Down with Double Standards

I have, of course, suggested this in other recent posts, but let me make it explicit:

I think we should all play by the same rules.

If you're going to argue that we should avoid large gatherings to prevent the spread of the coof, then fine: apply that standard across the board. Don't give me this BS that anti-shutdown demonstrations are bad-bad-terribad but BLM demonstrations are a-okay. Don't applaud massive protests in Brooklyn while simultaneously padlocking playgrounds in Jewish neighborhoods.

If you're going to argue that the police resort to physical force far too often, then fine: discuss all the relevant cases. Don't just talk about the black folks who've been unjustly killed. Talk about the white folks who've also been murdered under similar circumstances. Is it #BlackLivesMatter, or is it really #OnlyBlackLivesMatter?

And while we're at it, why are we lionizing black victims of police brutality but not the black people who've been victimized by their neighbors?

It bothers me - it really bothers me - that my Asian students essentially have to be academic gods to earn admission to top schools while students from more favored minorities have it much easier. Don't lie about this. We all know it's true. And in my opinion, this reality is suppressing black academic achievement. Why try to achieve top marks if you're going to get in with a more middling record?

It angers me that white and Asian scientists, who've spent years in focused study to get where they are, are now being told that they're racist because they balk at letting more "marginalized" scientists jump the queue for the sake of "equity." No: you know how you actually get equity? You start early by fixing our dysfunctional public education system so that everyone has the opportunity to learn the requisite math and science. You don't come in on the back end and demand that institutions hire "BIPOC" scientists because "muh diversity." Merit is not a white supremacist conspiracy.

And by the way, the above applies to artistic achievement too. If you want more "BIPOC" creators, start by clearing the institutional and cultural barriers to developing literacy and artistic skill. Don't just hand these creators high profile assignments and awards before they've been forced to work up the ranks like everyone else.

Right now, the left is actively encouraging laziness and grift. They are celebrating looters and terrorists and intellectual frauds who add nothing to our society -- while demonizing people who are willing to work, pay their own way, and behave like civilized human beings. It's appalling, and it needs to stop. 

Video: Benjamin Boyce, Mike Nayna & James Lindsay

This is a very long conversation, but if you have the time, I highly recommend it. James Lindsay in particular is a freakin' boss when it comes to challenging the critical theory/social justice warrior mindset. His website, New Discourses, is absolutely essential.

We Need Real Solutions, Not Ridiculous Pipe Dreams

This new mania for dismantling (or effectively dismantling) municipal police departments is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I've seen the left embrace in a long, long time.

I have an acquaintance on Facebook who was stationed in Panama City after Operation Just Cause, when police presence in the city was virtually nonexistent due to the collapse of the government. Here's some of what she had to say about the results:

1. First the few police that remained, banded together and stopped Americans so that they could get extort money.
2. All the stop signs and stop lights stopped working (government was gone as well) which meant that if you weren't a native of the city, you didn't know to stop at certain streets and wait for thinning traffic. But yea.. no traffic laws ... At least they still went on the same side of the street.
3. Anyone with any money lived in enclaves with guards. They bought their own security. Most women didn't go out anywhere with out family.
4. Anyone with a few bits of something were robbed by machete and/or beaten.
5. There were pockets of lawfulness where certain students who take over a block and guard it. They would pull together residents as militias. They would block the streets with bricks and other things so they could guard their neighborhoods. It was this alone that brought Panama City back to civilization because the students went block by block until they had the large about of the residents safe from riots.
6. Even after being their for four years when they had police, summer was riot season... including beatings and molotov cocktails. They liked to target the "bridge of the Americas."
7. All military personnel (US) were under curfew and were not allowed to go anywhere unless they were with two or more people.

When the stop lights began to work, certain individuals would pull people from their cars and beat them. I heard of a few assassinations happen too. Plus no one went anywhere without a big knife, gun, or AK47. 

It was terrifying because the first few months I was there some of the Panamanians would slip through the fences into the base and snipe. It pretty much died down after awhile and when the government went back, they went back to hating their government and stayed away from the US military. 

Two soldiers were driving a hum-vee on the main road and someone shot into the vehicle, killing the driver. When the US (and the military) asked for the killer (turned out he was a Senator's son), no one could find him. They packed him up and sent him to Cuba ... 

So it looks like the rich are fine and everyone else lives in a war zone.

The idea that we can completely replace professional, armed law enforcement with social workers and community members "trained in de-escalation" is pure fantasy. It is based on a utopian, Rousseau-inspired worldview that posits that people, as a rule, are basically good until they are corrupted by societal factors such as poverty and/or oppression. But anyone with a modicum of common sense knows this is emphatically not the case.

I'm a teacher. I've worked with small humans. They're adorable, but they're also absolute barbarians long before society has had much of a chance to influence how they behave. If a child sees a toy he wants, he will do anything - including pushing another child over - to get it. If you decline to give him a lollipop, he will sneak around you and steal that coveted sweet from your cupboard. And this is true of all children -- whether they're well-provided for or not.

And adults? Adults are more likely to be civilized due to experience and upbringing -- but even adults are not beyond pursuing what is evil and base for the sake of their own selfish desires. If crime is driven solely by society's failure to provide, how the hell does one explain white collar criminals, who presumably aren't struggling to survive from day to day? How do you explain kings (or dictators) who continually steal from their subjects despite their undeniable position of privilege and relative affluence?

Human nature is not innocent. While we all certainly have the capacity to be good, we are not naturally virtuous. Pro-social behavior comes from moral training; it does not magically appear once the body is housed, clothed and fed. So sure: you can dump money into so-called "community investment" (and we can discuss what will and will not be truly helpful), but all the welfare in the world will do nothing to fix the fundamental malady. Some people will simply scoff at education and employment programs in favor of crime because the latter requires no effort or skill and is often quite remunerative.

Thus, if you take our police away, you will get Panama after the fall of Noriega. That's a certainty. And the people who will suffer most, as my acquaintance relates, will be those who can't afford to pay for their own private security details. Gosh, I wonder how many black folks will find themselves in that unprotected category?

Whence Comes Dignity

I'm probably stepping on a rake here in being perfectly frank, but:

When #MeToo started to trend a while back, I immediately found its animating ideology wanting -- but I never dismissed the sincerity of its emotional core. I think it's legitimate for women to suspect they're getting a raw deal somehow; after all, we've essentially set up a dating ecosystem in which most women (notice I said "most") are strongly encouraged to fight their own instincts. Of course they feel dissatisfied. Of course they feel abused.

Similarly, I think #BlackLivesMatter, as a movement, often focuses on the wrong things in the wrong way -- but I also think black Americans do have something to complain about. They are being denied something absolutely critical to human flourishing -- but neither the verified white chattering class nor the dominant voices who claim to speak for Black America have accurately identified what's missing. Indeed, you have to dig deep into dissident black conversation to find any honest discussion of that absent ineffable variable: dignity.

Black Americans want to feel pride in themselves. And they should, I think. Up until quite recently, their history has been a story of success in the face of incredible headwinds. Their ancestors were people who, like Frederick Douglass, defied the law in order to become educated. Their ancestors were people who, in the heart of the Jim Crow South, built thriving businesses and became doctors and lawyers. Their ancestors were people who fought to keep their families together despite societal forces that threatened to rip them apart. Their ancestors were people who were closing education and income gaps long before government officials offered to "help." Their ancestors were, in short, a sturdy, admirable people. And yes: their story is an essential component of the American story and should be discussed in our schools.

Unfortunately, the activist set is not telling black Americans the tale I just related. Instead, these theorists are teaching young blacks that they have been victims for 400 years and that the only way out of that morass is to come to white America with their hands out.

Now, I happen to believe there are a few remaining structural barriers that need to be cleared to maximize equality of opportunity -- particularly when it comes to criminal justice, education, and work. I don't mean to suggest that we, as white Americans, have no responsibility here. But what I find deeply frustrating about the general tenor of the current discourse around race - and I briefly alluded to this in my post on Tuesday - is that black Americans are hardly ever assigned responsibilities of their own.

As a matter of fact, I genuinely feel like the aforementioned activists are treating black Americans like little children instead of like adults with agency. "Don't worry, dear," they seem to say. "We'll lower the standards for you." Many of the controversies that have blown up in recent years in re: race relations seem to turn on the idea that imposing any rules on blacks is racist -- that blacks should be allowed to do whatever they want whenever they want no matter how much they might disrupt the normal, race-neutral practices the rest of us respect to keep society predictable and civil. And many institutions, straining under activist pressure, are throwing the concept of merit out the window entirely, handing black Americans things they didn't actually earn out of a misguided desire to right cosmic wrongs. I'm sorry, but I find it very difficult to ignore how many low-quality intellects have been given academic clout - or even awards - mainly because they're black and "muh diversity." A Pulitzer for an essay on American history that serious historians (including Marxists!) critiqued as deeply skewed? Really?

(ETA: And then there's the unbelievable privilege BLM now enjoys in re: the Kung Flu, which just further confirms that outrageous double standards are in play.)

This white savior/black supplicant dynamic is profoundly undignified. People don't get any real self-esteem from relying entirely on the largess of others. Real self-esteem comes from handling your own crap and telling any naysayers to eff right off. And I think a lot of black Americans realize this on an unconscious level. Hence the anger and the nebulous claims that we are out to get them. Hence the delight some take in humiliating white Americans by forcing them to kneel and apologize for sins they didn't personally commit.

The truth is, while we as white Americans should take seriously the need for reform, we can't - and shouldn't - do everything for black people just because we feel guilty for things other white people did. All that does is degrade the black American and treat him as if he's an inferior Other. No: we should treat the black American like a full human being capable of meeting high expectations. Because, you know, they are capable. The history bears that out.

300% Done

I'll just let the Fave represent my current mood.

As I mentioned in my last post, virtually every American agrees that what happened to George Floyd was profoundly unjust. Indeed, on my TL, I've seen conservative after conservative propose a number of systemic fixes - including mandatory body cams and the end of qualified immunity - to address the problem of police brutality. Because even though such incidents are statistically uncommon, they are - for everyone - completely unacceptable.

That doesn't mean, though, that we must accept every. last. response to Floyd's murder. That doesn't mean we must accept the terroristic violence now engulfing many of our cities.

"But RG, can't you see that people have a right to be upset?"

Of course they do. We all have a right to our feelings. And yes: what happened to Floyd was hideous and should inspire outrage and a desire for reform. But I don't want to live in a society in which the left's apparent standard for a "justifiable reaction" is the universal. Please, for God's sake, imagine the chaos that would actually wreak. Imagine what would happen if we let every aggrieved individual take his anger out on anyone who happened to be in the way. No one - whether black, white, or polka-dotted - would feel safe!

Target didn't kill George Floyd. AutoZone didn't kill George Floyd. Uncle Hugo's didn't kill George Floyd. That black business owner who lost his bar didn't kill George Floyd. The people who might've moved into that block of affordable housing didn't kill George Floyd. St. John's Episcopal Church didn't kill George Floyd. If you approve of these riots, you're endorsing the targeting of innocent entities who weren't there and had nothing to do with said murder. Is that really what you mean to do? Think. THINK.

"RG, why are you valuing property over lives?"

Flag on the field! False dichotomy! You can in fact protect both simultaneously.

If the choice is between rescuing a baby from certain imminent death and preserving a wall, then sure, you knock down the wall for the sake of the life in danger. But I would like anyone who's throwing the above bull excrement at me to please - please - explain how trashing a neighborhood is going to result in any real change in how our police departments are run (and therefore save lives). Give me the citations and show your work. Because from where I sit, destroying a bunch of downtown businesses will change no minds and will only ruin lives. What, do you think those stores - and the jobs they represent - are just going to magically come back and everything will proceed as it did before? If so, you are unbelievably stupid.

No: I can already see where this is going to go because I live in the real world where actions have consequences. Some of those businesses simply won't return. Others will increase their prices to pay for their insurance premiums and loss prevention costs. And ultimately, the poor "marginalized" people you say you care about will see their standard of living decline as they struggle to find work and/or basic staples -- which, of course, will get you all howling about how racist and unfair it is that things cost more in inner city areas than they do out in the 'burbs because second and third order effects are things you just can't wrap your substandard brains around.

When you attack the economic lifeblood of an area, you are endangering lives, not saving them. Human beings are not meant to suckle forever at the government teat. Where there is little work, there is deep despair, drug addiction, high suicide rates, and other signs of social disorder. Why? Because we all get genuine, lasting meaning from our labor. So spare me this nonsense that I'm somehow callous for being concerned that businesses are getting looted.

Besides, the rioters are hardly limiting themselves to property damage. They have also been caught on camera beating business owners bloody. Don't those lives count?

"How else are we going to get people to listen?"

We were all ready to listen before the fires were lit. We all agreed that something needed to be done. But now? Now people are rapidly losing sympathy for your cause. It's the same thing that happened in 1968: the disorder at the Democratic Convention ultimately helped to elect Richard Nixon. When you stomp around threatening and injuring people who aren't guilty of the crimes you wish to see punished, the victims of your indiscriminate fury will start pining for your abject defeat and humiliation. And yes, I'm seeing that very longing already in the polls and on social media. The "Rooftop Koreans" are being lionized again. A lot of people want Trump to send in the military to restore order. And at the gun shops, business is brisk.  You had a whole nation behind you for about two seconds -- until you squandered it by LARPing as revolutionaries. Good job. Slow clap.

So how do you get people to listen? Drop all that critical race theory BS that has zero connection with reality, stop demanding that we white people bend the knee for crap we didn't actually do, and focus on the actual facts on the ground. Because to be perfectly blunt, "white people" are not the only ones at fault for the problems currently bedeviling the black community. The sooner "anti-racist" activists accept that - the sooner blacks are encouraged to own their own crap instead of foisting it all on outsiders - the sooner we can all have a real conversation.