Goldberg Derangement Syndrome

How about a deal: he stops saying liberals are fascists, and we stop calling him an idiot?

On second thought...I think I'd still call him an idiot. Forget it.

"I'll confess to having a certain special dislike for people who are in the habit of implying that I'm an anti-semite while simultaneously lacking the balls to even admit that this is what they're doing."

He's just trying to help you sell your book...

Oh man, I never thought I could feel bad for him, but apparently all the "lefty piling on" has actually hurt his feelings. If he didn't get taken so seriously on the teevee all the time, this would be less funny and more sad.

That's a very well-crafted non-apology. You'll go far in Washington, young man.

I'd propose an alternative explanation for GDS and the related Althouse Derangement Syndrome. If you consistently say nasty things about your peers and say asinine things about issues of great political consequence, large numbers of people will hate you.

Goldberg is also being attacked by conservatives today

http://conservativetimes.org/?p=383

.

Seriously? Dude...seriously?
"I keep calling people names and now nobody wants to come to my birthday party! No fair!"
What kind of pundit gets his feelings hurt like this? This must be why so many right wing blogs don't have comments senctions...to avoid authorial crying jags.

"...and the related Althouse Derangement Syndrome..."

But going by the bloggingheads video and the Jessica Valenti episode, Althouse is far more deranged than her critics could ever hope to be...

Do they actually believe this "Derangement Syndrome" crap? Don't they realize that's just a ruse to avoid having to acknowledge that there's a basis to criticism?

Dismissing all critics as "deranged" means never having to engage the substance of their arguments.

I'd explain further, but I have to walk the dog, so let me just say that, in some circumstances, Rightists in this country (as distinct from conservatives or the GOP) have been largely composed of advocates of, or at least sypathizers with, laziness, self-pity, and talentlessness.

No, let's be honest people, we all know there's an inordinate amount of animosity for Goldberg in the sphere, matched only perhaps buy that for Malkin and Althouse. I have two directly contrdicatory theories to explain the phenomenon, that liberals think he's especially stupid, or they think he's actually smarter than the stuff he writes.

Oh lord, I think I agree with david mizner.

I have two directly contrdicatory theories to explain the phenomenon, that liberals think he's especially stupid, or they think he's actually smarter than the stuff he writes.

I think it's because he's lazy, disingenuous and a joke. He's a legacy who bitches about affirmative action. He treats cliche like it's an original thought. He's everything that's wrong about David Brooks (smug, presumptuous, obtuse) with the added demerit that he whines about criticism (his pissy tirade about what his book called Liberal Fascism was NOT was a classic).

Anyway, that Conservative Times piece is half-right, half-particularly scuzzy:

Mind you, Goldberg is the same culturally illiterate fool who confused what the Austro-Hungarian Empire was (here), has a fuzzy notion of patriotism (here) probably because of his dual / foreign loyalties[That's really disgusting. For what it's worth, I think Goldberg is a completely 100% All-American fucktard.], is a defender of political correctness (here), hates real conservatives (here), and generally mistakes left-wing Jacobinism for conservatism (here). Only in a movement of precipitous decline would a clown like Goldberg be given an editor position, and only in a time of ideological confusion would a fifth columnist like Goldberg ever be mistaken for a conservative. This last sentence makes me laugh and cry. All I can say is that I can only encourage Goldberg to respond to that.

"...that liberals think he's especially stupid, or they think he's actually smarter than the stuff he writes."

Well, he's definitely supplied enough evidence so that one might suspect the former. I suppose his book (ha!) could offer evidence in support of the later.

I'll confess to having a certain special dislike for people who are in the habit of implying that I'm an anti-semite while simultaneously lacking the balls to even admit that this is what they're doing.

I'll bet you're just mad because the accusation that you're an anti-Semite had never before made in such detail, or with such care.

No, let's be honest people, we all know there's an inordinate amount of animosity for Goldberg in the sphere

No, actually, it's a precisely ordinate amount of animosity.

No, let's be honest people, we all know there's an inordinate amount of animosity for Goldberg in the sphere

Honestly, I can't speak for others, but I'm pissed off at Goldberg for calling me an anti-semite.

I assume his habit of casually insulting his interlocutors has led the internet, over time, to be littered with other aggrieved parties.

"Oh lord, I think I agree with david mizner."

Sorry, Korha, I'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

And Matt, yes, you come by your animosity honestly, but surely many conseravtives other than Goldberg insult people and accuse liberals of anti-semitism? Which ones don't?

I have two directly contrdicatory theories to explain the phenomenon, that liberals think he's especially stupid, or they think he's actually smarter than the stuff he writes.

I vote for stupid. Jonah is really, really stupid.

I've always thought Jonah was a nice guy relative to others of his ilk. Clearly the anti-Semite thing was not very nice, however. Maybe he was just too stupid to realize what he was saying. Who knows.

The thing with Goldberg in my opinion is this. On the one hand, he (a) occassionally has glimmerings of sanity on some issues, and (b) he does occassionally have some half interesting and semi original ideas. Given the state of punditry among movement conservatives, this earns him occassional praise by otherwise reasonable people. But he's hitched his wagon to a bankrupt movement, and his loyalties to it will triumph over his better instincts every time. Which leads to all of the faults amply discussed above. On top of that, he is not an intellectual, and so his intellectual pretentions fall flat. His knowledge base is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Of course many other conservatiuve pundits are as bad or worse. It's more galling coming from Goldberg, both because he is (marginally) more respected (in some quarters) than many of the worst offenders, and (perhaps more to the point) one gets the sense that he knows better.

I love Daniel Larison's posts on him, btw. And those posts have clearly strcuk a nerve.

And on the "idiot" issue, he clearly is not, which IMO makes it worse. He seems like an idiot sometimes, because he tries to punch above his weight, so to speak, and he often doesn't do his homework.

Honestly, I can't speak for others, but I'm pissed off at Goldberg for calling me an anti-semite.

Huh. Never would have expected that from Matthew - can dish it out (Giuliani's a racist!) but can't take it. I'm genuinely surprised.

On top of that, he is not an intellectual, and so his intellectual pretentions fall flat. His knowledge base is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Yeah, everytime I see Jonah name-dropping philosophers or social scientists, I think of Will Ferrell at about the 1:30 mark of this clip.

Hold the phones! A very arrogant, pretentious man of moderate intelligence tries to win arguments against his opponents by ascribing evil and stupid viewpoints to them and then disproving those viewpoints. His opponents really do not like him or this arguing strategy. Also, they find it tiresome to engage with someone whose main strategy is to be purposeful obtuse. Poor baby!

And on the "idiot" issue, he clearly is not, which IMO makes it worse. He seems like an idiot sometimes, because he tries to punch above his weight, so to speak, and he often doesn't do his homework.

You see, I dunno. On one hand, I know lots of people who talk about politics in the same way Jonah does. They spout off nonsensical opinions that haven't been fully thought through while lacking even the most elementary knowledge about basic history or civics or whatever. But I don't consider these people to be idiots because they're competent at the things they know, whether it's programming or dentistry or auto maintenance or whatever. Not everyone is a political junkie. Jonah, on the other hand, writes about politics and policy for a living. This is how he spends the bulk of his waking hours, yet he has no apparent expertise in anything. In light of that, I think the "idiot" thesis is rather compelling.

Another theory for why Goldberg gets so much flack is that he has a gig on a major op ed page. Why? It makes it harder to ignore him, as he deserves.

And Krauthammer is as bad an op-ed columnist, but he doesn't blog, so there isn't as much fodder.

Another theory for why Goldberg gets so much flack is that he has a gig on a major op ed page. Why? It makes it harder to ignore him, as he deserves.

He's flattering himself if he thinks we have a special hard-on for him, as opposed to a couple dozen other wingnuts just like him with nothing to say and a huge megaphone to say it with.

Real conservatives (aka paleoconservatives) cannot stand Goldberg, for many reasons not the least of which is that he is not too bright.

At this article there are links to many of Goldberg's mindless blunders and foolish comments:

http://conservativetimes.org/?p=383

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I don't get it. MY should just ignore Goldberg. The guy is a blithering idiot. MY can put his talents to better use critiquing more intelligent writers.

One other thought - throughout elite culture, but particularly among conservatives, the response "but he's really smart" is often offered to justify a person's writing, actions, etc. I am not certain why this would be particularly relevant. If someone lacks integrity, or is dishonest, or is ideologically wedded to beliefs that blind him to reality, or is simply mean/cruel/morally abhorrent, I'm not sure why their intelligence would make up for that other failure.

I think Goldberg is of mediocre intelligence - but it would not matter if he was brilliant. His work speaks for itself - dishonest and purposefully obtuse.

And then there's the fact the reason he has a career at all is out of the right wing's gratitude at his mother, without whom there would have been no Clinton impeachment. Is that his fault? No, but it's not a qualification for a national audience, either.

Regarding his calling MY antisemitic, is Goldberg even Jewish? Isn't his mother an episcopalian or something? I mean it would be kind of weird if a gentile was accusing a jew of being an antisemite.

Well, noone has commented on the blogger he linked to. The blogger tries to defend Goldberg by trying to make the argument that "one reason a health care system might not work in America even though it works in Sweden or Denmark is culture."

I am probably the only one that gets ticked over this, but culture as an explanation is usually the tool of the lazy. Attributing a cause to culture usually means that one didn't think hard enough to find another systemic reason that was the cause. Also, the person who does that usually does not think in what specific and particular way that cause provides the effect.

I submit that this is what Goldberg and rightreason are doing in the case of health care.

RightReason is not even a conservative site. It is a neocon site. Look to what sites it links: Claremount, First Things, etc. - - all neocon sites. It does not link to a single conservative site (Chronicles, Middle American News, VDare etc.).

"I am probably the only one that gets ticked over this, but culture as an explanation is usually the tool of the lazy."

More accurately, it's the tool of the politically correct. A pundit can't just say, "But Sweden doesn't have millions of lower class African Americans who have poor nutrition habits, tend not to practice safe sex, and tend to abstain from any sort of pre-natal care," because he would be branded a racist (as I am about to be, no doubt).

A perfect example of this was Nicholas Kristoff's essay after Hurricane Katrina where he compared the aftermath of that disaster with that of the Kobe earthquake in Japan (where there was no looting or violence). I remember almost verbatim how Kristoff explained this: "reasons are complex, and partly cultural". In other words: Japanese aren't lower class African Americans.

Goldberg is smarter than the stuff he writes, but he is, I'm told by people who have worked with him, exceedingly lazy. And it shows. Althouse is despised because she's nuts and dumb, but at a good university. And Malkin is just vicious.

Fred,

I don't think you're a racist. I just wonder about the strange myopia that leads a person to consider the "pathologies" of poverty a purely African-American phenomena, when there exist many times more millions of whites, all of them poor, who engage in more or less the same self-defeating behavior. By the same token, I wonder why it is you would write that, as an explanation for Kobe aftermath, the "Japanese aren't lower class African Americans" when you could just as easily, and more accurately have written, "The Japanese aren't lower class Americans", given the long history of rioting in this country, by all races.

I don't think you're a racist, but you are strangely myopic.

he does occassionally have some half interesting and semi original ideas.

It's pretty sad when a conservative pundit is held up for accolades simply because he writers things other than the faxed out set of talking points from the RNC.

All evidence indicates that Jonah is extremely, extremely lazy. Perhaps he is "smart" only in the sense that he has decent spelling and enough of a sense for grammar that he can serve as an "editor" for the National Review without being exposed as someone totally out of his depth. He's never come across as someone interested in ideas or learning. I think that the NR publishers view him as someone hired on the basis of "merit" simply because ability to be well-informed and insightful is considered unimportant in their writers as compared to the ability to reinforce the beliefs of rightwingers and provide them with a set of talking points to repeat. That the arguments he makes are extremely stupid and uninformed is less important than the fact that it makes his readers feel good about themselves and gives them something to repeat at family gatherings and on blog comments

I will say that Jonah is an adept writing stylist relative to his conceptual content. Syntactically he's solid, and he can string together a few sentences into a paragraph that does an O.K. job getting from one thought to the next. But it's all glib and facile to the Nth degree.

Is he stupid? I'd say nobody who's actually just flatly stupid could do even what Jonah does. But he's not even remotely a thinker; he's a complete hack. If you took a DNA sample of David Brooks, cloned it, and fed it Zima until it grew to "adulthood," that would be Jonah.

"If you took a DNA sample of David Brooks, cloned it, and fed it Zima until it grew to "adulthood," that would be Jonah."

Why can't Thomas Friedman ever be this witty when he tries to be witty? A fun thing about comment threads is that you realize how many people can not only think, but write, better than paid pundits. Case in point, Jonah.

The main reason people pick on Goldberg is that he's an easy mark. He's not bright enough to win most arguments but smart enough to know when he's wrong, unlike say LGF commenters who will argue that 1+1=3 until the cows come home. He talks a good game but is really a softie who cries easily if you pinch him hard enough, unlike the foaming-at-the-mouth crazies at RedState or Atlas Shrugged who will scream back at you for weeks, stalk you, slash your car tires and poison your dog.

But they don't rape the dog? Pussies.

How can this tubby fellow find the gall to complain about this when he regularly implies that those he disagrees with are bigots?

Only a few posts ago he all but called guiliani racist, again recently he approvingly cited a piece which distorted andrew roberts work in order to portray him as a racist, he frequently labels martin peretz a xenophobe, and on and on it goes.

I could easily turn up dozens of instances of you making such slurs if I desired.

"If you took a DNA sample of David Brooks, cloned it, and fed it Zima until it grew to "adulthood," that would be Jonah."

Actually you would have to feed the Zima to the host/mother in order to get a Jonah.

How was Roberts' work distorted?

I'm a little confused by your standards. Marty Perez repeatedly writes, in public record, that Arabs are savage subhumans. Even if you agree with his policy positions, that's racist. As in "stereotyping a race."

The difference is, Yglesias (who is not "tubby", but pleasingly full-figured, sir) does not dismiss people because they're racist, he discusses their (perceived) racism in context. Guliani's issues with the black community while he was Mayor of New York are relevant. It's not the same as saying "Well, what does Guiliani know about health care -- he's a racist."

And on a side note:

"Pimp hand strikes?" Really? Reaalllly? That's not even a little embarrassing to type?

The main reason people pick on Goldberg is that he's an easy mark. He's not bright enough to win most arguments but smart enough to know when he's wrong, unlike say LGF commenters who will argue that 1+1=3 until the cows come home. He talks a good game but is really a softie who cries easily if you pinch him hard enough, unlike the foaming-at-the-mouth crazies at RedState or Atlas Shrugged who will scream back at you for weeks, stalk you, slash your car tires and poison your dog.

We have a winner. Yeah, I think this goes a long way to nailing it. I said above that he wasn't an idiot, and he's not, but it's certainly true that he's not bright enough to win arguments with - well, I wouldn't say "most people," - but certainly not smart enough to win arguments with people like Matthew, Daniel Larison, and Ross and Reihan.

Many black conservatives complain that affirmative action actually harms the African Americans by diminishing the significance of their achievements. It appears that this phenomenon does not apply to white males like Jonah.

All the reasoned criticisms of Jonah above are correct, but it is still true that he inspires a special level of rage-driven invective that goes beyond the rational justification. ("Dough-Bob LoadPants"? This is adults gleefully acting like 7th graders, and reveling in it, as if it scores some kind of meaningful point against Jonah.)

I think that at bottom this special infuriation is due simply to the fact of who his mother is.

"Pimp hand strikes?" Really? Reaalllly? That's not even a little embarrassing to type?

vs. any of the other braindead duckspeak it quacks out?

Well, yeah; the special infuriation comes from the fact that his mother is a grotesque witch and he hasn't yet disowned her (or, better, shot her).

Yes, Fred, you are a racist, if you think that the fact of the blackness of these people causes their inferiority. Thinking that one race is inherently superior to another is the definition of racism. There's this bizarre failure to understand that fact. Simply because you back your arguments up with pseudoscience (ala Steve Sailer) or "reasonable" arguments, instead of shouting the N-word, does not change the fact that the argument is racist. The Bell Curve is a racist book; it's racist by definition. It argues for inherent racial superiority.

Don't they realize that's just a ruse to avoid having to acknowledge that there's a basis to criticism?

Oh, my, yes.

This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions (h/t Atrios).

Posting at Eschaton, Thers also nails it:

If the question is, "how come the left blogosphere is so reflexively derisive whenever they encounter an argument from people like Goldberg and May," I think that May actually puts his finger on exactly why this is so:

It's because so many conservatives want to argue things like global warming is fake and that there were significant ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

These aren't arguments: they're conspiracy theories (as is another foundational conservative myth, that the media has a partisan liberal bias). They have the same basis in fact as the notion that "9/11 was an inside job." And so, consequently, such "arguments" are treated as conspiracy theories deserve to be treated: with derision and scorn. Taking them seriously only gives them and those who make them an undeserved and in fact dangerous legitimacy.

Dear Jonah:

It's really not that you're stupid and lazy. Lots of people are stupid and lazy. It's just that most stupid and lazy people shut up once they realise that it's better to be suspected a fool than to open one's mouth and dispel all doubts.

Thanks.

PS American politics would be far healthier if more stupid, lazy people were derided and ignored. This applies to you too, Cliff May, because you're still a fucking tool even with your false-front job title and wingnut welfare check.

Let me get this straight. Jonah pouts about how people mock him for saying obviously stupid things. In his defense he links to Burton who quotes a Jonah defender who's point essentially boils down to "What Jonah was suggesting is that unlike Europeans, Americans are fat, lazy and stupid. Long live fat, lazy stupid people... at a tremendous cost!!!"

And they wonder why people mock them.

Thinking that one race is inherently superior to another is the definition of racism. There's this bizarre failure to understand that fact. Simply because you back your arguments up with pseudoscience (ala Steve Sailer) or "reasonable" arguments, instead of shouting the N-word, does not change the fact that the argument is racist. The Bell Curve is a racist book; it's racist by definition. It argues for inherent racial superiority.

In which case, depending on what you mean by "superior" it's entirely possible that facts themselves are racist. If it were to turn out that East Africans are inherently superior marathon runners, is that racist? No, it's just noticing a fact. And it doesn't imply anything about East African's value as people, it just means they're better at running long distances.

Likewise, if Ashkenazi Jews consistantly score better on intelligence tests, it doesn't mean that they are somehow "superior" people. It means that they have more of whatever it is that such tests measure.

Superiority in some particular field of human endeavor or on some particular trait does not equal superior worth as a human. Ignoring that there are systematic differences in groups of humans (whether those groups are divided by race, gender, age, or something else) on some of these traits is just dumb.

I notice, of course, that you define those differences in precisely the most inoffensive way-- Jews are smart, black people are fast runners-- without mentioning the stereotypes that are most commonly invoked-- that black people are stupid, aggressive animals, that Jews are greedy and manipulative, that Hispanics are lazy and indolent, that Asians are emasculated and nerdy. Have the guts to stand up for what you've said, please.

There is no possible logical consequence to that thinking other than eugenics. You simply aren't willing to pursue your thinking to it's logic end. It is a bizarre act of cognition that leads someone to say that another person's intelligence (or aggression, or compassion, or whatever else) doesn't affect your perception of their value as a person. Those are precisely the things we use to determine other people's value.

I used those examples precisely because they are inoffensive, and allow (or ought to) for the discussion of the underlying issue of trait differences among demographically distinct groups of people without jumping to the sort of (basically unquantifiable and hence not the sort of thing I'm talking about) stereotypes you've introduced into the discussion.

It is a bizarre act of cognition that leads someone to say that another person's intelligence (or aggression, or compassion, or whatever else) doesn't affect your perception of their value as a person. Those are precisely the things we use to determine other people's value.

That may be how you determine other people's value, but I'm more of an "inherent worth" sort of person. People who are born with downs-syndrome, for instance, are not somehow inferior people.

But that doesn't mean that they are the same as everyone else. There are certain things which we take for granted that, depending on the severity of their case, they simply aren't able to do. It's simply a willful denial of reality not to acknowledge this.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjNlMmIwNjJlODNlNjlmZTU4ODU0ZmQwYTUyNDM3MTY=

I generally consider insinuations of dual loyalties and shadowy cabals to be characteristic of anti-Semites, yes.

That may be how you determine other people's value, but I'm more of an "inherent worth" sort of person. People who are born with downs-syndrome, for instance, are not somehow inferior people.

Um, you're comparing African-Americans to people who are born with a genetic birth defect?

Nooo, you're not racist at all there.

Matt, why don't you just send him a note -- is there some blogging norm that indicates you need to aire offenses taken to your own blog crowd, telling them you are being insulted by people who aren't brave enough to face up to you.

If you're concerned, you could contact him; if you're not, then why use it to whip up either admiration for your honesty or sympathy for your abuse.

You're on your way to being a populist: the "anti-semite" smear has a great pedigree, your assailant is well-known and despised by your friends, and he has done the deed in a cowardly fashion!!! Could you be any more of a sympathetic character? You're young, yet already you are suffering the slander that comes to any speaker of the truth! Take a look in the mirror -- I think you will probably be able to detect a slight glowing.

C Tang - your critique of Matt is a little strange, since Jonah started this whole whine with the derangement post. Matt just responded in like fashion.

At the heart of the matter is that Jonah is (as I often have said here and elsewhere) a deeply unserious person. There's no injustice or human failing he cannot wave away with a deftly-timed Simpsons quote or similar pop-culture tidbit. Lazy as he is, he is at least industrious in his search for the prepackaged response. For this reason, I'm glad Jonah doesn't post on blogs and other fora that allow reader comments: His replies would likely drive me into a rage.

The only thing more annoying than a smug, self-satisfied Jonah calling for "are ya with me, gang" support from The Corner, is the rare occasion when he forgets that he's a lightweight, and tries to make a serious point. His "debate" on Iraq with Juan Cole is a perfect example. He lost--badly. Yet declared that he had won, and announced to the Cornerites that he was taking a "victory lap." Then, some two years later, when it was proven beyond a doubt that Cole was right about Iraq (and Jonah had, essentially, welshed on a bet about the war's initial outcome), Jonah simply moved the goalposts, rather than admit that he had taken an emotionally satisfying, yet very likely wrong position.

He is the embodiment of a frustrating major media convention: The deeply unserious mouthpiece of a discredited political party (and political philosophy), that somehow gets taken seriously by those in the media who should know better. Thing is, I suspect even Jonah understands this, but he's too childish to admit as much.

Um, you're comparing African-Americans to people who are born with a genetic birth defect?

I'm quite sure that I didn't do any such thing. Ironically, you're imputing racism to me in much the same way that Jonah did antisemitism to Matt (though that's obviously your intention, whereas Jonah claims it wasn't his).

I'm trying to make the point (one which applies to any division of people, btw) that it's factual to state that different groups of people are, sometimes, in some ways, measurably different. This somehow gets twisted into me being racist and apparently pro-eugenics.

IIRC, Matt made the point that the pro-Israel lobby does indeed push US foreign policy in a direction that is more concerned with the good of Israel than that of the US. Jonah broke out the "Hmm, that sounds like what Charles Lindberg said," line, either not acknowledging or not understanding (hard to say which is worse) that the only reasonable way to interpret that would be "Matt's antisemitic."

What I'm still waiting for is an acknowledgment from you that most conceptions of racial difference are, in fact, negative ones, and that when you begin to traffic in racial stereotypes you empower people with some really reprehensible ideas. It's a standard technique to argue in favor of genetic determinism but only do so using supposedly positive stereotypes-- because doing so shields you from charges of racism. I'm only asking that you recognize the real consequences of what you're saying, instead of only the socially acceptable ones.

And I do have a hard time understanding how you can defend what Fred say from charges of racism. I mean it is abundantly clear that he is saying that many negative aspects of our society are the fault of black people, and that those aspects are inherently racial. I struggle to imagine a definition of racism that doesn't include that kind of thinking.

I certainly don't think you're an anti-Semite. You are merely a noxious little shit.

What I'm still waiting for is an acknowledgment from you that most conceptions of racial difference are, in fact, negative ones, and that when you begin to traffic in racial stereotypes you empower people with some really reprehensible ideas. It's a standard technique to argue in favor of genetic determinism but only do so using supposedly positive stereotypes-- because doing so shields you from charges of racism. I'm only asking that you recognize the real consequences of what you're saying, instead of only the socially acceptable ones.

Without a doubt, in almost all cases, discussion of racial difference, (or gender difference, or anything else) is usually a cover for rank racism. I don't dispute that, and think that it is in part because people who aren't racist tend to shy away from any discussion of such facts.

But I strongly believe that such reticence empowers people who would like to use what should be trivial facts to promulgate racist policy.

If good, rigorous science (as opposed to hack pseudo-science) finds that a particular trait is distributed differently among different groups--after controlling for cultural and environmental factors--I don't think the cause of racial equality is well served by ignoring that fact. It just makes it easy for someone like Steve Sailor to argue that the facts are on their side.

I'd also like to take issue with your phrase "genetic determinism." It greatly overstates the importance of any measurable differences which exist among groups. Culture and environment count for a lot. Just not everything. This shouldn't even be a controversial position--to tie this back into the discussion of Jonah--it's actually borderline banal.

And I do have a hard time understanding how you can defend what Fred say from charges of racism. I mean it is abundantly clear that he is saying that many negative aspects of our society are the fault of black people, and that those aspects are inherently racial. I struggle to imagine a definition of racism that doesn't include that kind of thinking.

I'm don't want to defend what Fred said at all. The part of your comment I take issue with is the idea that any discussion of difference among racial groups is inherently racist. You state that the belief in one race's superiority is the definition of racism. If you're speaking of moral superiority, I agree whole-heartedly. Believing that members of any race have less worth as human beings than another is racist, and morally wrong.

It is not racist (or at least I don't believe it to be so) to observe that there may be measurable differences in the distribution of some traits across different groups of people. This is just an observable fact, and if your definition of racism encompasses objective reality, it's so broad as to be meaningless.

It is racist to move from these differences to an implication of moral or inherent superiority, or to push policy which treats individuals as anything less than equal before the law.

Fred's casual line about the aftermath of Katrina has a definite racist tone, and Mark, posting earlier pretty much nails it.

I see. I don't quite agree that what he said isn't racist, but only myopic; but nevertheless you have a good point.

Debating political theory--or news in general--with Jonah Goldberg reminds me of nothing more than trying to discuss Einstein's theories with someone who can't be bothered to learn past the times tables.

Snark is not a substitute for hard research. And no, you don't get to get around it by posting the title of a book and asking for your readers to help you out as to what was going on (as I think Mr. Goldberg did in one supremely facetious post).

Mr. Goldberg also falls into the standard trap of the "pundit as entertainer": someone who fails to have the intellectual integrity to admit "I was wrong" when the evidence shows him as such.

Cliff May, the former West African expert for the New York
Times, is to be dismissed because of his foundation. So
is Raymond Bonner wrong because he misjudged the nature
and degree of support of the FMLN. Or Chris Hedges, because
does he get anything right. As to the comparisons of the US
vis a vis Europe; re health care costs, % of coverage, it
doesn't really apply. The US needs to be compared with Europe,
not the UK; 1/5 our populations; or Germany, 1/4 our population. Canada is not a good benchmark, because it has
1/10 our population; with maybe half our acreage. (This is also why, the idea of solving the pharmaceutical crisis with
Canadian imports seemed ludicrous. The demography is also significantly different, The non majority element; composes
some 30-35% here, with the cultural issues attendant with
those numbers. The actuarial tables there are also off the
charts, vis a vis the US (despite our baby boom demographic
bubble.

T.W. Andrews,
The problem with your argument is that your examples are taken from the stereotype not actual data. It will probably never be proven that East Africans are genetically better long distance runners (while it may or may not be true, it will probably never be studied). Just because there are some who excel at marathons from a certain race, it says little to nothing about their DNA. It could be that the top .001% of East Africans are 1 minute faster in a marathon than the top .001% of all other races, but that says little about East Africans in general, much less any particular East African pulled from the population. The problem with any large data set is that while it says a lot about potential trends, it says little about the individual.

You could reasonably argue that Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi's children would understandably have the potential to be good at tennis, just as you could argue that the children of two Russian alcoholics are going to be predisposed to abuse alcohol. But the larger argument that all American-Greek-German children are more likely to be great tennis players or all Russians are alcoholics based on this evidence is not useful especially in arguing policy.

I understand your point, which is that breeding must play a role in who we are, but I think to impute that across an entire race is problematic, especially on an evidentiary basis (there is little data to back up such assertions regarding most human behavioral traits) and as such it has proven to be an effective tool of those who wish to express their own superiority or the inferiority of others. Does rampant poverty have genetic effects that could negatively affect a population, I would be surprised if it didn't. But in looking at worldwide poverty there is little to suggest any specific trends that result cross-culturally that could even be suggested as mostly genetic in nature (I have no studies to share that say one way or the other, so perhaps there has been something done in this area).

Thanks
Best regards
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