Vote on Tuesday.
Do the right thing.
Posted on 11/03/2002 6:59:02 PM PST by Bad Eagle
Conservatives should never hesitate to correct one another when we find misinformation and error among us. We all seek the truth, presumably, and nothing indicates sincerity more than candid confession and correction when we find ourselves mistaken. "Iron sharpeneth iron," Solomon said (Proverbs 27:17).
If fact, published disagreementsamong us show the superior quality of the whole conservative enterprise. We keep each other honest. We don't blindly devote ourselves to a political faith, like Anne Coulter says Leftists do (Slander, p.2). We don't go along on thoughtless, emotional rides down the river of Lethe, oblivious to our real destination.
Let me offer some modest examples of correction, using Coulter, David Horowitz, and Pat Buchanan.
In her dedication to exposing the Left, Coulter assumes a kind of mechanical nature, automatically focusing on Leftist tactics as truly as the needle points to the pole. But how many people know what Coulter's own thoughts are, independent of her anti-Left posture? She exposes hypocrisy in Leftists accusing conservatives of doing exactly what Leftists themselves do in the matter of racism (Slander, pp.8-10). But what is Coulter's personal understanding of race? We don't know. Would conservatives all agree with her if we did?
Conservatives are intellectuals, not emotionalists. The intellectual process creates disagreement inevitably, but this is the sign of authenticity. The Left hides its differences to present a united front. This is the sure sign of chicanery. That unity belies pretense.
I disagree with David Horowitz on certain points about race, sex, and religion. I believe in preserving races, at least my own, no matter what that implies about immigration, integration, and intermarriage. I in no way affirm homosexuality. I believe Biblical history is the only way to understand the Middle East, and Israel's role in the world. These differences do not, however, mean that I mistrust Horowitz' intentions, or necessarily doubt the beneficence of his ideas as a whole. (I did say recently that he has more compassion than I do.)
Pat Buchanan, in Death of the West (2002), is concerned that the white race is "dying." He offers two reasons: 1) white people are not reproducing in adequate numbers, and 2) non-white people are multiplying mindlessly. Buchanan says the more affluent people become, the more they downsize their families "to ensure the maximum pleasure, freedom, and happiness for all their members" p.34. He implies that materialism is at the root of this white economic-based family concept. He notes the feminist influence in the decline of the white population and women's disdain for motherhood.
Buchanan's position is vulnerable on two points. Firstly, we cannot fault the upper classes for choosing to control their reproductive rate in order to assure the best life for themselves and their children. This is self-discipline, and they deserve to enjoy its fruits. The profligacy and careless reproduction of the poor proves a threat to world peace, but that's not the result of a moral failure of those who control themselves, but rather those who don't. Poverty does not exempt the poor from immorality.
Secondly, Buchanan falls into the antiquated issue of social Darwinism, and lands on the side that undermines achievement.
Social Darwinism refers to the late 19th and early 20th century social application of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859). Darwin theorized that biological survival in the animal kingdom was the result of natural selection which always favors the strong, or, the fit.
Socio-political applications of Darwinism let rich and talented people justify their achievements. They would survive, on top, because they were the fittest. But even before the end of the 19th century, it was clear that, in the human social process, the opposite was true.
"It is undeniable," says Richard Hofstadter, "that the lower classes are more fertile than the upper, that the unfittest rather than the fittest survive. Thus it is the existence of the higher, not lower, forms that is imperiled in the social process." Social Darwinism in American Thought (1944), p.88.
Buchanan's observations aren't wrong, but he simply does not hold the masses properly (i.e., morally) responsible. And Hofstadter says "the masses cannot be artificially saved from their own incompetence without social disaster" p.89.
White people don't need to produce more. Poor dark masses need to produce less.
I humbly offer these 'corrections' to my fellow conservatives in the spirit of Rabbi David Blumenthal, with whom I studied when I was a graduate student at Emory University. Rabbi Blumenthal sincerely pleaded with our intimidated seminar, "If someone's wrong, you correct him!"
Do the right thing.
Don't know about the choice of words here. "Intellectual" is an epithet reserved for left-wing ivory-tower academics whose most salient feature is a dearth of understanding of how the real world operates.
You ought to read my Bible. It says to be fruitful and multiply.
Obviously any group can reproduce more if it is more fruitful.
Poor dark masses need to produce less.An "intellectual", you called yourself?
An opposing view: When everyone is a some mixture perhap a nice chocolate brown, race will cease to be an issue. Until then blacks, whites, asians and even citizens of Mongo will be cursed with the of Jesse Jackson, and David Duke Black Panthers and the Aryan Brotherhood. To hell with the lot of them.
"Misinformation and error" are hallmarks of the left, you stand corrected.
WFTR
Bill
White people don't need to produce more. Poor dark masses need to produce less.
I don't like the territory this guy is wandering into.
In the time I've been here this forum has prided itself on intelligent and honest discourse -- the kind you'll never find in liberal circles -- about immigration and racial issues, but this guy might be crossing the line.
We don't need any racists, white supremacists or other similar types here.
If I read this statement correctly, I think I disagree with your reasoning. Let's run wild with stereotypes for a moment: Affluent white America makes the conscious choice to limit family size. Poor non-whites make the conscious choice to have more children than they can afford. The Leftists in government summarily take the resources of the affluent to subsudize the poor. Therefore, the less fruitful group reproduces more, without any of the usual, natural consequences of such decision-making. Meanwhile, the affluent, who were already limiting family size based on economic considerations, will further limit their reproductivity based on the same criteria, since they now have even less resources thanks to those Leftists confiscating their wealth.
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