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German juvenile judge speaks in plain language

Anti-German racism on the rise

31.08.2008. Beginning this year a fierce debate raged for several weeks in Germany about the increase in immigrant crime and anti-German racism. Without a doubt the statements made by the police, who have openly admitted certain parts of Berlin are "already lost" and that the security forces there have even been withdrawn, were enlightening.

The Berlin prosecutor Roman Reusch in turn stated that roughly three-quarters of the youths committing hard crimes in the German capital are of non-German origin. Of course, these are truths that some people prefer not to face up to. Therefore a ban was imposed on this courageous prosecutor in order to prevent his further interference in the debate, and later he was even transferred.

The facts remain what they are, as confirmed now by the Berlin juvenile court judge Kirsten Heisig. This week she raised the alarm in the Berliner Kurier and stated that no less than seventy percent of the defendants (up for juvenile violence) have an immigrant background and are from family structures outside the norms of German society. Continue reading at Gates of Vienna.

IQ and intelligence of different people

Fjordman versus Jared Diamond

31.08.2008. Excerpts from a recent article by Fjordman at The Brussels Journal (emphasis and hyperlink added): [Author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond,] claims that "modern 'Stone Age' peoples are on the average probably more intelligent, not less intelligent, than industrialized peoples." He suggests that New Guineans are more intelligent than the average European or American. He rejects the use of IQ tests because these supposedly measure cultural learning only. With all due respect to Mr. Diamond, I disagree. It is true that human intelligence is a complex thing consisting of several types of intelligence, not all of which are measured by IQ, but we do have indications that at least some important aspects of intelligence can indeed be indicated by IQ tests.

The one ethnic group in the world with the highest average IQ are Ashkenazi Jews, who have produced by far the highest number of Nobel Prize winners per capita of any ethnic group on earth. The one country with the highest average IQ is Japan, a fact which corresponds well with Japan's very high technological and economic level. Northeast Asians, Koreans, Japanese and Chinese people, all have high IQs. It is interesting to notice that the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions took place among the Europeans, not among the East Asians, despite the fact that the latter have at least as high IQs. This could indicate that IQ does not measure everything, but that it does measure something. In the Western university system, where people from all over the world compete, it is generally the Jews, the East Asians and the Europeans who perform the best, and they are all high-IQ groups.

HonestThinking comments: Another possible explanation of Fjordman's observation above is that the Standard Deviation (SD) of the IQ distribution curve of East Asians is smaller than the corresponding SD of whites; in other words, that the IQ Bell Curve of East Asians is more narrow than that of whites. If this is the case, then it is indeed possible to have a higher average IQ, but still produce fewer geniuses. This hypothesis is discussed e.g in the Information Processing article Asian-White IQ variance from PISA results (emphasis in original):

I've occasionally heard a variant of the Summers argument applied to Europeans vs Asians (specifically, NE Asians such as Japanese, Koreans and Chinese): although NE Asians exhibit higher averages than whites in psychometric tests (SAT, IQ, etc.), some suspect a smaller variance, leading to fewer "geniuses" per capita, despite the higher mean. See, e.g., this article in National Review:

...The two populations also differ in the variability of their scores. A representative sample of Americans or Europeans will show more variability than will an East Asian sample. In the familiar bell-shaped distribution curve, the bell is much narrower for the Japanese--which is what you would expect from such a homogeneous population.

This difference is a major matter, and it is worth focusing hard on the data. Just about all Western populations report a standard deviation of 15 IQ points. (The SD, a basic measure of variability, quantifies the extent to which a series of figures deviates from its mean.) But the SD for the Japanese and other East Asian populations appears to be a shade under 13 IQ points. That difference does not sound like a big deal, and, in fact, it does not change things much in the center of the distribution. ...

...but it does make a big difference at the high end, and it affects estimates of elite human capital availability in different countries.

See also a brief comment on this topic at Gnxp.

Fjordman also writes the following in his article (emphasis added by HonestThinking): Jared Diamond, being an evolutionary biologist and a believer that the process of evolution extends to human beings as well as to other creatures, does not reject the possibility that there could be unequal levels of intelligence among various ethnic groups developed over thousands of years, but insists that if there are, then surely Europeans have to be more stupid than others:

"[N]atural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies, where natural selection for body chemistry was instead more potent….there is also a second reason why New Guineans may have come to be smarter than Westerners. [...]"

The interesting thing about this quote is that Mr. Diamond has just stated that many New Guineans have widely practised cannibalism. He says this matter-of-factly, but does not clearly indicate that he disapproves of this. In fact, from his writings, he appears to be more critical of television than he is of cannibalism. He is not alone in entertaining such apologist views.

HonestThinking comments: Another interesting thing about this quote from Diamond (only partially reproduced above) is that Diamond states matter-of-factly that natural selection can promote or demote genes for intelligence. This, of course, should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about evolutionary theory. Yet, it is not politically correct to say so, because it immediately gives the lie to all kinds of wishful thinking to the effect that human populations over tens of thousands of years should have developed the same level of average intelligence even though they have lived in parts of the world where the selective pressures are very different.

The profound problems of Africa

African writer recommends a good look in the mirror

30.08.2008. Excerpts from an article by Mfonobong Nsehe in American Chronicle: Africans are usually quick to blame most of its problems on the evils of colonialism. We sometimes blame the violence on the borders colonialists created that ignored ethnicity. Many African nations have been independent for four decades. If colonial borders were a major problem, how come they haven't changed them? Colonialism cannot explain Third World poverty. Some of today's richest countries are former colonies, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Some of today's poorest countries were never colonies, such as Ethiopia, Liberia, Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan. The colonialism argument is simply a cover-up for African dictators and people. [...]

You can't solve Africa's problems until the lies are all stripped away and you start comparing yourself to say Taiwan. Taiwan is not white, yet they have made amazing progress. They made this progress by managing their economy properly, and by working hard. We need to strip away the black ideology that says that whites didn't do anything other than enslave blacks and are rich because of the exploitation of blacks. Taiwan didn't get rich because of that. So why do Africans think that that's how whites got rich? [...]

Were Africans better off under colonial administration than the despots who replaced them? Continue reading in in American Chronicle.

HonestThinking comments: The problems of Africa are almost certainly more profound than what Mfonobong Nsehe appears to be prepared to admit, but his article is a good start when it comes to avoiding lame excuses. For additional background on this troubling and uncomfortable topic, readers would do well in consulting the following article by Professor J. Philippe Rushton, published at Vdare: Richard Lynn’s The Global Bell Curve — The Explanation That Fits The Facts, the final paragraphs of which read as follows (emphasis added):

Of course, if average IQ differences are the crucial determinant of racial socio-economic hierarchies, this raises the question of what causes them.

In principle, they could be wholly environmentally determined. However, Lynn argues that their consistency across time and circumstance points to genetic factors. And he reviews other data in support including hybridization studies and finds that “mixed-race” populations fall between parental populations. This is true for Aborigines in Australia, Amerindians in Mexico, and Blacks in North America and South Africa. (See also my Personality and Individual Differences article on racial admixture in South Africa Testing the genetic hypothesis of group mean IQ differences in South Africa: Racial admixture and cross-situational consistency, 2008, PDF).

To achieve credibility, a theory must explain the totality of the phenomena. Only one theory does: hereditary differences in average IQ.

Continue reading at Vdare.com. Professor Rushton's article builds on new data from by Richard Lynn's book The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide.

UK: worst economic crisis for 60 years

The Tony Blair legacy

30.08.2008. Britain is in the grip of its worst economic crisis for 60 years according to The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling. He warns that the slump is going to be "more profound and long-lasting than people thought". Continue reading in The Telegraph.

HonestThinking comments: There is no reason for anyone to even pretend to be surprised. With the immigration policy of the UK, the multiculturalism, and the denial of reality in which mainstream media and UK politicians wallow, this country is destined for trouble. The current news is of course just the beginning. There is likely to be temporary relief here and there every now and then, but the overall trend in the coming years, will be from bad to worse, unless the Britons come to their senses.

Hunting season for whites

Racism and racism are two entirely different things - legally speaking

27.08.2008. Kyle Bristow may not be the most unbiased journalist around, but his reports from the racist attacks that some 20 to 30 black teenagers carried out on the night of May 31 and the wee hours of the morning of June 1, 2008, in Mount Clemens, Michigan, are disturbing. He has written two articles for Global Politician about this incident: Hunting Season for Whites and No Justice for White Victim of Savage Crime.

Can Islam be reformed?

Fjordman versus Daniel Pipes

27.08.2008. Fjordman recently published an essay at Atlas Shrugs where he challenges Daniel Pipes to show that there is such a thing as moderate Islam (see GoV for excerpts of said essay). For some of Pipes' earlier writings on this topic, see The Search for Moderate Islam and Bibliography – My Writings on Moderate Muslims.

HonestThinking comments: I would be particularly interested in seeing Pipes address Fjordman's concerns about Mahmud Muhammud Taha, since Pipes has previously pointed to him as an example of a moderate Muslim.

Dismember white people!

Radical message from Obama supporter

27.08.2008. Muslim Obama supporter declares white people deserve and want to have their ears and noses cut off, and that Muslims shouldn't worry, "because God wants you to do it", according to Jihad Watch.

Immigrant baby boom in the UK

New numbers from the Office for National Statistics

23.08.2008. The soaring birth rate among immigrant mothers will soon become the main driver of Britain's rapid population growth, Government experts have predicted. Immigration has been the biggest factor in increasing the population in recent years, and with millions of new arrivals starting families the birth rate is soaring. The Office for National Statistics said this week that it could be the main source of overall population growth as early as next year, overtaking immigration itself. Almost a quarter of all babies in Britain are now born to immigrant mothers. In London the figure is 54 per cent, rising to 75 per cent in some boroughs. Foreign-born mothers have an average of 2.54 children, compared with 1.79 for women born in the UK. Continue reading in Daily Mail.

Elderly anti-islamization activist beaten unconscious

Street violence in Köln (Cologne), Germany

22.08.2008. Shortly before 3pm today, the 67-year-old Cologne Council member Hans-Martin Breninek was beaten unconscious and sent to hospital by young Turks. He suffered head injuries and is currently in Saint Mary’s Hospital. The young men wounded him so severely with blows to the head from their fists that the pensioner fell to the ground and lost consciousness. The video camera at a nearby store filmed the brutal act of violence. The recordings were given to the police to help identify perpetrators. The group of Turks, who had a “fighting dog”, managed to flee before the police arrived. Continue reading at Gates of Vienna.

Abolish the white race

“Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity”

22.08.2008. Harvard University according to Wikipedia has "an independently edited magazine and separately incorporated affiliate", viz. Harvard Magazine, with a circulation of 240.000. In 2002 this obviously very prestigious magazine ran an article by Noel Ignatiev, co-founder and major driving force behind the quartly publication Race Traitor, with the motto "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity". The following paragraphs are taken from the just mentioned HM-article, the title of which is Abolish the White Race (emphasis added):

The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists. Of course we expected bewilderment from people who still think of race as biology. We frequently get letters accusing us of being "racists," just like the KKK, and have even been called a "hate group." ...

Our standard response is to draw an analogy with anti-royalism: to oppose monarchy does not mean killing the king; it means getting rid of crowns, thrones, royal titles, etc....

Every group within white America has at one time or another advanced its particular and narrowly defined interests at the expense of black people as a race. That applies to labor unionists, ethnic groups, college students, schoolteachers, taxpayers, and white women. Race Traitor will not abandon its focus on whiteness, no matter how vehement the pleas and how virtuously oppressed those doing the pleading. The editors meant it when they replied to a reader, "Make no mistake about it: we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as 'the white race' is destroyed—not 'deconstructed' but destroyed."

HonestThinking comments: Make no mistake about it, white people are going to find themselves in an increasingly difficult situation in the coming years. Abolish the White Race was by the way subjected to some analysis at Vdare.com back then: Harvard Hates The White Race?.

The Catholic Church and immigration

When political correctness and self-serving interests become more important than truth

20.08.2008. The following are excerpts of an article by John Zmirak at Vdare.com (italics in original, boldface added by HonestThinking): Leaving sentiment aside, when it comes to bolstering its numbers and cultural power, the plain fact is that the American Catholic Church is addicted to immigration. As in most developed countries, the Church has simply failed to pass along the Faith to the younger American generations. It struggles desperately to recruit solid, orthodox, heterosexual young men for a lifetime of underpaid, celibate service as priests. So Catholic bishops have lurched to the Left, and embraced open borders—in part, simply to draw in more young Catholic immigrants from developing countries, Catholics who have not yet had their beliefs eroded by life in post-Christian America.

These impoverished recent arrivals will fill the pews and seminaries for one generation—until they too are seduced by the siren songs of modern life, and allowed to drift away by a weak and divided American Church. Then they, too will be replaced by fresh recruits from Vietnam, the Philippines, Mexico, and Africa…and so on, presumably ad infinitum. [...]

But it’s troubling to see the American Catholic Church treat the poor of other lands as theological cannon-fodder. And it lets the American hierarchy neglect the real issue: How to create a self-sustaining, enduring American Church? It’s easy to confuse the above-mentioned conflict—between the perceived self-interest of the American Church and that of the American nation—with the classic tension that animates the whole history of the West since Constantine: the pull between earthly and heavenly citizenship, between the City of God and that of Man. [...]

But are you a better Christian for favoring the short-term interests of your own religious community over the well-being of your fellow-citizens? Does the real harm done to low-income Americans by mass immigration justify the temporary uptick in church-goers and seminarians? And to raise a purely spiritual matter—are poor people drawn into U.S. cities, with all their urban pathologies, awash in American pop culture, more likely to get to heaven than if they’d stayed at home? [...]

Serious Catholics could never mistake the American nation for an earthly incarnation of a universal creed. They already have such a creed. And it doesn’t depend on this or any nation. The Church has ancient teachings about nations, their duties, and their rights.

My catechism says that patriotism is a duty, and its opposite is a sin. Augustine demonstrated in The City of God that a Christian ought to be the most loyal of citizens, since he sees that the authority of the state comes from God, and the ruler is His steward.

Most of all, a Christian knows he is his brother’s keeper. The nation is the home of his brothers. He knows – or should know - better than to pull it down, to make room for a circus tent full of strangers.

Continue reading at Vdare.com.

HonestThinking comments: The observation that so many Christians, not just Catholics, have failed in their loyalty towards truth and towards their fellow citizens in the various Western countries currently being destroyed by multiculturalism, is a sad one indeed.

Gottfried, Zmirak, and white nationalism

Discussions of race and identity

20.08.2008. The following are excerpts of an article by Jared Taylor at Vdare.com (the background being "a long and interesting discussion over at Takimag.com on what is being called 'white nationalism'"; most hyperlinks in original, Wikipedia links and a couple more added by HonestThinking):

In fact, Mr. Zmirak and Prof. Gottfried both place far too much emphasis on IQ. IQ has nothing to do with the desire to see one’s people survive and flourish. [...] It doesn’t matter if immigrants are smarter, better-behaved, better-looking, and superior to us in every way; I still don’t want to be replaced by them. I love the traditions of the West, not necessarily because they are superior but because they are mine, just as I love my children because they are mine, not because they have high IQs. [...] But as I have explained many times, we are forced to talk about IQ in self-defense. We are reproached and punished for the failures of others—especially blacks—and have no choice but to point out the true cause of their failures. [...]

If racial consciousness had foliage to match its roots it would be an unstoppable force. Show me just about any prominent (or ordinary) American of any time up do about 1940 and I will show you someone whose assumptions about race are likely to be very similar to mine. [...] In this respect I will point out only that Mr. Zmirak seems to want to snuff out discussions of IQ not because race realists are wrong but because what they say is inconvenient.

Finally, Mr. Zmirak finds it unconscionable that Michael Levin, writing in American Renaissance, should find that black behavior is sufficiently different from that of whites to justify whites’ avoiding them. But what is the point of resurrecting freedom of association if we are not to have the right to choose our associates, in Richard Epstein’s classic phrase, "for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason at all."

Prof. Levin, unlike most whites who hide out in the suburbs, has stated his reasons. If they are not good enough for Mr. Zmirak, he should explain why. I suspect he doesn’t exactly fill his life with black people either. Why not? Despite Mr. Zmirak’s protestations, I think our views have much in common. If, as a matter of tactics, he find it necessary to huff and puff about "rootless white nats"—well, we live in evil times in which a man can lose his job for saying something he knows to be true. But anyone who wants to close the borders and repeal all anti-discrimination laws has a vision of America very similar to mine, and I am pleased to call him an ally.

Read the entire article by Taylor at Vdare.com.

Intelligence, human capital, and economic growth

National average IQ has a robust positive relationship with economic growth

20.08.2008. The following is the abstract of an EconWPA paper by Garett Jones & W. Joel Schneider: Human capital plays an important role in the theory of economic growth, but it has been difficult to measure this abstract concept. We survey the psychological literature on cross-cultural IQ tests, and conclude that modern intelligence tests are well-suited for measuring an important form of a nation’s human capital. Using a new database compiled by Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) along with a Bayesian methodology derived from Sala-i-Martin, Doppelhofer, and Miller (AER, 2004), we show that national average IQ has a robust positive relationship with economic growth. In growth regressions that include only robust control variables, IQ is statistically significant in 99.8% of these 1330 regressions, and the IQ coefficient is always positive. A strong relationship persists even when OECD countries are excluded from the sample. A 1 point increase in a nation’s average IQ is associated with a persistent 0.11% annual increase in GDP per capita.

See also IQ and Global Inequality. Thanks to Gene Expression for the tip.

Endangered species

White people are positioning themselves for (partial) extinction

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19.08.2008. The following are excerpts from an article at GalliaWatch (emphasis added): It is an unwritten law. Unwritten because inherent in our species. When one people is conquered by another, the men in the victors' camp seize the women of the vanquished. Humiliated, exhausted and deprived of a spouse, the male survivors of the vanquished are condemned to die with no posterity. Their descendants are fewer and fewer in number with each succeeding generation. The resistance waged by these men in revolt and their sons becomes less and less vigorous with the passing years. The children of mixed blood ("métis") born of unions between the invaders and the native women and impregnated with the dominant culture, remain for the most part indifferent to the fight being waged by their last survivors of the invasion. If the women of the vanquished hope to transmit their genes, such is not the case of their masculine compatriots. Thus the genome of the vanquished men is the first to disappear from the human genetic reservoir reservoir. Vae victis!

Genetic studies conducted on various populations of the South American continent have shown that most of the genetic material carried by chromosome Y (paternal lineage) is of European origin in these people. While conversely, the genetic material carried by mitochondrial DNA or DNAmt (maternal lineage) is for the most part African and Amerindian. That means that the South Americans are in their majority descendants of the Spanish conquistadors and their black or Amerindian slaves. The black and Amerindian men therefore left a much more scattered posterity compared to that of the white man. This illustrates exactly what I explained (...) The vanquished have nothing.

Another very eloquent example. In Cuba, researchers have just discovered that 33% (yes 33%, one third) of the DNAmt (maternal) of Cubans is of Amerindian origin. That is a considerable posterity for Indian populations that were supposed to have been massacred more than five centuries ago by European colonists! On the other hand, concerning chromosome Y (paternal), not a trace of Amerindian genes (0%). History is unforgiving. The Amerindian men of the island were killed in combats against the conquerors, by illnesses imported from Europe and in forced labor camps on sugar plantations. The men left no trace, not even in the blood of their enemies. But their women married the invaders, thus ensuring the perpetuation of their genes.

[Relevant quote inserted by HonestThinking on 07.09.2008: "In India, for example, the Y-chromosome DNA reflects the Aryan invaders, whereas the mtDNA shows a greater presence of females from the indigenous population. [...] The usual pattern found in recorded history is that a small number of intruding males in a dominant position, either as powerful conquerors or rich merchants, mate with a much larger number of indigenous females." (Vincent Sarich & Frank Miele, Race - the reality of human differences, page 24 - 25).]

France at the beginning of the 21st century, while not (yet) having reached the cataclysmic state described above, is experiencing nonetheless a similar evolution. Although we do not have any official figures, you have only to walk down the street to verify that in the immense majority of mixed couples, it is the man who is foreign and the woman European. As in war, the winners seize the indigenous women all the while protecting their own. The whole rhetoric that aims to debase the European woman or France ("I screw France like a whore" says rap group Sniper) is a part of the feminization of the white race, of the idea that Europe is a land to be conquered, a habitat open to all forms of pillage. Are not the notorious "gang rapes" another example of collective violence to European women, just as Russian soldiers did when they seized German women in a devastated Berlin in 1945.

It all holds together. A tribe that does not protect its women is behaving as if they have already lost the war. Many of us don't know this. But our enemies do. Continue reading at GalliaWatch.

The gullibility of Western 'leaders' is bordering on treason.

HonestThinking comments: It is important to understand that the problems of Europe and the Western world go much deeper than just this and that particular challenge from Islam or from Muslims. At the end of the day humans are biological beings and nations are extended families. Thinking that genetic similarities and differences are of little or no importance is nothing but wishful thinking. These things have always mattered, and they always will. In particular, they matter a lot to those who immigrate to our countries. This has been consistently demonstrated by the immigrants themselves for several decades now. Until we realize these things, we will continue to lose the currently ongoing battle.

Melanocortins and behavior

Could there be an association between pigmentation and behavior?

19.08.2008. Excerpts from a recent article at Gene Expression: In many vertebrates, there is an association between pigmentation and behavior. One potential reason for this is that genes influencing pigmentation also have pleiotropic effects on other traits, including behavior. A recent paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution lays out this hypothesis:

In vertebrates, melanin-based coloration is often associated with variation in physiological and behavioural traits. We propose that this association stems from pleiotropic effects of the genes regulating the synthesis of brown to black eumelanin. The most important regulators are the melanocortin 1 receptor and its ligands, the melanocortin agonists and the agouti-signalling protein antagonist. On the basis of the physiological and behavioural functions of the melanocortins, we predict five categories of traits correlated with melanin-based coloration. A review of the literature indeed reveals that, as predicted, darker wild vertebrates are more aggressive, sexually active and resistant to stress than lighter individuals. Pleiotropic effects of the melanocortins might thus account for the widespread covariance between melanin-based coloration and other phenotypic traits in vertebrates.

Talking about Russia and Islam

The double standard of politicians and media exposed

16.08.2008. Political commentator Diana West, author of The death of the grown-up, hits the nail on the head when she observes that we are hearing Roars about Russia but nary a whisper about Islam. Here are some excerpts:

In other words, no pattern of avowedly Islam-inspired violence in the world has ever earned a headline nearly as straightforward as "Islamic jihad is back." Not even the Islamic success of Motoon Rage, which has severely repressed Western modes of expression regarding Muhammad in particular and Islam in general, inspired anything as descriptive as, for example, "Sharia's new teeth."

Ask yourself: Would any British foreign secretary of the postmodern age look at, say, last year's trial of a British teacher in Sudan for "blasphemy" in naming a teddy bear "Muhammad," and conclude: "It's a reversion to not just post-colonial politics. It is a seventh century way of doing politics"? Hah.

HonestThinking comments: We may in this case safely label the behavior of our 'leaders' as ignorant, dishonest, and/or hypocritical. This is a paradigmatic or archetypical illustration of the meaning of the phrase double standard.

Raping the military

Feminism is destroying the US Armed Forces

15.08.2008. Excerpts from an article by Jared Taylor at Vdare.com: Let us stop for a moment and remind ourselves what soldiers are for. Their job is to find and kill the enemy. Ever since the Stone Age, it has been clear that the best people for that job are tough, aggressive young men. Soldiers have to kick down doors, stay cool under fire, and if need be, kill people with their bare hands. They may have to spend hours humping artillery shells, marching in the heat in combat gear, or live for days in the same clothes. What’s more, in today’s all-volunteer army, they have to want to do these things.

Soldiers must also be able to trust each other with their lives. Ever since the Greeks, commanders have understood what we now call "unit cohesion". Soldiers have always cherished loyalties forged in battle.

It just so happens that men of this sort have at least an average interest in sex—at an age when "average" means just short of obsessed. An army in the field is a giant locker room, where young men give vent to their adolescent nature, and strike vulgar poses precisely because there are no women around.

What happens when women show up? A reported 10 percent of the soldiers who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan have been women. [Women in Combat : NPR, October 1-5, 2007] With only a few exceptions, those assignments are essentially combat, with all the danger, stress, and close quarters that go with it.

What happens when a unit gets a woman assigned to it? If she is even slightly good-looking every one of the men—and I mean every one of them—will want her. That means advances, rejections, jealousies, resentments, and men who were once comrades become competitors of the most elemental sort. One or more of the men will get her and everyone will know it. Some of the men who don’t get her may have to listen to her grunting and squealing, just eight feet away through two layers of tent cloth.

Anyone who does not understand the poisonous effect this has on morale and unit effectiveness has either never gone through adolescence or simply refuses to see the obvious. Continue reading at Vdare.com.

HonestThinking comments: The American Armed Forces is a showcase of what happens when common sense, rational thinking, and science is replaced with ideology and wishful thinking. The situation in the US military is of course just a symptom of the profound problems into which the entire American society has gotten itself.

Genetic map of Europe

New study on the genetic makup of Europeans released

Diagram provided by Razib at Gene Expression.

Diagram from Genetic Future, originally published in Current Biology. The map was constructed using purely genetic data without information on spatial location, so the concordance between the two maps indicates the degree to which genetic ancestry correlates with physical location - in other words, how well your genes predict your address.

14.08.2008. A new study of the genetic map of Europe has just been published. The genetic map was constructed using data from over 300,000 genetic markers in 2,514 individuals from 23 European subpopulations, making it the most comprehensive analysis of European genetic variation performed to date, according to Genetic Future.

The opening paragraphs of a comment to this study at Dienekes' Anthropology Blog are as follows: This is a very important study, the first one to use both a large number of markers and a wide and fairly representative sample of Europeans from across the continent. My main observations after reading this study are:

• relative genetic homogeneity in Europe, with a fairly small percentage of variance explained by geographic differentiation
• clinal, rather than racial apportionment of European genetic variation, with no emerging separated clusters (except the Finns, who stand at some distance along the first eigenvector)
• south-north (but not east-west) decrease in genetic variation and heterozygosity indicating that Europe was populated on a south-north axis, rather than an east-west one.
• clear clustering of individuals from different ethnic groups within the European continuum, indicating that ethnic groups are not only cultural, but to some extent biological entities.
• Some ethnic groups are clearly distinguishable from each other (e.g. Swedes vs. Spaniards); some groups are partitioned into fairly disjoint sets (Spain I vs. Catalans in Spain II); others mutually overlap (e.g., British and Irish); while others overlap asymetrically (e.g., some former Yugoslavs in the Greek cluster, but not vice versa).

See also Genetic, Geographic, And Linguistic Structure Of European Populations, How well does your genome predict your postcode?, and European population substructure...Finns in the corner again (thanks to Gene Expression for the tip).

Whites fear discrimination

Racial prejudice in UK

14.08.2008. Almost one in three white people believe they are the victims of racial prejudice, a Government study has found. Continue reading in The Telegraph.

EU brings down Danish immigration law

European nation states are being crushed by EU

Asylum seekers now just need to marry an EU citizen (from any country), after which their applications can no longer be rejected.

13.08.2008. Two months ago, the Irish held a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. We all now know how it ended. One of the elements in the run-up to that referendum was the Irish concern for their abortion laws. The Irish have an abortion legislation that doesn't fit in the minds of most liberal journalists. They also thought that the Treaty of Lisbon could liberalize it against their will. That is why the Irish voted "No," some argue, even after so many explicit promises by politicians that there was absolutely no reason to worry. On 26 July, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (Ecj) proved the Irish right: National law is subordinate to whatever is ruled on the European level. As a consequence, the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen found himself in trouble: after the ECJ ruling in the Metock case the Danish immigration legislation is now completely void and worthless.

Here is a verbatim quote from the press release from the European Court of Justice:

A non-community spouse of a citizen of the Union can move and reside with that citizen in the Union without having previously been lawfully resident in a member state. The right of a national of a non-member country who is a family member of a Union citizen to accompany or join that citizen cannot be made conditional on prior lawful residence in another Member State.

This ruling came after a lawsuit started by four black men who had sought asylum in Ireland. Their application was rejected by Ireland, but in the meantime each of them had married a non-Irish EU citizen, and wanted to appeal to EU law to obtain a residence permit in Ireland. However, the Irish state ruled that the EU law did not apply because they had not stayed in another EU country before coming to Ireland. However, the European Court of Justice rejected that argument and ruled that the four men should be given a residence permit.

Continue reading at The Brussels Journal.

HonestThinking comments: As I have remarked many times before, the EU is moving in the direction of a totalitarian system. True democracy is impossible when (1) when there is too much distance from the ruled to the rulers, and (2) when there is too little unity among the ruled.

Attack victim loses part of his skull

But the attacker got away with a 14-month jail sentence

13.08.2008. When a state is no longer willing or able to uphold law and order or to protect its citizens, that state is headed for disaster. Read the troubling story in Chad and This is Nottingham of Eddie Fletcher who, walking home with a friend, had his head smashed and his life ruined.

Debate in Sweden

Accusations of racism in Aftonbladet

10.08.2008. On 31 July the debate editor of the Norwegian daily Klassekampen, Ali Esbati, published a lengthy article in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet where, as part of his discussion of the Norwegian Progress Party and their high scores in the opinion polls this summer (more than 30%), he pays a visit to HonestThinking as well as yours truly, accusing me of racism. Aftonbladet allowed me to reply to this accusation, and I made the point that as far as utterances (as opposed to actions or attitudes) are concerned, at least one of the following criteria must be fulfilled before they can be considered racist:

1. False statements.
2. Suppression of relevant information.
3. Hateful, condescending, scornful, or otherwise contemning words and expressions.

I have published this list of criteria in both Dagbladet and Aftenposten (the two most important arenas for public debate in Norway), and no one has yet challenged it (at least not directly). But when I implicitly challenged Mr Esbati either to (1) criticize these criteria, (2) document that my writings fulfill any of these criteria, or (3) admit that his accusation of racism is without a proper foundation, he responded as follows (in a follow-up comment that Aftonbladet placed below my reply to his original article; my translation from Swedish to English):

I do not regard it as a meaningful task to explain to a man who is possessed by the birthrates of immigrants, who leans on race researchers who are applauded by Ku Klux Klan [he is alluding to an earlier reference I made to the article Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy, by J. Philippe Rushton, ed.], and who is urging people to show 'solidarity' with 'white/Western peoples', why his activities can be labeled as racism.

HonestThinking comments: I consider this responce from Mr. Esbati to be quite revealing. A valid argument is a valid argument, no matter who makes it; what Ku Klux Klan or Mr. Esbati may think of professor Rushton is irrelevant. And, yes, I am indeed urging all of us to show solidarity with anyone who needs it, including white/Western people. It is always worth noting when someone indicates that solidarity, compassion, or concern for white/Western people is somehow unethical or otherwise inappropriate. I find it hard to see how such an attitude can be anything but hypocritical or evil.

Permalink.

Can a wounded nation heal itself?

Can France find back to its roots?

10.08.2008. Excerpts from an essay by Fjordman at The Brussels Journal (emphasis added): Here is a quote by Nicolas Sarkozy from 2006, before he became French President:

[S]ecurity is the responsibility of the State, I am against militias, I am against the private ownership of firearms, and I'm trying to make you think about that. If you are assaulted by an armed burglar, he'll use his weapon more effectively than you anyway so you're risking your life. If the criminal is not armed and you are and you shoot, your life will be ruined, because killing someone over a theft is not in line with the republican values that are mine. The private ownership of firearms is dangerous. I understand your exasperation for having been burglarized two times, I understand the fear that your wife and daughter may have but the answer is in the efficiency of the police and the efficiency of the judiciary process, the answer is not in having guns at home.

Yes, but what happens when the state neither can nor wants to protect its citizens, which is clearly the case in France and in many other Western countries today? Here is another quote by the same man, this time as president, in July 2008, when he announced the creation of a new "Mediterranean Union" in a huge meeting between European and Arab leaders: “The goal of this summit for the Mediterranean, of this Union for the Mediterranean, is that we learn to love each other instead of continuing to hate each other and wage war,” Sarkozy told a news conference. That same month he also declared that Ireland will have to hold a second referendum after Irish voters rejected the EU Constitution, the same Constitution which French and Dutch voters had previously rejected but which was implemented anyway under another name, the Lisbon Treaty. In saner times we would have called this a coup d'état, committed not just in one country but in many countries simultaneously.

The European Union is an organization of corrupt parasites and power-grabbing traitors, mixed up with some dangerously naive fools. EU leaders are intent on flooding their countries with even more Muslims at the same time as immigrants commit countless acts of violence against native Europeans. The greatest organized betrayal in history is celebrated as a victory for peace and tolerance. Our so-called leaders open the floodgates to people who are, always have been, and always will be hostile to everything we hold dear, and tell us to love them. Unfortunately, others have rather different plans for us. [...]

In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, a largely – and in my view excessively – pro-Mongol book, Jack Weatherford claims that the Mongol conquests in the thirteenth century triggered the Renaissance in Europe by opening up the continent to ideas from Asia, for instance gunpowder and printing. So, we now have claims that the Renaissance was what caused the great advances in Western science, and that it was triggered by Muslims in the twelfth century or Mongols in the thirteenth century. At the same time, there was supposedly nothing special about Europe until the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries.

An intelligent reader will quickly see that all of these different claims cannot be true at the same time, yet they are all made at the same time. The point here is not whether any of them are correct, the point is to put down any sense of pride people of European origins might have in their historical achievements. It is a bit ironic that European culture is constantly derided for being racist, oppressive and evil, yet everybody else seems very busy with claiming the honor for having created it. If we are racist oppressors who rape the earth and create global warming, why are Muslims and others so eager to take credit for having created our culture? Shouldn't they feel ashamed of themselves instead?

The truth is that the scientific revolution was the greatest achievement of the human mind in history, and it was done by Europeans, not by anybody else. This particular form of ideological disinformation takes place all over the Western world, and there is no specific reason for singling out the French in this regard. I suspect many ordinary French citizens are just as fed-up with this nonsense as everybody else is. I wish good French people the best of luck in reclaiming their dignity and their country. Given the state of things, they are going to need it.

What about basing French national identity on the Battle of Tours on October 10, 732, when the people who were eventually known as the French halted an Islamic invasion of the heartland of the European continent? By doing so, they saved not only their own nation; they saved the greatest civilization mankind has ever seen. That really is something to celebrate, unlike the happenings of 1789 which led to senseless mass slaughter and widespread intra-European wars. If the French need historical inspiration, they should follow the example of the right Charles next time. That would be Martel, not de Gaulle.

Punished first, acquitted later

Totalitarian tendencies in Canada

08.08.2008. After 900 days, the Alberta Human Rights Commission has finally dismissed a complaint of illegal "discrimination" against Ezra Levant and the now-defunct Western Standard magazine, for republishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in 2006. Fifteen government bureaucrats participated in the investigation, costing Alberta taxpayers more than $500,000 and leaving Levant and the magazine with $100,000 in legal bills. "I was punished first, then acquitted later. It was a mockery of justice," said Levant. Continue reading at CNW Group. See also Levant's own comments.

HonestThinking comments: My understanding is that the plaintiffs can bring their case before these kinds of Canadian courts without risking anything, while the defendants have no right of legal defense, will be punished if they do not show up, and must carry their own costs, in this case $100,000. This is not in keeping with the centuries old tradition of being considered innocent until proven guilty. A tradition that we pride ourselves of, and rightly so. The Canadian system of human rights commissions is a disgrace to the Western civilization. As CNW Group remarks: "The Danish cartoon investigation has made Alberta's human rights commission an international embarrassment." Indeed.

Germany’s brain drain increases

This trend could soon become self-enforcing

06.08.2008. They are young, well-educated and ready for adventure. And they are sick of Germany. More and more are leaving the country to try their luck abroad, and they often find that coming back is not always easy. Continue reading at DW-world.de.

Creationism in UK schools

Dawkins warns of islamic influence

05.08.2008. Prof Dawkins, a well-known atheist, also blamed the Government for accommodating religious views and allowing creationism to be taught in schools.

"Most devout Muslims are creationists so when you go to schools, there are a large number of children of Islamic parents who trot out what they have been taught," Prof Dawkins said in a Sunday newspaper interview.

"Teachers are bending over backwards to respect home prejudices that children have been brought up with. The Government could do more, but it doesn't want to because it is fanatical about multiculturalism and the need to respect the different traditions from which these children come (emphasis added)." Continue reading in The Telegraph (thanks to EuropeNews for the tip)

The power of blogging

Norwegian blogs having an impact

02.08.2008 (updated 03.08.2008). For the last few years it has been pretty clear that there are exactly three multiculturalism-skeptical blogs in Norway that really have an impact on the public debate, viz. the following:

• Document. I think it is fair to say that this site primarily promotes liberalism. The material here is mostly in Norwegian, and sometimes in Danish or Swedish. They have no tradition for publishing in English, but one of their major contributors, Nina Hjerpset-Østlie recently had one of her articles translated to English and published at GoV.
• Human Rights Service. In spite of its name, this is also a Norwegian (plus Danish and Swedish) language site only. Their primary focus is on feminism, female genital mutilation, forced marriages, Islam, and human rights in general.
• HonestThinking. This is a conservative site with articles both in English and Norwegian (plus Danish and Swedish). See my general manifesto as well as immigration manifesto to get a better understanding of where I am coming from.

That these three blogs do indeed have a certain impact on the public debate and the political climate of Norway was confirmed a couple of days ago by Ali Esbati, one of the editors of the Marxist daily Klassekampen (which used to be a very interesting forum for public debate until Mr. Esbati took charge of that department in January this year). On 31 July he had a long article in Sweden's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet. Esbati's big concern is that the Norwegian Progress Party (this link is actually in English!) has repeatedly been above 30% in the opinion polls this summer. Trying to understand what may have caused this catastrophe, Esbati offers the following analysis (my translation from Swedish to English, emphasis added):

The Progress Party is benefiting from a general political debate that to an increasing degree is being 'Denmarkified'. Several neo-racist forums have established themselves as points of reference in every discussion concerning immigration, Islam, or integration. At sites like Document, HonestThinking, and Human Rights Service (HRS) dubious numbers and insidious 'connections' are daily being dumped on the readers. The tone and selection of material are reminiscent of what you get from the 'news services' of the Swedish National Democrats or other racist parties. [...] The editor of HonestThinking has established himself as a participant in the public debate by monomaniacally harping on the role of the demographic developments in the 'islamization' of Norway. Not only are there many Muslims - they even have kids! Lately he has taken some interest in the relationship between 'race' and intelligence. This hodgepodge - the intentions of which should be obvious to any normally gifted citizen - is what you risk being served in ordinary Norwegian newspapers.

Although I am sick and tired of left-wing radicals and other multiculturalists who have no better 'arguments' to offer than branding their opponents as 'xenophobes', 'islamophobes', 'racists', 'fascists', and the like, I appreciate Esbati's implicit admittance that he finds it hard to come up with proper replies to my writings, as well as his grudging acknowledgement that I am posing some tough challenges to him and his Marxist companions.

Even so, nobody should have to take these kinds of accusations without a chance to answer, and I am currently awaiting Aftonbladet's decision whether or not to print my responce. With Sweden's tradition of preventing free and open debate the outcome is not given, although I am, after discussing my case with the Swedish office of the Press Ombudsman yesterday, a guarded optimist. Stay tuned.

Added 5 August: Aftonbladet has agreed to print my reply, which is tentatively scheduled for Thursday this week.

The no longer forbidden debate in Denmark

English reports from Denmark at GoV

02.08.2008. The tensions between Denmark and the EU gives rise to a number of articles in the Scandinavian languages (primarily Danish and Norwegian, it seems), and some of them are being translated into English and published at Gates of Vienna.

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HonestThinking is dedicated and committed to the art of thinking honestly. Yet honest thinking is not the same as true thinking, for it is possible to think honestly, but be mistaken. For the same reason, honest thinking is not identical with objective thinking either. Honest thinking is striving to get things right. This involves being truthful about whatever one publishes, but just as importantly, it involves an uncompromising dedication never to suppress relevant data, even when data collides with dearly held prejudices. Such an approach may sometimes cause hurtful revisions in one’s belief system. That’s what HonestThinking is all about! Read the entire manifesto.

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Please send e-mail to postmaster at honestThinking.org (replacing ' at ' with '@') if you would like to tip us about a web resource that we should link to, or if you wish to submit an article for publication here. Quality contributions are welcome from anyone.

The current European immigration and integration policy is profoundly disrespectful of both Muslims and Islam, because it is built on the tacit assumption that the Muslims will become like us. One claims to have respect for Islam and for Muslims, but one also expects Muslims to give up their orthodox faith when they come here. At the same time one is assuming that Islam will be reformed and modernized as soon as the Muslims become integrated and understand and appreciate how superior our Western culture is compared to their own. This is cultural shauvinism and arrogance indeed! The unspoken premise for this scenario is that Western socities are superior to Islam. Read more.

Human rights and democracy are under pressure. One threat comes from the Western world, in the form of lack of or dishonest thinking. There exists a peculiar Western "tolerance" which is so "tolerant" that it even tolerates totalitarian or anti-democratic ideologies. A tacit assumption underlying such an attitude is that all cultures, world views, and religions are really equally good. As a consequence of this assumption one is cut off from the possibility of critically examining the above mentioned ideologies. Read more.