There’s hope for you too, Bret Ludwig. Western society can operate smoothly with a reasonable number of Bret Ludwigs in the population.

Rodney then said, "I regret that SOME of you (certainly NOT Dr. Wilson) have thought analogous to the content or method of..."

I rest my case.

You seem very inclined to lecture us on what is conservative. Race denial is a very modern viewpoint embraced by politically correct liberals. It is an even more modern viewpoint than scientific racism which it was created to counteract. So it is conservative to embrace a totally modern viewpoint that is not scientifically supportable and is counterintuitive so we can avoid any taint of wrong think? Whatever Rodney.

Automatic Invocation - An effective gatekeeper of the mind does not call attention to itself. It actuates a psychological mechanism called a taboo.

Recognition - Word taboos are easily recognized by the aversion or evasion response they evoke when used.

An element of behavior that is transferred from one culture to another is likely to suffer a sea change. So it has been with taboo. Pacific islanders apparently have no hesitancy in explicitly giving taboo as a reason for stopping a discussion. By contrast, Westerners, with their cherished tradition of free speech and open discussion, would be embarrassed to say (for instance), "We will not discuss population because it is under a taboo." Instead, they change the subject.

Value - An effective taboo is worth more than the most skillful argument.

- Insights courtesy of Garrett Hardin.

As with Rumpelstilskin in the fairy story, the full power of a taboo depends on its remaining unnamed.

For the sake of clarity: I am the very first to find fault with pre-1808 Gringo Blacks – an ETHNIC GROUP with a particular history, NOT a race with particular genes -- for having adopted or maintained a repertory of behaviors that is self-defeating, that re-enforces stereotypes, and that promotes violence, the greater percentage of which is against members of the same ethnic group. And in this judgement I am supported by B. T. Washington, Robert Woodson, Juan Williams, Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Alan Keyes, Larry Elders (whose _The Ten Things You Can't Say in America_ reminds me of ... Clyde Wilson), Ezola Broussard Foster (whose views on religion and family remind me of some folk at the Rockford Institute), Stephen L. Carter, Vernon Robinson, H. K. Edgerton, et al. and maybe Marva Collins – many of whom are conservatives, most of whom have been called “Tom” and “Oreo” (as have I), and all of whom are regarded by some misguided souls to be of inferior IQ because of their supposed race. And I'd gladly "buy a house, send my kids to school, or go to church" in the Bahamas. And I bet Simi Valley Cop would too! Check it out!

For the sake of clarity: I am NOT calling Dr. Wilson someone to be rendering aid and comfort to scientific racialism. For he IS talking about family, not race. I AM saying that the premise of genetic governance has been taken by lesser men who have gone places with it that Dr. Wilson doesn’t wish to go. Let's keep them from going there.

For the rest of you, all I want is truth in advertising:

As I read your arguments, your thought (I except Dr. Wilson) is not so much conservative as more analogous to the nationalist theory, either in method or content, of John L. O'Sullivan, Treitschke, Cecil Rhodes, Delcassé, Beveridge, T. Roosevelt, Barrès, the anti-Dreyfusards, Marcus Garvey and Black Nationalists, František Palacký and Pan-Slavism, Schönerer and Pan-Germanism, Verwoerd (maybe), assorted irredentists, and American exceptionalists, and Dishonest Abe – or other supporters of a “far-flung battle line” and “dominion over palm and pine”. We’ll forget for a minute that such thinking caused two world wars. None of these dudes were conservatives. For conservatism is more interested in localism than nationalism.

I regret that SOME of you (certainly NOT Dr. Wilson) have thought analogous to the content or method of Gobineau, Houston Steward Chamberlain, Wilhelm Marr, Madison Grant, Galton, Margaret Sanger, Alfred Ploetz, Eugen Fischer (sorry to say it), and to the people who have caused me the most grief: Leonard Jeffries, the Melanin Theory supporters, and those who believe that “we descendants of slaves are superior [to “whites”] because the inferior died and were weeded out on the slave ships” – and other supporters of supremacy over “lesser breeds without the law”. None of these were conservatives either. And we’ll forget for a minute what THIS thinking caused.

In passing: Most of the thought here (again NOT Dr. Wilson and NOT anyone associated with the Rockford Institute) also can’t be rhymed with Catholic Social Teaching. Not that anyone so far has claimed that it can be.

Bottom line: you guys ga-ga on genes (and I'm NOT talking about Dr. Wilson) are doing what McCarthy, the John Birch Society, Nixon, and Daniel Moynihan (“benign neglect”) did: Legitimizing in the eyes of the public illegitimate enemies. Why don’t you just hand a sword to Black Nationalists, Black Racists, Hispanic Racists, Cultural Marxists, Hallmarxists, and the Frankfurt Schoolboys and say “please slay us!” In short, not smart politics.

Let's drop this and get back to "puerility of American public life" and "distortions of American discourse".

Race is a part of our heritage; it is a tradition. It's important mostly for identity and for a diversity of nations.

I tend to agree with most everything Fleming says, but if he favours amalgamation then I'm happy to say I've finally found something I disagree with him on.

Reg. intelligence, it is certainly a prerequisite of wisdom or at least makes a man more conducive to wisdom. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

I kid. I kid.