Vox is both right and wrong, because he uses too much of his own (admittedly extremely keen) intellect, and rejects the modern prophets, the Book of Mormon and other scriptural references that clarify and add to what the Bible says. He's not familiar with, for example, the examples of Ammon and his brethren who testified to the Lamanites and brought many of them to repentence. Racism is a sin. We should be filled with love towards all mankind. But I also suspect that he's not entirely explaining himself here, because he is entirely correct in pointing out that what our society calls "racism" usually isn't actually racism at all. It is not sinful to take care of your family first, your own people and nation second, and the rest of the world as opportunity and need arise. That perspective can swing too far by saying that "racism" as falsely defined by society isn't a sin into territory that is, in fact, sinful racism, so I think it worth pointing out that when Vox talks, he often "skips steps" and doesn't point out things that he expects you to fill in on your own. But I'll cover here and link to his posts while filling in some of the details for those prone to binary thinking. Pointing out that most of what society calls racism isn't racism at all does not excuse actual racism. Nor does pointing out that most of the anti-racism nonsense is nothing more than public self-flagellation and Pharisee-like piety displays to increase the perceived social status of those who do it.
UPDATE: Y'know what? While that may be technically true, scratch that whole paragraph. I'm more and more convinced that the entire existence of racism as anything other than a bogeyman used to bully white people is nothing more than a hoax. It simply doesn't exist. Every. Single. Time. I look into a supposed racist undertaking; cop violence being the one that comes up the most often, the reality is that statistically not only does it not exist, but that the so-called perpetrators are bending over backwards to be anti-racist. And yet they're accused of it anyway.
But the problem is that the word racism itself has become so indelibly tainted by these false associations that it's nearly impossible to talk about it. Many of the things people do to not be called racist are in fact evil because 1) they imposes a heavy cost--a fatal one, actually, if paid in full--to the society that does it, and 2) the cost is disbursed so that the person who advocates for these actions doesn't actually pay it himself. This allows him to virtue-signal and feel superior because of his "tolerance" or whatever without actually having to pay the cost of the decisions he's made; either his descendants or his neighbors pay it instead. Virtue-signaling like a Pharisee while throwing your own people and your own society under the bus is certainly not a righteous endeavor, and much of our discussion about "racism" in America comes down to this. You also get "Racist!" screamed at you for trying to have a rational discussion about what is best for everyone involving facts and statistics that are certainly salient and pertinent to the discussion. The cultists who run our society based on their delusional wishful thinking don't want you to know and don't want to face these facts, but... they are true regardless of whatever you feel about them. I'm not a huge fan of Ben Shapiro, but his motto is a good one: facts don't care about your feelings. True enough.
For example, is it racist to say "All lives matter"? Apparently so, given recent events. Public figures have literally been fired for tweeting that expression. Is it racist to say, "It's OK to be white"? It certainly shouldn't be, but that is also condemned as racist. What this highlights is that the cult believes that whiteness is the source of all evil, and it is, in fact, not OK to be white, nor do white lives actually matter to them. This is a profound evil, and of course, to make it worse, us and our posterity are the direct targets of this treacherous malice. This concept should be fought with the same vigor that our forebears fought for their freedoms against King George.
Is it racist to know and point out, for example, that because we have been taking IQ tests (and proxy IQ tests transparently disguised as standardized tests for every public school student in America) for more than fifty years that it's been well known to everyone involved in analyzing the data returns of those tests that black people in America have an average IQ an entire standard deviation below that of white Americans? And that black Africans in fact that have an average IQ an entire additional standard deviation below that? (Equatorial Guinea has the lowest average IQ of any country on earth at 59. The scale only does to "69 and lower" as very low. The entire country is--quite literally--functionally retarded from the point of view of a Westerner.)
Now, I know that a person's IQ isn't an indication of the value of their soul to God, of course. And I also know that the average IQ of an entire population group doesn't necessarily say anything about the IQ of a specific person. But don't you think that that fact has some relevance when it comes to our domestic policies about race like Affirmative Action? About our immigration policy? Absolutely it does, and if you make judgments about those policies while in denial about the facts of the IQ difference, you are making--at best--very foolish decisions that will impose a heavy cost down the line. At worst, you are actually setting everyone involved up for failure and societal breakdown of the type we are seeing right now with the race riots.
Speaking of which, is it salient and relevant to point out that white men are killed in higher numbers than black men by the police? On average in America, a white man is killed by the police every 15 hours. Why don't you know that? Why doesn't everyone know that? That's not racist to know, it's hugely important. And of course, the elephant in the room that actually everyone knows at some level and law enforcement data going back literally for centuries to the Colonial period all the way until now backs it up, although it is verboten to talk about it except in hushed whispers; that black criminality--especially violent criminality--is an order of magnitude greater than white criminality. Even rendering the numbers in per capita format, black men are actually killed less than you would statistically expect them to be by police relative to white men once you factor in that criminality (see references here and here.) In any case, yes--according to the prevailing cult of white hatred that rules America, it is racist to know that. But that doesn't make it any less true. Does that have profound implications for discussions about domestic policy? You bet it does. In fact, it suggests very strongly that the entire premise of the ongoing (as I write this) race riots in America are based on a hoax, deliberately trumped up by evil people to inflame envy, covetousness, and spite in the black population against the white population in America. What's even more shocking, given that this is a complete con job, is that there are widespread protests in Europe where--obviously--American policemen do not operate, and black Africans there are running amok destroying the civilization and neighborhoods of the native white people. Because they can, and because they've been told all their lives that white people are evil and they deserve it.
Does this have an implication on the insane proposals that are gaining currency right now to abolish police departments? Of course it does. That's an r-selected delusion about reality. If you have a population that underachieves in terms of material success compared to another due to a variety of mostly genetic and inherent deterministic factors, who is already prone to violent redress of whatever issues bother them, who have been inflamed for half a century to see themselves as aggrieved and oppressed, in spite of no material statistical evidence that supports that claim (and a great many that refute it), and then we remove the one thin deterrent that keeps them from running amok among the rest of the population taking what they please from them--how does anyone expect that to turn out?
And yet many people, even in the Church, are blind to the truth, and don't want to hear it, and shut down when you try to point out these highly salient and unassailable true facts, because it makes them feel bad, and damages their self-image as a nice person who is full of all kinds of virtues that other people around them must not possess. It doesn't matter that they don't actually ever see any instance of racism; it must exist invisibly and somehow behind the scenes, because after all, everyone talks about it all the time! I'll quote some of the Z-man here. First some introductory context:
One of the truths about politics that many would prefer to ignore is that politics is not about facts and reason. The game is about persuasion. [...] In order to persuade someone, you need to understand his needs and motivations in order to frame your appeal to him in a way that he can understand. [...] The so-called normie has become the universal white guy everyone says they want to bring to this side of the great [political] divide [to unconventional right-wing politics]. As President Barak Obama once said, he is the typical white person. This is the guy who votes Republican and listens to Rush Limbaugh when he is driving around during the day. His dream is to be left to live his life as he sees fit with whom he sees fit.Normie would naturally come this way [to dissident right wing politics], but he has been convinced of a number of things that operate like a leash keeping him in lefty’s yard. For example, normie is sure that markets matter a great deal. When he sees all of the corporate oligarchs promoting black violence, he mutters to himself, "Get woke, go broke." He truly thinks the marketplace will punish these companies. He thinks the sportsball leagues will suffer for kneeling to their black players. The fans will punish them for it.The mistake made by dissidents when discussing the magic market issue is in thinking they need to be anti-market. The thing is, normie needs to believe the market will magically solve these problems because he is not motivated to act on his anger and frustration over what he is seeing. The choice he sees is to abandon the convenience of buying from Amazon or forgoing the joy of watching sports. If he is going to walk away from consumerism, there has to be something in it for him.
I have a hard time with this concept that most people are completely immune to reason when it comes to their beliefs about political and social issues. I know it to be true, but I tend to have little patience for those who are unable or unwilling to accept facts and conclusions that are plainly obvious but which require them to relinquish mistaken beliefs that they hold and consider part of their identity. That said, it is true for most people, which makes developing policy based on reality very difficult. Anyway, let's get back to the Z-man where he applies this concept specifically to race and immigration, which are, of course, intertwined concepts in America.
There is something similar at work with race. Normie has been told his whole life that if he just tries hard enough, black people will stop thinking he is a racist. It’s not that explicit, but that is the point of race messaging from the ruling class. They want white people in a constant struggle session over race, where they examine everything they do with an eye on reaching the magic state of being not racist. Since no such place exists, the struggle can never end, hence the endless riots.It is why explicitly racist language is a dead end for normie. He sees that and is confirmed in his desire to not be a racist. Those taboo-breakers with their salty language and snarky comments are mostly singing to the choir. There’s a place for it and a need for it, but when it comes time to pitch normie on race realism, such language and symbolism is a deal killer. You become the salesman who walks into a Christian business using four-letter language and reeking of alcohol.Normie also likes feeling a bit self-righteous and sanctimonious. This is true of all people to some degree. All of us want to be good people in the universal sense, but we also want the people around us to acknowledge it. As John Derbyshire explained back in the Neolithic, social thought is a foundation of man. When it comes to politics, the easiest way for normie to feel good is to triangulate. He rejects the far-left, but also rejects those bad people and haters to his right.You see this in business. Often a buyer will justify his decision as being the value proposition, which means not the best, but not the cheapest. It is a form of self-flattery that the good salesman can exploit. He recognizes that the buyer needs to feel like he is a reasonable guy not taken by fads and thoughtful in his analysis. Normie takes a similar approach when it comes to thorny cultural issues in politics. He naturally seeks some middle ground that he can then pretend is the high ground.This is, in part, why normie remains smitten with immigration. It has always been framed for him as a choice between open borders and xenophobia. Normie really needs to believe that those immigrants want to be like him. To reject them out of hand is to reject himself. Again, it is a form of self-flattery. Think about how so-called conservatives sell normie on immigration. They talk about immigrants starting businesses and being natural conservatives who love Jesus and familyOn the other hand, normie makes noises about the need for immigration being legal and measured, because it makes him seem reasonable. He rejects the chaos of open borders, because he is an orderly sort of guy. He wants a tough border, but as long as there is a legal process, he is fine with immigration. The current immigration levels have become his value position. He’s not taking the cheap route of open borders, but he is not going for the expensive option of a moratorium.Then there is the weird fatalism of normie. He looks around at the madness of the day and thinks, "They have gone too far. The snap-back is coming." This is similar to his belief in the magic of the marketplace. Normie just assumes the excesses he sees around him will cause the silent majority, of which he is a member in good standing, to move like a school of fish in a different direction. Millions of private decisions motivated by left-wing excess will put things back in order.This is why talk of whites becoming a minority is so effective on normie. It’s not so much that he fears being at the mercy of non-whites. He fears he will lose the validation of being in that silent majority and that the silent majority will no longer be that magical force that rights all wrongs. In other words, so much of the normie mindset that keeps him tethered to conventional politics, depends on him believing he is part of a perpetual majority of good white people like himself.
This isn't a very flattering picture, but I suspect that it's largely true. Sadly, I think his conclusions are optimistic rather than realistic. The hope for some kind of snapback is a particular failing of mine, too.
It’s why the scenes of whites washing the feet of blacks and kneeling before them is so powerful, when combined with demographic reality. When normie understand he will be a minority and it means washing the feet, he suddenly becomes a highly motivated buyer for a new political ideology. The good salesman is always prepared for the motivated buyer. He does not bore him with a long sales pitch. He just presses on those pain points until he gets the sale.Every salesman will tell you that there are good times and bad times. The good salesman weathers the bad times and maximizes the good times. Right now, it has never been a better time to sell dissident ideas to the normie in the market for something better. Not all are motivated buyers, for sure. Some people never let go of the past. You can’t save everyone, but there are a lot of white people looking around right now thinking, “There has to be something better than this.”
The evidence from history, especially pointed in the Book of Mormon with regards to the Nephite and Jaredite nations, but not exactly unknown from other sources, like the fall of the Roman Empire, is that people will ride gleefully off a cliff, still in denial about the fatality of such an action even while they're literally falling to their deaths. Only when the more wicked part of the people are destroyed can those that remain effectively bring about a societal paradigm shift back to reality.
While I strive to love all mankind and be filled with charity towards all, as Moroni counsels, I admit that as of yet--and probably forever--I do tend to like my own people the most, because they are, after all, mine. And given that, the depressing reality is that we are certainly due for a major event where the more wicked part of my people are destroyed and the naive--heck, even the righteous--will have a steep cost to pay as well. Our Church leaders today tell us to be optimistic and even cheerful about the future, and while I can do that in a longer-term kind of perspective, I can also relate to the deep melancholy that is not hard to read between the lines when reading what Moroni wrote about what happened to his people. Knowing that it's just is one thing, but having to see it happen is not fun.
UPDATE II: The more things change, the more they stay the same. This all could have been avoided, and it wasn't. For the same reasons that our country, culture, legal traditions and religious traditions are being destroyed by out of control invasion: cheap labor for the soulless Chamber of Commerce types.
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