Moving Onward!

Brave New World Watch will be gradually transitioning to its new location on WordPress during the next week or so. This site will stay up, and I don't plan on trying to transfer old posts or even reconstruct the entire sidebar. However, all new posts will be exclusively at the new location.

Comments on all posts at this location are now closed.

Come check out the new-look site!

Leftists as Relativists: A Deceiving Half-Truth

On the thread about Michael Savage, commenter FeminizedWesternMale criticized the following statement of mine:

"And if the right-wing talk show hosts are as crude as the left-wingers, what moral ground do we stand on when we condemn the crudity of left-wingers in the media?"

He wrote:

"Any moral ground is higher than amorality (which is my understanding of "moral relativism"), the offering of leftisms and the institutions that they dominate."

I actually disagree with his characterization of complete moral relativism as the leftist position, as I've said many times on this blog in the past. I argue that every group has a moral code, even though it may be one we traditionalists consider highly immoral. Anytime we speak of right and wrong, we're appealing to a moral code, correct? So if liberals were really complete moral relativists, they wouldn't speak of anything being "wrong". Yet they clearly believe (and many Americans who don't identify as liberals accept) that violations of PC, for example, are wrong. Failure to take positive action can also be considered wrong according to the leftist moral code. For example, if the government refuses to give foreign aid, provide universal health care, mandate racial quotas, or protect endangered species, that's considered wrong.

I agree that leftists tend to think of themselves as moral relativists, but I argue that in that respect, they are lying to themselves. A few years ago, George Lakoff wrote a book called Moral Politics in which he urged his fellow liberals to make their moral code explicit. Lakoff argued that liberals and conservatives each had their own moral code ("Nurturant Parent" and "Strict Father" respectively), and then tried to demonstrate that the liberal one was better than the conservative one. Although many praised his shorter book, Don't Think of an Elephant, I get the impression Moral Politics told leftists what they didn't want to hear. It was quickly swept under the rug to keep the leftists' self-deception alive.

Many conservatives, not being moral relativists themselves (and I'm not a moral relativist), sometimes fail to conceive of a moral code that violates their own as a moral code at all. Thus they make the difference between conservatism and liberalism into a choice of a Christian moral code vs. none at all. Whereas really the difference is between a Christian moral code and an atheistic, materialistic, politically correct one.

It's a blindness comparable to if we said that people who don't speak English have no language, rather than saying they speak a foreign language. Of course, languages are not right or wrong, whereas most people believe that moral codes are. The clearest way to assert that one moral code is right and all competing ones are wrong is to say that one is ordained by God. A Christian society says that Biblical morality is ordained by God. It’s entirely consistent for a Christian to say that non-Biblical moral codes contain some truth, just not the whole truth. Conservative Christians don’t generally have trouble recognizing a non-Christian moral code as a moral code if it’s associated with some other belief system they recognize as a religion. However, since liberalism doesn’t proclaim to be a religion, many think liberalism has no moral code at all. (I will leave unanswered here the question of whether liberalism is a religion, but it does share many of the features of a religion.)

I should concede that liberals don’t necessarily insist on spreading the liberal moral code to all peoples. Christians, on the other hand, know that the Bible commands Christians to bring the faith to all peoples. Christianity is therefore a universalistic or "proselytizing" religion, as is (more emphatically) Islam. Judaism, for example, explicitly is not. Liberals disagree about whether liberalism should be a "proselytizing" belief system, like Christianity, or should tolerate the dominance of other belief systems in certain places, like Judaism. Proselytizing liberalism is often called something other than liberalism (sometimes "neoliberalism" but also sometimes "neoconservatism" or "right-liberalism"), whereas non-proselytizing liberalism is more often called liberalism. Since the latter, unlike Christianity, does not claim universality, it reinforces Christians' blindness to the fact that liberalism has a moral code. Regardless of which conception a particular liberal espouses, however, there is still a core moral code that is mainly responsible for defining liberalism, and it’s far from completely relativistic.

To return to FeminizedWesternMale’s statement, then, sometimes a leftist can seem to stand on a higher moral ground than a conservative, particularly an inconsistent conservative. A person who isn’t particularly committed to the rightness of one or the other moral code may see the liberal as more moral (although in keeping with liberals' pretense of moral relativism, he will use other language such as "nice" or "tolerant" rather than "moral" to describe the liberal). I would guess that Michael Savage’s listeners don’t tend to go to churches that haven’t been corrupted by liberalism. Thus they may follow Savage down a liberal road, all the while believing that (because Savage proclaims to be "to the right of Rush") they are following "conservatism".

Out-of-Touch Globalists Meet Their Match

I might have tried to show how out-of-touch Roger Cohen was for praising Barack Obama for the reasons he did, but I'll just turn you over to Daniel Larison, who's already torn apart Cohen's argument. Be sure to read the comment from "Black Sea" as well.

Don't Be Shy! Vote!

Come on folks! I've had the current poll up for almost two weeks and only fifteen people have voted? We had more votes than that in our polls back in July, when we were getting a lot less traffic. So just take a second and vote!

Mirth and Merriment

Did you know there's not only an LGF Watch, but an LGF Watch Watch and even an LGF Watch Watch Watch? (No links, I don't want to raise Cain. Just google "LGF Watch" and see what you get.)

One of our old friends who fled the "genocide"-promotion at Gates of Vienna has surfaced at the former, where he has joined in the chorus of rare praise of LGF's Charles Johnson for Johnson's anathematizing Gates of Vienna. If you want to see the crazed left-wing mind in action, it's on display there. Remember, these are people who think that Charles Johnson is a bigoted, Muslim-hating fascist. They are amazed to see him denouncing someone farther to his right. It's quite amusing.

Update: Brian of the blog Us or Them invites all commenters ever banned from LGF to share their stories at this location.

Traditionalists Scaring Off Liberal Counterjihadists?

Around the beginning of last week, I had a mostly-finished post on why I still thought it was necessary to keep cooperating with those in the Counterjihad who opposed Islam on liberal grounds, recognizing that Islam wasn't liberal and wasn't compatible with a liberal society. I held onto it without publishing it, since I wasn't sure exactly how I felt. I'm starting to think I may have been wrong.

Developments over at Gates of Vienna have been quite interesting of late. What's most amazing, however, is the mentality of the more liberal commenters, including some who found Little Green Footballs too liberal. As soon as enough determined right-wingers show up, many of them tend to think, "I don't want to be associated with these folks. This site is being taken over by them. I'd better leave!" Even if traditional nationalists show up there as only a minority, liberals are taken aback at the idea of even having to share the commenting space with them. They're not willing to be part of a movement that even contains a small minority of decided "extremists". I suppose they just sense that they may not wind up playing a leading role in such a movement, so they'd prefer just to leave.

I know some traditionalists have actually written off sites like Gates of Vienna as incorrigible neocon hangouts, where commenting from a traditionalist perspective is useless. Indeed, if we had to make ourselves a majority there, that might be true. However, it's hard to know what effect a small shift in the balance might have. People who "follow the crowd" may switch sides, and frustrated liberals who can't bring everyone around to their position might start to believe their time is being wasted there. They'll demand that traditionalists be banned from the site (which I don't imagine will happen at GoV, since we're just restating the positions Fjordman states frequently, and the authors revere Fjordman). If their wishes aren't granted, they'll write of GoV as a "racist" site and just leave.

Recently I looked at some posts from Gates of Vienna from 2005, just to see if the site had changed its overall viewpoint much. It looks like the dominant viewpoint has already moved quite a bit more in the traditionalist direction. As more traditionalists come out of the woodwork, our position becomes more and more mainstream in the minds of those discussing the Counterjihad there. We help to prove that Fjordman is not alone in stating the positions he's stated.

Quote of the Week

Lawrence Auster writes:

"We now have on one side the Michael Savage “Take Your Religion and Shove It up Your Behind” School of Islam Criticism, and on the other side we have the David Yerushalmi “Your Reciprocal’s Connected to Your Redirection” School of Islam Criticism. And between them there’s me, asking people who are engaged in public discussion to use normal language suitable for public discussion."

It's worth noting, too, that Michael Savage (no connection to me) is also a member of the "Get AIDS and Die" School of Criticism of Homosexuality. Wikipedia reports that he was fired from MSNBC for saying to a caller:

"Oh, so you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig; how's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage, and choke on it. Get trichinosis."

The defense of Michael Savage by several commenters at VFR says more about the commenters' contemptuous views of the American public than it says about Savage.

Beyond "Zero Group Differences"

Jeff Martin has started a great discussion about the consequences of admitting the existence of racial differences over at What's Wrong with the World. Martin considers whether the dogma of Zero Group Differences is really a kind of "noble lie" that's essential in a "materialist" society -- one that doesn't believe in the scriptural version of equality of mankind. Martin articulates quite well my hang-up (is that word unacceptable liberalese?) about accepting race realism in its totality.

I do tend to think the "superman" ideal, in which genetic engineering is completely acceptable, will not catch on with many people, and therefore we don't have to be overly concerned to see a few scientists accepting it. However, I imagine the downfall of the "noble lie" of Zero Group Differences will have other consequences that we may not yet recognize. I just don't see a historical precedent for two races of drastically unequal capabilities coexisting in one country without either forced racial equality of representation (like we have now), or a whole system of discrimination and segregation supported by law. Maybe the latter situation is not as bad as I've been brought up to think, but we still have to recognize that reintroducing segregation wouldn't be a simple matter in any case.

Update: In Zippy Catholic's follow-up post, he writes, "So my understanding of the strength of the "zero group differences" mythology in the face of what has always been massive evidence against is this: that implicitly everyone understands that it is the only thing standing between the advanced liberal superman and the nazi." That's the main objection to admitting the differences, put more plainly than I've ever seen it before. May I hear from the other side?

Tancredo Getting Message Out!

If you missed Tom Tancredo's recent appearances discussing his new campaign ad on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room, Hannity & Colmes, and Fox & Friends, go over to his official blog and watch the videos.

List of Instances of Auster's Laws of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society

Since I love having Lawrence Auster's great discovery at hand -- his Laws (or is there just one stated many different ways?) of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society -- I'm gathering together all the instances here, so I can just cite this post whenever I want to appeal to these laws. I'm still not positive which is the original statement of the law -- this appears to be the oldest post on the topic at VFR, but it gives the impression that the idea was not new even at that time. So I'd appreciate Mr. Auster referring me to the original source in which he first laid out the concept, whether that source is online or not.

• "The worse any designated minority or alien group behaves in a liberal society, the bigger become the lies of Political Correctness in covering up for that group." (source) A "restate[ment]" of the First Law.

• "The more egregiously any non-Western or non-white group behaves, the more evil whites are made to appear for noticing and drawing rational conclusions about that group's bad behavior." (source) Stated as the "First Corollary" to the First Law.

• "Once the equality of all human groups is accepted as a given, any facts that make a minority or foreign group seem worse than the majority native group must be either covered up or blamed on the majority." (source) This may be the original statement of the First Law.

• "The more illegitimate and dangerous you are, the easier it is for you [to immigrate to the West], and the more legitimate and productive you are, the harder it is for you." (source) A "variation" on the First Law.

• "When a society, acting with the purpose of eliminating all historic forms of exclusion and discrimination, including, ultimately, its own historic and ethnocultural identity as a society, admits large numbers of people into it who do not fit into it, either because of lower abilities or incompatible cultural/religious adhesions, the fact that they do not fit, when it is finally recognized, can only be blamed on the society itself. To blame the lack of fit on the newcomers would be to revive the very discrimination that their admission was meant to overcome. As long as the host society accepts the principle of non-discriminatory inclusion as the very basis of its own moral legitimacy, it must keep admitting more and more unassimilables, whose lack of ability to function in or identify with the society becomes more and more troublesome, a problem that, in accord with Auster's First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society, must be blamed more and more on the racism of the society. Thus the more the society undoes itself in the name of indiscriminately including and favoring unassimilably diverse peoples, the more racist and guilty it becomes in its own eyes, leading to more and more minority preferences, speech codes, anti-hate laws, official lies, and the multicultural dismantling of the majority culture." (source) An excellent example of applying the First Law.

• "The WORSE a designated minority group behaves, the MORE we must blame ourselves for it." (source) Perhaps the most succinct statement of the First Law.

• "The more racial problems are created by liberal race policies, the more racist whites are." (source)

• "Given the inverted standards introduced into race relations by the belief in equality, the less deserving a nonwhite actually is, the more deserving he thinks he is." (source) Another "variation" on the First Law.

• Here's the First Law expressed well in its three main variations:
  "1. The worse a designated minority or non-Western group behave, the more they are praised and their sins covered up.
  2. The worse a designated minority or non-Western group behave, the more racist it becomes to speak the truth about their behavior.
  3. The worse a designated minority or non-Western group behave, the more their behavior must be blamed on white racism." (source)

In another post, I'll try to put together some of the instances in which I and others have had occasion to apply Auster's Law(s).

The Declaration of Independence ca. 2007

Lawrence Auster has a hilarious rewriting of the Declaration of Independence "according to Bush and the neocons".

My comment on the general causes of the newfangled understanding of Jefferson is at Webster's, where Terry Morris also has some thoughts.

The Battle for the 1924 Immigration Act

See my post at Vanishing American's Forum.

Tancredo News

As some of you might have heard, Tom Tancredo has a new TV ad running in Iowa -- beginning, "I'm Tom Tancredo and I'm saying this because someone needs to say it!" It does a good job of linking the War on Terror to immigration.

C.Q. Lincoln has a great article on Tancredo's impact on the campaign as well (Hat tip: Tancredo Fan Campaign).

I also put up my first post over at Tancredo Fan Campaign, reminding people to watch out for slick campaigners who say, "I'm against amnesty -- they need to pay a fine!" The site is attracting a lot of enthusiasm.

We Should Have Known All Along That Charles Johnson Was Not a Conservative!

At Oz Conservative, commenter Sage quotes this piece of the "Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto", which I hadn't seen before:

"WHEREAS, the Left has failed us by succumbing to reflexive anti-Americanism; by apologizing for terrorist acts; by propounding squalid theories of moral equivalence; and by blaming the victims of evil for the act of evil;

WHEREAS, the Right has failed us by pushing ‘anti-terrorist’ measures which bid fair to be both ineffective and prejudicial to the central liberties of a free society; and in some cases by rhetorically descending to almost the same level of bigotry as our enemies;

WHEREAS, even many of the Libertarians from whom we expected more intelligence have retreated into a petulant isolationism, refusing to recognize that, at this time, using the state to carry the war back to the aggressors is our only practical instrument of self-defense...

...THAT the terrorists and their state sponsors have declared and are pursuing a war not against the vices of Western civilization but against its core virtues: against the freedom of thought and speech and conscience, against the life of reason; against the equality of women, against pluralism and tolerance; against, indeed, all the qualities which separate civilized human beings from savagery, slavery, and fanaticism...

...WE REJECT the idiotarianism of the Right — whether it manifests as head-in-the-sand isolationism or as a a Christian-chauvinist political agenda that echoes the religious absolutism of our enemies."

Very interesting -- I hadn't seen any of Johnson's detractors make reference to this, but it shows where LGF evidently stood long ago.

Correction/Update: The manifesto is here. It's not by Johnson, but by Eric S. Raymond. However, given that LGF was the source of the term "idiotarian", surely its ideas are essential to the movement that has gathered around LGF.

There isn't a word in the manifesto about what ought to be done about immigration or how we should detect jihadists who are already in America. The implication is that the power of assimilation is such that Muslims in America will surely be won over to a liberal version of "American values" in short order. Who has their "head in the sand"? Those who will not admit that jihadists are already here, that more are arriving every day, and that the manifesto offers no solution to the problem of fifth-column infiltration onto our soil?

Since I'm Too Young to Remember, Please Enlighten Me

How did liberals speak of the Christian Right back before Islam was in the public spotlight, enabling them to use borrowed terms like "ayatollah", "jihad", "fatwa", "Taliban", and so forth?

Oink! Oink! No Muslims Allowed!

Is someone trying to build a mosque in your area? Well, you might try making the proposed site "unclean" by taking your pet pig for a walk around there.

Hey, whatever works!

Stay in Iraq for "Honor"?

James Poulos and Noah Millman have been having an interesting discussion regarding the purposes of "honor" in our foreign policy conversation, especially the way Mike Huckabee argued that we needed to stay in Iraq largely for the sake of our honor. Poulos originally wrote:

"When I hear ‘sense of honor’ talk, I think Huckabee, who wants to stay in Iraq not because it’s the right idea but because it feels right. Meta-honor. What counts isn’t holding ourselves to the moral responsibility of being honorable, but holding ourselves to the obligation of ensuring that, whatever happens, we feel honorable. It’s part of a bigger therapeutic move that can do this country, as it already has done, great harm."

This sounds very true. But does being honorable even require what Huckabee suggests it does, and is Huckabee even being straight with us to begin with? To Poulos's latest, I remarked in the comments:

"As a foreign-policy realist, I wonder, too, if Noah isn't making the mistake of applying principles of individual morality to foreign affairs, where they may not make sense. For example, the concept of the balance of power may require us to turn against a former ally because it's become an aspiring hegemon, whereas before a different power was on track to be the hegemon. By usual standards of honor, that's disloyal and dishonorable, but the balance of power only works if we behave that way, does it not?"

And I concluded:

"Just to make my position clear, I tend to believe that if there are any valid reasons to stay in Iraq, "honor" is not one of them."

This discussion (or at least the tangent I'm taking it on here) may be reminiscent of the one we had back in August about how to judge the morality of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Despite the determined opposition of some of the bloggers at What's Wrong with the World, I thought it was fairly well established that sensible foreign policy couldn't rest on all the same moral principles that govern individual morality.

At any rate, there tend to be disparities between the way we apply morality in the international vs. individual arenas, whether we're right to do so or not. I already mentioned, for example, that loyalty is usually considered a great virtue, so that if we cut off a long-lasting friendship, that would be considered a breach of loyalty and generally dishonorable. Yet the principle of the balance of power actually requires nations to shift alliances to contain the most powerful among them. No realist would have condemned the U.S. for ceasing to be allied with the Soviet Union after World War II, meanwhile rebuilding its former adversaries as allies against the Soviets. Moralists may complain that our behavior was justified by the evil nature of the Soviet regime, but would we have behaved any differently in the absence of a communist regime in Moscow? Not hardly.

I think it would also be generally agreed that treaty settlements often put other goods far ahead of justice, which is another possible disjunction between international and individual morality. Some suggested the complete deindustrialization of Hitler's Germany and its Japanese ally, which might have been only slightly beyond what they deserved. Other calculations, of course, trumped any intentions we might have had to give them their just deserts. We thought we couldn't afford not to rebuild countries that might be ripe for communism if we made them suffer.

Another interesting example of that last phenomenon is the aftermath of the Civil War. It's always amusing that Lincoln is practically universally praised for his leniency toward the South, whereas one might expect that the modern Left would be far more sympathetic to the Radical Republicans rather than to Lincoln's heirs. Those who generally believe that Reconstruction deeply failed to deliver on its promises of justice are still reluctant to question Lincoln for his decision. They must agree that it was the only prudent course of action, even if it offends their general sense of justice.

In the Iraq case, perhaps the strongest argument against staying for the sake of "honor" is that the Iraqis generally don't want us to stay to "fix" what we "broke". Polls of Iraqis suggest that their sense of "honor" might suggest a different policy. That alone should show that "honor" is a whole different beast when applied to nations, rather than to individuals.

But my point is that foreign policy is played by different rules, which tend to place certain overriding goods (such as peace or balance of power) above principles of action such as we generally use to judge individual behavior. If Huckabee can't give a better argument for staying in Iraq than "we broke it, we have to fix it," then I doubt the coherence of his position on the war. If he doesn't believe the rationales given by the most hawkish candidates for staying (defeating Al Qaeda, preventing Iraqi oil supplies from falling into Iranian hands, etc.), then he's just fooling us by pretending he has a good reason to be against withdrawing.

Lots o' Links

Every time I think, "Well, at least X is not as bad as the other candidates," something bad comes out about X. In this case X is Mitt Romney and the problem is his support for unlimited H-1B visas. When he said he favored increasing legal immigration, he really meant it!

My friends from the American Federalist Blog, as well as all partisans of self-government, will enjoy this piece. Ross Douthat has some constructive criticism of a few points in it -- criticism I tend to agree with.

On the Islam front, Kafir Canada explains why it's so impossible to argue with a Muslim and why "dialogue" is such a senseless expectation. It may help to explain why a certain person billing himself as a reformer of Islam, having presumably been trained to argue as Muslims do, recently behaved the way he did in this part of the blogosphere. Meanwhile, Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna discusses the sordid history of Islamic slavery, especially sex slavery.

If Karl Rove wants to give me more reasons to stay away from the GOP, he can continue bashing bloggers. I'm sure he would prefer a well-disciplined movement like they have over at Little Green Footballs.

I thought that the enthusiasm for new French President Nicolas Sarkozy among American conservatives was a little surprising -- and it looks like I was right.

Why Social Conservatives Must Oppose Giuliani, Again

In the wake of Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, James Poulos is about ready to declare himself on the zero-federal-involvement-in-the-culture-war side:

"Social conservatives ‘can’t point to policy accomplishments’ precisely because they put faith the size of a mountain in the mustard seed of temporal power. What a shocker: Atlas can smash whole nations and triple its expenditure of fantasy money, all while keeping up a brisk trade in Sam’s Club products, and yet when it comes round to ‘social issues’ you get two Supremes and a long, elaborate shrug. ‘Social issues’ don’t mean anything anyway but sex stuff — canceling pregnancies accidentally conceived with other objectives in mind, marrying someone of the same sex (or gender!), indulging in drugs that are not tremendously fun unless sex is in the air. Pot is a red herring, and so is affirmative action. The bottom line in the culture war is sexual ethics, and the federal government is no hope there. Nor should it be, except as far as federalism is concerned."

Poulos suggests that his only serious reason to oppose Giuliani may be Giuliani's war policy, not social issues:

"It’s silly: the only grounds on which I really can’t fathom pulling the lever for Giuliani are War Issues. And here’s Robertson insisting that the determinative factor for his pulling the lever in favor for Giuliani is…the War Issue."

My most serious objection to Poulos's argument is Lawrence Auster's appeal to the president as example of what the country finds acceptable:

"Making the private life of Reagan the moral equivalent of Giuliani's shows exactly what will happen if Giuliani becomes president. Every single value and moral principle in our country will have to be relativized, downgraded, and destroyed, in order to make Giuliani seem "ok." A Giuliani presidency would be the Clinton presidency PLUS the Bush II presidency. We would get Bush's crazed democratism and open-borderism, AND Clinton's trashing of morality, all wrapped up in one package." (emphasis added)

Everything Giuliani stands for would be defined as "conservatism" as well, crowding out any real conservatism, Auster further points out. He and his commenters make other excellent points in this discussion, which also cites evidence that Giuliani's private life has been nothing that conservatives could legitimately defend (or compare to the missteps of other Republicans like Ronald Reagan or Newt Gingrich).

Something like sexual morality is so unavoidably public in my mind that rejecting the idea of "legislating morality" and relegating judgment to the private sphere, seems like total surrender in the culture wars. If I've read Poulos correctly in the past, he isn't recommending such a surrender, but he probably disagrees that it would amount to surrender. Any other opinions?

Update: Poulos's response, in which he links my observations to a previous post of his about the Clintons.

Americans Already Shrugging Off Immigrant Violence

Mark Krikorian, though more sympathetic to immigration restriction than most of his colleagues, has evidently imbibed the general sentiment at National Review that America is full of haters, bigots, and anti-immigrant groups that rule the popular mind. Hence this (Hat tip Rod Dreher):

"The very whisper of violence is a dangerous thing for the amnesty side — heck, even the peaceful demonstrations of last year were a major factor in killing amnesty. Some of the more, uh, enthusiastic restrictionists get excited about the prospect of illegal aliens burning cars, because they know, unlike [Andres] Oppenheimer [of the Miami Herald, predicting violence if amnesty doesn't pass], that the American people would demand, and get, a reaction as sharp as it is swift. A couple days of TV pictures of rioting illegal aliens demanding amnesty and the immigration debate would be over — permanently."

Don't we wish! But what makes him think that a shift from the unorganized violence committed by illegals every day (which restrictionists are called hysterical for pointing out) to something slightly more organized (and there are gangs already that would qualify as organized instigators of racial violence) would make a big difference?

Americans are taking this invasion like wimps. We've been so defanged by PC and decades of "anti-racist" ideology that long overdue measures have not been taken. We live in a country where people think they're tough on immigration for advocating legalization-with-a-$5000-fine, even though the fair market value of a green card is somewhere closer to $100,000.

The shift away from liberalism on issues of race and immigration will be slow and painful. Immigration is just a symptom of the liberal inability to think straight, which is what we must address above all.

Interestingly, in Dreher's comments someone brings up the issue of whether Americans "want an underclass". I surely don't, but it's an interesting question that won't accept a categorical yes or no answer. The discussion over there doesn't look promising (the leftist name-callers are out in force), so if you have something to add regarding that question, it's probably best to keep it here.

Failing to Speak Truth to Power

Yet another example of the uselessness of the MSM. The New York Times, quoting commodities analyst Amanda Kurzendoerfer:

"Oil fundamentals are tight and tightening through the end of the year, demand has continued to be strong, non-OPEC supply is not keeping up and OPEC appears to not be eager to boost production."

And then:

"Kurzendoerfer predicts that while oil prices could exceed $100 a barrel in the near term, they will average $75 to $80 in 2008."

What?

No analysis of this statement whatsoever; the first statement has clearly pointed to developments that will permanently raise demand for oil and keep prices high. If demand is going up like gangbusters, then either something has to happen that will raise supply equally fast, or that will stop the rapid increase in demand, or else one must admit the price will keep going up. The burden of proof is on the oilmen to say what that something is.

Yet journalists are always determined not to offend oil company spokesmen, and the only sure way they expect to do that is to always accept at face value the claims that in the long term, oil prices will go down. (So that we will do as little as possible to conserve energy, of course.) Oilmen always make this claim, and they press bullish market analysts to make the same claim. Occasionally they are right, but any relevant facts that might indicate otherwise are just swept under the table by most journalists. Then they denounce bloggers for being so angry. Wonder why we're angry?

Just another one of my pet peeves.

Neocon vs. Tradcon Blog Wars

Brian and PRCalDude (also here, here and here) continue to report from the front lines. Take it from the source!

First Post Week

This week I'm doing something a bit different for the Featured Posts. One thing I always enjoy doing when evaluating a blog I'm just seeing for the first time is looking at the oldest post. The oldest major post often defines the raison d'etre of a blog, as well as perhaps the niche it strives to fill. Sometimes that changes over time (maybe it already has a bit for this blog). So enjoy this trip down memory lane -- going back and looking at where everyone started, some a few months ago, others much longer ago.

Milestones

I can't believe this is already post number 500!

This comes not long after a mysterious Google-searcher of unknown provenance became the 10,000th visitor to Brave New World Watch at 9:29 on Monday evening. This is a great sign of growth. I thank all the people who have been coming by regularly, especially those who comment frequently. I see I seem to be getting new visitors in the last couple of weeks, perhaps as a result of the "blog wars". My new readers are also very welcome, and of course all are invited to comment, especially if you disagree!

I feel like I had a bit of beginner's luck with Digg on Sunday, as my post on Mike Huckabee's immigration record got about 31 diggs before being buried by angry Huckabee supporters. (I suppose in part because it promoted a viewpoint congenial to the hordes of Ron Paul supporters over there.) I just wanted to tell everyone that for the record, I'm on Digg as "bnwwatch". I'm just getting used to it, but if you submit a post from a blog you know I like, don't hesitate to send me a "shout" and I'll add a digg. Also, I've heard that submitting one's own post is frowned upon, so I will try not to get in the habit of doing that. However, I'm going to keep adding the "Digg this story!" button to my more substantial posts. If you're the first to submit one of my posts, definitely tell me so I can help spread the word.

If I start to get annoyed with the nastiness on Digg, then I might try other similar services instead. I signed up with StumbleUpon, but it doesn't seem to have done any good (not that I've done much more over there than approve of my favorite blogs).

I hope to see much more great discussion in the future. The reception so far has been more than I could have expected.

Bill Richardson Lopez Is an Anchor Baby!

Among other facts consistently concealed from the public by the MSM about this (fortunately marginal) Democrat running for president. Go read the post at Age of Treason.

"Gay Muslims" Already Getting Asylum in U.S.

Apparently our government now has a policy of not only invading the world to save the gays, but inviting the world for the same reason. See my post at the Vanishing American Forum.

I have disabled comments here; please leave your comment over at the forum.

Who Actually Still Listens to Pat Robertson?

And can't Robertson at least give some excuse that would help to explain why he's for Giuliani? Here's what he said in his endorsement (hat tip: Ross Douthat):

"Robertson said although he and Giuliani disagree on social issues, those disagreements "pale into insignificance" when measured against the import of the fight against global terrorism and radical Islam. "We need a man who sees clearly how to deal with that issue," said Robertson."

Can anyone translate this into English? Is Robertson really saying in a backhanded way, "Well, none of the Big Four are social conservatives, so in practical terms the war is the only issue for my followers"? If not, what does he think Giuliani understands that the other top-tier candidates don't understand? Is there some subtle difference among Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson on the war that just escapes me? I really would like to know.

The media are taking us for a ride, too, when one week they proudly announce the "Evangelical Crack-Up" (i.e. the breakup of evangelicals as a homogeneous voting bloc), to be followed the next week by a pompous declaration of how crucial the endorsements of washed-up evangelical leaders like Robertson and Paul Weyrich are.

Midweek Links

Patrick Deneen is on a roll this week -- on civic engagement, the effects of Facebook on friendship, and the tradeoff between freedom and community.

Mark Steyn discusses how the cultural free-fall noted by Allan Bloom twenty years ago in The Closing of the American Mind just won't stop (Hat tip: Postmodern Conservative). "The National Review countdown of the All-Time Hot 100 Conservative Gangsta Rap Tracks can’t be far away," Steyn writes. More proof that the people who stood against the subversive Elvis over 50 years ago were right after all.

There's a lot on Ron Paul everywhere this week, but this, from Chris Roach, stands out.

Brian informs us about ACT for America, a watchdog group keeping an eye on the activities of sharia-promoting Muslims in America. Brian has posted before on how a chapter of this group kept a radical imam out of their community by exposing his record to the public. Go check out the site!

ElectionVine

Vanishing American has put up the ElectionVine polling widget, which apparently aggregates data from all those who have posted it, in addition to showing the results for the host site. Ron Paul, who we all know by now is the "netroots" candidate of '08, currently leads among all Republicans with 30%, and the rest of the GOP candidates are about where they are in the major polls. Among Democrats, the growing feeling of Hillary's inevitability is not reflected in the ElectionVine data; Hillary gets only 18%, while Barack Obama gets a staggering 55%. I didn't realize there was so much disparity in the online presence of those two candidates. (By contrast, Intrade is now giving Hillary approximately a 71% chance of winning the Dems' nomination, versus about 13% for Obama.)

Is there any reason not to be disturbed by the inevitable conclusion here: that the leftists among my generation -- assuming for a moment that the young are overrepresented in Internet politics -- are really far left? Or else just very much taken by the idea of a nonwhite candidate?

How to Defeat Spurious Charges of Racism

I spent a good part of Monday over at Gates of Vienna contesting what I was afraid was Baron Bodissey's careless approach to meeting the "racism charge". Let me excerpt a bit of the conversation here. I disagreed with the Baron's framing the issue thus:

"The only certain way to avoid being a racist is to remain silent on these specific forbidden issues."

And later:

"Remember: I am a racist because I have decided to discuss these things."

I wrote:

"Actually I think those statements are a strategic mistake. Remember, the folks at U. of Delaware said that all whites are racist, regardless of what they do. If you speak out, you are a racist, but if you remain silent, you're still a racist.

When leftists overstep in that fashion, then we need to seize on the opportunity, I think. For example, Charles Johnson now undoubtedly believes GoV is racist. Now, if he's not racist because he bows to the gods of PC, then he appears to have some sort of moral high ground that's denied to you. The line is drawn between LGF (OK) and GoV (bad). What I'd do is erase that line by making the logical conclusions from the far-left position. It's OK to say, "I'm a racist," but not on the grounds that you spoke out. You should say, "I'm a racist, and so is Charles Johnson (who, after all, is still white). So are white people who are even farther to the left of Johnson." By arguing this way, you erase the distinction between yourself and him. By agreeing that all whites are "racist", not just those who make politically incorrect statements, you establish "racism" as a norm. You put the passive majority in the same category with yourself, rather than isolating yourself from the passive majority.

Your purpose should be to reduce the category of "racism" to absurdity, not validate it by admitting that it is a marker separating you from the people who follow the PC rules. The worst weapon they have against you is the perception that they are normal, and you are fringe. Your goal is to show that you are normal, even if you can't show that they're fringe. Human beings have a herd mentality; they respect majorities.

(This is, of course, not an argument for real racism, just a proposal for destroying the idea of "institutional racism" or whatever the leftists suggest.)"

The Baron replied:

"I validate nothing.

I categorically refuse the terms of the debate. I'm a racist; so now what?

I refuse to be stung by an epithet. It would be as well to call me a Roundhead or an Albigensian. It would have as much meaning or impact on me.

If we refuse the stigma of the PC insults, then they mean nothing, and we are free."

I answered:

"My claim has nothing to do with what impact it has on your mind. Of course you're not stung; you're a courageous man. But you're not a hermit. You're in the business, largely, of persuading people. As it stands, you may feel good about yourself having taken the stand you've taken here, but socially it doesn't get you very far. If you believe you need allies who don't accept the "racist" label for themselves, then you must think about what stigma the PC labels carry in the minds of others, not just in your mind. And by saying, "I am a racist," you've allowed people to judge you based on their image of a racist. If you want to be something other than shunned by the vast majority, you can't allow that. You may feel noble about refusing to conform, but in the minds of others, you've validated the smear being used against you.

That's why I've suggested something along the lines of "A Modest Proposal" here. Stretch the claim to its limits, then break it once and for all. Show that "racism" is just being used as code for normalcy. That should be your goal."

And later:

"I don't buy the whole idea of, "just reject labels". Labels are basic to how the human mind works, are they not? They help people distinguish the "us" from the "them", the good from the bad. By saying, "I am a racist," while excluding people who hide their non-PC views from being "racists", Baron puts himself on the side of the "them". He has yet to show that his ideas actually necessitate defining himself as an extremist. In fact, I believe he is not an extremist at all, and that his ideas are fairly widely (though not universally) shared. Dividing himself from those who share his views, but don't speak out, is not the way to go.

We need to secede from the PC orthodoxy while insisting on taking as many people as possible with us."

The discussion degenerated into what seemed to be a charge that somehow the assertion that labels make a difference was leftist, while conservatives judge people without reference to labels. My opponents seemed to be stretching the truth that "actions speak louder than words" into the quite absurd idea that only actions are meaningful at all; mere words aren't.

Therefore most of the comments agreed with the position, "Let's just go right ahead and say it proudly, 'I'm a racist!'" But though we shouldn't be intimidated into silence, we shouldn't neglect the importance of clever strategy either. Though "racist" is often used indiscriminately as a slur without being defined clearly, as many commenters noted, the Baron did define "racist" clearly, and in the wrong manner as far as I'm concerned. He constructed a definition that conceded what the faux-conservatives at Little Green Footballs, HotAir, etc., wanted to establish -- namely, that LGF and allies were pure of any taint, while Gates of Vienna and Brussels Journal were beyond the pale.

I suggested that the way to eliminate the stigma was to apply it to those who were trying to run away from having the stigma applied to them, and therefore show that it meant nothing. I stand by this fundamental idea. Now I hope someone else will write the "Modest Proposal" I've suggested -- someone wittier than I am. Any takers?

Update: On the toxic ideology underlying "whiteness studies" (which was involved in the University of Delaware incident), see Mark Richardson's latest posts here and here. Mark has done great work monitoring "whiteness studies" theorists for a long time.

Update #2: This is a much better example of sound strategy for arguing against leftist name-calling (Hat tip: VFR).