Vox Day is a White Nationalist, who'd have thought?

We’ve mocked Vox Day in the past for his creationism, his sexism, and his general stupidity which is of course matched with the usual crank traits of egotism, and unshakeable certainty. Today though, I he’s apparently gotten even worse, endorsing white nationalism and defending the anti-Obama secessionists. His essay, in essence, says the only thing keeping him from migrating to a new country is there just isn’t anywhere left that’s all white. Via rightwingwatch:

Is the secession of several American states truly unthinkable? Is the breakup of the United States of America really outside the boundaries of historically reasonable possibility?

They mock the secessionist petitioners in Texas and other states, celebrate the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures, and engage in ruthless doublethink as they worship at the altar of a false and entirely nonexistent equality.

This is especially true given that the English people and the Scottish people have far more in common than Americans do with the tens of millions of post-1965 immigrants from various non-European nations around the world, or their urban enablers. The fact that the future citizens of Aztlán are presently content to continue collecting tribute in the form of state and federal largesse does not mean that they will refrain from exerting the political muscle that their growing demographic weight provides them once the contracting economy brings the gravy train to an end.
It also seems unlikely that the millions of Americans who have moved away from declining school systems, who have retreated from an increasingly vibrant communities, and who have fled from high-tax jurisdictions will continue to retreat as the people who destroyed their schools, their communities and their state budgets attempt to follow them.
They will not because they cannot. The frontiers are closed. There is nowhere else to go.

This is why it doesn’t matter if one considers the birth of an American Independence Party to be desirable or not; it is inevitable.

You see? Behind all this secessionist talk, the birtherism, the immigration lunacy, it’s just racism. Vox Day has now come out as a white nationalist. This is what they really believe. They believe equality is false. They believe all our problems are caused by nonwhites. He calls for the formation of a independence party to slow the “infestation” by non-whites, because there is no geographic escape from them anymore. There’s a name for this political philosophy. It’s called white nationalism. World Nut Daily, and Vox Day, have shown their true stripes.

We need a new denialism category for Obama conspiracies

Right Wing Watch is a great site to follow to track the latest conspiratorial craziness coming from the right. It seems every single day there is some new bizarre claim about homosexuals trying to enslave America and institute sharia law (that makes sense right?), or how Obama is a muslim, yada yada. But today I they’ve got a real zinger and I can’t pass it by. Apparently at age 11 Obama decided to become president of the US to destroy the Shiites, Israel, and America itself. Here come the insanity, from Avi Lipkin:

Lipkin: Obama was made a Muslim man in Indonesia by age 11. He said, ‘I’ve got health care problems, I got economic problems in America, Muslims in Egypt and Muslims in the Muslim world, be patient, I will show you when the time comes what I am going to do to Israel.’ My wife picked up other broadcasts, for example the Saudis were saying, ‘we will have a Muslim in the White House in 2008.’ The Saudis also said, ‘Obama has three tasks: task number 1 is to destroy the Shiite threat in Iran, task number 2 is to destroy the Jewish threat Israel, task number 3 is to destroy the great Christian Satan America and turn America into a Muslim country.’

If there ever was a more perfect example of how ideology is the source of conspiratorial, irrational insanity, it’s the Obama presidency.  It’s not just hte continual absurd birther conspiracies, which have escalated to the point that Arizona’s secretary of state was threatening to leave Obama off the ballot (but relented when Hawaii sent them proof of his citizenship).  There is apparently nothing that can’t be pinned on this man by his ideological opponents. It’s also reflective of the total failure of our society to educate people that when someone starts talking about some insane conspiracy theory, the appropriate response isn’t to perk up and listen but rather to point and laugh. The next reaction should be to wonder what kind of warped personality defect would lead to this type of reasoning. The more you see him accused of worse and worse crimes, the only explanation can be it’s not just right wing ideology, but rather the ugliest kind of racism.
Time to break out the tinfoil hats people.

Thanks to rightwingwatch, for doing the dirty work of sorting through this vile nonsense.

More Examples of Right Wing Stupidity/Racism

Lot’s of blogging hay was made over the conservatives = stupid and racist article two weeks ago, but it seems like since that was published they’re going out of their way to provide supporting evidence. Between reincarnating a 40 year old dead argument about whether or not women should be able to have birth control, and pretty unbelievably racist stunts at CPAC, even the wingers at little green footballs are shaking their heads and asking, what the hell is going on. For instance, some white republicans thought it would be a good idea to put on a rap show and throw around the N-word. No, I’m not kidding. Conservatives still think a bad rap parody is somehow edgy.

Even if they’re saying “knickers”, which is BS, it’s still a wink and a nudge saying, “you know what we really think of black people.”
And who missed Andrew Breitbart acting so crazy he made the Occupy protesters look good:

Now that’s what Occupy needs, just invite Breitbart to your protests and people will think you’re positively angelic next to that wackjob.
Then we’ve got the bizarre response to the Fox News article on Whitney Houston’s death. The thread is totally overrun with racist comments, for the highlights see Little green footballs list of gems.
Now, comments on blogs are usually nothing you can judge a blog by, I’ve had some doozies here. But the sheer number and the unbelievable bigotry of the the Fox News commentariat is mind-boggling. I will not reproduce them here, but think of the ugliest racist thing you can say about Whitney Houston, then make it 100% worse and repeat it 50 times, generalize it to all black people and then include Obama. That’s the comment thread.
What is going on here? I feel like I’ve done a reverse Rip Van Winkle and woken up in Mississippi in the 1950s.

Should IQ and Race be studied and what is Lysenkoism anyway?

Dan MacArthur has started a big discussion on whether or not the relationship between IQ and race should be studied. Inspired by a pair of essays for and against the idea it has created a pretty healthy debate among the sciencebloggers including Razib with whom I will likely never agree on this issue. For the record, I’m on the side of those like Richard Nisbett (for a good review of his analysis of race and the black white divide see here PDF) that genetics are a poor explanation for the divide.

But this issue aside, why do I believe this is a still a bad idea to expend resources to evaluate the role of race and IQ? After all, that’s just what Nisbett has done in the paper cited above.
Continue reading “Should IQ and Race be studied and what is Lysenkoism anyway?”

Is this for real? Racist attacks on Obama from all sides

I hate having to repost this but there’s a reason. If you watch the GOP rally’s lately, they are becoming filled with hate, with near-violence, with hyperbole calling Obama as terrorist. McCain isn’t my candidate, but that’s it—I may not agree with him, but I know he’s no terrorist; I know he’s not evil. But the GOP is now explicitly calling up it’s more violent, racist base in its desperate attempt to claw its way back to the top.

A lot of folks around here like primates. In fact, all of the bloggers around here are primates. So a number of us are pretty riled up about a recent story out of Georgia (although I don’t advocate another apocalyptic March to the Sea). There is another poll to crash with the linked story, so go have at it.

In a similar vein, I posted a piece on my old blog a little while back about an article that wasn’t written by an ignorant redneck, but by a writer for a prominent conservative news outlet. What follows is the repost.
Continue reading “Is this for real? Racist attacks on Obama from all sides”

Karadzic captured

Radovan Karadzic, one of the worst mass-murders of the post-WWII era, has been captured, or, perhaps more properly, has been allowed to be captured. Karadzic was responsible for orchestrating the murders of tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan Wars.
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A close friend of my family grew up in a small Bosnian city during the war. She lived in basements, and came up dodging sniper fire and grenades only when they couldn’t wait any longer to find food and water. Her mother suffers osteoporosis from years of malnutrition. He brother-in-law died of complications of war wounds. Her father, now dead of other causes, was in his home village at the beginning of the war. The Serbian army came to the village and separated the women from the men and boys. He took off running behind the women and escaped into the woods, while all the remaining males were shot to death.

The Balkan Wars and the genocides they produced are still an open wound in Europe, but Serbia is apparently ready to join the European community and finally allowed Karadzic to be arrested.

Oh, and guess what he’s been up to…

That’s right, he grew a beard and has been practicing alternative medicine. Draw your own conclusions.

The Ghost of Henry Ford I

Given Ford’s early track record, this story out of California is rather disturbing. (Via PZ). A SoCal Ford dealership is using prejudice against non-Christians as a prominent selling point for their business.

Henry Ford I was a well-known antisemite, and published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his personal rag, the Dearborn Independent. During the pre-war/depression era, Detroit hosted a number of prominent isolationists and antisemites, including Ford and Father Coughlin.

But, if you know your market, intolerance sells, and hard times sometimes bring out the worst in people. Still, it’s rather sad to see my hometown company doing nothing to rein in their renegade dealership. Unless of course, they approve of the marketing tactic of hate and prejudice. Hey, I’m sure they can afford to lose a few customers. The U.S. auto industry is doing well enough to alienate anyone they please. They are an unstoppable juggernaut, dominating the world auto market. I think.

Values Voters and Neo Nazis

I see that I’m in good company in my curiosity about why Ron Paul enjoys so much crank magnetism. And his crank magnetism and appeal to racist groups can’t be denied. Here for instance, is Ron Paul posing with Don Black, culled from the neo-nazi Stormfront website:

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Now, I think its unlikely Ron Paul knew who this was when he posed for this shot, but between this and their endorsement of Paul on Stormfront radio, I think it’s pretty well confirmed who their candidate is. Also note, this picture was taken at the “Values Voters Presidential Debate” just as a reminder of who “Values Voters” debates appeal to.

One of my commenters, quoting Digby, made the point that Ron Paul support isn’t so much a political position as a sign of disaffection. Based on the wide political spectrum of cranks that seem to think this anti-government radical is their guy (including the poorly-named Reason magazine as PZ points out) I think Digby’s assessment is the correct one. Cranks recognize one of their own.

I’m not actually concerned about Ron Paul’s candidacy, I believe his appeal is overblown as any real exposure to his beliefs will turn off the 95% who realize such a fervently anti-government radical libertarian would be the worst candidate one could conceivably elect. He scores easy points at these debates mocking the rather pathetic Republican presidential field and appealing to the people’s populist sentiments, but underneath this facade is a crank, and crank candidates rarely poll higher than about 5-10% (and I include Nader in this category – deal with it). So while it’s been fun mocking this also-ran all week, I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of this guy after Iowa and New Hampshire.

Can someone explain to me why the neo-nazis love Ron Paul

I’m so confused. I’ve got Ed telling us that the neo-nazis are claiming them as one of his own, which I would usually dismiss since they’re usually just lying about everything. But then I see Ron Paul supporters blame a Jewish Cabal for the allegations? That, and David Duke coming to his defense? I prefer my brother’s explanation better, that Ron Paul is really the Drizzle.

I don’t have time to piece this together, I’ve got to drive down to C-ville today. I want a full report on what the hell is going on with all these cranks by the time I get there.

Michael Gerson is taking cues from the ID cranks

Or is unintentionally channeling them is my conclusion from reading his latest WaPo Op-Ed entitled, “The Eugenics Temptation”. This Watson nonsense has somehow convinced all these conservatives that lurking beneath the surface of every scientist is a seething eugenicist, biting at the bit to escape and kill off all we see who are inferior. I’ve agreed with Gerson on a thing or two, but this essay is a real stinker.

“If you really are stupid,” Watson once contended, “I would call that a disease.” What is the name for the disease of a missing conscience?

Watson is not typical of the scientific community when it comes to his extreme social application of genetics. But this controversy illustrates a temptation within science — and a tension between some scientific views and liberalism.

The temptation is eugenics. Watson is correct that “we already accept” genetic screening and selective breeding when it comes to disabled children. About 90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome are aborted in America. According to a recent study, about 40 percent of unborn children in Europe with one of 11 congenital defects don’t make it to birth.

This creates an inevitable tension within liberalism. The left in America positions itself as both the defender of egalitarianism and of unrestricted science. In the last presidential election, Sen. John Kerry pledged to “tear down every wall” that inhibited medical research. But what happens when certain scientific views lead to an erosion of the ideal of equality? Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a rising academic analyst of these trends, argues: “Watson is anti-egalitarian in the extreme. Science looks at human beings in their animal aspects. As animals, we are not always equal. It is precisely in the ways we are not simply animals that we are equal. So science, left to itself, poses a serious challenge to egalitarianism.”

“The left,” Levin continues, “finds itself increasingly disarmed against this challenge, as it grows increasingly uncomfortable with the necessarily transcendent basis of human equality.

Aside from the obvious absurdity of such statements, I find it offensive how willing these conservative commentators are to deny the humanity of scientists and liberals. For one, the data quoted in the article stands in direct contradiction to this statement. Think about it. “…90 percent of fetuses found to have Down syndrome are aborted in America” so are 90% of us liberal? Are 90% of Down’s kids born to liberal parents? 90% of Down’s kids are born to evil eugenicists scientists? Of course not. But 100% of us are human, and humans have a very real tendency to want their children to be born with every advantage possible, as close to perfect as the parents can manage. This isn’t liberalism, this is human freaking nature, and if anything it exposes the hypocrisy of the right wing’s stance against abortion. They yell and scream it should be banned but clearly for large numbers of conservatives aborting fetuses for genetic disorders abortion is only proscribed for other people.

These attacks from Gerson and the ID cranks deny the humanity of scientists and liberals. They are based on small-minded and simplistic bigotries of right-wingers, that ignore their own participation in this problem, and try to lay the blame with those who have the decency to at least not be hypocrites. Further, there is not a trend towards eugenics among scientists as a group. This is a tendency in people, to want to improve their fitness and the fitness of their offspring. Scientists know that eugenics, historically, was not practiced in a scientifically-legitimate way but was instead racism masquerading as science. Ideology and bias was the basis of the eugenics movement, not rigorous observation and collection of data. If anything it’s the the Disco Institute’s behavior that resembles the bad science of eugenics. I tire of having members of my profession, and a broad swath of people being denigrated for being somehow morally incomplete and inhuman as if we are to blame for this tendency.

We will have to address the ethics of eliminating and propagating certain traits in our offspring as the science improves and we have the ability to screen for positive or negative traits. We’ve all seen Gattaca, we get it. But it doesn’t help when these assholes sit around saying it’s our problem, or a defect in our morality, when clearly they engage in this behavior too, only while hypocritically mouthing platitudes against it. We should acknowledge the desire to artificially improve the biology of our offspring is ultimately a very understandable motive for people, and instead of casting blame on the scientists who have figured out how it all works, come to an understanding of what will be acceptable and unacceptable based on a balance between the rights of individuals and society.