Prove the Racism!

T-steel,

There are examples of blacks trying to surpress the votes of whites. See http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110010283 and you should look up how Cynthia McKinney sued because whites could vote against her in a Democratic primary.

You should also look up the campaigns of Kwame Kilpatrick, Marion Barry, Ron Dellums, Gus Savage, and others.

The Sith, of course, vote straight-ticket Republican.

SD, congrats on finding a drop in the bucket, but it doesn't address T-Steels point, which has to do with the 2008 presidential election.

Jspencer, the CBC seats in Congress generally have some of the lowest turnouts of all time and none of the holders of CBC seats ever faces a viable opponents during the general election. Thus, why would blacks ever beleives that they have to supress any voters. However, just the Gerrymandering of districts in order to ensure the election of blacks to Congress or the state house is voters suppression on its own.

Does T-Steel actually believe tha Detroit, Baltimore, or LA will ever have a white mayor again. that is a better example of prejudice in voting.

Go T!

one of the issues T, is that made-up stories like this one about some sort of 'group mindlessness' but without hard specific proofs in this particular matter, definitely row away from actual injustices that exist currently; harsh ones that exile and penalize certain people who believe or hope for whatever they hope for

There are... just my two cents worth... blacks, latinos, asians, whites, and other groups who definitely support candidates for ethnic or racial identity reasons. That seems fine as long as each person elected tries to represent ALL the people in their district without discrimination. I know how proud the Hawaiians were initially when ethnic Haw'aiians were elected to State and Federal legislatures.

Korean-Americans, same. Polish-Americans, same... and still proud. Hungarian Americans, also. Latinos, also. It is an ethnic trope, and sometimes a racial resonance as well. To think that other groups have not had their favorites by self-identity resonances would be naive.

Again, it seems less important about who supports who than that whomsoever is elected represents ALL without prejudice.

just my two cents worth as an Independent

dr.e

The GOP has NOT represented all of the people when in office. For example this under this Republican administration, the civil rights division of the Justice Dept was decimated, with more than a 50% turnover. The dept spent its time working on reverse racism cases and defending the rights of Chrisitians to bring their faith into the public arena..

Meanwhile , claims of voter suppression were not prosecuted, while the Bush administration made it a priority to investigate voter fraud. Bush also insisted that prosecutors push for the death penalty as often as possible, even though that is usally applied to blacks convicted of a capital crime more often than whites.

But, back to the original point. People of color are under no obligation to vote for a party that has not served their interests-just as teachers are under no obligation to vote Republican when Republicans favorite target is the NEA. No one is going to vote against their own interests just to avoid the charge of racism.

kritt,

so the next question is what will happen for blacks when the U.s. becomes a one party state. will blacks gain in political power or lose political power. Also, as the demographics of the U.S. change, will blacks gain or lose.

When the U.S. is less than 50% white, will there be enough white tax payers to fund the programs demand by non-whites. Will it still be important to keep drawing majority black district in the coming one party state. How will Hispanics and blacks interact when there are more Hispanics in the U.S. than whites?

SD- I'm sorry but you sound like a broken record. For the last time-- whites are not the only races who pay taxes! Black and hispanics are not the only races that want federal money for programs. If that were true, the GOP would not have had the highest amount in earmarks when they were on watch. Money is given to all kinds of interest groups and comes from all kinds of sources.

Pls sing a new song- this one is on a broken record, OK???

blacks and Hispanics are 25% of the population but pay much less than 25% in taxes. Blacks and Hispanics also want programs such as 8a minority contracts, affirmative action, and set asides that whites cannot get. so the question is as whites become 40% of the population but are paying 60% or more of the taxes, what will happen?

Also, if in 2012, if the unemployment rate is double digit and the inflation rate is double digit and the crime rate has gone up, does anyone think that Senator obama will recieve less than the 98% of the black vote than he will get this year. Blacks may not be racist but they will always vote for the Democratic candidate over the Republican candidate no matter the performance and will usually vote for the black candidate for the white candidate in the Democratic primary. that is why is was so odd when a black majority district in Memphis reelected a white congressman. Of course the white Congressman had to blatantly pander to blacks and benefited from an insane black opponent. .

SD-

You know perfectly well that many corporations have offshore accounts and pay NO taxes----. The oil companies have received lucrative tax breaks to develop alternative fuel sources-- well what did we get for our money? Congress recently made a bad decision not to tax hedge funds at the regular rate- leaving an enormous loophole open. What about the 700 billion bailout we just pledged to Wall St and the banks? Right after we took over ailing AIG ,their executives took an expensive luxury trip to a spa which will be paid for by the taxpayers. Apparently these are quite common, because they are now being forced by AG Coumo to cancel the rest of the trips, still on the books.

You can make the minority paying less taxes and wanting more programs argument until the cows come home, but there is also such a thing a corporate welfare and corporate bailouts. Why do you never mention these? Or the obscene amt of money we have spent and are spending on the Iraq War??

@kritt

You know perfectly well that many corporations have offshore accounts and pay NO taxes---

Can you name a Fortune 500 company in the US that pays no taxes?? As far as I'm aware, the claim about corporations paying no taxes is about corporations where all the profits go to the owners who pay on their person income tax returns. It's true that the super-rich have various means of sheltering taxes but increasing rates on them isnt' going to make this go away.

The oil companies have received lucrative tax breaks to develop alternative fuel sources

Tax breaks presumably supported by people who share your political leanings. It's amusing that left-leaning types support alternative energy policies and then blame right-leaning types for their failures.

You can make the minority paying less taxes and wanting more programs argument until the cows come home

It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact.

but there is also such a thing a corporate welfare and corporate bailouts.

Paid for vastly disporportionate by white people.

Why do you never mention these?

Because it's completely orthoganal to the fact that the welfare state transfers social resources from whites to blacks and, increasingly, hispanics. All you're doing is pointing out that the middleclass takes it in the shorts from both ends, from both the overclass and the underclass.

The GOP's problem is that they aren't willing to engage in class warfare for the class that desperately needs it the most, the middle class, against the two classe arrayed against that middle, the over- and underclass.

So, we've identified the issue at hand: politicians of both parties are about transferring social resources from the middleclass and to the over- AND underclass. You keep bringing up corporate taxbreaks, that are paid for pretty much by whites, as if that somehow countered the fact that social resources are ALSO transferred from whites to blacks and hispanics.

There are middle class blacks. The black "middle class" keeps on growing. So the whole "underclass = black" doesn't fly. But back to the subject at hand:

I don't give a damn about set asides, programs, affirmative action, or whatever. What I care about is the insane rhetoric linking those black folks that vote for Obama to basically institutional racism. Like a black vote for Obama is a racist vote. What the heck is that? Do we blacks have to justify our votes now? Provide a reason so it can be approved?

AsherJ said: "Paid for vastly disporportionate by white people."

And how is it disproportionate when white people are still the majority in the United States?

And how is it disproportionate when white people are still the majority in the United States?

If blacks are 12 percent of the population but pay less than 12 percent of the Federal taxes then they disproportionately contribute less to the common good than other groups. Conversely the white population is around 70 percent but contributes far more than 70 percent of the resources that comprise the common good.

When we say "disproportionate" we mean in proportion to it's percentage of the population.

I don't give a damn about set asides, programs, affirmative action, or whatever.

Your personal recognition of the flow of resources is utterly irrelevant. What is relevant are the flows themselves. People rarely, except a few very high functioners with lots of time, vote based on policy arrays. Rather, they vote on general identity and heuristics, group interests to put it crudely.

It's why you're going to see blacks voting Democrat 95 plus percent of the time into the future regardless of the ethnicities of the respective candidates. The fact that Obama is black is pure icing on the cake for blacks whose vote are already purchased by the Democrats through resource transfers. If the GOP were to run a black candidate who held the same general policy positions as McCain they'd get just about the same percentage of the vote (probably slightly less just due to GOTV effects).

Considering the theme of this post, I wonder if it is possible for AsherJ, who put forth a series of statistics, to prove it?

PS--I believe people pay income taxes based on their income, not on the quantity of melanin pigment in their skin.

Really pretty sure about that.

Black Americans supporting Obama because he's black are not being necessarily evil toward whites. It is a redirection of group interests, a mild form of what is called "reverse racism" -- this "identity politics" was also clearly evident among female Democratic voters whose reverse sexism led them to deliberately favor Hillary Clinton. The reverse "identity politics" activism technically is as wrongful as the conventional racism and sexism, but given the frequent intention, in the real world it isn't seen that way by most. Blacks and women both want to get past that One Last Tempting Hurdle, to see one of their own elected President. It's obvious, and the temptation given how _close_ it is at hand this year, is also obvious.

As to the conservative talking-point reaction to Powell's endorsement of Obama (which so many of us anticipated, and even predicted), first to discount the weight of the endorsement (which is laughable) and then to go beyond discounting Powell to attacking him (which is not funny at all), well, it's as transparent as the expolitation of the endorsement by the clucking hens and smarm queens (of both sexes) on NPR who have repeatedly referred to "General" Powell (as opposed to "former Secretary of State" Powell who made a case for action against Iraq while a member of the Bush Administration).

Asher, if you want to talk about the common good and "resource transfers" then you'll also need to factor in all the common BAD. For example, people of disproportianate means and influence (predominantly white) who create massive, catastrophic messes to be cleaned up by everyone else, even though some of them get rich in the process. T-Steel is correct; there is no mystery, nor anything racist about supporting the party that best represents you in a democracy.

T. Steel -- I am not a "cultural determinist," but culture matters greatly -- not race; one of (needless to say, quite a few) books I own is by someone who has described this cultural aspect in at least three books, and to go right to the point, you are right about the black middle class, which is assimilated into mainstream culture and which tends to make them (and any residual problems they may face from ages gone by) invisible. (That race-related invisibility to me constitutes success, not failure, of this nation; there is no mythical widespread oppression-and-worse imagined by the far Left.) If our skins were the same color, we'd pay more attention to hair color, and if all hair were the same, to eye color. Nowadays most of us don't view any of these three things in any way other than cosmetic or aesthetic and for visual identification.

J. Spencer -- you'd be on much more firm ground if you noted aloud that income taxes are _not_ the only taxes paid by people in this country, that there is the payroll tax (with a cap on income for Social Security) and sales taxes. I favor consumption taxes -- *** LIFE *** is "classist," and regressivity gripes are overdone -- but gripes about other than income taxes can be and often are made.

"You know perfectly well that many corporations have offshore accounts and pay NO taxes"

Wait twenty years or so, K, when governments get not only greedy, but desperate, and angry. A simultaneous raid on offshore tax havens world-wide and resultant asset seizures and actions on records taken from these havens (identifying tax evaders and punishing them -- not only corporations, but individual citizens of the USA and other nations, in other words) is something I have long anticipated. It's overdone as a solution to fiscal problems and obviously is only a one-shot kind of operation, but some would feel good were it to happen eventually.

Asher-
My point is about the amount we are spending- and not collecting in taxes which
is feeding our already huge deficit. We either have to cut programs, raise taxes, or enforce the laws already on the books by closing loopholes. If it doesnt' bother you that we now have no way of paying the deficit down and are currently trapped into paying 12 billion a month in Iraq, that's fine but it makes no sense. Are you bothered by the size of government or by the entitlement programs?

Every country transfers wealth to some degree- it doesn't make us a welfare state. Social security payments are a transfer of wealth, but they enable our older folk to retire. Still, it is socialism.

Democrats believe that basic decency requires those that have it provide a little to the more unfortunate members of society--- I can see you don't agree with that philosophy---,. IMO it is sad that so many would rather see billions wasted to destroy a country that never attacked us than to take care of their elderly, uninsured children, poor and mentally ill.

Perhaps you long for the Dickensian times when the poor lived and died ignomiously in work houses.

DLS said: "...and to go right to the point, you are right about the black middle class, which is assimilated into mainstream culture and which tends to make them (and any residual problems they may face from ages gone by) invisible. (That race-related invisibility to me constitutes success, not failure, of this nation..."

I see that point. And it's precisely that point why I find any insinuation of a racist black vote for Obama disgusting. Obama's color is merely, as AsherJ points out, "icing on the cake". But that's just the icing since the cake has already been bought by black folks years ago (which I don't like but is another issue). But it isn't and will never be racism.

@GeorgeSorwell

Considering the theme of this post, I wonder if it is possible for AsherJ, who put forth a series of statistics, to prove it?

PS--I believe people pay income taxes based on their income, not on the quantity of melanin pigment in their skin.

The top half of income earners pay fifty percent of federal income taxes. Blacks are vastly disproportionately in the lower half of income earners, therefore the EFFECT of progressive taxation is a net transfer of social resources from whites to blacks. I cannot believe that you are seriously disputing that a income-based tax system, and a progressive one at that, does not transfer resources from higher-income earners to lower ones. BTW, I'm not sure that there's any specific way of collecting specific data, since tax returns do not require one to list one's ethnicity.

Even if we had a 15 percent flat tax rate, non-progressive rates, you'd still have a net transfer of resources from higher-income to lower-income earners. Now I am not morally condemning this, but I am pointing out how this severely distorts the electoral process.

Yes, the tax is not explicitly based on skin color, but the effects are the same as if they were.

@JSpencer

if you want to talk about the common good and "resource transfers" then you'll also need to factor in all the common BAD. For example, people of disproportianate means and influence (predominantly white) who create massive, catastrophic messes to be cleaned up by everyone else,

You'll need to be specific here. I have no idea where you're going with this, but I can tell you that whatever messes you're talking about are almost always cleaned up with resources taken from, the disproportionally white, middleclass.

there is no mystery, nor anything racist about supporting the party that best represents you in a democracy.

There is no such thing as "racism", rather all the phenomena we variously classify as racism are about male sexual competition and family formation. "Racism" does not exist, at least as it's described by "anti-racists, in any time, place or people.

DLS wrote

"Black Americans supporting Obama because he's black are not being necessarily evil toward whites. It is a redirection of group interests, a mild form of what is called "reverse racism" -- this "identity politics" was also clearly evident among female Democratic voters whose reverse sexism led them to deliberately favor Hillary Clinton. "

DLS 90% of black Americans already support the Democratic party- Obama is only getting another 5% of their votes.

And remember the Cardin/Steele race for the Senate in '06? Steele went to the churches and the BBQ's and even pretended to be a Democrat who was against the war. He still only got 25% of the black vote-- not 95%.

Of course blacks like Powell would be thrilled to see an African-American win- but only if it was the right candidate. I know that I backed Hillary for president- but would not switch allegiance to Palin because they are both women-even though I'd love to see a woman make it that far.

@kritt

My point is about the amount we are spending- and not collecting in taxes which
is feeding our already huge deficit. We either have to cut programs, raise taxes, or enforce the laws already on the books by closing loopholes. If it doesnt' bother you that we now have no way of paying the deficit down and are currently trapped into paying 12 billion a month in Iraq, that's fine but it makes no sense. Are you bothered by the size of government or by the entitlement programs?

I opposed the Iraq War, and I'm concerned about spending but also know that there is simply not the political capital necessary to address it. BTW, the CBO estimates for the Iraq War about six to nine billion per month, not twelve.

Every country transfers wealth to some degree- it doesn't make us a welfare state. Social security payments are a transfer of wealth, but they enable our older folk to retire. Still, it is socialism.

Human beings have an innate instinct for socialism, and by that I mean to have some rough material equality within their peer group (that last part is very key).

Democrats believe that basic decency requires those that have it provide a little to the more unfortunate members of society--- I can see you don't agree with that philosophy---,.

This is a basic human instinct, a genetic one, that is the result of our species living for most of our biological history in small groups of less than a few hundred individuals. But it is very difficult to translate that instinct cohrently from those homogeneous groups into large societies where many people have almost nothing in common. In small groups it is very difficult to use that instinct to factional advantage, since everyone sees everyone in one's group everyday and the entire group allocates a great deal of resources to punish cheaters.

That instinct will always exist, and it is futile to oppose it as do Republicans and Libertarians. However, that same instinct for "fairness" is threatening to permanently distort US electoral politics because minority ethnic groups vote for the sole purpose of resource transfer, and they are using that instinct to do it.

So, you are simply wrong that I oppose resource transfers. My problem is with the social destruction taht accompanies those resource transfers.

IMO it is sad that so many would rather see billions wasted to destroy a country that never attacked us than to take care of their elderly, uninsured children, poor and mentally ill.

Now where in the world did you get the notion that I supported the Iraq War ... BTW, I would support policies that destroy another society over policies that destroy my society (although I'd rather do neither).

Perhaps you long for the Dickensian times when the poor lived and died ignomiously in work houses.

Depends on which poor we're talking about. In America, "poor" converges on four factors:

A) Low IQ
B) Personality disorder, of the anti- or asocial types
C) Substance abuse
D) Vows of poverty

Okay, so the fourth si something that people, like priests, choose. The other three are genetic. Poverty in Dickens' England and poverty in 2008 America are completely different phenomena. I remember readign about a story in Ohio about a single mother of four who was losing her house to foreclosure. Her take-home pay was $800/mo but she was receiving $1500/mo because two of her children suffered from "learning disabilities". and what do you want to bet that those "disabilities" were nothing more than low IQ. BTW, learning disabilities themselves are genetic.

So, we're paying single women to produce children who are likely genetically incapable of contributing anything to society.

The problem isnt' with making sure that people aren't dying in the streets, it's with paying them to out-breed contributors.

@kritt

DLS 90% of black Americans already support the Democratic party- Obama is only getting another 5% of their votes.

You are correct. Blacks are voting for Obama because they think they'll get more free stuff than under a McCain administration (they're correct). That Obama is black is just icing on the cake.

Asher,

Um, I think you are generalizing way too much. Has it occurred to you that a lot of blacks like the party for other reasons than to get free stuff? Maybe they are anti-war or they think the Democrats are more supportive of teachers. Or maybe they are just turned off by the GOP's smear campaigns. Maybe they think Democrats care more about the environment (they do) or maybe they are angry at the Bush administration like the rest of the 90% who think the country is going in the wrong direction.

Sorry, but I think that's a really racist argument- that is not all people of any race care about when they vote. Racial stereotyping gets you nowhere and you end up missing the real motives.

You make a lot of statements that you can't back up like your theory about the lady who has the two kids with disabilities. If you can't prove it here,pls don't say it- because it just makes you look very prejudiced.

Quoting AsherJ

Now I am not morally condemning this, but I am pointing out how this severely distorts the electoral process.

Yes, the tax is not explicitly based on skin color, but the effects are the same as if they were.

Three things--

1. I've kind of lost your original point in bringing skin color up. Are you saying it's all just economic? In what way are black people to blame for this? I mean, I can tell you're complaining about something, but what? If a black individual is in the upper 50% of earners, placing him in the 50% that pays more than it gets back, is he exempt from your complaint? What if there are 100 such black individuals--are they also exempt from your complaint? And since we're dealing in what seems like poorly delineated stereotypes, perhaps you'd care to throw a blanket exemption over the NBA? Maybe you see where I'm going with this? Now, I'm not calling you anything but kind of sloppy. Please help me understand what point you're trying to make.

2. You threw around a bunch of statistics. I think it was Mark Twain who famously classified three categories of lie, the last of which was "statistics"? Without a source for your statistics, I can't, for example, see what your source might have to say about the impoverished residents of Appalachia. You can't believe I doubt you? I'd suggest that things aren't as simple as you'd like the readers of this thread to believe. And I can't believe you doubt that. Again, I'm not accusing you of anything but sloppiness. But by dealing in such broad generalities, you are just opening yourself to a broad range of accusations. And you're probably going to find yourself in a difficult position to defend. Right?

3. If all you're saying is that black people like to vote for black people, why bring up taxes? I mean, and I'm guessing here, Colin Powell is probably in the upper 50% of earners. I'm also guessing there are some black people will vote for John McCain. And--further guessing here--some of them may even be in the lower 50% of earners. Individuals vote in what they perceive to be their own interest. If individuals who graduated from the US Naval Academy vote overwhelmingly for John McCain, is that any reason to accuse the members of that class of individuals of voting in distorted patterns? Probably a lot of them are in the upper 50% of earners, right?

And--help me, Lord!!--if your real complaint is about some innate biological human tendency toward socialism, can you identify the chromosome that trait is on?

Many thanks!!

@kritt11

Asher,

Um, I think you are generalizing way too much. Has it occurred to you that a lot of blacks like the party for other reasons than to get free stuff?

Maybe they are anti-war

MIlitary funding would be competition for resources that could otherwise go to blacks

or they think the Democrats are more supportive of teachers.

This IS an example of resource transfer. Teachers are public resources that are disproportionately funded by whites, so this IS a transfer resource from whites to blacks. Remember almost ANY public resource represents a transfer of social resources from whites to blacks because whites disproportionately contribute public social resources.

Or maybe they are just turned off by the GOP's smear campaigns.

What in the world does this even mean???? I make fun of Republicans who say this crap, too. Politics ain't ping-pong, it's a full-contact sport.

Maybe they think Democrats care more about the environment

Strong environmentalism is actually a luxury good consumed by rich whites. It is very abstract and, thus, something that a group with a mean IQ of 85 is not going to even think about, because IQ is directly related to the ability/inability for cognitive abstraction.

maybe they are angry at the Bush administration like the rest of the 90% who think the country is going in the wrong direction.

It is likely that a significant portion, probably a majority, of people who are voting for McCain believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction. I'll bet that most people involved with the Minutemen, just for example, think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, but I doubt they're voting for Obama.

Sorry, but I think that's a really racist argument- that is not all people of any race care about when they vote. Racial stereotyping gets you nowhere and you end up missing the real motives.

Actually, this is not stereotyping, it is addressing the political reality on the ground. People are "racist", and by that I mean we are born genetically programmed to prefer people more related to us than those further as well as those with more similiar social conventions. If there were a source that white people as an entire group could extract resources from it would be quite likely that you would start to see that happening, but there isn't any such group. Resource transference does accrue to some whites but it invariably comes from other whites. What possible group exists in America that whites as a whole could extract resources from and spread to the significant majority of whites, which is the only way that such group dynamics happen?

You make a lot of statements that you can't back up like your theory about the lady who has the two kids with disabilities. If you can't prove it here,pls don't say it- because it just makes you look very prejudiced.

Most of the stuff that exists in the political/social world cannot be definitively proven, and this even extends somewhat to the hard sciences. What I am saying does not originate in prejudice. Blacks vote as a group for resource transfers, because the option is available to them. Whites do not, as an ethnic group, because the option, as a group, is not available to them. Yes, whites transfer resources often but it is from one gropu of whites to another. On the learning disability thing: we aren't really sure what specific genetic frequencies lead to all the various learning disabilities, however, social workers, teachers, etc. have a vested class interest in diagnosing as many children as possible with them. Technically, learning disabilities are supposed to be independent of the general factor of intelligence (g-factor) but, in practice, political considerations get many diagnosed with them, when all we're looking at is low IQ.


@GeorgeSorwell

1. I've kind of lost your original point in bringing skin color up. Are you saying it's all just economic?

Um, that's what this entire post is about, "racism", skin color.

In what way are black people to blame for this?

They aren't to blame at all. They simply vote to transfer resources from whites to themselves because the option is politically available. Let me be very clear: I am NOT morally condemning blacks for voting for social resource transfers. I am pointing out that this phenomenon, along with ethnic hispanic bloc voting, threatens permanent one-party rule for the entire duration of this country as a political entity, and one-party bodies-politic are disasterous.

If a black individual is in the upper 50% of earners, placing him in the 50% that pays more than it gets back, is he exempt from your complaint? What if there are 100 such black individuals--are they also exempt from your complaint? And since we're dealing in what seems like poorly delineated stereotypes, perhaps you'd care to throw a blanket exemption over the NBA? Maybe you see where I'm going with this? Now, I'm not calling you anything but kind of sloppy. Please help me understand what point you're trying to make.

No, we're not talking about individual interest but solely about group interest. The moderns, and their classical liberal/libertarian offspring, were and are simply wrong about human nature. We're not naturally individualistic. We're social creatures who gravitate to a collective, where one is available, and these collectives almost always have an ethnic flavor. I'm not complaining about anything, because this is not some pet, personal peeve of mine. I'm pointing out the disasterous implications of a body-politic where 25 percent, and ever increasing percentages, of the population is invested solely in one party for the purposes of transferring social resources

You threw around a bunch of statistics. I think it was Mark Twain who famously classified three categories of lie, the last of which was "statistics"?

No, I gave you a couple of indisputable statistics: one about the top 50 percent of wage earners paying 97 percent of federal income tax dollars and the other being that with an income-tax you'll necessarily have resource transfers from high-incomes to low-incomes (actually the last isnt even a statistic, it's a logical corrollary of an income tax). The general response from the left is to point out that the 97 percent stat is that it doesnt include payroll taxes, which is true but doesn't negate the fact of progressive taxation. Also, I would point out that that quote from Mark Twain is often quite misused, and I'll give you an example. Suppose I were to tell you taht the fastest growing voting group was black gay Republicans. Now suppose that this stat was actually true, but that all it meant that the GOP had exactly one gay black voter in 2004 and two in 2006. A one hundred percent increase! But also ignoring that the statistic does not negate that probably 99.99 percent of black homosexuals in America vote Democrat.

That's what's meant by the misuse of statistics. And the stats I did use are not of that variety.

Without a source for your statistics, I can't, for example, see what your source might have to say about the impoverished residents of Appalachia.

You can talk all day long about poor whites, but the fact of the matter is taht there is a significant income difference between blacks and whites and in a progressive tax system this will necessarily mean a transfer of resources from the higher-income gropu to the lower one. I don't even need to cite a statistic, because it is a logical corrollary of a progressive tax system.

You can't believe I doubt you? I'd suggest that things aren't as simple as you'd like the readers of this thread to believe.

Actually, they really are that simple, at least for the specific claim I'm making.

And I can't believe you doubt that. Again, I'm not accusing you of anything but sloppiness. But by dealing in such broad generalities, you are just opening yourself to a broad range of accusations. And you're probably going to find yourself in a difficult position to defend. Right?

The position scandalizes people, but that does not make it difficult to defend. The idea of a round earth scandalized all sorts of people at one time, but that did not changes the actual facts of reality. Not only is my position defensible, but it takes a vigorous and strenuous effort to ignore reality to even argue with it. Basically, on this specific point, anyone disputing this is about as reasonable as people asserting that the world is flat, because I'm pointing out something that is an obvious feature of indisputable reality: in highly progressive tax systems you will get resource transfers from high income to low income groups.

If all you're saying is that black people like to vote for black people, why bring up taxes?

They don't. Black people vote for politicians of any color who are willing to transfer ever-increasing social resources to them as a group, and since white people pay disproportionate amounts of tax dollars the effect is a transfer of resources from whites to blacks. When blacks are given the option of voting for a black politician and a white politician they choose whichever offers more free stuff.

I mean, and I'm guessing here, Colin Powell is probably in the upper 50% of earners. I'm also guessing there are some black people will vote for John McCain. And--further guessing here--some of them may even be in the lower 50% of earners. Individuals vote in what they perceive to be their own interest. If individuals who graduated from the US Naval Academy vote overwhelmingly for John McCain, is that any reason to accuse the members of that class of individuals of voting in distorted patterns? Probably a lot of them are in the upper 50% of earners, right?

See above. Nothing here changes the point. Additionally, you have set-asides, federal programs, de facto quotas, etc, that transfer social resources from whites to blacks, IN EFFECT.

And--help me, Lord!!--if your real complaint is about some innate biological human tendency toward socialism, can you identify the chromosome that trait is on?

Actually, yes, this is the crux of the problem: ethnic interests are natural. They quickly coalesce if not rigorously and continuously suppressed in all ethnic groups in a society. Now your contention that since we don't know which specific allele frequencies are involved with in-group/out-group preference therefore it must not be assumed is easily dealt with. I've actually been reading the serious scientific literature on genetics for about two years, and i'm pretty sure that I've never seen which alleles dictate taht we have two, rather than four, or six, legs. We just assume that human beings have two legs due to genetic reasons. The fact of the matter is that we have DZ/MZ twin studies that tell us if there is any genetic influence. Massive amount of research has indicated that there are clearly universal human basic instincts, among them are parity between peers and preference for people more closely related to us. We don't need to be able to pinpoint specific allele frequencies to know that there's a genetic influence.

Hopefully, I just turned off the italics tag.

One of the hallmarks of science is evidence.

One of the hallmarks of delusion is confidence despite the lack of evidence.

Actually, no, evidence is the hallmark of reality. When my tummy grumbles it means I'm hungry, but when I respond with "I want a steak" no one says I'm engaging in scientific reasoning. No, science is about developing theories that best fit and explain observations and that do a good job of predicting outcomes with a minimum of variables, the principle of parsimony.

And I'm really curious about what exactly you think is meant by "evidence". I suspect that you have some slavish devotion to some mythical priestly caste of "experts" who pronounce "the truth" from on high. BTW, this is a very common phenomenon, resulting from a debased preference of titles over reasoning.

Most of the evidence I gave was either axiomatic corollaries, that progressive taxation transfers resources from high incomes to low incomes, or is found in serious academic journals. A good deal of my information on the genetic bases for peer-parity and genetic interests can be found in Marc Hauser's Moral Minds, but I'm not going to sit here and transcribe his book or pore through his footnotes. If you're interested in the rapidly-growing body of science on how genetics plays a role in the formation of human behavior and social structures I would recommend www.gnxp.com or www.human-nature.com.

GeorgeS, I did present evidence, but the problem is that you lack the background capacity to digest it. Starting with Marc Hauser's book is a good first step, hell, it got rave reviews from the NYT.

Again, science is NOT evidence per se, it is about developing theories that explain what goes on around, and in, us.

"Transfer of resources" is the explanation that best fits the available evidence for why blacks have such non-diverse, monolithic voting patterns. Other explanations, such as "because they support teachers" or "more environmentally responsible" are nothing more than moralistic sermonizing; i.e. "us good, them bad". Explanations like "them bad" may be psychologically rewarding, but they are singularly useless in explaining anything meaningful. What I'm doing is pointing out that there are objective, material class interests that differ between blacks and most whites. Let me be clear, I am not condemning blacks and hispanics for voting for resource transfers, as that is an entirely rational behavior.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about when it comes to material class interests. Let's take childbearing, which tends to widen partisan gaps among women, and try to explain them. We know that married mothers are more Republican than the average woman, while single mothers are more Democratic. Well, we could ascribe general moral failure to women who get married, e.g. they want to destroy the environment, but that is simply confirming our preexisting partisan commitments.

The reason for the gap are objective, material class interests. Single mothers need far greater levels of general social resources than do married mothers. A not insignificant number of children in two-parent families go to private schools or are home schooled. In fact, in miniature, what we have is a transfer of social resources from two-parent to one-parent families through the public education system. So, it's no wonder that single mothers vote for ever-increasing levels of resource transfers.

One final note on evidence and statistics: almost everything I've said here is so obvious, easy to find and indisputable that even asking me for citations is telling. For example, it is indisputable that the mean white IQ in the US is 100 and the mean black in the US is 85. That is not only common knowledge among people with any interest in social statistics, but it is also glaringly obvious for anyone carefully observing their immediate social environment. Asking me for a citation on taht would be like asking me to cite evidence that the average rottweiler is heavier than the average chihuahua.

Simply asking me indicates that you lack the basic capacity to even assess the topic of discussion.

What I meant to say was:

"When my tummy rumbles it is EVIDENCE that I am hungry, but when I say "I want a steak" no one says that I am engaging in scientific reasoning."

Also, if I sound like a partisan for two-parent families versus one-parent families it is because of the objective, material interests of society as a whole. Single-parent families require the social infrastructure that is maintained by two-parent families, in order to exist. Single-parent families only can exist in a modern society as a distinct minority, and any modern society where single-parenthood was the norm would collapse in short order.

Hmm.

Well, this is a public thread. I'm sure you feel you've done your best.

It seems to me that you're trying to claim your own personal prejudices are supported by ironclad logic and scientific proof.

And that strikes me as a working definition of delusion.

I'm perfectly willing to let anyone still reading decide that for themselves.

"It seems to me that you're trying to claim your own personal prejudices are supported by ironclad logic and scientific proof. "

Hate to break it to you but this is pretty much how academic study and debate works outside of theoretical physics. Consider the debate between Steve Levitt and his detractors over the claim that abortion leads to less crime, because it reduces the number of unwanted children who disproportionately become criminals. Both sides went about looking for evidence that supported their theories. That's simply how it works, and philosophers of science to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, searchlight metaphor for knowledge gathering, have pointed this out. Sometimes both sides have parts of the puzzle and a compromise emerges, sometimes one is largely correct, and sometimes both are ass-wrong.

But I'd also point out that you are misusing what is meant by "delusion". If you had presented substantive contrary evidence or even a competing theory to explain the phenomena in question then that would be one thing. My ignoring that *might* be justifiably be called "delusion". But you have done no such thing, and have not even bothered to argue the position. Oh yeah, asking me about genome-wide associations to *prove* kin selection theory is pure silliness, because, as I pointed out, we don't even know where most physical features are generated on the genome. By that measure, one could claim that people *learn* to grow two legs instead of four.

I have a working theory, however, flawed, that is both consistent and generally fits the facts. You have ... nothing.

Absolutely nothing. You didn't even bother to try to argue, obviously assuming that your sanctimonious smuggery would carry the day. Do you have a position? Who knows? You certainly failed to present it here.

Basically, what's going on here is that you all are getting run over by a freight train. The reigning orthodoxy of blank-slatism is systematically being eradicated. Anyone interested in the burgeoning science of human natureS (yes, they're plural, there are many different human natures) might start with the following:

Conscilience, EO Wilson
The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
Moral Minds, Marc Hauser
On Genetic Interests, Frank Salter
The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker

These will get you started and lead you to other sources. Also, the following websites are excellent, but non-systematic:

www.gnxp.com
www.human-nature.com
www.cultureandcognition.net

gnxp is the place to start, though. their blogroll links to major anthropology figures who are not fixated on being literary critics or political revolutionaries.

Have at it boys, the science of human natures is coming and it's going to blow up everything that you think you know.