August 28, 2016

Poll results...



I assume some of the 2% in that last category are pranksters screwing up the poll. And yet maybe some of the people in the second-to-last category are racists trying to hide it.

81 comments:

lonetown said...

I'm thinking that anyone accusing someone else of being racist is actually a racist who is trying to hide it.

Anonymous said...

As a longtime reader of John Derbyshire, I'm familiar with the term. I am in reluctant agreement with the alt-right contention that there is a genetic component to intelligence and other desirable human qualities, and that uncontrolled immigration and welfare handouts induce selective evolutionary pressure against these desirable traits, to the nation's disadvantage.

This is, of course, shockingly racist by today's standards. I am tranquil about that. The power-crazed Left is going to accuse white people of racism no matter what they say and do, and their outraged demands for more and more anti-white discrimination will only increase as the last vestiges of white supremacy dwindle. When everyone is "racist", no one is really racist.

It was the Left who forced tribalist Big Man government upon the country. We have no choice but to choose sides. Very well. I choose my tribe and my culture.

Interestingly, I have never had this sort of conversation with my son, but he returned home from college this summer as a fan of Donald Trump (whom I greatly dislike and cannot bear to vote for) and proclaiming affinity with the alt-right. Young white men on college campuses have got the message loud and clear that they are now society's whipping-boy, and a powerful pushback is building. The Clinton years will be troubled.

David Begley said...

Well then why didn't you write the the second to last question that way? Racist trying to hide it.

I disagree.

I still barely understand what Alt-Right is other than it is Hillary is trying to brand it as the new KKK. And she only does so because sliming Trump as a racist is the only way she can win.

Ann Althouse said...

I was genuinely trying to phrase the answers in the way I thought people in the various positions would think about them for themselves. If you read the way I put these answers, I think you'll see that I'm withholding outside judgment and trying to speak from the inside. I don't really have the power to read minds, so this stands only as my effort to look at something from different perspectives.

Kate said...

Everyone in the second-to-last category is a racist who isn't trying to hide it at all. That's one of the points of being alt-right: admitting that race is not a social construct but a biological fact. Technically, that's a definition of racism.

However, I assume you use "racist" in the pejorative sense. The alt-right will accept that label, too, because the word has been worn down to nothing and generally means "shut up". And we're done shutting up.

David Begley said...

How about this poll?

Electing a historic black President has:

A. Improved race relations.

B. Driven race relations to their lowest level since the 60's.

C. Set up the election of Hillary because she would play the racism card against any GOP candidate.

Darrell said...

The racism card has been played against ALL GOP candidates since Reagan. Idiot Lefties are the only ones "convinced." Alt-right means nothing now because the Left defined it to suit their purposes--their acquisition of power.

iowan2 said...

I believe in the promise of the constitution, a federal govt of limited, enumerated powers.
I believe that no one can come up with any perceived problem in society that cant be fixed by the federal govt withdrawing from any portion of it, unless their is an enumerated power.
Abortion, homosexual marriage, education, insurance. No federal power. Guns? Yes.

sinz52 said...

Darrell,

The term "alt-right" was invented by the alt-rightists themselves.

You're absolutely right that the Left has been crying wolf about GOP racism for a very long time. I myself have been called a "goosestepper" by them numerous times.

But THIS time, the real wolf has shown up. VDARE and American Renaissance are, by their own words, white nationalists. Stormfront.org are, by their own words, white supremacists and even neo-Nazis who think Hitler was right.

And Trump has reached out to them, as I have seen myself on Twitter. Stormfront.org happily called Trump "the steppingstone to a new American Reich."

Many of Trump's supporters, by their own words, believe that blacks and Hispanics are inherently less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites.

The real wolf does appear sometimes, you know.

Writ Small said...

The last two questions are flawed to the point of making the poll meaningless.

If you visit the Alt-Right websites, they explicitly reject the "white supremacy" label, but how whites are treated is central to their world view.

Here is a quote from one Alt-Right site:

The Alt Right is a racial movement and has always been a racial movement. Race is at the very core of the alt right and there is absolutely no way to be alt right without discussing racial realism, especially from a white perspective. The mainstream media was not lying to you when they said we are full of white nationalists, racial realists, and fascists. That is what we are and we really do not give a shit about tax cuts or other policy issues.

Curious George said...

Ann Althouse said...
...I don't really have the power to read minds..."

Really? That one word speaks volumes.

Darrell said...

The term "alt-right" was invented by the alt-rightists themselves.

Yeah, by people that were sick of the Paul Ryans caving in to every one of Obama's demands. The Left added the neo-Nazis, skinheads, and the few remaining KKK types to that category. They tried to do the same thing with the "Tea Party" label. If you can't see the difference, I can't hyelp you.

sane_voter said...

Many of Trump's supporters, by their own words, believe that blacks and Hispanics are inherently less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites.

At least comparing blacks and whites, this is true according to the statistics. East asians are more intelligent and less violent than whites by the same metrics.

Hispanic is a cultural and not a racial category, and created by the US government to further the racial spoils system. However, the FBI lumps Hispanics in with whites in their crime statistics.

Luke Lea said...

Here's another poll worth having: To tag as "white supremacist" those who oppose open borders and "free trade" (including free capital mobility) with a low-wage semi-totalitarian behemoth like China is an example of what:

1. An unfair debating tactic.

2. A form of trolling?

3. All's fair in love and war?

4. A losing strategy in the fall?

Extra credit: Does constant media shaming silence the number of Trump's supporters or actually make it grow smaller?

David Begley said...

I'm anxiously awaiting the Obama Doctrine speech in Chicago this September in Grant Park.

1. Stop using drugs.

2. Stop committing crimes.

3. Stop having babies out of wedlock.

4. Take school seriously and at least finish high school.

But the speech might be more effective if Lamar delivered it. Tone, doncha know.

madAsHell said...

Gee....I thought Alt-Right was just a figment of Hillary's imagination. Her "vast right wing media conspiracy" needed new legs.

Paco Wové said...

"I'm thinking that anyone accusing someone else of being racist is actually a racist who is trying to hide it."

I think everybody's a racist, each in their own special way.

dreams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Known Unknown said...

Let's be honest: We are all racist to varying degrees. All of us.

The word is becoming absolutely useless.

southcentralpa said...

Some of the one in the second to bottom may concealing their racism (paraphrase)? Really??

There is a difference between support you court, and people who support you anyway for reasons of their own.

For instance, The Revolutionary Communist Party, ANSWER coalition, and so forth have been extremely active in causes Hillary is aligned with. I feel somewhat certain Hillary will receive the endorsement of the CPUSA. Ditto the various Black Panther parties. Is she constantly asked to disavow their support?

Lucien said...

@Kate:

I'm not sure that just saying race is a physical fact rather than a social one counts as racism, if one does not also believe that the race someone belongs to has something to do with what kind of person they are (as opposed to, say, the percentage of fast-twitch muscle fiber they have in their thighs). Although, if you believe that race is a physical thing, then you have to account for (and categorize)the offspring of people of different races -- are some races more genetically powerful than others, is there a "one drop of blood" test, or what?

That could be a good poll: how many people believe that the race you belong to has something to do with the kind of person you are?

Or how many believe that the way people of your race are brought up in a particular society has something to do with the kind of person you are?

If someone said they believed that Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S. are, on average, more intelligent than U.S. Jews, would that make them hateful or anti-Semitic? Such a person could obviously conclude after meeting an individual of either group that they were abnormally bright or dull without abandoning the initial premise, right?

Laslo Spatula said...

Lamar is upset that there wasn't a vote option for "I hate all White People."

But then when White people make the questions White People get to choose the answers.

I am Laslo.

Darrell said...

I feel somewhat certain Hillary will receive the endorsement of the CPUSA.

She already did. Although someone like Cookie will come along and say that the person who endorsed her doesn't speak for the real Communists of the CPUSA.

Paco Wové said...

"the way people of your race are brought up in a particular society"

What an oddly passive construction. Are people in your society grown in vats, or something?

Paco Wové said...

sinz52: Neo-nazis have been around for a long time. I don't know that they would make a good example of a new phenomenon, i.e. the purported "alt-right".

It's kind of like calling Bolsheviks "social justice warriors".

walter said...

If you're racist and you know it, clap your hands! (clap, clap)...

walter said...

If you're sexist and you know it, stomp your feet! (stomp, stomp)

walter said...

If you're Marxist and you know it, gnash your teeth! (gnash, gnash)

mockturtle said...

Though my husband of nearly 40 years was white, I was married to a black man in the late 1960's [he is deceased] and one of my daughters is biracial. The other is white. My biracial daughter was married to a part-Filipino and their children are tri-racial. My white daughter married a man of Korean ancestry and their son is biracial, Asian-white. So all of my grandchildren are racially mixed. Here on the west coast, interracial families are very common.

BTW, my daughters are both Trumps supporters. My black ex-nephew is a longshoreman in CA and he says everyone he works with, black or white, is a Trump supporter.

I am not a racist, overtly or covertly, and I refuse the vitriolic assertions that, as a Trump supporter, I am. This is merely mud slinging out of sheer desperation by both the left and the establishment GOP.

David said...

I did not answer because I do not know what Alt-R means. My sense is that it means what people want it to mean. Now its another shouting match, another example of how we can not communicate well about anything.

hombre said...

7:05: "Many of Trump's supporters, by their own words, believe that blacks and Hispanics are inherently less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites."

A. Are we pretending that there are not many Hillary supporters practicing "the soft bigotry of low expectations" regarding/against blacks and Hispanics?

B. Are we pretending that Hillary supporters, however stupid, are unaware that the evidence is indisputable that blacks and to a lesser extent Hispanics commit more violent crimes per capita than whites and Asians?

If so, let's stop.

Owen said...

I thought the questions were a reasonable try but (as I think MockTurtle said yesterday) they blurred things. I thought the second-last category was close to the "I don't use that term" one, such may explain why the response is almost equal across 2-3 questions.

The whole thing is useful to stir up good comments, anyway. As a polemical tool, I guess Clinton and her media team will try to use "alt right" to smear Trump and anyone else not in their camp, but its real utility is to entertain and reassure the faithful, and make the contest as polarized as possible.

More popcorn!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

You have 13 Hillary trolls.

Anonymous said...

sinz52: But THIS time, the real wolf has shown up.

sinz, this post of yours is as near perfect a sample of "point and sputter" as I've seen. Do you mind if I save it and use it for illustrative purposes?

VDARE and American Renaissance are, by their own words, white nationalists.

In other words, they have a world view, and an idea of the U.S., that was pretty standard for most of this country's history. Contrary to contemporary propaganda, Americans very self-consciously considered themselves part of European Civilization until very recently. They also had policies that explicitly favored European, and disfavored non-European, immigration until very recently. That you prefer the historically recent, extreme, deracinated "proposition nation" interpretation of what the U.S. is and should be is just that, a preference, not an argument. You have as much of an obligation to justify your position as the "white nationalists" do.

Swap out the ethnic or racial identities, and this allegedly self-evidently evil attitude is pretty standard attitude all over the world. Guess everybody's a Nazi, then, except for the Holy Globalists who are trying to teach all us benighted humans a better, cultureless, borderless, way.

Stormfront.org are, by their own words, white supremacists and even neo-Nazis who think Hitler was right.

Hahaha. Stormfront. All political groups have their extremists and their retards, sinz. Stormfront is where all the retards on the alt-right hang out. You can find equivalently unsavoury views, and equivalent dumb-assery, right or left. The only difference between them is that the Hitler-tards are far more likely to get banned from Twitter and facebook than the anti-white racial haters and supremacists.

Stormfront, lol. The SPLC interns posting at Stormfront probably outnumber the Hitler worshippers there.

Many of Trump's supporters, by their own words, believe that blacks and Hispanics are inherently less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites.

And?

Point and sputter, sinz. Actually, what "many Trump supporters", as well as lots of other people, actually believe is that intelligence and behavioral traits differ in distribution among human populations, and that this is genetic to a greater or lesser degree. They also believe, as sane_voter has pointed out to you, that "[e]ast asians are more intelligent and less violent than whites by the same metrics."

But the point here is that, for some reason, you think that this belief is so extremist, so crazy, so so so well I never!, that you merely have to point it out, sputter, and all decent people will start screaming in panic and run for the exits to get away from the Nazis.

Why? There's plenty of evidence that these traits do differ among populations. Intelligent, informed people can and do disagree about whether this is true, and what the policy implications are.

C'mon, sinz. You're more intelligent than this. I know you can do better than point and sputter.

The real wolf does appear sometimes, you know.

Yeah, but you haven't spotted him.

Paco Wové said...

"You have 13 Hillary trolls."

Interesting. As a long-time devotee of Althouse Troll Studies, I am interested in your methodology (your number sound about right).

Mick said...

F*!#k the labels that the left attempts to pigeon hole anyone who disagrees with them with.

I am for COMMON SENSE. Putting AMERICAN CITIZENS first. Liberty. The Constitution. The rule of law. Not allowing and propagating the invasion of America by third worlders who will never assimilate, and whose religion is a political structure that will not allow assimilation, or other third worlders who believe it is their "right" to break into this country. For not creating our money from debt for the benefit of the few who get to charge interest on that debt. For reversing that off-shoring of our manufacturing base for the benefit of multinational Corporations who have no allegiance to the US. For dis-allowing Dual Citizenship, as the Constitution specifies.

The real question is why anyone would take issue with any of that, and where does their loyalty lie?

walter said...

"Troll" counting!

walter said...

..looks a lot like "trolling"

John henry said...

When did the term Alt-Right come into being?

I can't remember ever hearing it until a week or two ago.

What I do remember, from the late 80s and early 90s, before the web came into being and before the internet was generally available, was Usenet groups. A lot of them had "Alt" in their titles since they were alternative to regular, legitimate(?) groups.

Lots of interesting discussion groups with a seemingly infinite variety of topics.

I don't remember seeing it but there may have been an "Alt Right" discussion group. Since then, I probably don't see a reference to Usegroups and "Alt-whatever" more than every couple months.

Is Crooked Hilary trying to recall the wild west days of the internet? If so, why? I miss those days.

John Henry

Gusty Winds said...

The most racist group in Wisconsin are overpaid Professors in the UW system, who help bilk students and families by throwing them into massive debt for a mediocre education. As long as the pampered liberals get what they think they have coming, the plight of inner city Afican-Americans is meaningless to them.

Trump is right. Campus liberals and Hillary see African Americans as necessary votes in order to keep their current positions of comfort and power in place.

Will said...

I believe that this poll needed a choice called --> "I do not know what alt-right means and/but decline to be stereotyped with Hillary Clinton's false definition"

Your own initial article talked about a general lack of agreement on meaning and definition. You also pointed out Hillary Clinton was trying to fill this void by smearing some people that did identify with this term as racists.

This is similar to what many officials did with the "Tea Party" which originated in bipartisan objection to lack of fiscal discipline in Washington, but got perverted and demonized later by a press and a President.

So a fair poll would have had a WTF? opt-out option. Without it it's an inconclusive poll

gadfly said...

Skookum John said...
As a longtime reader of John Derbyshire, I'm familiar with the term. I am in reluctant agreement with the alt-right contention that there is a genetic component to intelligence and other desirable human qualities, and that uncontrolled immigration and welfare handouts induce selective evolutionary pressure against these desirable traits, to the nation's disadvantage.

John Derbyshire, was banned as too racist for polite society,
for this diatribe
.

Balfegor said...

Re: John:

When did the term Alt-Right come into being?

I can't remember ever hearing it until a week or two ago
.

That's probably because you don't frequent websites or fora that have overlap with the Alt-Right. It's not a term I could have defined a week ago, but I had at least heard the term, seen it referenced in passing. I always thought of it as designating the "alternative" right, i.e. those on the "Right" who are neither libertarian nor Christian conservative. More moderate on economics, more uncompromising on social policy, largely irreligious, and inclined towards an extremely pessimistic realism.

They are probably the only ideological group for whom literally everything that has happened in the last 20 years is exactly in line with what they would have expected. They have had no hopes, and thus have experienced no disappointments.
- Radical Muslims trying to topple Western Civilisation? Churchill predicted it long ago.
- Blacks burning their cities in mindless riots? Who could expect otherwise?!
- Greek debt burning up the EU? But of course!
- A tidal wave of "refugees" swarming through Europe? That's the world-destroying superweapon Qaddafi and Erdogan and their ilk all threatened to unleash, while stroking a white Persian in their villainous lairs, only our leaders were too stupid to see it for what it was.
- World financial collapse? The natural result of weakening lending standards to enable minorities with bad credit to buy houses.
- Bush II's grand project to bring democracy to Iraq? Of course it collapsed in failure -- you can't just transplant western democracy into a foreign culture.
- Obama's airy rhetorical foreign policy? Utter nonsense -- the world is forged by Blood and Iron.

Not saying they predicted all these things . . . just that nothing has been in any way inconsistent with their worldview. And win or lose (they probably expect to lose) I think they will continue to derive a grimly amused satisfaction from having been right.

Balfegor said...

Re: Sinz52:

Many of Trump's supporters, by their own words, believe that blacks and Hispanics are inherently less intelligent and more prone to violence than whites.

I think it's important to qualify that statement. I'm sure there are people who think Blacks and Hispanics are "inherently less intelligent," but that's an oversimplification of what I think most "race realists" would say, i.e. that there's a mean and a variance for each population. It's definitely (obviously) not the case that the smartest Black/Hispanic is stupider than the stupidest White/Asian, or that the least violent Black/Hispanic is more violent than the most violent White/Asian. That's nonsense. The curves all overlap, and quite a lot. The point I've seen them make -- and to be honest, I think they are correct, whether for biological or cultural reasons -- is that the means are different. Not wildly different, but different enough that most tests are going to produce performance gaps when you compare mean group performance between different races. There's differences within group as well, too -- Igbo, for example, not only outperform other Africans, but outperform pretty much everyone else too.

There are a number of policy inferences the race realists draw from that. One is that inferring prima facie discrimination from a performance gap, absent any evidence of animus, is fundamentally mistaken, and puts defendants in an impossible position. Another is that pouring huge amounts of money into closing the gap is a doomed effort -- the money would be better spent trying to raise performance across the board and not worrying so much about the "gap".

Rick said...

If alt-right means not supporting the establishment (as discussed) it's far too broad to simply mean racist. But I'm amused the left is grasping at this since they've contended for decades that "right" alone means racist.

All decent Americans should reject any label used as a stand in label for racism. We already have a label for that: racism. No other label is necessary so the effort to create one is an effort to draw people not meriting the label racist into the group. It's a smear campaign.

Jupiter said...

Anglelyne said...


"There's plenty of evidence that these traits do differ among populations. Intelligent, informed people can and do disagree about whether this is true, and what the policy implications are."

I beg to differ with the second statement. There are intelligent people who don't think it is true, but this is because they are very careful to avoid becoming informed about these matters. I expect our hostess is one of them.

Jupiter said...

Balfegor said...

"The point I've seen them make -- and to be honest, I think they are correct, whether for biological or cultural reasons -- is that the means are different. Not wildly different, but different enough that most tests are going to produce performance gaps when you compare mean group performance between different races."

Average black IQ is a full standard deviation lower than average white IQ. That is "wildly different".

walter said...

Considering Dems long history of hijacking and manipulating language, I just don't think they're going to get much traction with "alt right".

but when Trump gets confronted with the label, I suggest "Forget about alt right. We need control, alt, delete."

Freeman Hunt said...

I still don't know what alt right means.

Jupiter said...

What exactly is "a white supremacy angle"?

I believe, based upon very good evidence, that the genetic deficiencies of black people are such that any city or neighborhood in which they form the majority of the population is going to be a crime-ridden, low-income hellhole. I would suggest that the vast majority of American, black and white, agree with me, although they may not admit it even to themselves. When blacks move in, whites move out. Not conservative, racist, "white supremacist" whites. *All* whites. Every last Democratic, liberal, non-racist, Kumbaya-singing, Obama-voting, some-of-my-best-friends-are-black one of them. Away they go, to live among other white people.

Does this mean that they are white supremacists?

Jupiter said...

And in fact, the higher-income blacks move right along with them. It used to be a common feature of housing covenants that they did not allow sale to blacks. These covenants were outlawed, but other means were developed to achieve the same effect. Lawsuits were filed, by blacks who could afford the prices in white neighborhoods and wanted to live there. In effect, they sued for the right to live among white people, the very right they wished to deny their prospective neighbors.

So, were these blacks "white supremacists"? Seems unlikely, but maybe.

Phunctor said...

Types.. deletes.
Types.. deletes.

1776 .. 1969 Land on the moon.
1965 .. 2016 Look around you.

Thanks, Senator Kennedy!

Freeman Hunt said...

It seems it's racists, monarchists, hipper than average trolls, paleoconservatives, young rebels, anti-Semites, nationalists, PC haters, and people who are into debating political philosophy, all pushed under the same banner. Does the banner have any meaning then?

Freeman Hunt said...

Rebels Without the Left?

mockturtle said...

Does the banner have any meaning then?

I think so. 'Anti-establishment' pretty well defines it. Anyone who is dissatisfied with the status quo may join. More than a few Bernie supporters are a part of the so-called 'alt-right'. It's kind of exciting for some of us, scary for others, to see such a multiplicity of groups united in a political movement.

Rick said...

Jupiter said...
What exactly is "a white supremacy angle"?

I believe, based upon very good evidence, that the genetic deficiencies of black people are such that any city or neighborhood in which they form the majority of the population is going to be a crime-ridden, low-income hellhole.


I don't believe this. While there are genetic influences on IQ and other measurements this does not determine criminality. These differences are minor within the human range, the range of variability within every ethnic group is far greater than the variability between ethnic groups. So while the differences exist between group averages a smart person of any ethnicity is smarter than an average person of any ethnicity.

Differences in ethnic performance are largely due to culture. The largest cultural contributors to the difference in black achievement are:

(a) a lack of understanding or belief in advancement through academics / knowledge, and
(b) defining heroism counter-culturally which includes an ethos of defiance of authority,
(c) an antagonistic relationship with law enforcement.

All of these elements are driven in part by understandable historical events, this didn't happen in a vacuum. But as long as these elements continue the differences will persist.

mockturtle said...

Meth & heroin-saturated white communities yield no better outcomes than those of predominately black inner-city communities. There may be fewer shootings but crime and amorality are just as prevalent. When there is a spiritual vacuum, depravity will always fill it.

Jupiter said...

Rick said...

"I don't believe this. While there are genetic influences on IQ and other measurements this does not determine criminality. These differences are minor within the human range, the range of variability within every ethnic group is far greater than the variability between ethnic groups. So while the differences exist between group averages a smart person of any ethnicity is smarter than an average person of any ethnicity."

Believe what you like, Rick. Close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, say "La-la-la I can't hear you!", and believe whatever you like. Just don't wander into the wrong neighborhood while you're doing it. You might bump into some black Nobel Prize-winners who will beat you up and steal your iPhone.

Jupiter said...

mockturtle said...
"Meth & heroin-saturated white communities yield no better outcomes than those of predominately black inner-city communities. There may be fewer shootings but crime and amorality are just as prevalent. When there is a spiritual vacuum, depravity will always fill it."

As you know, those "black inner-city communities" (what lying liberal apologist taught you that ridiculous phrase?) are all built on the sites of former white communities that were a good deal more productive. So I guess your point is that we should ignore those "black inner-city communities" that are not doing so good, and focus instead on some of those thriving "black outer-city communities" where all Rick's black Nobel Prize-winners hang out. Maybe you could name one?

Lydia said...

Neo-Neocon had a good post on the alt-right back in April. Couple of excerpts:

"I don’t think anyone actually knows who the alt-right really is, because what we see is the tip of the iceberg. And I say that despite the fact that I generally don’t tend to go for conspiracy theories. But what I’ve seen of this phenomenon (and I’ve seen a lot of it) tells me—or tells my gut—that this is a large and dangerous movement with roots that may be well-hidden but are also international (foreign IP numbers, for example) and are the very opposite of classical liberalism and/or what is usually thought of as conservatism." ...

"I have seen nothing from the alt-right that makes me think they care in the least about individual liberty, truth, or what Young calls 'universal values.' What I have seen is vicious ad hominem attacks, lies, propaganda, and yes, bigotry (including anti-Semitism, of course). And just to clarify—the 'alt-right' I’m talking about are the activists; their much-more-numerous followers are a more varied bunch with varied motivations and methods, who may or may not even understand who or what the alt-right is, and may or may not sympathize with it.

The strongest force behind the Trump phenomenon appears to be populism mixed with anger at the GOP for its failure to fight successfully (or in some cases even to fight at all) against illegal immigration and other aspects of the Obama administration and the general drift of events in America lately. But as with most political movements there’s also a smaller, activist part working behind the scenes to provide the memes and tactics that help drive the larger movement. In the case of Trump the activists are also somewhat varied, but the portion that has come to be known as the alt right seems to me to be a well-motivated and organized group of people who have studied the methods of the left and adopted those methods to their own purposes—purposes that often do not come under the heading 'conservative' at all."

Jupiter said...

You guys can make excuses all you want. I've been hearing those excuses since I was a boy, and I used to believe them. Poor Negroes! They're oppressed! White racism! Legacy of slavery! But the fact is, they wreck everything they get their hands on. They wreck their own lives, and their own neighborhoods. They will wreck yours if they get the chance. You know it as well as I do, which is why you live where you do.

What government policies follow from these facts, I don't know. What I know is that the current policies of the federal government are based upon a very explicit denial of these facts. The government is pissing in our faces and telling us it's rain, and anyone who doesn't like the smell is a racist. Did you really think that could continue indefinitely?

Paco Wové said...

Lydia - I have to say that the excerpt you posted immediately reminded me of this:

Zapp Brannigan: Questions?

Fry: Uh, just so we'll know, who's the enemy?

Zapp: A valid question. [The lights come back on.] We know nothing about their language, their history or what they look like. But we can assume this: They stand for everything we don't stand for. Also, they told me you guys look like dorks.


mockturtle said...

The 'alt-right' are NOFKD!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Innovations in Althousian polling: "I'm not what everyone sees me as!"

Keep up the good work! Self-delusion is very underrated.

Fernandinande said...

mockturtle said...
Meth & heroin-saturated white communities yield no better outcomes than those of predominately black inner-city communities.


For example?

google [Meth & heroin-saturated white communities], 2nd result (1st result was just rambling gibberish) is NYT "In Heroin Crisis, White Families Seek Gentler War on Drugs", referring to Newton, N.H., which has a below-average crime rate.

Jupiter said...
"black inner-city communities" (what lying liberal apologist taught you that ridiculous phrase?)


They're slums (not ghettos, which is something else entirely).
slum -> inner city.
swamp -> wetlands.
jungle -> rain forest.

Fernandinande said...

Doctor crusades against heroin
"Dr. Jeremy Engel talks so fast the words begin to fly around the room."

He's from Bellevue, Kentucky, which has a mostly low to average crime rate, one smallish section "high".

Your turn to support your statement, mockturtle. I think it's false; I don't think any mostly-white community has anywhere near the crime rates of black slums, or any mostly-black area, regardless of meth and heroin use.

Fernandinande said...

Jupiter said...
Believe what you like, Rick.


Information and logic have no effect on egalitarian blank-slatists. They operate by emotion.

mockturtle said...

I'm visiting in a medium-sized town right now that is predominately white with a few Hispanics. High drug use, high unemployment, high crime. Poor choices, poor outcomes. No one race has a monopoly on squalor.

Anonymous said...

Lydia: Neo-Neocon had a good post on the alt-right back in April. Couple of excerpts:

I could have predicted what they excerpt would say, pretty much word for word, just from the blog name.

Yeah, if you want disinterested, informed musings on the alt-right, just ask a neocon. (One of the funniest phenomena of the contemporary political scene has been the neocons presuming to run the purity tests for "conservatism".)

Paco Wové said...

"Average black IQ is a full standard deviation lower than average white IQ. That is "wildly different"."

Too bad commenter wildswan isn't around today. She brought this up in the "Hillary introduces America to the Alt-Right" thread, and flatly denied it. I think it's interesting stuff – it seems that there are a number of inferences that can be drawn from the data, which nobody seems to be interested in pursuing.

Paco Wové said...

I don't know if Steve Sailer passes the tests to be considered "alt-right", but of the blogs I make a habit of reading, he seems to come closest to fitting the mold: favors immigration restriction, nationalism, tends to notice things like race and religion.

Rick said...

Jupiter said...
Believe what you like, Rick. Close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, say "La-la-la I can't hear you!", and believe whatever you like. Just don't wander into the wrong neighborhood while you're doing it. You might bump into some black Nobel Prize-winners who will beat you up and steal your iPhone.


The existence of dangerous black neighborhoods is not evidence those neighborhoods are inevitable and/or a consequence of back genetic differences. If you want to make an argument you should at least present evidence on point.

cubanbob said...

Rick said...
Jupiter said...
Believe what you like, Rick. Close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, say "La-la-la I can't hear you!", and believe whatever you like. Just don't wander into the wrong neighborhood while you're doing it. You might bump into some black Nobel Prize-winners who will beat you up and steal your iPhone.

The existence of dangerous black neighborhoods is not evidence those neighborhoods are inevitable and/or a consequence of back genetic differences. If you want to make an argument you should at least present evidence on point."

The dangerous black neighborhoods are the ones the more successful (and by and large more educated and intelligent) blacks have left for the suburbs. The same is true for Hispanics and it would be interesting to study the average IQ of whites who remain in poor communities generation after generation (which tend to also have higher crime rates). To be sure IQ isn't character (the overwhelming majority of poor people aren't criminals no matter the race or ethnicity) but seldom do low IQ people become middle class from earnings.

Balfegor said...

Re: cubanbob:

The dangerous black neighborhoods are the ones the more successful (and by and large more educated and intelligent) blacks have left for the suburbs. The same is true for Hispanics and it would be interesting to study the average IQ of whites who remain in poor communities generation after generation (which tend to also have higher crime rates). To be sure IQ isn't character (the overwhelming majority of poor people aren't criminals no matter the race or ethnicity) but seldom do low IQ people become middle class from earnings.

"Low IQ causes crime" and "poverty causes crime" are two very pat answers to a difficult problem that, coincidentally excuse the authorities from actually doing anything practical. But they're kind of nonsense.

Given the Flynn Effect, the observation that average American IQs have been rising pretty continuously since the early 20th century (with improvements concentrated at the low end of the curve), you'd infer that crime rates ought to be lower today than they were generations ago. But in fact, they're not. Intentional homicide is about where it stood in 1960, although given that medical technology has advanced far beyond the 1960s, this is not exactly an apples-apples comparison. Rapes and robberies are about double. And property crime is up 50-60% or so.

Similarly, if material deprivation were a cause of crime, you'd think there'd have been a lot more crime -- and specifically, a lot more Black crime -- in 1960 than today. This doesn't seem to have been the case. Despite the significantly lower property crime and violent crime rates, my recollection is that although (like today) African Americans were overrepresented in the crime statistics, the degree of overrepresentation was not markedly more than today, and may have been less. I might have some time-mismatch, though (not sure I am recollecting statistics from the 1960s or earlier, since I do not have them at hand).

Boxty said...

"the steppingstone to a new American Reich" does not come up in Google or on Twitter anywhere I can find except Ann's blog. Unless sinz52 or someone else can come up with a link then you can conclude sinz52 is delusional or a liar.

I guess Democrats assume Trump supporters must be covert white supremacists since Democrats lied for years about not being a bunch of socialists.

Anonymous said...

Balfegor: "Low IQ causes crime" and "poverty causes crime" are two very pat answers to a difficult problem that, coincidentally excuse the authorities from actually doing anything practical. But they're kind of nonsense.

Given the Flynn Effect, the observation that average American IQs have been rising pretty continuously since the early 20th century (with improvements concentrated at the low end of the curve), you'd infer that crime rates ought to be lower today than they were generations ago. But in fact, they're not.


I don't think anyone believes "low IQ causes crime" as a single-cause explanation. (Anymore than they believe that high IQ people won't be criminals.) Low impulse-control and low IQ are highly correlated, so you'd predict that low IQ groups would have higher tendency to criminality.

Your remarks on the Flynn effect are a bit misleading, in suggesting that the Flynn effect is good evidence that "the gap" is mostly environmental, and closing. I don't think that's the case. At any rate, as I said, nobody that I'm aware of thinks that non-IQ factors don't affect crime rates. One would expect a population with a mean IQ of 85, in a society with intact, enforced social norms, to have lower crime rates than a population of mean IQ 90 where social norms have collapsed.

High illegitimacy rates and IQ also vary inversely, but no one who points out that lower IQ increases the probability of having children outside of marriage is saying that "low IQ is the cause of illegitimacy". And it would be silly to say that, because illegitimacy rates have shot up in a period where we see a Flynn effect in IQ scores, that IQ can't have anything to do with having children out of wedlock.

mockturtle said...

As is so often the case, correlation is mistaken for cause and effect.

Balfegor said...

RE: Angelyne:

Your remarks on the Flynn effect are a bit misleading, in suggesting that the Flynn effect is good evidence that "the gap" is mostly environmental, and closing. I don't think that's the case. At any rate, as I said, nobody that I'm aware of thinks that non-IQ factors don't affect crime rates. One would expect a population with a mean IQ of 85, in a society with intact, enforced social norms, to have lower crime rates than a population of mean IQ 90 where social norms have collapsed.

This is actually the inference I would draw. The US is basically stuck with the IQ profile it has, notwithstanding the Flynn effect. Focusing on IQ or poverty as a cause of crime is not really useful, because neither IQ nor poverty are susceptible to remediation. We can't sterilize people with low IQ and we've spent 50 years fighting a so-called "war on poverty" with essentially nothing to show for it (our greatest successes in poverty reduction, e.g. welfare reform in the 90s, have come from giving up this doomed crusade).

Social norms are, on the other hand, an area where we can make a difference, by not normalizing or excusing criminal behavior (e.g. by saying someone is stupid or poor, so he doesn't realize armed robbery is wrong, or that the justice system is racist and biased so he really ought to be let off even if he's guilty, just to be fair). And active and aggressive policing may be able to help in suppressing criminal behavior.

Anonymous said...

mockturtle: As is so often the case, correlation is mistaken for cause and effect.

Correlations sometimes do point to cause and effect. That's why people go looking for correlations in the first place.

After they're discovered, people who care about the truth refine their studies and test further to see if there's a cause-and-effect connection. People who care more about other things do one of the following:

1) Immediately trumpet the correlation as proof that what they want to be true is true, or,

2) (If the correlation suggests that something they really don't want to be true may actually be true), immediately start engaging in a lot of hand waving about how "correlation does not equal causation", as if that phrase was equivalent to "correlation has no relation to causation never ever ever". And anecdotes that contradict the statistical hypothesis. Lots of anecdotes.

Anonymous said...

Balfegor @12:51 PM:

I agree with everything you say here, except for one small point: I think it will be very hard to persuade people of the necessity of reviving and enforcing social norms without convincing them first that we can't fix IQ or poverty. And there are way too many people out there, with their fingers in the policy pie, who are massively (psychologically, professionally, ideologically) invested in believing that differences in cognitive ability are caused by bad whitey juju, and that poverty can be fixed with more of the same, it's just that we need lots and lots and lots more of more of the same.

And in defense of the "IQ determinists", many of them do promote just what you're suggesting, because they recognize that it isn't a level-playing field.

jg said...

It's a bit naive of you to think that nothing about your blog appeals to actual white 'supremacists' (a bit late in the game for 'supremacy', isn't it?), but yeah, anything below 2% on an internet poll could just be pranks or drunken mistakes.

alt-right, whose definition I never looked at before this poll, seems to consist of two dimensions: anti-universalism/globalism (race and/or culture realism / closed borders), and luddite and/or religious traditionalism. i guess that's really four dimensions but i think they're well-enough modeled by two principal components.

therefore i doubt your 'most of what alt-right stands for' answers really pin down any specific point in the space.