Posted on 10/03/2005 1:34:21 AM PDT by goldstategop
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
"Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
– Theodore Dalrymple
Sort of sums up our present level of discourse here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, no?
There is the fourth commandment and that one the parent of the other three: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. A form of censorship that saturates most discourse in the MSM & MSP as well as in school text books leaving only the Socialist's in America standing in any given day. Mr. Bennett is just one more victim of Political Correctness.
Race is and always has been a trap. I think it's better to judge people based on a more global characterization such as "western values" and "other values". In Europe, many desperate Africans die every day just for an opportunity to live in a society with western values. In America, people of varying ethnicities are suffering due to "other values". Race has little to do with it.
I don't think the US had any peacekeeping forces in Rwanda to withdraw. The criticism has been that we didn't send forces in, not that we pulled those that were present out. IOW, that we didn't act unilaterally.
"Millions" of Tutsis were not slaughtered. Estimates range from 400,000 to 800,000 total killed in the genocide. A large number of these were Hutus who the killers considered insufficiently supportive of the genocide of Tutsis.
Simple factual mistakes like these severely impact the credibility of the other statements the author makes.
Poverty has not a thing to do with crime. Crime is the end result of disrespect fostered by jealousy and envy. There has been endless lack of respect taught at many levels, that there is some sort of unwritten right to take from others if you lack possession of some sort of internal compass. This trait is unrelated to economic status.
Nowhere in the Ten Commandmants is there any admonition, "Thou shalt not be rich." There are various ways in which you may not enrich yourself, such as stealing, or coveting your neighbor's wealth, or turning to the worship of Mammon, and certainly there is a strong prohibition against killing, for the purposes of taking the goods that once belonged to a person now dead.
All that aside, poverty is a state of mind, not an economic condition. Even the poorest among us has, from time to time, come onto a windfall. This is a grace, bestowed upon the randomly selected, that for even an instant, gives the illusion that wealth may come to anyone. One may do one of two things with a windfall, either splurge and disperse it with all possible haste (some haste is more possible than others), or use the new-found capital to build and take on a calculated risk, in the hopes of greater return in the future.
Consider the plight of a winner of a multi-million dollar lottery. Unprepared for the burdens of sudden wealth, the tendency is to vastly overestimate the limits of that fortune, and spend it quickly. Very corrosive to the character, the victim of this endowment is left bereft and often in a degree of debt unimaginable before the influx of cash. That is the essense of poverty, the inability or unwillingness to manage money in any sense.
Good post!
Nobody has ever given me a logical or scientific, as opposed to a moral, reason why such a policy is inappropriate.
Generally speaking, throughout the world, successful people reproduce at a much lower rate than unsuccessful people. Over time, it is logical that this will result in a reduction in the average competence of the human race as a whole, and a growing percentage of less-competent and perhaps even less-intelligent people.
This is, in a sense, evolution in reverse. It is "survival of the less fit." No sentient farmer would ever put such a breeding program in place for his stock. Humans are not just animals, but we are animals, and as such are as subject to the laws of genetics as any other animal.
Nobody wants to talk about the possible consequences of such a policy over the long run.
Margaret Sanger is a Liberal Saint.
I generally agree with your post as regards to the US, and to a lesser extent with regard to other developed countries.
However, we should recognize that in much of the world, there are indeed far fewer opportunities available.
As has been pointed out, the level of work and striving that will keep you alive in China or Vietnam will make you rich in America.
Individual effort is critical, but it is not the only factor influencing whether a given person will be poor.
"so long as you don’t mention their racist."
This does not scan. He either meant "so long as you don’t mention that they're racist" or "so long as you don’t mention their race".
"Yes, it was insensitive of Mr. Bennett to notice the fact that black Americans commit violent crimes in highly disproportionate numbers."
We must be sensitive at all times.
Nice quote.
Actually, I didn't even hear it as declarative as that blacks commit crimes in higher proportions than other sectors of the population. I understood it, perhaps naively, as him saying that if you remove ANY segment of the population there will likely be less crime than if those people existed.
"In Europe, many desperate Africans die every day just for an opportunity to live in a society with western values."
And Western pay rates, working conditions, housing standards, crime rates, legal protections, and welfare.
Not less crime, but lower the crime rate. Big difference. That was what got him in trouble, because if you eliminate a group with a high crime rate, you lower the overall crime rate.
"No sentient farmer would ever put such a breeding program in place for his stock."
That is why parents what their kids to go to top colleges, whose admissions directors select for the highest intelligence. Attendance at one of the top schools brands one as being top breeding stock. This was the main theme of The Bell Curve.
In order to have a productive society you do not need everyone to be highly intelligent, but you do need a certain percentage to be highly intelligent, as a glance around the world shows.
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