Mark Adomanis on John Derbyshire

I've kept quiet about the The Talk--and John Derbyshire's blacklisting--in no small part due to laziness. The greater part, though, is due to an apathy inside me that has seen this before. James D. Watson was met with a similar backlash after a similar comment on the hereditary nature of IQ, which I talk about in (a little) more detail here. Setting aside direct discussion about The Talk, I'd like to put part of an article from Forbes contributor Mark Adomanis on the table:

"It utterly baffles me how, in this day and age, anyone, even the most obtuse or egotistical, could possibly think that you would not be put out to pasture for authoring such a humorless, ill-informed, poorly written, and sophomoric screed about the mortal peril that white and Asian children face from African Americans."

I would disagree with the notion of Derbyshire's being ill-informed, but I'm sure that his time at Harvard/Oxford left Mark with a much more intimate understanding of Black Americans than mine. The poor writing accusation won't stand as well, considering just how fresh-out-of-college and overly-horny-for-a-big-article his own writing is. Yes, Adomanis knows how the game is played, as is demonstrated by the article in three major ways:

1) The most integral part of any left-leaning article is to make your opponent's political incorrectness known as often and as pompously as possible. Your opponent is a dim-witted, evil dickface. Mark follows the formula to a tee, using the words "racism" and "racist" a collective thirty times in-between dropping loads of shit much like the one in quotes above. 

2) Ignore the big, ugly truth about Blacks in the US, and reiterate that your opponent is a racist--therefore stupid, therefore a liar. Be sure to leave it at this, because delving into statistical detail will only encourage your opponents and may confuse your audience. Mark wrote an article about how Conservatism is hurt by racist assholes like Derbyshire rather than one on whether or not The Talk could actually save lives. 

3) Use words that will make people think you're smart. Like "screed." Screed, screed, screed.

I also really liked this:

"** I am not (let me repeat not) arguing that the conservative base is uniformly racist. Far from it. But the conservative base does have a much higher tolerance for harsh rhetoric provided that that rhetoric comes from other conservatives. This “us versus them” mentality is very much a basic part of human psychology, but does seem to be particularly well developed among contemporary American conservatives who will countenance almost any sort of conduct provided the person is part of their team."

Translation:

"I'm not saying that all Conservatives are racist--it's just that, on average, they're more likely to be racists. "

Update 810: Hanging Out

For the last two years now, more people have been murdered in Flint than soldiers have died in Iraq. On the plus side, the number of homicides from 2010 to 2011 dropped from 65 to 57. Detroit, on the other hand, went to work this year with a whopping 344. Adjusting for population size, however, Flint still had the greater amount of homicides per capita (note that this is a largely Black phenomenon and be sure to read this post with that in mind). What are we going to do about it?

Well, we probably won't do anything--and not just because it's racist to punish Black crime. This is partially due to our  newly-appointed emergency financial manager--the adult supervision cities like Flint receive from the state when they get too out of hand--trying to balance the budget and cut costs wherever possible, and partially due to the idiots that voted for Dayne Walling. For those of you who might not know who Dayne is or what he stands for, here's an excerpt from his campaign page:

"Dayne knows that people in Flint have the skills and the dedication, and he already knows the groups in Flint which have been working for many years to improve the city. When people work together, our children will be proud to call Flint their home. We will have good schools, good jobs, and good neighborhoods for all people and families. This is what it means to be a great city in the 21^st Century."

Seriously? Good schools, good jobs, AND good neighborhoods for ALL families? Throughout the entire mayoral race, the idea that Flint (namely high-crime areas like Da Nof' End) is a spectacle of rampant barbarism never really came up. Actually, I shouldn't say that; we had a candidate who vowed not to take a paycheck until 50 officers were back on the street. Let's not forget that this same candidate owned a business which he started in Flint, giving him both monetary and moral incentives to follow through. Unfortunately, even mentioning that Flint is particularly violent means you're racist for noticing.

So what do we do about it? What can we do about it? We know for a fact that everything we HAVE been doing HASN'T been working. Democrats have been running the show in Flint for a long time, and have run it straight into the ground. In the face of such ridiculous crime rates, I feel that the only way to really drive home the message is to appeal to Flint's citizens on a more visceral level--bring back public hangings.

Some--most--would call that measure a tad extreme. I feel "fuck you, 57 murders is a tad extreme" to be a fair rebuttal. If people in Flint have such disrespect for human life and the rule of law, they need to see first-hand what happens when you disrespect either of the two. It doesn't have to be public hangings either; all we need is a swift and brutal message of "this shit isn't gonna fly." You can't tolerate criminals out of their behavior--fire with fire.