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Entry: Neocons and the Left: Know Your Enemies Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/neocons_and_the_left_know_your_enemies#2453 Post contents: Two immediate benefits of not opposing investigations into the genetic and heritable quality of intelligence and allied traits are: 1) We could dispense once and for all with nonsense like "No Child Left Behind." Some children necessarily MUST be left behind, because they are not educable beyond a certain point. This does not mean they should be treated callously or inhumanely, but rather that they should have a place in society's educational priorities that is in keeping with their condition. Much more emphasis should be placed on cultivating the abilities of the gifted than is now the case, as Charles Murray pointed out some time ago in his 3-part series of articles in the Wall Street Journal. Failure to identify and prepare children on the right-hand side of the bell curve for the positions of social and economic leadership they are suited to fill has resulted in a shocking waste of talent. To do so in order to satisfy egalitarian scruples is a luxury our society can ill afford. 2) Recognition is overdue that, in a society maintaining unemployment below 5%, the poor are not poor because they lack employment or suitable training for employment - they are poor because they lack the native intelligence, drive, or character to hold jobs or to manage their lives providently and prudently. Furthermore, no government program can instill such traits.The modern American welfare state was founded during the Great Depression, under vastly different economic conditions than those of the present day. When unemployment exceeded 25%, there were many of the unemployed who had the skills and motivation to work; they simply didn't have jobs. This became the underlying assumption of the New Deal and of every subsequent welfare measure. Whatever else may be said of those measures, it is clear that the premise is now incorrect and the failure of programs to improve the condition of the poor has followed in due course. As has been observed, in LBJ's War on Poverty, poverty won. Reality-based welfare policy must reflect the fact that the poor are poor in most cases because they are on the left-hand side of the bell curve, and that no government program can fix that. What is called for, accordingly, is not social engineering, but Christian charity. This accepts that inequality is a natural and normal feature of human society, and recognizes that it is both possible and desirable to comfort the afflicted without afflicting the comfortable. Sent at: 2008 05 15