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Changing demographics and libertarianism

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This post has 42 Replies | 5 Followers

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Walden replied on Wed, Oct 17 2012 4:16 PM

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@Aristophanes

You didn't answer the question I asked a while ago. What of the Latino or African countries where their lives basically fit the same patterns? You will owe that to trashy pop culture in America too?

This point casts serious doubt on your tabula rasa theory. Moreover, if you've actually read Sowell, you'll also know welfare had the most disastarous effect on the black social fabric. Black ghetto pop-culture began to be marketed in the 90s, well after the war on poverty had done it's damage. Right away your theory that the media is controlling everyone's minds is bunk.

Your name is "Walden," are you familiar with Henry David Thoureau?

Are you familiar with Henry David Thoreau? He wrote some interesting commentary on the people's pointless preoccupation with the latest fashions arriving from Europe. Take a look at any historical painting of some well-to-do merchant surrounded by rugs, vases and dressed up in some ludicrous outift, long before Madison Avenue and television were invented.

@Michelangelo

Institutions are important. But there is HK, Indonesia and Singapore which were not designed to be white colonies but do relatively well for themselves. This seems to coincide with the fact that latinos and blacks in market economies like the U.S. do not do nearly as well as Asian immigrants.

With regards to it being a racial impulse, this is just an interesting theoretical aside I wanted to make and not my main point. The main point is to ask from a practical POV, with the statistics of IQ in mind of the races as they are today, who would you rather have voting in political elections? What does it mean for the libertarian movement? That is all.

@Groucho

What's with the belligerent tone?

Maybe it was a cult-thing with you

I was thinking like the cult of America which teaches a relativist and a tabula rasa view of humanity.

I remain insistent on my analysis on your thought process. The idea that "just anyone" can be given into herd behavior grows out of this initial presumption as well.

No, not just anyone can as evidenced by the many who don't.

Again, answer the question of why psychological profiles can be made based on political affiliation? If humans are all essentially the same, you would not expect to find libertarians as having "a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional intellectual style..."

I do not subscribe to the solipsistic fantasy, which you apparently held at one time, that anyone and everyone will jump on the libertarian bandwagon as soon as they hear the "good news".

This would seem to contradict:

Start with the basic premise of the NAP and work your way up through levels of abstraction to see where your disagreement arises. See if you can disagree without resorting to fallacious logic, internal projection, or groupthink.

In that where the disagreement lies is a matter of raw data, rather than emotional thinking and mere cognitive capacity. How do you logically tell an emotional thinker to think logically? It can't be done. You say I am "projecting/solipistic" but I at least acknowledge the limitations and variation among humanity to realize that all humans are not made equally.

This is my final reply in this thread. I appreciate the dialogue.

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Aristophanes replied on Wed, Oct 17 2012 4:57 PM

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What's with the belligerent tone?

You ask others while taking it on your own...

Right away your theory that the media is controlling everyone's minds is bunk.

I don't remember laying all the blame on the media. Social engineers in all parts of society put things together that amount to controlling people's minds. Look at the War on Poverty itself.

I also clarified that the tabula rasa concept was if you weren't born into a culture. If you were born in a vaccuum anything can be programmed into people.

Moreover, if you've actually read Sowell, you'll also know welfare had the most disastarous effect on the black social fabric. Black ghetto pop-culture began to be marketed in the 90s, well after the war on poverty had done it's damage.

I am aware of what Sowell says on the issue. I think it is prescient. But your comment overlooks the idiocy of pretending that blacks haven't been manipulated by the white people in charge, in vairous ways, for centuries. And you do not think that their lower IQ (if that is proveable outside of your white metric) has anything to do with that manipulation. Thomas Jefferson says that negroes hadn't been given a chance to develop due to their situation. Look at Blues and Jazz....where are white people in that mix...?

Are you familiar with Henry David Thoreau? He wrote some interesting commentary on the people's pointless preoccupation with the latest fashions arriving from Europe. Take a look at any historical painting of some well-to-do merchant surrounded by rugs, vases and dressed up in some ludicrous outift, long before Madison Avenue and television were invented.

Who cares about this? This is entirely off topic and you know it isn't why I would bring up HDT... I want to know if you think he overvlaued the IQ of colored people or at least put to much stock on their perspective. Based on your metric from before I'd think that you would resent his appreciation of the Indian philosophies. The Indians have avoided the corrupting influence of corporate advertising and western social engineering in a way that the prissy white people in America could not fathom.

Again, answer the question of why psychological profiles can be made based on political affiliation? If humans are all essentially the same, you would not expect to find libertarians as having "a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional intellectual style..."

I don't think this is true. Psychological profiles based on political affiliations fall apart when you introduce economics...it is all emotional ignorance for everyone. You cannot judge two different facts as having value over one another without introducing some concept of emotion. People are predictable and that is why you can build psycholoigcal profiles at all; politics need not even be involved (you can predict people's political beliefs based on their emotions to situations).