Derbyshire:
Talk show host Larry Elder has got himself a modest best-seller with his book The Ten Things You Can't Say in America. I don't think I am violating any laws or honor codes if I list Mr. Elder's ten chapter headings right here:
Which "Blacks"? All blacks, everywhere? What a stupid statement. More on that later....
Condescension is bad, but racism is worse. Racism might be the dumbest "ism" on the planet.
Absolutely true. But I hope Larry isn't implying (as I assume he is) some lefto-liberal conspiracy. Watch Fox News lately? What about talk radio? Does Rush Limbaugh answer to some leftist censor? And though I admit my perspective is more than a little "left" these days, a lot of what I read/watch/hear in the media smells like warmed-over Reader's Digest.
True, I think. But that's outside my sphere of experience. At my economic level, all people are equal.
Amerika's greatest problems are: (a) the acceptance and promotion of ignorance and xenophobia; and (b) the erosion of freedom by government and corporate fascists.
What is "illegitimacy", anyway? Being born without a license?
Nonsense! The crisis is being manufactured (seemingly on purpose) by the AMA, the insurance companies, the FDA, and other bigshots --- but it's still a crisis, regardless of source.
I have the dumb-luck of living in a place where health care is socialized. God bless it! How could I afford simple medical attention (in our private-fascist situation) otherwise?
I can't quite parse that. What the hell is he saying? Anyway, it's hard to have a coherant conversation about our so-called `welfare state'. Too much chaff. Maybe some other time....
We agree there. Except that the difference is probably less than a dime.
Damn straight! Like Vietnam, the `War on Drugs' is an evil and deliberate enterprise of power-mad thugs in Washington. Like Vietnam, they have no legal, ethical, or moral right to be pursuing it. Like Vietnam, they're losing and will lose. Like Vietnam, they're escalating the war to save face, at our expense, knowing full-well they can't win.
The only difference being that it's "here" instead of "there".
Another weird statement I don't really get --- but I think he's against gun control. I agree. We need a citizenry armed to the teeth to keep cops and soldiers (public and private) from pushing us around.
"You can get farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word!"
Derbyshire:
I applaud Larry Elder's efforts to open a crack of honesty in the wall of lies and self-deceptions that forms our public discourse. Now I am going to hammer my own wedge into the crack, in the hope of widening it just a little.
I don't think it's "the smart against the dumb". I think it's the rich and powerful against the poor, as usual. "Dumb" people aren't "easily bamboozled" by just anything. Frankly, "dumb" people (and I know plenty of 'em) get stuck in a mindset sometime in their youth and spend the rest of their lives desperately clutching their beliefs with both hands. Sure, people go for fads and scams. But they have to be consistant with their basic prejudices to work. Reading a typical history book, you'd think Hitler marched into Berlin by himself and bullied the poor German people into starting a war and building concentration camps. Just the opposite! Hitler was "democratically" elected and practically begged to behave like he did. If you fancy youself to be a "leader of men", just see which way the mob his heading and run to the front of the crowd.
"Meritocracy?" Does that mean a society of people ranked according to merit? Personally, I like the idea of anarchy, which means a society of people with no rank at all.
Oh yeah, and illegal immigrants. Mexicans. Damn them, anyway! Aren't we "legals" all just itching to pick apples and cut chickens? I could have had that job --- IF IT WEREN'T FOR THOSE FUCKING ALIENS!
Gimme a break. Show me someone who bitches about "jobs" and "illegal aliens", and I'll show you a fat, stupid, lazy asshole whose contribution to society amounts to bullshitting on AM call-in shows.
I'm sympathetic with the first part of this statement, though I think 99% is a bit harsh. Maybe 75% is worthless. But so what? That "bad" art exists means that you're getting a full range of choices. I used to be really offended every time I saw a copy of the National Enquirer. How can people get away with writing such stuff? Then I realized that the Enquirer was evidence of a free press. If everything you read is agreeable and "right" to you, you're in trouble.
It's simply easier today (what the the web, etc.) for anyone to make something and call it "art", so of course there's much, much more worthless junk out there. More choice --- that's a good thing! You just have to look harder for the good stuff. That's the price of freedom, and it's well worth it.
I don't believe at all that we, as a culture, have "forgotten" how to make great art. I don't think that's even possible. Truly great artists run against the grain of their society, so, if we're in some terrible funk (which I don't necessarily believe), that's just more opportunity for truly ground-breaking art to be made.
Absolutely not true. Race is not real. It's an utterly imaginary construct. Look around --- you can find more profound differences between siblings than between members of different "races".
Regarding Asians in colleges, that's a question of culture, not race. And the Jews are a perfect example of this. Eugenics? Jews everywhere reflect the genes of those they live with and intermarry with! Chinese Jews look and speak Chinese. Amerikan Jews look and speak Amerikan. African Jews look and speak like Africans. Jews are "smart" because Jewish culture encourages thought and inquiry. I grew up white, lower-middle-class, Protestant, Midwestern. Comformity and obediance is the norm. Ignorance is considered a valuable commodity. "Respect for Authority" is the highest virtue. That's a recipe for stupidity, regardless of your race.
I couldn't agree more regarding public ejucation. It's crap. Always was. The first thing they taught me in Kindergarten --- the very first thing --- was "The Pledge of Allegiance". To a fuckin' flag! How sick is that? And you thought militaristic nationalism died with Hitler or Stalin.
Now, what to do about ejucation is another thing entirely. I hated every minute of school, all 12 years of it, so I've definitely given this subject some thought! I think I'd have to agree that getting the government completely out of it is a good start. Where to go from there is a pretty big jump.
Here's an ejucation proposal: All children should, from the time they're born, be raised around at least four different languages. That makes all children everywhere multilingual, with zero effort. We'll call that Stage One. All it requires is that kids spend some time in a daycare run by one native and three (or more) "foreigners". (If three aren't available, one will do. Two languages is the absolute bare minimum.) No formal instruction is necessary or desirable, at that age.
Then teach these four subjects: (a) reading; (b) how to access books and computers; (c) basic mathematics (up to and including basic algebra); and (d) formal logic (a synthesis of Aristotle, George Boole, and Lotfi Zadeh). Just those four subjects, in that order. No more, no less. That's Stage Two. You start when the kid's three or four, and you're done by the time he/she's eight or ten. No more than twelve students per teacher, no matter what. Simple.
Stage Three: Formal tests are designed --- by anyone who feels like it --- and students, from the time they are able, and for the rest of their life, are free (using the skills from Stage One and Stage Two) to pursue certification under any given test. Formal instruction may be pursued as needed, of course, but I think it's overrated and usually unnecessary. If you need better study technique, find a tutorial. How to find it is part of Course (b) in Stage Two.
As for those tests, should they be government-certified, or otherwise "checked" for quality? Hell no! Anybody anywhere can design their own little test. Here's one situation where the free market can do all the work. A certification from a test designed by Buckminster Fuller would prove more valuable than, say, one by Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. You can collect all the certifications you can test-out of, or just not bother. The choice is all yours. No more seperating society into ejucated people with a lifetime free-ride and unejucated people to do all the work. No more state-run, 12-year-long programs to brainwash kids into machine-parts for the rich to exploit. Anything that society-at-large deems necessary (art, science, history, "the humanities", etc.) can be included in Stage Three, and learned at any age. If it's so damn important, then learn it. If not, don't. It's up to you, not the law or some damn school board.
Alright, let's cut the bullshit. You don't like gay people --- end of story.
None of the generalities you stated regarding homosexuals is any truer of them as a group than it is for heterosexuals or anyone else. "Unhygienic?" What, "straight" sex isn't? I'm not gay, but I've pushed my body parts way past their "design limits" a time or two, thankyouverymuch! And calling something "against nature" is meaningless. Is riding in a car or a plane "natural"? And if not, so what?
You can "discourage" gayness all you want. How successful would someone be trying to "discourage" your heterosexuality? Might as well piss into the wind. Do you really think anything will change? Close all the gay bars, and you end up with condoms and underwear scattered around in parks and rest areas. Stigmitize gay relationships, and you end up with deranged closet-cases like J. Edgar Hoover and the Apostle Paul.
As far a adoption goes, gayness doesn't figure into the formula any more than eye-color. Same with marriage. It's not only none of the government's business --- it's none of our business.
Oh no --- pigs? Don't get me started. The only "good, fair police practice" would be to disband all police departments. They (a) can't and don't protect you on the street; and (b) can and do protect the rich and powerful from the consequences of their own greed and exploitation --- and tax us for their trouble!
Regarding profiling, racial or otherwise: Is a middle-aged white-guy driving a late-model Lincoln in the 'burbs "looking to buy drugs"? Is a nicely-dressed middle-aged white guy in a bank lobby "looking for someone to rob"? Is a clean, well-maintained tractor-trailor doing 65 along Interstate 5 from San Diego "shipping illegal aliens"? Yes, yes, and yes --- actual cases I've heard of. They don't get caught because they have the time, money, and skin-color to not fit the profile. They aren't immune to search, but cops need a warrant first. That is what's wrong with `profiling'. It makes the Fourth Amendment inapplicable to some people, and not others. Even if it does allow you to "catch lots of criminals"! After the cops illegally search these guys, are they then going to arrest themselves for violating their own law? (Hey, it's your law, not mine.)
Try this sometime: Get stopped by a cop without probable cause (let alone a warrant); get arrested and lose your car, your job, your home, and your girlfriend in one swoop; sit in jail for three months and wait for trial with a too-high, impossible-to-pay bail; hear your public pretender urge you to plead guilty to the prosecuter's charges (as-is) to get the whole thing overwith, under threat of going back to jail for another three months to await another "hearing" --- all while you're sitting in shackles, a signature away from the street; concede, and watch the "judge" rubber-stamp the prosecuter's proposal without further discussion; go back to jail, where they charge you rent, at a rate you could never possibly pay (about the same as a really nice hotel room's daily rate); walk the streets with a warrant hanging over your head for unpayed fines.
After that, come back and we'll discuss the Fourth Amendment some more. Hey, it was all just "a tiny inconvenience"!
"Our military has been crippled"? Maybe that explains the hordes of foreigners on my front yard, setting up government. If the U.S. military is "crippled", then I'd sure be scared to see one that isn't!
"Women have no place in combat." That, to me, reflects a sort of Hollywood-styled, Audie Murphy kind of idea. (Never mind that 95%+ of military personell don't actually work in the infantry.) Women can't fight? Hell, have you ever met one?
Do the people of Sweden know it? What's with always citing the Russians and the Chinese? Red China, like the Soviet Union before it, is a good old-fashioned military dictatorship, nothing more, nothing less. They call it "socialism" to sugar-coat it for the poor bastards they rule; you call it "socialism" 'cause it suits your conservative, right-wing point-of-view to pretend that it's so.
Socialism (a dirty word if there ever was one) does not imply government control. Robert Owen was a capitalist --- and a Christian! (An aside: I wonder --- what would've HUAC had to say if those Early Christian Commies were standing before them?)
And what's with this "tilted over to the left by black people" stuff? I know lots of black people, and none of them are "leftist". I think this Derbyshire guy is a garden-variety racist who needs to get out of his Volvo and see the real world.
Damn right it's "a shame!" Uh, "there isn't anything we can do about it now"? "There isn't anything" we can do, or "there isn't anything" we will do?
If someone breaks into your house, rapes your wife, poisons your children, takes your land and livelihood, how long will it be until they are no longer guilty? I am not personally responsible for crimes against Indians, any more than you are. Or anyone living, for that matter. But there is the "small" detail of old contracts that our government oddly doesn't bother to honor.
Not to mention the general subject of land rights, European-style. There's a 1969 leaflet regarding People's Park (a patch of land in Berkeley, CA) that sums up this whole idea. How the hell does one legal entity end up demanding rights to a plot of ground for a indefinite period of time? Something's got to be wrong there!
Don't play. Our culture is shit, period. What's to wreck? While coddled, ivory-tower, insulated-from-real-life members of "the intelligentsia" have no-doubt done their share of damage, I don't think this is the largest problem. Hell, I don't think it even ranks. When Larry wrote the original "10 things", he was obviously playing the "dumb" card. Fuck him.
As far as college ejucation goes, well, I think I've covered that.
And what about intellectual freedom, as per the First Amendment? That's one thing Amerika's "intelligentsia", with their money and brains and connections and influence, has been almost single-handedly responsible for preserving --- in spite of the best efforts of the likes of Larry and John.
Without that, we could compile a list of things you really "Can't Say in Amerika"!