Allegories Gone Wild – Superiority Is Only Skin Deep…
25 October 2009 by KA
For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass. – Ezra 9:2
An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: – Deuteronomy 23-3
Of the myriad metaphorical monsters spewed forth from the womb of that old whore Christianity, there are few that are quite as odious or repugnant as the concept of the ‘holy race’. There can be no viler concept than that of race trumping rights, no greater kindling for the flames of xenophobia, no more irrational excuse for bloodletting and the horrific crime of subjugating one’s fellow man (or woman) than that worst of crimes, racism. A major dominionist sect named Christian Identity are a group of mental pygmies who envision themselves (representing the white race) as a ‘holy race’: The term "Christian Identity" has two distinct meanings: Anglo-Israelism (a.k.a. British-Israelism): A theological belief that the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic and associated cultures are the racial descendents of the tribes of Israel. Thus, by extension, Americans and Canadians, are composed of the descendents of the ancient Israelites of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). Racist, Christian-based faith groups: A number of small, extremely conservative Fundamentalist Christian denominations which have accepted Anglo-Israelism, and grafted it to racist, sexist, anti-communist and homophobic beliefs. They view the Jewish people as descendants of Satan. Followers tend to be involved in political movements opposing gun control, equal rights to gays and lesbians, and militia movements. It is this sort of madness that makes me so virulently anti-bibble. History: The Christian Identity movement is a movement of many extremely conservative Christian churches and religious organizations, extreme right wing political groups and survival groups. Some are independent; others are loosely interconnected. According to Professor Michael Barkun, one of the leading experts in the Christian Identity movement, "This virulent racist and anti-Semitic theology, which is practiced by over 50,000 people in the United States alone, is prevalent among many right wing extremist groups and has been called the ‘glue’ of the racist right." What is truly brain-dead, is the fact that they owe their ‘theology’ to actual ancient Semites, specifically the Israelites. The largest Christian Identity movement has traditionally been the Ku Klux Klan which was reorganized in 1915 by William Simmons, a Christian pastor. He had been inspired by the film The Birth of a Nation which portrayed the KKK as a champion of white civilization. The KKK slid into obscurity by the second World War, but was revitalized in the mid 1950’s as a reaction to enforced racial integration in the southern US. That the CI is connected to the genetic rubbish of the pinheads of KKK is of no surprise. And yes, the FBI has files on these people. A simple scan is enough to curdle the blood: Quoting the FBI’s Megiddo Report on domestic terrorism: "Wesley Swift is considered the single most significant figure in the early years of the Christian Identity movement in the United States. He popularized it in the right-wing by ‘combining British-Israelism, a demonic anti-Semitism, and political extremism.’ He founded his own church in California in the mid 1940s where he could preach this ideology. In addition, he had a daily radio broadcast in California during the 1950s and 60s, through which he was able to proclaim his ideology to a large audience. With Swift’s efforts, the message of his church spread, leading to the creation of similar churches throughout the country. In 1957, the name of his church was changed to The Church of Jesus Christ Christian, which is used today by Aryan Nations (AN) churches." Such is the price of free speech – it does not guarantee lucidity of mind. "One of Swift’s associates, William Potter Gale, was far more militant than Swift and brought a new element to Christian Identity churches. He became a leading figure in the anti-tax and paramilitary movements of the 1970s and 80s. There are numerous Christian Identity churches that preach similar messages and some espouse more violent rhetoric than others, but all hold fast to the belief that Aryans are God’s chosen race." Other current organizations which follow Christian Identity beliefs are: American Nazi Party; Aryan Nations; Church of Jesus Christ Christian, Aryan Nations; Confederate Hammerskins; Jubilee, National Association for the Advancement of White People; The Order; radical modern offshoots of the original Posse Comitatus; Scriptures for America, White Aryan Resistance (WAR) and White Separatist Banner. Many small groups fade in and out of existence frequently. There is no doubt that these folks would gladly espouse dominionism. And of course, like all crazed cultists, they too embrace an ‘Armageddon’: "Christian Identity also believes in the inevitability of the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. It is believed that these events are part of a cleansing process that is needed before Christ’s kingdom can be established on earth. During this time, Jews and their allies will attempt to destroy the white race using any means available. The result will be a violent and bloody struggle — a war, in effect — between God’s forces, the white race, and the forces of evil, the Jews and nonwhites. Significantly, many adherents believe that this will be tied into the coming of the new millennium." (Points finger to head, rotating index finger, whistling.) "The view of what Armageddon will be varies among Christian Identity believers. Some contend there will be a race war in which millions will die; others believe that the United Nations, backed by Jewish representatives of the anti-Christ, will take over the country and promote a New World Order. One Christian Identity interpretation is that white Christians have been chosen to watch for signs of the impending war in order to warn others. They are to then physically struggle with the forces of evil against sin and other violations of God’s law (i.e., race-mixing and internationalism); many will perish, and some of God’s chosen will be forced to wear the Mark of the Beast to participate in business and commerce. After the final battle is ended and God’s kingdom is established on earth, only then will the Aryan people be recognized as the one and true Israel." As this will never happen, it’s easy to see how this sort of group dynamic becomes a powder-keg. "Christian Identity adherents believe that God will use his chosen race as his weapons to battle the forces of evil. Christian Identity followers believe they are among those chosen by God to wage this battle during Armageddon and they will be the last line of defense for the white race and Christian America. To prepare for these events, they engage in survivalist and paramilitary training, storing foodstuffs and supplies, and caching weapons and ammunition. They often reside on compounds located in remote areas." What is even more frightening, is that like-minded zealots have been forming ties – the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that. For some more eye-popping rhetoric: "We are going to build the Kingdom of our God on this continent if we have to turn it into a Bosnia first! Death may find you in front of your one-eyed church of Satan or in the filthy bingo parlors where you worship your devil god, but be sure that you will not escape the consuming fire that is the real baptism of the Holy Ghost, The God of Racial Israel. ‘One-eyed church’? Or more to the stupidity – BINGO PARLORS?!? Are you kidding me? That an evolutionary by-product, perceiving the different as dangerous, has become so twisted into xenophobic hatred, is heart-breaking. And that this sort of mental rabidity still flourishes, is a sad testament to what little progress we as a species has made. It enrages the hearts of those of us cursed with empathy, it belittles the dignity of Man, it smears the monuments of progress with offal, it threatens to benight us with the ignorance of mental rubbish. It is to weep. Till the next post, then.
25 October 2009, on 7:12 am
I love the way they claim they are descendants of Israel in one line then in the next claim the Jews are descendants of Satan.
Just to lob a holy hand grenade in here though, there are noticeable, measurable differences between the races (even though 99.99% of the population are mongrels) and the more people deny this, because it’s not PC to say it, the more these people point to the differences and believe that science and liberals are lying to them. When you can see differences and people tell you there is no difference then it is easy to spread the lie that you are superior (who doesn’t want to hear that?) and if they lie about that, what else might they be hiding?
25 October 2009, on 11:58 am
Anyone w/eyes can see this.
Who does this, exactly?
25 October 2009, on 12:17 pm
I, littlejohn, deny it! Anyone can see that there are no racial differences in the ability to dunk a basketball. And clearly there is no single country in Africa that produces virtually all the greatest marathon runners. And white folks are great dancers! Ever watch them on Hee Haw? I am completely politically correct, and I would be proud of it, except pride isn’t P.C. Somebody spank me, I’ve had evil thoughts. No really, spank me.
25 October 2009, on 7:08 pm
To repeat keddaw… I simply find it baffling and hilarious that these nincompoops consider themselves Israelis, but not Jews. Since when was ethnicity not a requirement for being “God’s Chosen People”?
Curious… are there any atheist organizations that preach such virulent racism? And you can’t say the Nazis, because they don’t count. Come to think of it, Neo-Nazism is more Christian today than Hitler made Nazism out to be back in the day.
26 October 2009, on 12:19 am
I’m seriously interested in Keddaw’s claim that liberals claim there are no significant genetic differences between the races.
Of course there are.
It’s the claim of inferiorityvs. superiority, that’s the issue as I see it. The differences are due to environmental/genetic factors based on a survival index.
It’s like saying the index of a book is alphabetically biased. It’s just easier to read that way, & the letter A is no more superior to the letter B than it is to the letter Z.
26 October 2009, on 3:33 am
KA – look at any race based claim of intelligence in the US, it is immediately shot down as racist and (some valid, some invalid) factors such as social deprivation, cultural disenfranchisement, linguistics (slang), access to books, acceptability of educational achievement, parental guidance etc.
This is simply from education, you can look at the workplace or sport and find similar, automatic dismissals of any kind of genetic dissimilarity between people of different backgrounds (isn’t that better than race?) People want to think that we are all equal, but we’re not. They miss the point that we can be born unequal as long as we have equal opportunity to fulfill our potential.
But as long as people look at education I’d just like to point out (as a white Caucasian) that if you consider yourself genetically superior to blacks that you are inferior to Asians. That probably doesn’t work to well for ‘the master race’.
26 October 2009, on 3:48 am
No edit function! To finish the first paragraph: these factors are used as reasons/excuses why some groups (Hispanics and Blacks mainly) perform worse academically than whites rather than dare to go towards even checking if whites are actually intellectually (or academically) ’superior’ than other races.
My thoughts on the matter, ignoring the fact we are all mongrels, is that we all sit on a Bell curve, intellectually or physically, and we can pick out any genetic marker and that Bell curve will slightly shift. All it means is that any given random white person will tend to be a fraction higher on one curve (height) than a random Asian person. It makes no difference to any given individual (some Asians are ridiculously tall, but most aren’t) and so is useless when it comes to making a decision on an individual, but can be useful when making general statements or stereotypes, e.g. if I was to guess at the percentage of Asians in the NBA it would be below 5% and I have no data to go on. Or if I were to guess at the percentage of black soccer players in the top leagues it would be above 30% (and again Asians would be a small percentage) regardless of the fact the top soccer leagues are in predominantly white countries.
The danger in this is that people use these generalities (stereotypes) as facts about individuals and so have preconceived ideas about people that are, probably, untrue. Thus somebody from one background may not even get an interview for a job because his/her name sounds like it’s from some background. This is racism based on ignorance. And therein lies the problem, people are unwilling to discuss these matters because so many people are ignorant and will take the stereotype rather than bother to get to know the individual.
26 October 2009, on 3:48 am
Ah – so we’re to the root of that.
I’m familiar w/these arguments. Which, prey tell, are the invalid ones? They all appear valid to me. All reasonable points, all valid, I’d say.
I’m going to have to ask, just what’s the operational definition of ‘equal’? What’s superior, what’s inferior? Obviously natural selection doesn’t ’select’ for intelligence, or we’d be living in a geniocracy. IQ is a muddy set of waters. We’re a hierarchy based social pack animal, & it’s usually the loudest & most flamboyant who ends up leading (or the more cunning, not necessarily the smartest – SNL’s the Hominid sketch).
& what else qualifies? That we’re not all homogeneous? The root of evolution is sex & diversity.
& I’d like to point out (as a white Caucasian) that I’m pretty much color blind, & my value judgments stem from how folks behave, not height, nor looks, nor who can quote Shakespeare as opposed to Tupac. So no, just because 1 group can jump higher, & the other can do advanced math, who’s more important? Nobody, because of the commonality of biology.
26 October 2009, on 10:43 am
Interesting, yet VERY disturbing, Post, KA.
Which immediately reminded me of Hitchen’s:
“Religion poisons everything”.
And, your ‘discussion’ with Keddaw touches, in my admittedly warped mind, on a very “touchy” subject regarding a much avoided question-begging analysis; which is that strange little segment of the Declaration of Independence that ‘everyone’ is so familiar with…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”
What a loaded sentence that is, religiously, philosophically, biologically…
comedically?
I’ll (for the moment) skip, what I consider to be the obvious, and oh-so-often ignored, flaws of that statement…
(like: “self evident”? WTF! “Have you opened your glazed over eyes; to look around?”)…and cut to the ‘chase’…
that’d be: Evolution vs. Creationism, of course. “Huh?…say what?”
My point here?…there is, as far as ‘we’ can presently determine, absolutely nothing in the known Universe…not Galaxy, Planet, animal, vegetable, mineral, microbe…and of course…human (bozos?) that is truly “equal”.
Yeah…define “equal”?
We all, I assume, know the usual list RE our somewhat interesting, but arguably, often, pathetic, human qualities: intellectual, physical, sexual…you name it…there just ain’t any equality when it comes to actually comparing individuals within OR without ANY race, tribe, Bingo parlor…zama, zama.
IMNSHO…the only equality that actually exists in this rather bizarre “existential reality” is ONLY in the “abstract”; i.e…mathematical.
On that rather obvious blurb…at least, I think, to most of us atheists…we’re so fucked up on this planet, that…as youse guys touched on…even when we attempt to treat people equally “under the law”, we can’t manage that.
Pardon my extreme cynicism, here?
As has been occasionally said by me (and other GifSters), we seem to be living in/on a total “Loony Bin” of a Planet. One of, perhaps, MANY in the Milky Way Galaxy..? We’ll most probably never know.
“Yeah…My…how Milky!”?
(feigns looking for .pdf of “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.)
What!…”Don’t bother stopping the World; I’ll just jump off…”flying leap style”?…and totally unnoticed, of course!”…?
[OH NO! Bringing that up (mouth-vomit-style?), just reminded me of the fucking "Rapture (Rupture?) Ready" idiots!]
Sorry, KA…I didn’t get much sleep, lately…As you were!…?
26 October 2009, on 12:02 pm
There are genetic differences between groups, but last I checked, it was mostly just cosmetic details, some vulnerabilities and resistances to certain diseases, and environmental adaptations. Nothing substantial about mental differences, especially since those factors (social deprivation, cultural disenfranchisement, linguistics (slang), access to books, acceptability of educational achievement, parental guidance etc.) add a LOT of social, cultural, and economic noise.
Currently dealing with a racist troll over at my place who doesn’t understand even the most basic concepts of how to study something.
26 October 2009, on 8:25 pm
Keddaw, when you mentioned the ‘Bell Curve’, I hope you’re not talking about that debunked & stupid book that makes the claim that IQ is directly correlated to race.
Here’s 3 different links, all of which wreck the ‘race=IQ’ nonsense:
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/526/Race-Intelligence.html
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/01/17/7317.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/magazine/23wwln_idealab.html?pagewanted=all
26 October 2009, on 8:37 pm
KA: I’d suggest you actually agree with most of my views, but any which tend towards the un-PC you rail against. This is natural and most people do it because of social, rather than intellectual, reasons.
To get to the points of disagreement (knowing full well I brought this upon myself and would have to defend it at some point) social deprivation is an unfair excuse for difference in educational achievement. In the US Asian immigrants are very often just as deprived as people in the black community yet score better than whites. Is this cultural, sure that’s a huge part but still even when you factor for that Asians perform better than blacks, however, in the workplace whites do better and you’d be a fool to view this as anything other than endemic (mild) racism. There are other arguments people put forward to explain these differences that I was not willing to write lest someone ascribe them to me.
We are not equal. We can place people in all sorts of groups based on eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, first name, place of birth, etc. etc. and they will have some statistical significance based on social or genetic differences when you choose to measure IQ using the standard method. Is this important or relevant? not really, but it is true and as long as people deny it then it enables people to claim superiority based on factually accurate (but technically meaningless) statistics that the mainstream deny for PC reasons.
Every human is on the Bell curve of intelligence, height, wealth, weight etc. of humanity. If you make some criteria for separating humanity into 2 or more groups then each group’s Bell curves will shift slightly. That is inevitable. To make assumptions about the superiority of one group due to increased height, weight, intelligence or educational achievement is irrational given how close those curves are to each other. To deny that the curves are different simply gives these people an excuse to say that scientists or politicians (liberals) are hiding the truth to their own ends.
Science is science and the results should be published regardless of how inconvenient it may be for a particular political hot potato at that time. And yes, I am looking at second hand smoke and global warming when I say that. Not that I disagree with either, simply that the science is ridiculously biased on these subjects because the funding goes where politicians decide and they currently want a consensus on both issues.
‘Who’s more important?’ Sorry, did I miss something here? The ‘commonality of biology’ makes us roughly similar, the length of time we spent apart makes us different. I in no way passed a value judgement on the relative merits of jumping higher, intelligence or ability to stay in the sun for longer. If I had to I’d value intelligence, but that’s by the by. Just because someone from group A has a 55% chance of scoring higher than average in an IQ test than average and someone from group B has a 45% of scoring higher does not mean I wouldn’t test both people and find out who actually scored higher. I’m not getting your point on this one.
26 October 2009, on 8:43 pm
Additional: Split the world up into men and women. You’re allowed to say women perform better academically and even study why, you’re allowed to say men perform better physically and study that too. But split us up into some other genetic category than the presence or absence of a Y chromosome and you’re racist?
27 October 2009, on 12:14 am
Actually, no, you’ve got that wrong. Are Asians better @ math? Actually, most Asians aren’t. Are all blacks good @ basketball? No, but many are.
Did you not read the links I provided?
It’s entirely contingent on workplace. What workplace, exactly? White people function better in white collar workplaces because it was constructed that way by white folk. & I’ve worked w/Asians who actually really sucked more than the black folks, so I think your yardstick’s flawed.
I’d hear them, but if they’re from that prat who wrote the ‘Bell Curve’, I’d not accept it, regardless of how much brighter he is than me. You see, I’ve heard this argument before.
Who’s denying some people are smarter than others? Neil Degrasse Tyson (a black man) is by far much brighter than I, a white boy.
Oh wait – that goes against your point, doesn’t it?
To the point: what makes a well-educated man more important than an uneducated day-laborer? In various circles, 1 may be esteemed over another. Certainly the computer programmer would be next to useless on a construction site, likewise a carpenter in a data center. Worth is entirely subjective, & contingent on environment.
Women are more hard-wired for dexterous skills, men for manual ones. No, again, I have no problem w/the categories. There ARE genetic differences. The issue here is a polarizing one: which differences are superior? What’s the value index method? & really, what it boils down to, is everybody IS equal, inasmuch as they are on a level playing field.
Everyone is different, but the only time that that difference is a bad thing, is when it causes serious harm.
That I (hypothetically speaking) am smarter than you makes me of more worth in some circles, but less in others. In fact, it’s been remarked, that some members of Mensa have less sense than Zeus gave a goose. A high IQ doesn’t necessarily make a person smarter. As evidenced by the author of the Bell Curve.
So tell me: you actually think that some races are genetically superior to others? Is that the rub? If so, I’ll need a clearer definition of ’superiority’.
27 October 2009, on 12:15 am
27 October 2009, on 4:13 am
KA: I am not arguing for any gender, racial or genetic superiority of one group over another. I entirely agree that someone’s utility to themselves or society is entirely dependent on the circumstances they find themselves in and the skill set they have at that time.
What I was arguing is that the races, inasmuch as there are such things, are different due to the time spent apart. I am arguing that if people deny these differences and refuse to study them for PC reasons then the people who would put ’superiority’ on the table are given the whole field to play with while we have no data to knock their claims down other than the ethereal ‘all men are created equal’ which is patently untrue (in two senses).
As for the debunked Bell curve, the simplified version is debunked, but mainly because of the way uneducated people try to use it. People do fall on a Bell curve for any number of things and the genetic markers that make us think people are of a different race do place us into slightly skewed Bell curves. Black women have a tendency to be shorter than average in the US even after taking diet and earnings into account (I was surprised when I read that). Are a lot of the differences due to social issues, you bet they are: the large number of Asians in medicine, IT etc. and not in professional sports is definitely partly due to pressure from parents, but there is also an argument that an ability at math helps. Is that ability genetic? Or is it down to the fact that they have been taught math from an early age? Or is it possible that their native, or parent’s native, language gives a head start in math? I’m not sure, but it would be good to have some studies to call on other than anecdotes but those studies are in very short supply as that research is frowned upon lest it be racist or promote eugenics or some such other tosh.
I’m not sure of the context of your Coolidge quote, but it sounds like a perfect rendition of the Protestant work ethic and would have found favour during the great depression.
27 October 2009, on 11:28 am
Sorry, it sounded like you were.
No, it’s not religious in any way. Read it again. In fact, it makes a great deal of sense. Have you met any educated derelicts? I have.
In actual context, I would suggest you watch the movie ‘Better Luck Next Time’ – it’s about 4 Asian teenagers. They aren’t exceptionally bright: their parents push them, & hard. They get involved in all sorts of stupid shenanigans, but as the narrator puts it, “As long as we got straight As, no questions asked. We were golden.”
2 November 2009, on 11:10 am
KA,
My more general point (while rambling around it) is that there are valid avenues of study based on our genes which would give us a greater understanding of people if they were done but such things can be frowned upon by the establishment, funding not given and so never researched.
Our genes (not race per se) are key to what can be considered ‘normal’ for ourselves and make it easier to see when some part of us is malfunctioning (is someone at 4′9 when they are 8 too tall, too small, too much HGH or too little – depends on their genes).
While many genetic markers have been studied, any that relate to race tend to be avoided. Anything that could be played out in the media as being akin to eugenics are side-stepped by supposedly impartial scientists.
We do all exist on a set of Bell Curves. If you take any genetic marker and hold it constant the curves change. One may become a short tail, another may flatten out. There is no judgement in, say, a height curve, no-one claims tall people are better or worse than short people. But if you take the ‘controversial’ IQ tests then people assume you are making a judgement based on that. However, the curves overlap so much that it is a ridiculous claim to make. But, imagine if we found a genetic marker that did show a tendency to produce higher intelligence. Bearing in mind we’re all mongrels that marker would exist in all races. but we’re not looking for that because it’s too controversial a topic. That’s my annoyance with this. If real scientists don’t study it then the field is open for fake scientists to publish make-believe science that ‘proves’ their racist agenda.
2 November 2009, on 11:54 am
Because race tends to have no impact on IQ.
This is tiresome.
I’m a white fella. I’m obviously well above average intelligence. I however score very poorly @ tests. I choke in a classroom environment. I score under average in ‘IQ tests’. I know from personal experience, that IQ tests are only a generalized yardstick, not a true indicator of intelligence.
So I think they’re rubbish.
4 November 2009, on 11:03 am
A high score in an IQ test only proves that you are good at IQ tests.