Race & Violent Crime
Why are you interested in race & violent crime, anyway?
I wasn't. At all. Until my "bullshit detector" started going haywire every time I heard a neo-Marxist make a claim about race and violence that seemed hyperbolic, counterfactual, and absurd. So, as I do with any set of claims that I perceive to be harmful, irrational nonsense (e.g., religious fundamentalism, young Earth creationism, communism, socialism, fascism, pro-Confederate propaganda, Freudian psychoanalysis, white supremacy, radical skepticism about climate change, faked moon landings, etc.), I began to critically evaluate them.
In this case, I have observed and documented a significant amount of unwarranted truth claims that purportedly justify anti-police, anti-American, and anti-white bigotry and resentment. I have documented patterns of unlawful, destructive, and violent behavior motivated by these false and pernicious beliefs.
Thus, my abnormal obsession with the pursuit of truth and justice and my rational self-interests (e.g., not wanting to live in the intersectional socialist dystopia I am now convinced far-Left radicals would impose on our country if they could) also compelled me to investigate potentially harmful claims that I suspected were epistemologically unwarranted.
Are you a closeted racist?
Isn't it true that only a racist would challenge the narrative of ubiquitous white supremacy and widespread instances of racist white vigilantes and police officers systematically targeting innocent black victims on such an arbitrary basis of "living while black?"
No. I'm neither racist, nor closeted about my beliefs. That should be obvious. I am putting my beliefs out for you to see for yourself. You should judge whether a person is immoral by observing the way they behave, not by their silence, or on the basis of how much they virtue signal and uncritically endorse far-Left bullshit.
Regardless of the degree to which our cultural masters have bastardized the word, "racism," if it contains any semblance of warranted moral force, means hating people of other races on the basis of prejudice. Racist behavior, then, would necessarily involve arbitrary discrimination against people solely because of their race (e.g., the means of intersectional socialism).
I don't do that, and I never have. Everyone who knows me knows this. I think that being an actual racist is, indeed, immoral. I actually grew up around a lot of black people in South Carolina, and most of my interactions with them have been positive. I sincerely like black people and appreciate their unique culture.
Yet, like it has with so many other aspects of our language, the far-Left has redefined that word so it can be used as a linguistic weapon in rhetorical combat. Careless accusations of "racism" (like many other -isms and -phobias) to silence dissenters from "progressive" orthodoxy have caused the accusation to lose much of its moral force over the past 60 years.
That is, if being called "a racist" is just a linguistic code that functions to signify the morally vacuous concept of "disagreeing with a communist about anything marginally related to race," then why should anyone who thinks commies, in general, are immoral, resentful liars care about being called names by them? Why should reasonable people take such accusations seriously?
Besides, even if I was a racist (I'm not), calling me one would simply be an irrelevant slur and shouldn't substitute for a rational counterargument to the thoughtful arguments I and other people who elevate reasonable pluralism over social justice orthodoxy have made.
Even if one rejects someone else's worldview or the inferences they derive from scientific data, serious thinkers who care about the truth still have an epistemic obligation to acknowledge facts as facts and to test their own beliefs against them. That is, a claim's truth value should be judged according to its epistemic warrants; not on the epistemologically irrelevant basis of the identity of the claimant or the feelings of people who don't want him to say such things.
Guilt By Association
Do you like broccoli? You know who else liked broccoli? Hitler!
Isn't it immoral to read or become informed about things written by "evil oppressors" (or whatever form of irrelevant, moralistic invective one might substitute for a rational argument)? Not at all. I read a lot of things. I think seriously about them and critically evaluate their purported reasons and evidence.
I focus on the claim and its epistemic warrants rather than relying on religious apologetics and pseudoscientific psychoanalysis to justify being intellectually lazy and dogmatic. Then I make up my own mind about whether anything I have learned is relevant to important empirical or philosophical questions I have.
For example, Marx was a total scumbag whose pernicious philosophy has inspired the murder of over 100 million people.
I think it would be pretty easy, however, for me to identify critiques of capitalism and Western civilization that both of us might share. Yet, no one has a problem with my having Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto on my shelf.
Unwarranted, disingenuous denigrations of my upstanding moral character and accusations of guilt by association simply will not deter me from pursuing truth wherever it takes me and dissenting from any orthodoxy that gets in my way.
Shouldn't reasonable people be able to evaluate truth claims without labeling and dismissing them on the basis of epistemologically irrelevant political commitments?
Now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, I will continue doing what I think needs to be done and saying what I think needs to be said.
I wasn't. At all. Until my "bullshit detector" started going haywire every time I heard a neo-Marxist make a claim about race and violence that seemed hyperbolic, counterfactual, and absurd. So, as I do with any set of claims that I perceive to be harmful, irrational nonsense (e.g., religious fundamentalism, young Earth creationism, communism, socialism, fascism, pro-Confederate propaganda, Freudian psychoanalysis, white supremacy, radical skepticism about climate change, faked moon landings, etc.), I began to critically evaluate them.
In this case, I have observed and documented a significant amount of unwarranted truth claims that purportedly justify anti-police, anti-American, and anti-white bigotry and resentment. I have documented patterns of unlawful, destructive, and violent behavior motivated by these false and pernicious beliefs.
Thus, my abnormal obsession with the pursuit of truth and justice and my rational self-interests (e.g., not wanting to live in the intersectional socialist dystopia I am now convinced far-Left radicals would impose on our country if they could) also compelled me to investigate potentially harmful claims that I suspected were epistemologically unwarranted.
Are you a closeted racist?
Isn't it true that only a racist would challenge the narrative of ubiquitous white supremacy and widespread instances of racist white vigilantes and police officers systematically targeting innocent black victims on such an arbitrary basis of "living while black?"
No. I'm neither racist, nor closeted about my beliefs. That should be obvious. I am putting my beliefs out for you to see for yourself. You should judge whether a person is immoral by observing the way they behave, not by their silence, or on the basis of how much they virtue signal and uncritically endorse far-Left bullshit.
Regardless of the degree to which our cultural masters have bastardized the word, "racism," if it contains any semblance of warranted moral force, means hating people of other races on the basis of prejudice. Racist behavior, then, would necessarily involve arbitrary discrimination against people solely because of their race (e.g., the means of intersectional socialism).
I don't do that, and I never have. Everyone who knows me knows this. I think that being an actual racist is, indeed, immoral. I actually grew up around a lot of black people in South Carolina, and most of my interactions with them have been positive. I sincerely like black people and appreciate their unique culture.
Yet, like it has with so many other aspects of our language, the far-Left has redefined that word so it can be used as a linguistic weapon in rhetorical combat. Careless accusations of "racism" (like many other -isms and -phobias) to silence dissenters from "progressive" orthodoxy have caused the accusation to lose much of its moral force over the past 60 years.
That is, if being called "a racist" is just a linguistic code that functions to signify the morally vacuous concept of "disagreeing with a communist about anything marginally related to race," then why should anyone who thinks commies, in general, are immoral, resentful liars care about being called names by them? Why should reasonable people take such accusations seriously?
Besides, even if I was a racist (I'm not), calling me one would simply be an irrelevant slur and shouldn't substitute for a rational counterargument to the thoughtful arguments I and other people who elevate reasonable pluralism over social justice orthodoxy have made.
Even if one rejects someone else's worldview or the inferences they derive from scientific data, serious thinkers who care about the truth still have an epistemic obligation to acknowledge facts as facts and to test their own beliefs against them. That is, a claim's truth value should be judged according to its epistemic warrants; not on the epistemologically irrelevant basis of the identity of the claimant or the feelings of people who don't want him to say such things.
Guilt By Association
Do you like broccoli? You know who else liked broccoli? Hitler!
Isn't it immoral to read or become informed about things written by "evil oppressors" (or whatever form of irrelevant, moralistic invective one might substitute for a rational argument)? Not at all. I read a lot of things. I think seriously about them and critically evaluate their purported reasons and evidence.
I focus on the claim and its epistemic warrants rather than relying on religious apologetics and pseudoscientific psychoanalysis to justify being intellectually lazy and dogmatic. Then I make up my own mind about whether anything I have learned is relevant to important empirical or philosophical questions I have.
For example, Marx was a total scumbag whose pernicious philosophy has inspired the murder of over 100 million people.
I think it would be pretty easy, however, for me to identify critiques of capitalism and Western civilization that both of us might share. Yet, no one has a problem with my having Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto on my shelf.
Unwarranted, disingenuous denigrations of my upstanding moral character and accusations of guilt by association simply will not deter me from pursuing truth wherever it takes me and dissenting from any orthodoxy that gets in my way.
Shouldn't reasonable people be able to evaluate truth claims without labeling and dismissing them on the basis of epistemologically irrelevant political commitments?
Now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, I will continue doing what I think needs to be done and saying what I think needs to be said.