Luke Ford | No sacred cows.

Donald Trump Surging Since Paris Attacks

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

From Washington Post: It’s hard not to think that Trump’s hard line on everything has benefited him since the attacks in Paris. In the Post/ABC poll, white non-college graduates — one of the groups among which Trump does the best — were 38 points more likely to say that they opposed resettling Syrian refugees in the United States. Among those who say they favor deporting undocumented immigrants, Trump leads by 25. Trump has spent the past week embroiled in a very public conversation about just how far he wants to go in cracking down on refugees, immigrants and terrorists — which is not likely to hurt him with his core base of support. As we noted last week, foreign policy was a noted point of weakness for Carson even before the attacks.

Posted in Donald Trump | Comments Off

Is Islam The Problem?

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

Posted in Islam | Comments Off

There Are Serious, Unbigoted Reasons to Be Wary of a Flood of Syrian Refugees

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

Ian Tuttle writes for National Review Nov. 18, 2015:

Among politicians and their clingers-on, journalists, nothing takes hold like a bad historical analogy. Thus as politicians — 29 governors chief among them — call for a halt to our Syrian-refugee-resettlement program on the grounds that it might be exploited as a conduit for terrorists, pundits are invoking the plight of Jewish refugees fleeing Adolf Hitler’s Germany in an effort to soften American hearts. The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote Monday, “This growing cry to turn away people fleeing for their lives brings to mind the SS St. Louis, the ship of Jewish refugees turned away from Florida in 1939,” while his colleague Ishaan Tharoor contended: “Today’s 3-year-old Syrian orphan, it seems, is 1939’s German Jewish child.” Meanwhile, a Daily Kos headline shouts: “Replace ‘Syrian’ with ‘Jewish’ and we’re back to 1939.”

This is prima facie nonsense, which should be obvious from the terms being compared: Jews, an ethnic group, with Syrians, a national one. An honest, apples-to-apples comparison would line up German Jews and Syrian Muslims — the relevant ethnic group within the relevant political entity. But do this, and the failure of the analogy becomes clear.

The first, and most obvious, difference: There was no international conspiracy of German Jews in the 1930s attempting to carry out daily attacks on civilians on several continents. No self-identifying Jews in the early 20th century were randomly massacring European citizens in magazine offices and concert halls, and there was no “Jewish State” establishing sovereignty over tens of thousands of square miles of territory, and publicly slaughtering anyone who opposed its advance. Among Syrian Muslims, there is. The vast majority of Syrian Muslims are not party to these strains of radicalism and violence, but it would be dangerous to suggest that they do not exist, or that our refugee-resettlement program need not take account of them.

On a related note, the sympathies of Syrian Muslims are more diverse than those of Nazi-era German Jews. A recent Arab Opinion Index poll of 900 Syrian refugees found that one in eight hold a “to some extent”-positive view of the Islamic State (another 4 percent said that they did not know or refused to answer). A non-trivial minority of refugees who support a murderous, metastatic caliphate is a reason for serious concern. No 13 percent of Jews looked favorably upon the Nazi party.

Third, European Jews in the early 20th century were more amenable to assimilation than are Syrian Muslims in the early 21st. By the time of the rise of Nazism, Jews had participated in the intellectual and cultural life of Germany for a century and a half — a life that, despite regional particularities, indisputably fell under the broad banner of Western civilization, in which America participated, too. Moving from Munich to Miami took some getting used to, but you could hear Beethoven in both. Syria stands largely outside of that tradition. For 500 years, Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire. When it collapsed, Syria fell briefly under French rule, eventually gaining independence only to succumb to the dictatorship of the Assads, père et fils. The intellectual, cultural, and political traditions of Syria are not in concert with those of the West, and it would be foolish to think that that does not matter — especially when combined with the uncertain sympathies noted above.

Posted in Immigration, Islam, Syria | Comments Off

‘The President of America says we are afraid of orphan children, we should be!’

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

Source

Posted in Islam | Comments Off

Nicholas Kristof: ‘Statue of Liberty Must be Crying with Shame’

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

Comments to Steve Sailer:

* Yeah, I remember all those Jewish-perpetrated massacres. It’s exactly the same.

* The plaque with Emma Lazarus’ poem should be removed from the Statue of Liberty. And the sentiment removed from our psyche.

* That it’s the Statue of *Liberty* not the “Statue of Immigration Schmaltz” or a giant “Immigrants Welcome!” sign seems to escape these folks.

Immigration enthusiasm is not just worthless, it’s actually stupid and harmful. Whereas “Liberty” is pretty darn cool.

And the fact is no one does liberty better than Anglo Saxons. Everyone else is a least a bit–to a whole bunch–inferior at liberty. Muslims–at least currently–are absolutely terrible at liberty even in even absolute terms, not to mention their inability to get along with everyone else in a society, nor the reality that there presence inevitably requires security measures that encroach upon historic liberties and that presence of muslims allows the super-state to strip away even more liberty in the name of “tolerance”, “diversity” and policing “hate”.

Cheerleading bringing is not just not what the Statue of Liberty stands for–i.e. Liberty–it is positively antithetical to having liberty.

* I think this cold civil war that has been brewing among whites has reached a point where there is no chance of reconciliation. Whatever unenlightened whites on the Right support or oppose you can pretty much bet the enlightened whites will oppose or support.

It seems clear they only support bringing in more Syrians and others because, and only because, the Right is against it. Their whole purpose in life is to stomp on our faces and make our lives as miserable as possible. Thus, they continue to double down on immigration despite the fact they know the newcomers are not assimilating and do in fact change our culture, as described in that previous post by the Belgian war photographer.

This latest column by Kristof is just more social signaling. I’ve seen it all week over the Paris attacks. We all know that when Roof shot up the SC church, the Left would not let up and blamed Roof, unenlightened whites and even the rebel flag. Now after the Paris attacks they blame every body but the culprits. And to show they have no evil thoughts they are going to double down on the refugee scam even though the refugees’ own cousins and coreligionists, who have tremendous wealth and are only a stones throw away, want absolutely nothing to do with them. That alone should tell you all you need to know. But since unenlightened whites are against it, it must be good.

* Don’t overlook the ecstasy they feel at the prospect of sending diversity to your neighborhood for you to enjoy because they know that you don’t want it. This is a huge motivation for them. They’re clearly not wanting to house the refugees in the Upper West Side, in Westchester, in Georgetown, in Malibu, in Palo Alto, no sirree, the yokels need to take the refugees and the section 8ers because diversity is double plus good for the yokels because they have the temerity to have wrongthink positions, unlike the good people who have the rightthink positions.

* In a way, Muslims are the new Jews. Reading what is said on the right-wing blogs about Muslims today very much reminds me of what has, historically been said by anti-Semites about Jews, e.g., they want to take over the world; they are “filth”; they are “different” and will never blend into “our” culture; their religion is too important to them, so they will never be loyal to our country because their loyalty to their “god” and their religion comes first for them. The GOP politicians give voice to and encourages the thinking of their fearful, xenophobic base.

* The key phrase on the Statue of Liberty is “yearning to breathe free”. The question for all immigrants should be “Do you yearn to breathe free?” “Do you support freedom of speech, the press, religion, etc.?” If not, take a hike.

* Seeing as Emma Lazarus, the poet who wrote that bit on the statue, was a Zionist, I wonder what she’d say about the West Bank wall? It’s all about getting into the promised land, right?

* George Takei’s Facebook post about being locked up because his family “looked like” the people who attacked Pearl Harbor is a lie.

1. Chinese people who “looked like” the attackers were not locked up.
2. Every last Japanese-American was also a citizen of Japan automatically under Japanese law.
3. Only Japanese in War Zone 1 were rounded up and they were free to leave War Zone 1 and settle in Colorado (for example) as some did.

* The Muslims are the New Nazis, not the new Jews. And in 1945 thousands of Nazis were on the run from the Russians, who wanted to kill them. No reason to take them in our country.

* Jewish host of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me Was dutifully parroting this Jewish Narrative today. Said the SoL was now laying across the harbor blocking immigrants. I guess the statue itself isn’t the point – the point is the crappy poem by a Jewess affixed to its base.

The French didn’t send us the SoL because immigrants, but like I said, it’s the five dollar plaque that matters.

That’s their Narrative, and they’re sticking to it.

* The name of the statue that the French gave us as a birthday present in 1876 is “Liberty Enlightening the World.” That’s why the Lady is carrying the torch. What she’s enlightening the world with has nothing to do with invite-invade. It’s the ideas of the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. Therefore the date on the book she’s holding. Emma Lazarus’s schmaltzy poem was tacked on years later. Edouard Laboulaye, who started the campaign to send us the statue was the most prominent French classical liberal of this time, though he was sadly mistaken on the character of the War Between the States.

* Judah P Benjamin was pretty assimilated. Doesn’t get more Confederate than him.

Yeah I remember when Einstein blew up the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Jack Kirby went on jihad. Jews are not Muslims. No jihad, polygamy, cousin marriage, drink alcohol, and don’t out women in tents.

* Has anyone given one minute of thought to what is to become of Syria? I assume Syria will be reconstituted in some form once this war is done. How then will Syria be able to rebuild and become a functioning nation without its human capital?

All these progressives who are keen on importing Syrians are in effect acting like modern day colonial powers extracting resources from some poor nation. Taking human resources is probably worse than taking natural ones. I just don’t see how Syria will rebuild if all of its best talent is skimmed off. There has to be a plan to move these people back home.

I think progressives should be put on the spot to publicly defend why they support the colonial practice of human resource extraction, and what that portends for the future of these poor nations.

Posted in America, Islam, Jews, Syria | Comments Off

Dr. Afshine Emrani: Your Reaction to Islam Will Define Who You Are

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

Dr. Emrani writes in the Jewish Journal:

4- The vast majority of Muslims are no different than the vast majority of Jews or Christians. People are people when you get to know them.
5- The extremism that exists in Islam is currently harsher than any other, but, world’s history has witnessed extremism from Christians (Crusades) as well as from secular ideologies such as Marxism or Hitler’s genetic cleansing.
6- The average Muslim wants what we all want: life, love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
7- Most Muslims are ashamed of terrorists and terrorism and extremism, and wish as do the rest of us to rid themselves of a connection with this hideous ideology. In fact, they have more to lose by the slanders of their holy book and prophets than the rest of us.
8- Ultimately, decent people will use an ideology or a religion to help others, while indecent people will abuse the ideology or the religion to hurt others.
9- When you don’t see Muslims speak up for you or against extremists, engage them, talk to them, but don’t attack them and build walls to lock out your potentially most important allies.
10- How you react to Islam and Muslims, in the end, will say more about you than about the religion.
Rather than posting insults to Prophet Muhammad and pointing out problems to get a few likes on social media and high fives from non-Muslim friends, your efforts would do more good if you reached out and built bridges toward and befriended the decent Muslims who so much want your love. As the wise Sufi teaching goes: Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve the silence?”

Comments at JJ:

* Where is the outspoken protest against Islamic violence from the greater Muslim community? Where are their rallies on campus? Where is their outrage and vigorous defense of those mainstream Muslim values you speak of? I don’t see it. We don’t see it. And this is the root of anti-Muslim sentiment in this country, not simply racism or religous intolerance.

Muslim complacency in the face of Islamic extremist violence, which confronts and attacks the very values we hold dear as Americans — life, love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — arouses deep suspicion. And rightly so.

Time and again, American values such as democracy and religious and civil freedom come under fire and are severely tested. You, Dr. Emrani, didn’t grow up here, so you didn’t spend weeks, months and semesters in school studying U.S. history. Perhaps you don’t fully appreciate that fighting against injustice is an American right, and a value in and of itself. When the South tried to succeed from the Union in order to preserve slavery, over 600,000 soldiers from the North paid for freedom for African-Americans with their bodies and their blood. This is what Americans do. We fight against tyranny, whether abroad or here.

The majority of Muslims here also came to this country, rather than a Muslim country, to enjoy lives of freedom and opportunity that America provides. Just as your family did. But you and they are enjoying the fruits of others’ labor. Your freedom was paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of those who came before. Neither you nor the Muslim community seems to understand that.

As long as the Muslim community refuses to stand up and speak out against their own in vigorous defense of the values you say they hold as dearly as we do, they are not ACTING according to American values. As long as they don’t rail against atrocities in the name of Islam, they will continue to distance themselves from mainstream America and arouse suspicion and distrust. And that is not our fault. It’s their fault. So we don’t need a lesson in love and healing. The Muslim community needs a lesson in the importance of defending freedom.

With this article, Dr. Emrani, you have defined yourself as yet another bleeding-heart liberal (pun intended), who blindly enjoys the American life of liberty and opportunity without recognizing that it doesn’t exist by itself, and never has. It was created, fought for and defended from the beginning, and this process can never stop.

You seem to be living in a dream world, Dr. Emrani. No one here is entitled. Everyone has to fight to defend American freedom and our precious way of life when it’s threatened — as it is now. Your Muslim neighbors aren’t doing this, and neither are you. This is what we, who have lived here for generations, see and understand.

As Jews, we accuse those around the world who stood by silently as Nazi Germany committed genocide. And rightly so. Do you not think the Muslim community should speak up against their own who suppress human rights and commit atrocities? And worse, it is done in the name of Islam.

Yes, my reaction to violent suppression of human rights, whether Islamic or otherwise, defines who I am — and I’m proud of it. I’m both an American and a Jew, and we know that we have to fight for our freedom. And we know that all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion, must do the same.

* Call your local Imam and ask him… to join me on a radio or T.V. program or even produce a you tube condemning Isis. It will not happen. They say one thing in English and then ask for the destruction of Israel in their own language. How many more innocent civilians must die. This is America and we are all Americans. Obama you are a fool for allowing immigrants from Syria into America. They will murder our families.. Declare war, Mr. President.

Posted in Islam | Comments Off

Gregory Cochran Reviews New Book On Iq – ‘Hive Mind’

Posted on November 22, 2015 by Luke Ford

Dr. Cochran writes:

Garrett Jones has a new book out: Hive Mind. He argues that “while individual IQ scores predict our independent success moderately well, a country’s average score is a remarkable bellwether of its general prosperity.” Makes sense. I might even call it obvious…

Of course there are other general factors that create differences in national prosperity – the biggest are valuable natural resources (oil in Saudi Arabia) and being currently or recently under a Communist* government. But average national IQ has the largest effect. I didn’t see much direct discussion of this, but this general trend was a lot less true at points in the past. The Communism ref is a hint: there used to be a lot of Communism, now there’s not – this makes the relative importance of IQ differences larger than it was in 1970. Generally, you could say that most of the world has signed on to roughly the same form of economic organization, just as statesmen everywhere wear suits, so that differences in national prosperity have more to do with differences in biological capital than they used to – just as differences in individual height are more driven by genetics today, in the US (where we are fat), than they were in England in 1800 (where the poor were hungry and five inches shorter). Not than biological difference were ever unimportant.

Jones talks about IQ – what it is, what it predicts. He knows his psychometrics, which is damned unusual for an economist. You would almost think that he’s spent a lot of time (sub rosa) conferring, conversing, and otherwise hobnobbing with devotees of the Dark Arts. He talks about how nice it would be if we could raise national IQs (then Indonesia could do what Germany does – and did) – but of course we don’t really know how, except with iodine supplementation.

He talks about the ways in which a higher national IQ pays off – more patience (low time preference), higher savings rates, more cooperation, more ability to form teams suited to complex tasks with little room for error, less incompetent government. I’d also mention differences in inventiveness, a higher fraction of people that exceed required thresholds for complex tasks, more people believing in and practicing basic maintenance (zero or crappy maintenance is the bane of the Third World), more effective deterrence of crime, fewer accidents, etc etc. If you’re ever watched a decent but dumb guy confidently fire a nail gun into the palm of his own hand, you will know what I mean.

…If you talked to a smart, fair-minded guy in 1900, one with wide experience, and asked which countries would do well if native ability were the main determinant of national success – I think he would have predicted something roughly like what we see today. It’s highly correlated with peoples that managed fairly high levels of sophistication since the Bronze Age.

If it’s all that obvious, why haven’t other economists come to similar conclusions? Because they didn’t like these conclusions, of course – because of professional risk – because they don’t have a reasonably detailed picture of the world – because they never bothered to learn anything about psychometrics. Look at the reaction of the economists to Lynn and Vanhanen’s work: puerile.

COMMENTS:

* I would think the main reason for economists not noticing the importance of IQ is that standard economic theory doesn’t have a hole in which to fit that peg. This goes for both neoclassical (“people are rational”) and behavioural (“people are irrational”). Human capital theory comes closest, but the standard model is blank slate.

* As I understand it, people like Bryan Caplan and Tyler Cowen do not propose to raise national prosperity in the sense of GDP per head. The principle of comparative advantage means that if, say, small, rich Switzerland and large, poor Bangladesh allow the free movement of goods, specialisation will make each country richer than it was previously. Well then, the Caplans and the Cowens argue, add free movement of people so that the two countries are effectively provinces of a single superstate, and there will be even more specialisation and an even greater rise in prosperity. What they don’t tell you is that the GDP per head of the combined superstate will be lower than the GDP per head of the smaller, richer province used to be and that the Swiss, while richer as individuals, will find themselves living in a poorer country – like white Africans living better than they would at home while surrounded by dire poverty. And if you don’t like that, you are a high IQ misanthrope. “Make more money and move to a nicer area.”

* Many people claim we need to give those societies more time to “catch up” to Western ones. I say they’ve had a lot of time. Not one has actually “caught up”.

* China is very corrupt but Japan seems low in corruption. I’d be interested in your views on why there is this difference.

* Genes. Japan is less corrupt that most East Asian nations but perhaps not quite Western-levels.

* As you’ve pointed out with New Mexico, and as the persistence of the American Nations demonstrates, “assimilation” is a myth. Immigrants bring their culture, performance, and politics with them, and they keep it:

Demography is Destiny, American Nations Edition

More Maps of the American Nations

Even the Ellis Island-era immigrants didn’t “assimilate”* at all, as their respective attributes are visible wherever they settled. North Jersey isn’t Minnesota.

*They picked up the language, they may have changed how they dress, they may have even changed nominal religions, or even the food, to some extent. But that’s about it.

* When I was a young kid I remember thinking: if economists are such experts, why don’t they use that knowledge to make actual money, instead of getting paid average wages? (Generally lots of thoughts along those lines that were more clearheaded at 13 than at 31, before the chaos and inundation…)

The vast majority of economists are worse than useless. Seriously, how can someone who’s whole thesis is the importance of a high-IQ society come to the conclusion that supports low-IQ immigration?

* When criticizing economists please take note of the fact that the average IQ of econ majors is 128 while that of psychology majors is 113.*
And economists know far more about psychology than psychologists about economics.

Posted in Economics, Genetics, IQ | Comments Off

RamzPaul: ‘I bet he was also trying to turn his life around. And he had a big smile that lights up the room. ‘

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Luke Ford

News: A man suspected in the rape of a teenage girl as she walked to school Wednesday morning had a previous rape charge dismissed from court.

Posted in Rape | Comments Off

WP: In the first majority-Muslim U.S. city, residents tense about its future

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Luke Ford

Comments at WP:

* The money-quote from the Muslim city councilman: “I don’t know why people keep putting religion into politics,” –after being asked about the denial of liquor licenses within 500 ft of mosques. They leave their countries because their religion makes the countries unlivable only to come to the US to make it like the s-holes they left.

* Funny that the people who drone on about the mythology of campus rape won’t talk about Sweden.

* Sweden Opened Its Doors To Muslim Immigration, Today It’s The Rape Capital Of The West

* Interestingly, 26% of children born in Sweden are to foreign parents. The median age in most European countries is well into the 40’s; when only whites are included, the median age rises to 50+ in most European countries.

Kiss traditional Europe goodbye. Demographics can change almost generationally (i.e., 20 years) owing to differing birth rates between indigenous populations and immigrations (look at the U.S. for reference).

* Girls now graduate from the sixth grade and get arranged marriages. Thank you Hillary!

* Translation: Anyone who doesn’t support national suicide isn’t a real patriot. Nice.

* While it may be a US city, it isn’t an American city. What’s the purpose of the non-assimilation of all these immigrants and creating an enclave? We’re always told all these immigrants want to assimilate. Guess it not true.

Posted in Islam | Comments Off

Marco Rubio

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Luke Ford

Posted in Politics | Comments Off