Who is Carl Barney?

Carl Barney is on the boards of the Ayn Rand Insitute, the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, the Cato Institute, and LePort Schools. New on ARI Watch:

Who is Carl Barney?

(Edited by Mark on 4/01, 1:05pm)

1.  A physician’s constant attacks on a disease are disgusting – not.

2.  ARI Watch articles are factual, neither “yellow journalism” nor “cheap.”

3.  The issue here is not merely that Barney was once a Scientologist.  Steve Wolfer may have skimmed the article he purports to criticize but he hasn’t read it.  

Who is "Mark Hunter"?

2.  ARI Watch articles are factual, neither “yellow journalism” nor “cheap.”

-- Paramita Mitra, Bangladeshi-American actress/model.  Miss Mississipi in 2012.

-- can we see a picture of "Mark"?

However, I do enjoy Mark Hunter's work on ARI Watch, generally. I think his exposés perform a truly valuable public service. 

(Edited by Kyrel Zantonavitch on 2/28, 9:09pm)

Mark -- That's a great quote. I'm glad you dug it up. But I'm suspicious as to why you know it.

I think Rand was mostly wrong in that quote. Overall, she said little about race and racism in her lifetime, even tho' it was a burning issue. She was generally evasive, dishonest, and cowardly. No wonder she got it wrong above.

Studies show that the differing races, sub-races, nations, and tribes tend to prefer almost the exact same proportions in body type, and almost the exact same features in faces. This is true for men liking women and the reverse. Everyone likes symmetry, which evidently indicates health. Everyone likes shapeliness in women, muscularity in men, neoteny in women, strong chin and high forehead in men, etc. This is why the Miss Universe-type contests -- involving all races and nations, which are judged by the same standards -- are uncontroversial and seen as universally valid. 

(Edited by Kyrel Zantonavitch on 3/04, 1:32am)

Steve writes in Post 9:

"That goes beyond wrong.  Why don't you re-read "Racism"?  It was a disgusting thing to say about about a person who was the essence of clear, brilliant, and direct communications - a person of striking honesty, and enormous intellectual courage."

I agree that generally Rand was hugely and impressively clear, brilliant, and direct, with notable honesty and amazing intellectual courage. But not always. And especially not on the subject of race and racism. She lived during an era of stunning black bigotry. Not just Martin Luther King, who advocated black favoritism in private conversations with President Johnson in 1963. But also loathsome "hate whitey, kill whitey" folks like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. She evidently condemned them by name not at all. And she condemned the black power movement and black supremacism seemingly not at all. How is this not a shocking moral failure on her part? How is this not massive cowardice, dishonesty and lack of integrity? Rand was guilty of the Objectivist sin of evasion. Peikoff, Kelley, and all the rest of her unthinking intellectual offspring are still guilty of it!

And I haven't even mentioned the evidently very important biological differences between the races, which virtually all of mankind lies about. The Ayn Rand Institute and The Atlas Society continue to be high evaders, and very cowardly and dishonest on this, even as we speak. These are all "not errors of knowledge, but breaches of morality" as Rand once put it.  

Doug -- I don't want to be critical, but the way you phrase your question, and in broad context, and based on your previous responses, I tend to think that on this subject, and many others, you're a liar and a coward and a scumbag. Please give me some indications you're not moral vermin. You answer first: What are the biological differences between the races? I'll answer if you will.  

Come on, there are flamingly obvious differences.

Since my focus is on immigration I would cut the Gordian knot and opt for “pure racism” when it comes to immigration policy. That is, I DON’T CARE what the racial differences are.  All that matters is this fact: Vastly different races don’t get along well on a personal level.  This is built in.  It is natural.  Rand herself called it “atavistic,” which is just a derogatory way of saying natural.  

I call her derogation the Objectivist version of Original Sin.  Like the proverbial Victorian who was supposed to deny sex, we are supposed to deny that “preference racism” or “pure racism” is natural.

But it is natural, and like sex, what is natural cannot be evil per se.

Korben, to answer your (rhetorical) question:  Of course yes.  The contrary would be “judgmental racism” which is indeed wrong.  Rand defined this as  “ascribing [with certainty, not just to averages – my qualification] moral ... significance to a man’s genetic lineage.” For example, all blacks are criminals, stupid, etc. which simply isn’t true.  She used the unqualified word “racism” to refer to this idea.

I tweeze apart what is really going on and contrast that racism with “preference racism.”  By that I mean generally preferring to physically be around those of your own race regardless of other attributes.  There is NO IMPLICATION in this preference that any individual of another race must have some attribute besides race.

This is unlike judgmental racism which means thinking a given individual of another race must possess some negative, non-racial, characteristic.  Preference racism is simply a preference based on nothing more than race.

Preference racism – pure unadulterated racism – is perfectly natural.  For example from a white’s point of view white flight is natural, insisting on dating white girls is natural, preferring to live and work around whites is natural.  Birds of a feather flock together.

It doesn’t mean one can’t with profit deal with non-whites.  It does affect immigration policy.

Sometimes I take preference racism to be the default racism, that is, I might leave off the qualifier “preference” – it freaks out cultural leftists.  Indeed that is the way cultural leftists use the word “racism,” either that or they package their definition with that of judgmental racism and switch between the two as it suits them.

Rand herself was confused on this issue.

Kyrel and I have argued over this subject for a while.  At the end of the day no matter how much we protest, cultural leftists are going to call us immigration patriots racists anyway.  We need to get used to the word “racism” ringing in our ears and make it our own.

If you want to denounce racism denounce “judgmental racism.”

(Edited by Mark Hunter on 3/05, 5:10pm)

(Edited by Mark Hunter on 3/05, 5:10pm)

Mark,

Preference racism is a personal preference which can be influenced by culture.  Not having any racial preferences is probably at least as natural, but there is enough racial preference in our culture to obscure this.

An atavistic characteristic in human beings is one that was natural to our nonhuman ancestors but is not natural to us.