Comments at Steve Sailer:
* Whoever wrote this is a regular reader here. He name checks Ben Franklin, Invade/Invite, importing ringers, noblesse oblige etc. Shame he did not extend the courtesy to name the devil. Also a shame to not explicitly name whites. Only “white privelege”. It is a modern idiocy to think that culture is malleable across large ethnic gaps. And a conservative idiocy of the Washington General type.
* Decius: I tried to name Steve but the editors were … well, they … well I’ll stop there.
Anyway, I don’t want anyone to think I am stealing furtively. I know where these things come from and I am willing to give credit where credit is due.
In a prior article (now deleted), I referred to Steve as “perhaps the closest thing the blogosphere has to a political philosopher.” I will leave to readers to unpack the various layers of irony in that comment. But one genuine intellectual historian objected and said so. Steve has no such training, and so on.
[To the extent that the philosopher undermines belief in that common opinion, he undermines the basis of society. He also, not incidentally, puts himself in danger, as the fate of Socrates shows. Steve Sailer, perhaps the closest thing the blogosphere has to a political philosopher, enjoys pointing out the error at the heart of the “Emperor’s New Clothes” parable. In real life, the little child—whom we may analogize to the philosopher—would be torn limb from limb for exposing everyone’s ignorance.]
To be sure.
My comment was meant in jest, but only partly. I think Steve’s grasp of political theory is weaker than my own. However, a long time ago, we got into an argument about political theory and despite my book-learnin’, I lost. He was right and I was wrong. It took me a long time to understand that but eventually I did.
I also came to understand (or think I did; “all knowledge is provisional”) that Steve’s understanding is truer to the great thinkers I studied and cherish than my own had been. The larger question of the relation of the universal to the particular still looms (for me) but Steve has been a big help.
While Steve is not a political philosopher in any overt or obvious sense, he is one in the most decisive sense. He thinks about political life directly, not through the filer of any preconceived theory. Which is what Plato and Aristotle did. Plus, with maybe five exceptions, Steve is better than all those who are formally classified as political philosophers in our time.
* “Trump is the most liberal Republican nominee since Thomas Dewey.”
It’s the first time I’ve seen this point being made. He is the most anti-war Republican candidate in decades, and his concern about the displacement of American blue-collar jobs is something traditionally associated with liberals. His policies are everything liberals claim to believe in – apart from their desire for unlimited immigration.
* Decius very generously acknowledges Sailer’s talent as a political thinker.
Note that Steve also has great instincts as a rhetorician! Must be the background in marketing. He immediately spotted the passage that should have come at the end of the essay, and put it at the end of his excerpt:
“I want to live. I want my party to live. I want my country to live. I want my people to live.”
That is very, very potent stuff. It cannot be followed by another twelve paragraphs of thoughtful analysis without dissipating the animal spirits that have been summoned up. The speech has to end there – except for the wild cheering that follows.
Stephen Miller, just in case you’re listening: you should bring Decius on board as a speech-writer, with Steve Sailer as his editor.
