"GODLESS"

"Godless", over at "Gene Expression" is a good chap but he seems to have got bogged in a couple of ways. Being Godless myself, perhaps I can help: He is puzzled by the fact that a black with an IQ of 70 seems to function better socially than a similarly low IQ white. The obvious comment is that psychopaths seem to function well socially in some ways too but they soon drop out into antisocial behaviour. But even conceding the very doubtful premise that low IQ blacks function well socially (are high levels of crime and violence "good" functioning?), it need have nothing to do with faults in the IQ tests. For a white to be so low, he will generally have other deficits as well as the IQ deficit whereas low IQ is normal for blacks so will not usually go with other deficits.

In another post, Godless says that the continued approval for Communism among Leftists is the root cause of a lot of other crazy things that Leftists assert. He says that attacking their love of Communism will bring down their whole house of cards. He is totally mistaken. Their love of Communism is a symptom, not a cause. The crucial fact is that they don't CARE about Communism being brutal. They know the facts about Communism as well as anyone. How could they not know? They LIKE Communism, including its evils. Their love of Communism reflects their psychology, not any consistent philosophy. Leftists actually believe in nothing at all except themselves. They have only postures, not beliefs. They themselves repeatedly tell us that they think there is no such thing as right and wrong or truth and falsehood. So arguing with them is almost always pointless.

Take this comment on Leftist inconsistency by Dick McDonald, for instance: "I have never understood the elite's rant that Middle Easterners are not like us; democracy won't work. The same elites covet the proposition that blacks are just like whites". You just cannot argue with dishonesty as deep as that. As I pointed out years ago, for Leftists what counts as evidence is entirely a function of the conclusions desired. What Dick summarizes is just one Leftist posture in conflict with another and the only thing that makes sense of such posturing lies at the psychological level -- in a need to be contrary (at the minimum) -- not at the level of reasonable argument from the evidence.

********************************

ELSEWHERE

Dick Mcdonald has reproduced a wonderful 4th of July speech by Ronald Reagan.

V.D. Hanson has a good article up about Iraq. One excerpt: "Iraq now is what the Left all throughout the 1960s and 1970s said America should be doing-and nothing is more saddening than to see earnest and courageous reformers of the new Iraqi government being grilled and pilloried on TV by smug American pundits and reporters.... We are in dangerous times, because beyond the normal Democratic/Republican, Left/Right natural give-and- take, there is now a growing and very crazy New, New Left. It has transcended both the old Marxism of the 1930s and the counterculture of the 1960s, and transmogrified into a strange sort of aristocratic, boutique damnation of Main Street, USA."

One of my readers writes: "Historian William Marina, an anti-Iraq war paleocon has an article that should be of interest even to conservatives who are strong supporters of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. There are two points of interest. Firstly he points out that the US war of independence was a broadly popular revolt. The Left, for reasons of their own, like to make great play of the myth that the American revolution was supported "by only 1/3rd of the population". This myth is a salve to their elitist agenda. They are forever advocating radical social change without popular grassroots support, hence their modern reliance on bureaucratic and judicial activism, not the ballot box, to engineer their reforms. The American 'revolution' was a broadly popular reassertion by the American colonists of "the rights of Englishmen". The very kind of rights the modern left is most opposed to. Secondly he points out that militia forces are by no means ineffective or obsolete. Indeed the US military is running into considerable difficulty with Iraqi militias of different persuasions. So the argument used by the gun controllers that the need for an armed populace for defence purposes has been made obsolete by modern technology is void. Of course an armed populace alone is insufficient for national defence but it still packs a sting, even against well armed opponents."

The just-retired (Leftist) Lord Mayor of my home town of Brisbane (Jim Soorley) had some sensible things to say about education in yesterday's Brisbane Sunday Mail: "In Australia, we have an education system which is considered liberal and affirming of the child. I have long been comfortable with this approach, until I saw the French film To Be and To Have. This confronting documentary turns all that liberal stuff on its head. In a small one-teacher school in rural France, children are made to listen rather than talk, self-expression is kept to a minimum, little ones are encouraged to colour between the lines - no Jackson Pollock-type explosions of art here. And yet it seems to work. The children are polite and respectful, they are fond of their teacher, they gain an understanding of philosophy through their experiences in the classroom. Apparently this is fairly typical of the French education system and effectively prepares students for life after school".

I liked a recent post on Red Line Rants. He has taken to calling all bloggers "digital Brownshirts" -- in mockery of Al Gore's recent Nazi slur against conservatives who use the internet. It reminds me of the phrase "reptiles of the Press". Australian and British journalists often describe themselves quite gleefully as that -- although the person who first uttered the phrase was no doubt trying to be insulting. I wish I knew who DID originate the phrase. Anyway, Red Line Rants has a good point about the recent rise in U.S. job creation. But why he puts grease in his hair beats me.

LOL: I got an indignant email from Tim Lambert in reponse to the surprise I expressed yesterday about his not criticizing my latest excerpt from John Lott Jr. Apparently he has already criticized that article. I might have known. Lott's work does appear to be very uneven and Lambert is his avenging angel, ever ready to pounce on any failings.

Maverick Philosopher has a fun takedown of an email he received from a Leftist nut. Conservative bloggers get illogical emails like that all the time. Leftists rarely even try to be objective.

Wicked Thoughts notes the Leftist claim that it is normal for blacks to smash their kids to death (!).

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH. Mirror sites here and here

********************************

Leftism is more popular with young people than with older people largely because Leftism is itself juvenile: They criticize what they don't understand. Which makes it ironic that "We know best" and "It's for your own good" are the basic Leftist messages. Leftists have never got past the simplistic thinking or the arrogance that are the characteristic limitations of youth

"Created" equal in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is a religious way of saying that people are NOT equal but start out with the same rights.

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Page is here or here.

********************************