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They asked for an honest conversation on race, right? Enter this week’s guest Charles Murray, author most recently of Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America. He and guys jostle on this most sensitive of subjects, but do so with the kind of generosity you can only find on Ricochet (We let things be too chummy around here!) Rob, Peter and James also get into the G7 and a rudderless Biden on the world stage, along with Jon Stewart on Stephen Colbert’s stage. They even do their best to find some optimism, but we may need our friends at Ricochet to cheer them up in the comments!
Music from this week’s podcast: Ball of Confusion by The Temptations
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The 555 was the first integrated-circuit timer chip, and is still widely used around the world. The 556 is a dual version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/555_timer_IC
Great episode, although Charles was much more optimistic last summer when he thought the rioting was just like the late-1960s. But clearly he sees now what he failed to see then.
I was fortunate to be one of the few on Twitter that he followed–he never seemed to follow over 250 people–back when I had my Underground Grammarian Twitter account.
I’d tweet quotes from his books, like those below, twice a week and he would often retweet with comments. But I’m sure the real reason was because those tweets increased book sales.
He seemed to be having a good time, despite the doom and gloom. Well, we will see.
I think Charles Murray is wrong, I don’t think “they” have actually been trying very hard to improve the lives of minorities etc, and I think it’s deliberate.
In a weird way, yes. Everything gets sacrificed to the ideal image in the Far Left mind. Nobody can live up to that ideal, which is why everyone eventually gets sacrificed to the guillotine of Progress. Robespierre found that out, a little too late.
Also, Murray largely skips over the important aspect of single-parent households, the reality that the welfare system drove men/fathers/husbands out of homes because they couldn’t get assistance if the father was present. And the foreseeable result was long-term multi-generational poverty and dependence.
One correction to James: Wait for the new box to arrive, THEN recycle the old one!
The pearl-clutching and denial on display is epic. “My feelings don’t care about your facts.” As long as conservatives repair to the fainting couch every time HateFacts™ are mentioned, there is little hope for the future. Conservatism is progressivism driving the speed limit never rang truer. The podcast hosts are faithfully tagging along with the Left’s framing of reality. They are shocked, shocked I say, to hear Murray say these things.
Reality bites whether you acknowledge it or not. Plenty of human misery has been caused by this over the centuries. This latest Lysenkoism-with-a-human-face of the bien pensant will have no positive effect other than to make its adherents feel good about themselves but it will certainly continue to cause harm to millions.
A couple of years ago, I heard Charles Murray predict that by the end of this decade, no serious social scientist could deny the truth of his claims — that the evidence was too compelling. In an age of censorship and the denial of reality (¡2+2=5!), there’s little cause for such optimism. In a world in which math can be racist, such sociological data as Murray relies upon can be readily dismissed. People like Murray keep yelling “pull up, pull up, before it’s too late” but so far it looks like we’re going to auger in.
I wonder if Rob thinks that the vaccine stuff, and being able to get HCQ etc even though the media and most government intelligentsia were against it and so forth, would have been the same if we had President Hillary from 2017 through 2020?
Lots of other people might auger in, but I pulled up at least 30 years ago when I got out of Oregon, way before other people – such as my youngest brother – noticed how it was heading.
Yeah, I have similar plans. However, some problems are on a national scale. So unless you’ve moved to to another country, you’ll get to enjoy the ride down with your fellow Americans.
Oh but my ride won’t be nearly as exciting as for people in NYC, etc.
In past “flagship” podcasts and GLoP and others, the conversation has occasionally turned to how places like NYC were in earlier times, including things like the SMELL. Those days may be returning, powerfully.
Of course. It’s wise to get out of the hot zones; that’s my plan even though I’m only hot-zone adjacent right now.
Murray says he’s pessimistic about test scores because an awful lot of money was spent to try to improve test scores, and they didn’t budge.
But that money didn’t go toward improving family structure, it didn’t go toward improving neighborhoods, it didn’t actually improve schools. It didn’t change the negative factors that impede kids’ brains from reaching their full potential. It didn’t get parents to read to their children or to improve their valuing of education.
There are far too many confounding factors in that test score data to conclude that we’re stuck with those results. Too many improvements still could be made, such as what Thomas Sowell mentioned about charter schools. Whether those improvements will actually be made is a different story.
Furthermore, Rob’s optimism is based on a belief that sooner or later we’ll get a preference cascade that defeats wokeness, that a critical mass of people will finally say “enough.”
But that presupposes the same level of liberty that we have now. It doesn’t take into account that Bolsheviks are going to make it difficult if not impossible for a preference cascade to take place, because they’ll be in power to suppress it. History shows that once the revolutionaries get into the seats of power, the people being fed up with them has no effect. Witness Venezuela, which has had HUGE protests and marches and people filling the streets, and to no avail.
Yes, that’s also what I referred to in #3 and #5.
Rob may be unfamiliar with “you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.”
Or maybe he just doesn’t think it would be the same here as it has been everywhere else and throughout history.
I was there for Murray’s segment, and he was great. I wanted to type in the chat box: “It’s the culture, stupid”, and the culture needs to change before the people can get ahead. That does not show much sign of happening, except for the charter school movement.
I constantly bring this up with respect to another controversial topic. Look up videos of Dr. Stephen Porges and Dr. Allan Schore. There are a bunch of short ones. Tons of problems are permanently baked in the cake between the beginning of the third trimester and age three.
There is a psychotherapy system based on all of this. You could get the book and just look up the parts where they talk about what it takes to be normal. It’s called Healing Developmental Trauma.
This is where it starts. We have done every single thing wrong in the face of wage deflation and job destruction from automation and globalized labor. You keep stealing agency from people, create gross inequality, and the people are going to shove socialism and populism down your throats. This grows government. Then the government runs out of money. Then you have to do more and more things at gunpoint to supposedly solve it.
Government Is How We Steal From Each Other™
All Journalists Are Statists™
Isn’t Anyone Upset, That Democrats Have Spent The Last 3 Years Falsely Investigating, Indicting and Persecuting Their Foes?™
The Purpose Of Education Is Indoctrination, And To Steal From The Parents, Students, And Taxpayers™
The Government Is Running Out Of Money™
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
Everything Moves Left All Of The Time™
GOPb-boilerplate™
Rob loves to lay the blame for the new Woke wave sweeping the country squarely at the feet of white progressives. He does this a lot. And you gotta love the posture of faux bravery he adopts when he does so (“Look, I know I’m bound to make enemies when I say this, but it seems to me that the real problem here is white academics …” blah blah blah)
Yeah, so brave of you, Rob … much braver than telling the whole truth, which is that — yes — white progressives are complicit in the alarming advancement of Critical Race Theory (big time; I despise those idiots just as much as Rob does) but Rob constantly — and I do mean constantly — ignores the fact that a huge percentage of blacks — likely, a majority of blacks — are going along with CRT, also.
If they were resisting it, it wouldn’t be gaining so much traction.
Follow up:
What percentage of black congressmen, mayors and other officials across the country — people who know in their bones that Woke policies are ripping their neighborhoods apart — are perfectly willing to continue such policies?
Honestly, I don’t know the percentage myself, but I know it’s a lot. Maxine Waters is just one example of these black officials, and the fact that they’re always being reelected by their (mostly) black constituents tells me that a huge percentage of the black population is on board with these policies.
Is it pure tribalism that makes blacks vote for black candidates? Fine — so where’s the black Democratic candidate who’s repudiating CRT? According to Rob, the black community is teeming with such people— but where are they? According to Rob, the first among them who adopts an explicitly ”anti-CRT” platform will win his or her election in a walk.
But again: Where are they — these anti-Woke black multitudes? Where are they in politics, academia, and the arts? Where are they?
I repeat: White progressives do have a lot to answer for — big time. Only a fool would say otherwise. But let’s not pretend that many, many blacks aren’t also on board with CRT, or that CRT wouldn’t be metastasizing at the rate that it is without their willing participation.
Murray doesn’t “cover causes”. His logic is as indistinguishable and useless as the systemic racism folks. He also thinks that “no child left behind” was a positive force. Yikes!
Don’t confuse the black rank-and-file with the corrupt “community leaders” that the corporate media choose to put on the air. What was the actual level of support for reducing spending on police, for example, in the black community — 19%?
Bear in mind, too, that the corporate media — representing Rob’s white progressives — are assiduously presenting CRT as nothing more than telling the truth about America’s racial history. Who could oppose something so anodyne?
Of course self-interest plays a role, too, especially among the black intelligentsia. The ultimate goal of CRT is racial reparations, continuing forever. That’s money in the pocket for anyone admitted to the charmed circle of “victims“.
Rob: “A very, very powerful nuke armed rogue state in Putin”.
Obviously he meant Russia. Nuke armed, yes, but not very, very powerful.
Nominal GDP: $1.7 trillion. That’s around 1/12 of ours, and we’re partnered with rich, friendly allies around the globe. No wonder Russians are motivated to add a few $billion through government sponsored hacking and other criminal activities.
Population: 146,000,000 and falling. So, much less than half of ours. Think Japan + New York. (Hmm, half the population and 1/12 the economy? How is that powerful?)
Exports: crude petroleum, refined petroleum, natural gas, coal, wheat, iron. (Gee, I wonder how they feel about going green)
Imports: cars and vehicle parts, packaged medicines, broadcasting equipment, aircraft, computers (They have nukes, but import cars and computers.)
The question is, why do we let Russia and their pet regimes around the world push us around? Because our “leaders” are cowards. Many, like Biden are probably compromised cowards.
Keeps attention off of China, which has compromised Hollywood, Big Tech, many corporations, as well as politicians, bureaucrats, and judges.
I went to a lecture that Charles Murray gave at Princeton Unversity several years ago. The students had organized a “walk out”. As he began his talk they all stood and silently left the room. They were protesting his writings. He was a bit frazzled by the event, but got through the talk. He predicted mass displacement of middle class jobs (highlighting the elimination of trucker jobs, with self-driving vehicles). Sadly, his conclusion was that we should consider a UBI (universal basic income). At the time, it felt like he was hoping for some common ground to quell the criticism. I was disappointed. I’ll give the podcast a listen, and see if his thinking has evolved.
If automation and globalized trade is driving down wages and eliminating jobs while at the same time the federal reserve creates inflation, you have to have a UBI.
I keep trying to explain this to people. If the GOP and the libertarians don’t deal with his head-on they will get nowhere.
The other thing is, in his system you wipe out like 90% of the welfare and entitlement bureaucracy. It’s literally one whole program.
As it was, state-level restrictions on hydroxychloroquine were far more extensive and widespread than I thought. See: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3875427/posts
The left would never demand that Russia go green, because it would violate their ethnicity and be racist and stuff.
We don’t need to spend money in those areas. We just need to stop spending money on programs that discourage family structure.
It’s doubtful that government will ever be able to effectively advance family friendly policies. It’s a matter of getting out of the way.
They have to pay people to procreate more tax slaves. The Ponzi needs to be fed.