Disappointed in Ronnie there.
Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/
Sorry, but if you're shocked about the bit about Reagan, you've been buying the myth for over three decades. I think the much more interesting aspect of this article is the author's working out of Nixon's mind. He focuses on Nixon's belief in variations in IQ by race.
"As Steven Pinker argued at length in his book The Blank Slate, those who equate testable scientific claims with various ‘isms’ (sexism, racism, fascism, etc.) are effectively holding our morals hostage to the facts. By using the word ‘racist’ to describe a claim such as ‘genes may contribute to psychological differences between human populations,’ they are implying that:
The claim must be false; but also that
If the claim were ever shown to be true, then racism would be “scientifically correct.”
Yet as Pinker notes, this is a complete non-sequitur:
I hope that once this line of reasoning is laid out, it will immediately set off alarm bells. We should not concede that any foreseeable discovery about humans could have such horrible implications. The problem is not with the possibility that people might differ from one another, which is a factual question that could turn out one way or the other. The problem is with the line of reasoning that says that if people do turn out to be different, then discrimination, oppression, or genocide would be OK after all."
BTW, you'll note that only to naturalistic atheists would something like differences in intelligence mean that someone or some group is "inferior" in terms of their humanity. If this all is a cosmic accident, with no higher purpose, no ultimate justice, then things like intelligence or strength or beauty do render some groups or some individuals superior to others. However, if you believe we are all created equal, in God's image, none of those things affect the worth of a group or an individual.
Now go back to the turn of the last century and the majority of elite white Protestants would consider themselves inherently as a group far superior in ability and intellect to even other Europeans such as the Irish, and Eastern and Southern European Catholic immigrants. The Thomas Nast cartoon depictions of the Irish as ape like make me chuckle. Of course infidel peoples of color and Africans were beneath even the inferior Europeans. That would have been the world that Richard Nixon was born into. The major Oriental groups of the Chinese and Japanese have also traditionally considered themselves intellectually far superior group wise to white barbarian Europeans as matter of genetics. It’s not just a white thang.
Now is there a scientific or genetic basis for any of these claims of group differences? All I can say is that since it is such a taboo subject, I don’t think it will ever be conclusively proven one way or another. Pinker notes the reasons why.
I will say that I agree that even if there was any such conclusive proof, in a natural law, deistic world it shouldn’t matter.
On Ronnie, not so much shocked as disappointed.
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the Kennedys as you know especially Bobby.
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I’ll give it to you I’m on a plane now but if you have the inclination it’s there for your amusement.
Surely you know what they are or wouldn’t have made that allegation.
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I certainly wouldn’t put it past LBJ, but dunno about the Kennedy boyos.
It IS well known that Hoover illegally wiretapped King and RFK knew about it as AG. It is also well known that Johnson played those tapes for visitors.
were perverts as he sat in his dresses and heels. What a bunch of weirdos.