Why Did Vote Turnout Collapse In The 20th Century?

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* The decline in voter turnout has several explanations, all of which get back to one central point: the dilution and degradation of the civic sphere. Sailer and the others hint at some of the bellwethers; to distill them down, we may identify:

1. A rapid expansion of the franchise. Obviously easing immigration and citizenship requirements as well as enfranchising women and lowering the emancipation age would create a citizenry more diverse not only in age, color and sex, but also in ideas and in levels of cognition. Not surprising that many of them would fail (through their own fault or otherwise) to find a civic proposition that spoke to them.
2. The dissolution of the family as the cornerstone social unit, upon which larger geographically-based communities can be erected. The expansion of outside and fast-stimulus entertainment is not unrelated. The resulting breakdown in individual and group discipline makes it more difficult to pursue a constructive common agenda.

* Sailer: In America it was known as the Australian Ballot. It spread across the U.S. between 1888 and 1891. So the effect of secret ballots wasn’t immediate, but, yeah, it may have changed the culture with an impact lagging by about a decade and a half.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the secret ballot was deemed racist in the future and the demand grows that everybody vote via Facebook so their votes become part of their Permanent Record and they can be fired for voting for the wrong guy.

* The Brendan Eich affair foreshadowed the future. Ultimately there is no meaningful distinction between donating to a political group encouraging people to vote for a proposition, and actually voting for it.

If we can’t beat the SJWs with our game we have to beat them at theirs. Right-leaning folks have been very timid in adopting the tactics of the left, either due to ignorance of the situation on the ground, or a simple distaste for distasteful things. But taking the high ground is not always the wisest action. Dishonorable people should not be treated honorably.

* As this article observes, one of the anti-suffragette arguments was that the expansion of the franchise to women would have a deleterious effect on democracy, as each individual vote was devalued, as women were less motivated to vote (the fact that more women than men vote now may reflect something of the way that the realm of politics has been redefined since universal suffrage), as the electorate became more fickle, uninformed, and disengaged, as politics became more prone to mass advertising, and as the electorate became a less independent body of persons, encouraging a more paternalistic relationship between government and the electorate more generally. It seems to me that these concerns were not without some warrant. More generally, changing the franchise changes the character of the relationship between government and the people. It can raise levels of voter apathy. It can strengthen or weaken the civic structures of political engagement. The more diverse the electorate becomes, for instance, the harder it is for civic structures and regular forms of sociality to represent the immediacy of political discourse.

* Women have the vote. None of this will ever change as long as that’s the case. Women should never have been given the franchise, but perhaps that’s an inevitable characteristic of democracy: politicians endlessly expand the franchise until it’s meaningless.

Sounds harsh, but it’s reality. Makes me pretty angry to see Pope Francis paying lip service to feminism while keeping women out of authority in the Catholic Church. Abject hypocrisy. Make women priests and bishops and put them in charge of the Church and see how long it lasts!

Same goes for the elites. If I could craft a suitable punishment for them for what they’ve done to us, it would be to put their wives and lovers in a position of total supremacy over them and all their possessions. That’s what they’ve done to us, after all, to the severe detriment of our women and children I might add.

Posted in America | Comments Off on Why Did Vote Turnout Collapse In The 20th Century?

The Black Revival Of Family Feud

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

As America becomes more multicultural and less intelligent, it becomes more debased. The lowest common denominator takes over. When American culture was run by WASPs, it was more elevated.

New York Post: The revival of the wholesome 1970s game show “Family Feud,” hosted by Steve Harvey, has recently been criticized for sexually explicit Q&As.

In two clips posted last September, Harvey asked a contestant to recall “the last thing you stuck your finger in.”

“My wife.”

“My favorite answer of all time,” Harvey said.

“Name the first part of a woman you touch to get her in the mood,” Harvey asked another panel.

“Um, that would be the lower part of the vagina,” said one contestant, whom Harvey high-fived.

Posted in Blacks, Hollywood | Comments Off on The Black Revival Of Family Feud

Team Obama is setting us up for another housing-market collapse

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

New York Post: The Obama administration is doing its best to give the nation another mortgage meltdown.

As Paul Sperry recently noted in The Post, Team Obama has pushed mortgage lenders to offer home loans to folks with shaky credit, setting up conditions for another housing-market collapse.
Wasn’t the last one bad enough?

Credit scores of approved borrowers, for example, have been trending down, even as their debt levels have grown.

The Federal Housing Administration and government-sponsored “independent” lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been demanding lower credit standards — just as the feds did starting under President Bill Clinton, in pursuit of the same “affordable housing” goal.

Some borrowers need only put 3 percent down to get a Fannie Mae loan — even if the downpayment is a gift. Fannie also has started up a new subprime-lending program.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency recently warned that mortgage underwriting standards have slipped and now reflect “broad trends similar to those experienced from 2005 through 2007, before the most recent financial crisis.”

When the economy and housing prices turn south again, a lot of these loans will go bad, just as they did last time.

Good news: That probably won’t cause another global financial crisis, because the banks largely learned their lesson on that front back in 2008.

Bad news: The taxpayers will likely wind up on the hook. Directly or indirectly, Uncle Sam has been responsible for insuring at least 80 percent of new mortgages since 2008.

Obama is setting us up for another housing crash

By Paul Sperry:

We learned nothing from the last financial crisis. The housing market is set to collapse, again, and a key culprit, again, is artificial demand created by government policies.

For starters, mortgage-software firm Ellie Mae reports that the average FICO credit score of an approved home loan plunged to 719 in January (the latest month for which data is available) from 731 a year earlier, and well below 2011’s peak of 750.

It’s a dangerous sign lenders are loosening underwriting standards. Lower FICO scores correlate with higher risk of loan default.

The Federal Housing Administration is a big reason for falling credit scores. So are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government housing agencies have slashed credit requirements under pressure from the Obama administration — like the Clinton administration before it — to qualify more immigrants and minorities with low incomes and “less-than-perfect credit.”

Meanwhile, home lenders are approving more debt-strapped borrowers. According to Ellie Mae, applicants approved for mortgages in January had an average household debt-to-income ratio of 39%, up from 2012’s annual average of 34%. Borrower debt loads have been creeping higher each year since 2012, when Ellie Mae first started tracking such data.

A recent report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a federal agency that regulates the nation’s banks, warns that declines in mortgage underwriting standards are mirroring pre-crisis trends.

“Underwriting standards eased at a significant number of banks for the three-year period from 2013 through 2015,” the report said. “This trend reflects broad trends similar to those experienced from 2005 through 2007, before the most recent financial crisis.”

Not since 2006, it noted, have lenders taken on so much credit risk, and it says the hazard will continue to grow this year: “Examiners expect the level of credit risk to increase over the next 12 months.”

A large chunk of the risk is coming from first-time home buyers with shaky credit and so-called “rebound” buyers who previously defaulted on home loans.

Posted in Mortgages | Comments Off on Team Obama is setting us up for another housing-market collapse

Can Israel build big, sustainable companies?

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

Israel is a low-trust society which might make it difficult building up big companies.

From Techcrunch:

The Israeli start-up ecosystem is a well-oiled investment machine that has been turning out companies for the better part of two decades.

The country has its own homegrown angels like Gigi Levy-Weiss and Eilon Tirosh, venture capital firms like Carmel, JVP, Pitango and Canaan, equity crowdfunding firms like OurCrowd and iAngels, and Silicon Valley firms with offices on the ground like Battery Ventures and Sequoia (that’s not to mention the new wave of Asian investors betting on Israeli start-ups).

But, for all the “Start-up Nation” fanfare, Google’s acquisition of Waze – Israel’s highest profile start-up exit to date – was valued at just $1.1B. And, while Israel officially has two Unicorn companies on the CrunchBase list (more if you count companies like Taboola and WeWork), only a handful of Israeli companies have actually exited in the billion dollar range. This is, at least in part, by design.

COMMENTS:

* I know you will laugh, but the key missing element is middle management. Israelis want to either be left alone to code or design, or want to be the vice president/CxO of something. We are not being taught at school, the army or university to be the backbone of scaled companies.

What we see in recent years is new forms of management like squads for engineering & product that embrace a more casual or lesser hierarchy style. This is probably better suited to the local culture.

* I would imagine that the Arab-Israeli conflict and an economy in which salaries cannot keep up with living expenses are bigger roadblocks than the lack of middle management.

Second, it seems like an easy problem to solve. There are many people who (like me) moved to Israel from the United States or Europe, places with no shortage of middle managers. Can’t they simply step in and fill those middle management rolls?

* I find that the Arab-Israeli conflict doesn’t negatively impact the building of big companies. If anything, in a similar fashion to how evolution is driven by external stimuli, the big challenge (with its many downsides) that the geo political situation presents actually stimulates innovation. This is driven by both the doubling down on engineering efforts in the intelligence corps (8-200) that are tasked with sustaining security through this complex situation as well as “getting shit done” culture resulting from it. The article you cite about cost of living is true, but it also specifically notes that the “high tech economy” has the income levels to sustain a (very) high standard of living. This is not dissimilar to the issues you see San Francisconians have with Google / Facebook / Twitter and other high tech employees that increase the rent for others. If you are willing to live in parts other than Tel Aviv, cost of living is significantly lower. My biggest complaint is the lack of sufficient development of public transport.

Going back to the issue of building big companies, the issue is one of a transforming industry, and the Israeli culture of dismissing authority.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on Can Israel build big, sustainable companies?

Dennis Prager, Jews & Christians

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

The following story is a rare example of Dennis yelling at a caller.
Dore phoned Dennis Prager’s radio show Dec. 24, 2010: “Dennis, you love the holiday [of Christmas] so much, do you have a Christmas tree in your house?”
Dennis laughs.
Dore: “You are so enamored with it. Why? Do you get enamored with Easter?”
Dennis: “No. I am enamored with Christmas.”
Dore: “Why don’t you become a Christian? You don’t like Chanukkah, right?”
In the past, Dennis described Chanukkah music as “pathetic” in comparison to Christmas music.
Dennis: “Why does liking Christmas as a Jew mean I don’t like Chanukkah?”
Dore: “Why is it so important? If you take away the shmaltz, the music, the tree and everything else, you’ve got a religious holiday?”
Dennis: “Yes. I love the religion of my neighbors. For me, it is not a religious holiday. I don’t believe in Jesus Christ. Is it a national holiday?”
Dore: “Yes. Unfortunately, it is.”
Dennis: “The vast majority of Americans do [observe Christmas]… It is a meaningful day [for most Americans] and I like that and that’s why I live here. I love this country and I love its holidays including Christmas. My colleague Michael Medved is an Orthodox Jew and he plays this Christmas music [on his radio show]. My brother is Orthodox and he sang Christmas carols with a yarmulke with the Columbia’s Glee club. You are insular, we are not… You live in a tiny little ghettoized mind. I don’t.”
Dore: “Do you know the only day that Jews weren’t killed in the concentration camps? Christmas day.”
Dennis: “You’re an ingrate. How many Jews are living in the freest country on earth thanks to American Christians… You are an ingrate, sir.”
Dore: “No, I’m not.”
Dennis: “You are living in the best country Jews have lived in and you are crapping on the Christians who made this country. Why do you continue to live here if you have such a contempt for the Christians who surround you?”
Dore: “I have no contempt for non-Jews. I have contempt for Christmas day.”
Dennis: “Your entire call has been how crappily Christians have treated Jews. Why do you continue to live among Christians when you could live in Tel Aviv among Jews?”
Dore: “If I had the money, I would make aliyah to Israel.”
Six times during the call, Dennis called Dore “an ingrate.”

In a May 1, 2012 speech, Dennis said: “I text my rabbi (Orthodox), ‘Merry Christmas.’ And he texts back, ‘Gut yontif.'”

I asked a goy give me some feedback on my Prager biography.

He replied: Wow, that conversation with “Dore” is fascinating… Prager does seem like a weird sort of Jew–so patriotic. I’ve been trying to formulate an identity map of sorts, like those X/Y-axis politics grids that you see now and then on Facebook. It seems like there’s 1) national identity 2) racial identity 3) religious identity, and 4) personality.

Seems like this could be helpful in sorting. I think Asian-Americans tend to be low in 1, 3, and 4… whites tend to be low in 2 and, increasingly, 4. Blacks low in 1… but among Jews, there is some diversity. And Prager seems to stand alone. [i’m still reading]

–in the ancient world, tribal Jews prayed to their YHWH, and I suppose they assumed everyone else prayed to their own gods… the Athenians prayed to Artemis, or whatever, and the Romans to Jupiter, and so on… the strange thing is that 2000 years later, in the West, there is really only one god to pray to — the YHWH of the Jews — and yet it seems very evident that most Jews would say that the Christians and other gentiles are wasting their time “worshiping” in their characteristic non-Jewish ways. It does frustrate me pretty deeply, to be honest, that I not only do not know–but can not know–the gods and rituals of my deep ancestors. I wonder how Jews feel about Paul, who basically tried to make a one-size-fits-all Judaism… and I wonder whether Paul’s Greekness–overlayed onto his Jewishness–was part of the cause of his… meddling? Like a modern American Jew, his culture surrounded him with gentile objects & customs… and so maybe as a response, he started to hate all things gentile, and preach, with his weird eschatological Jesus, that one needn’t be circumcized to be among G-d’s people.

sorry, digressing… but I guess most Jews would say they don’t think of St. Paul at all, or they kinda despise him? Yet it seems to me that they ought to love him, for basically single-handedly designing a system that would destroy all the native paganisms of the ancient world, and clear the way for…. “Judeo-Christianity.”

I like the parts where Prager says davening & praying bore him… because I feel so the opposite. I think of all institutional religion as like training wheels, and I think of people who still attend as I would think of adults who ride bikes with training wheels. But that aspect of his personality attracts me, because it’s baffling… almost no inner life, apparently. Just: work, be nice, try hard, stay positive.

“I get my values from the Bible” is what all my Southern Baptist students say… Does Prager’s dad remind you of your dad?

Wow! — that stuff about benefiting from a non-Jew’s business error is craaaaazy! Fuck these people. Put that story about returning the electric shaver in the first paragraph. It’s when I read stuff like that and kinda viscerally react that I see how much of a universalist I was raised to be. And it seems like it’s too late to develop my own in-group with a comprehensive set of guidelines about how how many different ways we could screw over out-group people… so all I can do is say, “That’s awful.”

Your style is interesting–never really read anything like it. If anything, there’s not enough of your craziness by usual standards. You’re more like a curator than an essayist here. But it’s good: just an unfiltered distilling of Prager himself, it seems.

Sometimes I think a serious man needs a mentor as he’s coming into manhood or adulthood, and in modern America, that relationship–which is almost archetypal, with parallels back to Greek philosophy or ancient India–is somehow impossible or out of fashion. You found Prager though.

Posted in Dennis Prager | Comments Off on Dennis Prager, Jews & Christians