Anyone claiming that mathematical economics works, please give us the opening and closing prices next Monday of any stock listed on say, Nasdaq. Your choice of stock. Or if it’ll take more time to get all the necessary data, buy a bigger computer and make a complete analysis, can you do it for Monday a year from now? In ten years?

It is a shame that Justin felt he had to write this nonsense. I can only think it is because he is himself “gay” that he feels an urge to identify with other “opressed minorities” - even if that necessitates a very clumsy denial of reality. Very sad.

A historical observation about the argument that race is central to “success”:  Ashkenazi Jews are the group that regularly comes out on top in intelligence tests.  Yet, when they were living in ghettoes in eastern Europe, the Ashkenazis accomplished virtually nothing.  There is no evidence of a widespread scientific culture centered around organizations such as universities, even though the Ashkanzi population was easily large enough to support academic communities.  There is also no evidence of any exceptional mechanical creativity that would have manifested itself in technical innovations, such as abounded in West’s industrial revolution.  There was no observable economical success in the form of a higher standard of living in areas with a large Jewish population.  There is also no evidence of artistic achievements that would have produced exceptional sculpture, painting, music or literature in the ghettoes.  Neither is there political achievement in the form of empire-creation occurring in areas with large Jewish populations.  For centuries the Ashkenazis remained just as backward as the societies in which they lived.  Scientific, technological, artistic and economical progress as well as empire-formation occurred in areas of Western Europe which had almost non-existent Jewish population, and which a few centuries earlier had been just as backward as eastern Europe.

Yet, once the Ashkenazis came out of the ghettoes and began to interact with modern Western Civilization, their “performance” changed drastically.  By any measure and any standard, they suddenly manifested very, very impressive success in science, in the arts, in commerce and in industry.  The change happened in a couple of generations, and there is thus no way how it could possibly have been caused by a mutation spreading through the population. 

Considering their position as the group that has suffered most from racial thinking, it is paradoxical that the history of Jews provides one of the most irrefutable case-studies against the argument of innate traits, i.e., race, being important.  The rapid rise and decline of societies and various groups within those societies (e.g. Quakers in England) makes it very likely that all humans have the intellectual potential, and the key is a culture that enables people to make use of that potential.  (Ashkenazis’ habit to teach children to read at an early age and have them interpret the Torah may be significant here.  After all, the Torah is not the easiest of texts.  Similarly, Britain was exceptional because its elite was educated in boarding schools that emphasized difficult subjects and iron discipline.)

One of the more dangerous effects of race-centered thinking may be that it gets people to overlook the cultural and educational factors, which in history have been essential for success.  According to the racist view, once a person is born to the “right” race, everything good will flow naturally from his/her genes.  Similarly, decline can only stem from racial contamination.  This reasoning produces the idea that a fence on Mexican border will solve America’s current problems, and it differs starkly from that of people who in history have in fact been successful:  they massively emphasized moral education and character-building, i.e., culture over genes.

“Their aging, embittered leaders have spent so long fighting in the trenches that they’ve taken to turning on each other. “ -Paul Gottfried, A Paleo Epitaph

The problem with racialists is the same problem suffered by Marxist and Capitalist materialists: lack of faith. For these, human existence is a ruthless struggle between species or economic classes or races for survival; it is a zero sum game in which there will be winners and losers, and nothing in between.

If this were true, we would still be barbaric tribesman, wailing away at one another, or Romans, still enslaving one another. Faith is an essential characteristic of the most civilized of civilizations.

I suspect most of those here making obsessive arguments on behalf of racialism understand this, and are reacting more to left-liberals/Neocon-Neolibs/Marxists who themselves constantly play the race card, and are merely answering back by matching and raising.

But playing that game is why paleocon-libertarians never get anywhere. We need to show a little faith and transcend race baiting. It’s a dead end.

Defending Christianity and Western civilization is good, but trying to define them in racial terms is not only bad strategy, but it is also downright a-historical.

Defending Christianity and Western civilization is good

And where do these appear in recognizable terms outside of white civilizations? Are the shouting and hollering of black revival meetings the same as the Tridentine mass. No. Is China, for all its wonderous history , liberal and democratic (for that matter, are Japan, Korea, Taiwain, Singapore. Is downtown Detroit downtown Portalnad, no. No, not in the way that our societies are. It is amazing the sophistry the ‘anti-racists’ here set up.

Kari, no one has said culture doesn’t matter. It is the ‘anti-racists’ that are the fundamentalists, suggesting it that heredity and the big groups of inbred people (races) don’t matter one bit. The Ashkenazi example proves just the opposite that you think it does. First, in many respects you are wrong. Ashkenazi Jews dominated many areas—such as rent farming in Eastern Europe—long before ‘emanicipation’. But to the extent their communities were backwards, it was due to an excessive devotion to generally useless study of Torah texts—kid of like a whole group of people that spent their lives doing Sudoku. But once emanicipated, the mental fitness theyhad built up—good Rabbis mastered texts better and thus were able to marry prime pickings and have more children—then it stuood them to good stead. Finally, read the old testament—particularly Exodus-- the Jews invented racial thinking, so to the extent they suffered from it, they were hoist on their own petard.

A genetic population is intrinsically a part of a culture and a civilization.

Western civilization comes from the white peoples of Europe and the two are inseparable, but I wasn’t the first to say this; Ludwig von Mises wrote it in Human Action.

Perhaps Justin should actually try to read this book, which is the centerpiece of inspiration for Rothbardian economics.

Nice try, Justin.  Regardless of Murray’s epistemological opinion of Bell curves, we who had the pleasure and privilege of his company know he was no racial egalitarian.  It is foolish (to use no harsher term) to insinuate otherwise.  As for the scientific aspects of this controversy, the comments show that the process of your having your head handed to you has already begun.

What do you get when you take a marxist and replace “class” with “race”?

Well, you get a lot of the above commenters

“Defending Christianity and Western civilization is good, but trying to define them in racial terms is not only bad strategy, but it is also downright a-historical.
Posted by Chris Moore on May 18, 2008.”

And where do these appear in recognizable terms outside of white civilizations?—Posted by stari_momak on May 18, 2008.

the Jews invented racial thinking, so to the extent they suffered from it, they were hoist on their own petard.—Posted by stari_momak on May 18, 2008.

---

Thank you, stari_momak, for accurately characterizing the fate of those who think in racial terms. It’s not a pleasant outcome, nor is it particularly productive in terms of advancing civilization to the next stage.

The existence of a single intelligent black (or half-black) man “disproves” the existence of general group differences in intelligence?

I’m amazed at the level of thinking on display here.

“What do you get when you take a marxist and replace “class” with “race”?

Well, you get a lot of the above commenters.”

Comrade jerry has conceded the argument by playing the oldest liberal ad hominum in the book.

All of us conservatives are nazis, yadayadayada. Yawn.

Thanks for the concession, comrade.

Mr. Raimondo, I honestly don’t know why you bother with such a collection of guttersnipes, swamp angels and pseudo-intellectuals.  Just a sample;

“Could there be a better definition of ideology? Evidence be damned, full speed ahead”

You’re obviously not sophisticated enough to even comprehend the difference between a normative political conclusion and an examination of a fundamental problem of epistemology within a particular field (economics) so I won’t bother to belabor Mises’ and Rothbard’s arguments for you.  For all your whining about ideology you reveal a profound ignorance.

Next one;

“It is a shame that Justin felt he had to write this nonsense. I can only think it is because he is himself “gay” that he feels an urge to identify with other “opressed[sic] minorities” - even if that necessitates a very clumsy denial of reality. Very sad.”

Resorting to psycho-analysis is nothing more than a polished ad hominem attack; a two-dollar whore wearing her best wig and make-up is still a two-dollar whore, and the argument is still bullshit.

“The question that needs to be posed to Raimondo is why should anyone conclude that the different races, on average, have the same mean intelligence?”

The invitation to a sharp epistemic bitch-slapping is just too delicious.  There is no a priori cogitation which manifests of itself to presume that polylogism, which is never valid, should suddenly become valid in this case.  It besides that fails to address the ethical problem that all people are to properly be judged as individuals, without exception.  One is never fit to judge a race in general on the basis of a single individual identified as being a member of that race.  It is quite obvious to anyone in the room (and Mr. Raimondo, I’m again left flabbergasted as to why you waste your time with this lot) not playing with philosophy like the flower children played with LSD that this whole business is nothing more than a cheap cover for base prejudices.  For all the hand waving about aggregate data, I have yet to find one person who would actually point to a particular black person and say they were smarter than that one black person, on the basis of their race alone.  Never to bother about this nonsense again in my entire life would be far too soon.  As well for you, Mr. Raimondo; life is a precious thing and not amenable to squandering.

“...but if blacks are so low on the IQ totem pole, then how did the Great Transcender get to where he is, and sound the way he sounds, with half his genetic heritage supposedly dragging him down? The racialists can’t answer that, because it refutes their worldview...”

The innumeracy among our punditry is embarassing and all too common.

By my calculations, there are 1.4 blacks per 1,000 with an IQ of 130 or above, assuming a mean of 85.

For those who are half black/half white, assuming a mean of 92.5, there would be 6 people in 1,000 with IQs 130 or over.

Africans have 50+ countries in the world. Africans have well over half of the worlds natural resources.  Africans have the largest population the world has ever seen. They are the majority on this planet. Yet Africans choose to live in America as a minority.  And African Americans are the wealthiest Africans on earth. Clearly something is wrong with this picture and it is NOT white racism.

Hey Chris, you didn’t answer any of the points. As to Jews and racial thinking, just take a look at the Exodus story first of all.

McCain held his breath, as a child,when angry until he passed out. How intelligent is that…

I hear this talk of intelligence but some of the most intelligent people in this world cant remember where they live.

Example:t the end of an interview with Albert Einstein the reporter asked:

“Mr Einstein, would it be possible to take your phone number in case I have any further questions?”

“Certainly” replied Einstein. He picked up the phone directory and looked up his phone number, then wrote it on a slip of paper and handed it to the reporter.
Dumbfounded, the reporter said…

“You are considered to be the smartest man in the world and you can’t remember your own phone number?”

Einstein replied,

“Why should I memorize something when I know where to find it?”

As for color, its just waves of electromagnetic radiation our eyes focus and our mind interprets. Pigment changes the frequency of ‘light’ and has nothing to do with intelligence. So what we have is cultural differences.

Half the black people I know, sound a lot more intelligent, than Bush or McCain. How did such low brainpower get to lead the country?

@ Caper (and other Romans in other threads). “Mr. Roach, cultural and moral leadership should not belong to people who are heretics.”
PROTESTANTS BUILT THIS COUNTRY!!
Why did so many Romans move to a country of heretics if their convictions were so strong? In general, it seems that the population flows have been from RC countries to Protestant countries and not vice versa.

Sorry for being unkind. That was probably more directed towards someone in another threat whose comment I cannot find.

“There is very strong evidence relevant to the race vs culture question:  in history civilizations have risen and fallen much faster than a genetic mutation could possibly have spread through the population, i.e., the traits that have made some groups of people ‘successful’ must have been cultural, not genetical/racial. “

This is a canned comment I have seen you use before.  And it has been refuted before.

The answer is that the founding stock quite likely changed because of immigration and miscegenation—i.e., mutation at the level of the person, rather than at the level of the genes themselves.

“The Austrian School of economics, of which Rothbard was the preeminent advocate after Ludwig von Mises, is deductive science: that is, the Austrians deduce economic truisms from axiomatic concepts, i.e. basic assumptions about the nature of reality and of man. Empirical evidence is secondary.”

When I first started to read Mises, I was astounded by this.
That’s the same way Marxism works.
They’re both analytic.
And yet, Libertarianism, based on the rights and actions of the individual, is inductive, or synthetic, as would true conservatism be, were it not so corrupted by religion, another analytic concept.

Praxeology has NOTHING to say about the study of human intelligence. Human action is ends-directed action (i.e. based on subjective valuations), but human intelligence is a measurable quantity, subject to scientific study. For this reason, any criticism of Mises’ rationalism is out of place here. He would have been the first to tell you this.

Since human intelligence can be the subject of scientific study, it certainly is not a priori impossible that there are some differences among racial groups in average intelligence. Whatever you might think of statistical methodology (and I think that Rothbard’s criticisms of it are out of place here), when you have a large amount of data that there are differences among racial groups in average intelligence, it begs of an explanation. Since behaviorism is widely discredited, the only reasonable explanation is that the origin of the differences lie in genetics.

But like a professor of mine stressed over and over again when this subject came up in class: Differences within groups are MUCH greater than differences between the groups, so knowledge that there is a 3 IQ point gap between people of different racial backgrounds tells you NOTHING about any particular individual you come across. Hence, the facts do not force us over the cliff of racial intolerance, and we are not forced to ignore what the facts tell us for fear of the alleged consequences.