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Martin Niemoeller: The Failure to Speak Up Against the Nazis
"This quotation is often cited incorrectly.
The exact phrasing was supplied by
Sibylle Sarah Niemoeller von Sell,
Martin Niemoeller's wife."
Steve Sailer
The Future of Human Nature
-- I don't know what to make of Sailer
-- he doesn't match any of my preconceived categories well.
-- a page on this site on / Steve Sailer /
First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson
"Every day, here and at home, we are warned about the enemy. But who is the enemy? Is it the alien? Well, we are all alien to one another. Is it the one who believes differently than we do? No, not at all, my friends. The enemy is fear. The enemy is ignorance. The enemy is the one who tells you that you must hate that which is different. Because, in the end, that hate will turn on you. And that same hate will destroy you."
Babylon 5: "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place"
here
here
-- Links are mine -- ed.
from the section "Act" of Ten Ways to Fight Hate,
produced by the
Southern Poverty Law Center / SPLC
"The IDIC has become a very special symbol (and lifestyle) to Star Trek fans. Designed by the late Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, the IDIC symbol was worn by Mr. Spock in TOS episode, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations represents a Vulcan belief that beauty, growth, progress-- all result from the union of the unlike. Concord, as much as discord, requires the presence of at least two different notes. The brotherhood of man (sic) is an ideal based on learning to delight in our essential differences, as well as learning to recognize our similarities. The IDIC symbol is a union of a plain circle and triangle, uniting to produce the beautiful gemstone in the middle. The circle represents infinite, nature, woman, etc; the triangle can represent the finite, art, man, etc.
IDIC remains the simplest, purest, most powerful idea in Star Trek, an idea that has clear implications for our own times."
Copyright © 1999 by William S. McCullars. All rights reserved.
"That mankind are not infallible; that their truths, for the most part, are only half-truths; that unity of opinion, unless resulting from the fullest and freest comparison of opposite opinions, is not desirable, and diversity not an evil, but a good, until mankind are much more capable than at present of recognizing all sides of the truth, are principles applicable to men's modes of action not less than to their opinions. As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so it is that there should be different experiments of living; that free scope should be given to the varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when anyone thinks fit to try them."
On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill,
edited and with a
(nice)
introduction by Gertrude Himmelfarb
p 120
"One obstacle to adulthood needs to be solved immediately: We must learn not just to accept differences between ourselves and our ideas, but to enthusiastically welcome and enjoy them. Diversity contains as many treasures as those waiting for us on other worlds. We will find it impossible to fear diversity and to enter the future at the same time."
Gene Roddenberry, quoted here
"Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism."
Barry Goldwater
Speech in acceptance of
the Republican Presidential nomination
1964 Republican National Convention
"What is HateWatch's definition of a hate site?
A hate site is defined as, "an organization or individual that advocates violence against or unreasonable hostility toward those persons or organizations identified by their race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability. Also including organizations or individuals that disseminate historically inaccurate information with regards to these persons or organizations for the pupose of vilification."
"After publicly announcing his disaffiliation with racist organizations, Withrow was found nearly dead, cut up, and nailed to a board crucifixion-style.... Withrow's self-presentation is bound to ruffle the feathers of middle-class whites who don't wish to confront the possibility that they might have something to learn from a hillbilly-looking guy who was once a member of the White Aryan Resistance."
"Stan, when you get a chance, will you take a look at this free lance video that we got today and see what you think we can do with it. It is an amateur home video, but it is really quite powerful. Take a look at it.”
It was an unusual request so I put it in a play-back video unit right away. I looked at the pictures and felt a flow of adrenaline surge through my body.
I had never viewed anything like this before."
" Karl Marx wrote that the discovery of gold in California would prove to be a more important event in the history of the world than the discovery of the Americas by Columbus. When the European met the Indian in 1492, two continents met. But after gold was discovered in California in 1848, the entire world converged. For the first time in human history, the African met the Filipino met the Peruvian met the Mexican met the Australian met the Chinese met the Russian....
I think about Marx's prediction whenever I look at Los Angeles, this city so full of life, so full of babies who look like none of their grandparents exactly. I know children who are Jewish Filipinos with Iranian cousins who are married to Guatemalans. No wonder L.A. has become the true capital of America."
"In the second phase of this argument, King redefines "unjust law" in such a way as to intersect the democratic argument we have seen developed in Locke and Jefferson :
[P] An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself.
This is difference made legal.
[P] ...a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself.
This is sameness made legal."
(my emphasis - ed.)
"Brian Deneke was murdered on December 12, 1997. He was 19 years old. Brian did not die because he deserved to. Brian did not die because he asked to. Brian died because he was different.
.... We believe that his memory, and this committee, can serve the following goals:
- To encourage tolerance, dialog, and civilized respect for different lifestyles and perspectives in this community;
- To see that justice is done through the legal system;
- To discourage violence and prevent acts of retaliation;
- To actually support the victims of this crime."
"Kent State has gotten the lion's share of attention because mainstream America -- and the American government -- could not display with such impunity the same degree of indifference toward victimized white students that they had traditionally displayed toward victimized black students....
This country apparently suffers from a permanent case of schizophrenia about May 4, 1970. It did not like the idea of materially comfortable white college students demonstrating and causing "trouble", but neither could it justify the fact that troops acting in its name had shot down its children -- unless and until those children could be portrayed, like blacks and Native Americans, as "subhumans" and "undesirables". "
interview with Miriam Jackson
in
Kent State / May 4 : Echoes Through a Decade
Scott Bills, editor,
page 179
(Jackson's use of the term "victimized" here may be arguable --
the National Guard troops at Kent State fired
because they felt
threatened
in a volatile situation.
Perhaps we should just assume she means "victimized by the 'System' ".)
-- The May 4, 1970 homepage --
-- "Inquire. Learn. Reflect." --
" ... since what is called "science," etc., is largely unfamiliar to me, let me replace it by "X," and see if I understand the argument against X.
... X is dominated by "the white male gender."
.... the entire idea of "white male science" reminds me, I'm afraid, of "Jewish physics." Perhaps it is another inadequacy of mine, but when I read a scientific paper, I can't tell whether the author is white or is male. The same is true of discussion of work in class, the office, or somewhere else. I rather doubt that the non-white, non-male students, friends, and colleagues with whom I work would be much impressed with the doctrine that their thinking and understanding differ from "white male science" because of their "culture or gender and race." I suspect that "surprise" would not be quite the proper word for their reaction."
"It is false and racist that anyone has any business taking "pride" in the "achievements" of one's distant ancestors, since intelligence, creativity, etc., are not inherited, and furthermore no one can take any credit for anything they have not achieved themselves. This is the case even if modern blacks were the descendants of ancient Egyptians, which they are not. Besides, if one takes credit for the "achievements" of one's distant ancestors, why not also assume the blame for the atrocities committed by the same ancestors?"
This isn't exactly the way I'd phrase this. I don't see anything wrong with feeling "comradely pride" at the good deeds of others, even when one has not contributed, and even when one has never met the person in question.
I'd say one should criticize all wrong actions indiscriminately, whether of one's "own people" or strangers, the living or dead, or even I suppose of fictitious characters. Likewise one should appreciate and praise all right, whether of relatives or opponents.
"There is no better way to honor one's forebears than by taking their ideas seriously. To understand what the flag now flying in Columbia represents, one need only read the Declaration of the Immediate Causes of Secession, adopted by the South Carolina secession convention in December 1860. ...
South Carolina's statesmen identified the preservation of slavery as their overriding concern. States' rights and regional loyalty, often cited today as the real meaning of the Confederate flag, were invoked only as these doctrines protected slavery. ...
Slavery, as Southern Vice President Alexander Stephens put it, was "the cornerstone" of the Confederacy. ... to claim that Confederate soldiers went to war to protect their "way of life" conveniently forgets that this way of life was founded on slavery."
"In ordering a contingent of the National Guard to protect Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, against imminent invasion by nine neatly-dressed, heroically polite Negro children, Governor Orval Faubus has finally liberated the conscience of the South. No longer need the South's genuine conservatives--those who are deeply attached to local and regional traditions--feel that they must support "a way of life" out of loyalty to their forefathers. Their forefathers would despise Faubus."
"... many people have just assumed that they didn't change with the times. But our results suggest that many older people want to change, they want to be more tolerant, but they have lost a cognitive ability that would help them be more tolerant."
Standard disclaimer applies:
I don't agree with every bit of every thing I reference on this site.
But I think this is worth a look.
"There is much chatter lately that because we can never all agree on the exact number, names, and members of the various races, therefore "Race does not exist; it's just a social construct." Darwin knew better. Although races are indeed fuzzy, extended families are even fuzzier, yet no one denies their reality. In fact, a race is not just like an extended family, it is an extended family. A race is simply an extremely extended family that inbreeds to some degree. In turn, a species is a race that inbreeds virtually exclusively, typically due to reproductive incompatibilities with outsiders.
The human race is definitely one species -- the most widespread single species of all the large mammals on Earth. Yet, we are also almost endlessly subdividable into partially inbred races, each with recognizable genetic tendencies. (That's why forensic anthropologists can rather accurately deduce race from DNA left at crime scenes). According to Berkeley anthropologist Vincent Sarich, no mammal exceeds our species in physical variation, except for dogs and a few other artificially selected animals.
Another paradox: the unity and diversity of the human race are not contradictory ideas. While "diversity" and "equality" are both considered Good Things by multiculturalists, that does not make them synonyms. They are antonyms. The more environments we have been selected to adapt to, the more trade-offs selection has had to make. Thus the meaningless it is to boast that your group is supreme overall. "
"Japanese talents extend far beyond chopstick-handling to a set of extremely masculine intellectual skills. Tests show they tend to excel at objective abilities like mathematics and mentally manipulating 3-d objects through "single-tasking" (focusing deeply upon a one impersonal logical problem). Blacks, on the other hand, are often better at typically feminine, more subjective cerebral skills like verbalization, emotional intuition and expression, sense of rhythm, sense of style, improvisation, situational awareness, and mental multi-tasking. Michael Jordan's brain, for instance, enables him to anticipate his opponent's every move while simultaneously demoralizing his foe with nonstop trash-talking. (Try it sometime. It's not easy.) Next, think about physical and emotional/personality traits. Here the races are arrayed in the opposite order. Blacks tend to display more of typically male qualities like muscularity, aggressiveness, self-esteem, need for dominance, and impulsiveness. In contrast, the Japanese economy benefits from a male workforce endowed with more typically feminine virtues like small fingers and fine motor skills, cooperativeness, humility and anxiety, loyalty, long-term orientation, diligence, and carefulness. Combined with their first-rate masculine mental skills, these make Japanese companies powerhouses at exporting superbly engineered machinery. Compared to Japanese organizations, black communities tend to be physically and psychologically masculine, sometimes to the point of disorderliness. Yet a relatively high percentage of individual black men achieve fame by possessing charismatically masculine looks and personalities, without the nerdishness that Dilbert-style male intellectual skills often induce."Racist? I don't know. It makes me pretty uncomfortable.
"... if we want to learn much about human nature, we're going to need to compare different kinds of humans: male and female, sick and healthy, young and old, smart and stupid, gay and straight, tall and short, black and white, and so forth. They all deserve respect as manifestations of human nature's rich diversity."
"In 1497 he and his followers carried out the famous Bonfire of the Vanities. They sent boys from door to door collecting items associated with moral laxity: mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan books, gaming tables, fine dresses, and the works of immoral poets, and burnt them all in a large pile in the Piazza della Signoria of Florence. Fine Florentine Renaissance artwork was lost in Savonarola's notorious bonfires, including paintings by Sandro Botticelli thrown on the pyres by the artist himself.Karma, Signore.
Florence soon tired of Savonarola's hectoring. During his Ascension Day sermon on May 4, 1497, bands of youths rioted, and the riot became a revolt: taverns reopened, and men gambled publicly.
On May 13, 1497 he was excommunicated by Pope Alexander VI, and in 1498, he was simultaneously hanged and burned, in the same place and manner that he had condemned others. He was charged with uttering prophecies, sedition, and religious error. Jacopo Nardi, who recorded the incident in his Istorie della città di Firenze, said that his executioner lit the flame crying, 'The one who wanted to burn me is now himself put to the flames'."
"What defines the meaning of those words I have been putting in scare quotes -- “correct,” “anti-racism,” and the rest? ...A quick summary of the case for the existence of biological ("nature" as opposed to "nurture") racial differences.
For my purposes here, I shall call it the Dogma of Zero Group Differences, or DZGD.
Take a largish group -- say five thousand -- of people at random from any fairly compact, but not too compact, populated region -- fifty to a hundred miles across, say -- anywhere in the world. Now take a second group of the same size from some other similar region elsewhere. Run both groups through batteries of mental and personality tests.
(The Dogma of Zero Group Differences states that this experiment) will, under all circumstances, with all possible combinations of groups, deliver identical statistical profiles on all metrics, with only statistically insignificant variations. ...
There are three things to be said about the DZGD.- First, it is empirically false.
- Second, it contradicts everything we know about the natural development of populations of living creatures.
- Third, it causes discord, disorder, and hatred when let loose in a multiracial society. I would go so far as to say that it is a dangerous, poisonous, and evil doctrine.
... what would happen if we abandoned the DZGD? We shall soon find out. New understandings in population genetics, in paleoanthropology, in neuroscience, are rendering the DZGD more and more untenable. Faith in it will drain away, first among specialists (this has already largely happened), then among the general educated public, and at last among our politicians, educators, and the public at large."
"I don't want to live in a world that is dominated solely by Madonna and the NBA. I like my culture, but I think there are things in other cultures that I find equally interesting. This explains why, for example, there are Thai restaurants above the Arctic circle and avid interest in indigenous art from far-off places."
"In The Flesh 2"
The Wall,
Pink Floyd