General

Gays, You’re Not Black

/10 Comments/in /by
Gays, You’re Not Black

To make up for slavery and Jim Crow, we abrogated constitutional provisions about freedom of association, freedom of contract and freedom of speech. We tossed out basic rules of fairness to allow (temporarily) affirmative action, set-asides and quotas. Behemoth departments were created in Washington to stamp out the last vestiges of discrimination on the basis of race. …

Unless you’re alleging race discrimination, take your lumps like a cis-gendered white man. You can be fired, not hired, turned away, rejected, called names, disciplined, looked askance at — and no one cares.  

For at least a half-century now, every special pleader in America has made the following argument: Yeah, but what if we were Black?

 This is supposed to be rhetorical kryptonite, capable of anathematizing “discrimination” against any group: atheists, women, gays, immigrants, illegal immigrants, the disabled, Muslims — basically anyone except a fully abled, cis-gendered, White male born in this country.

Oh my gosh! You’re right — we DO have to let girls try out for the Green Bay Packers!

OK, fine, we’ll hire more blind lifeguards.

Of course, Shadi Abdullah is welcome to be president of our campus Hillel group.

Naturally, the “What if they were Black?” argument came up ad nauseum at the Supreme Court last week during oral arguments over Colorado’s “anti-discrimination” law. According to Colorado, making two gay guys who are married to one another feel “unwelcome, objectionable, unacceptable or undesirable” is the equivalent of separate water fountains for black people.

A web designer had petitioned the court, objecting to the law’s requirement that she design a website celebrating a gay marriage, in contravention of her religious beliefs. But if you’d heard only the questions from Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, you’d think the petitioner was refusing to design websites for Black people.

E.g.:

JUSTICE JACKSON: “[C]an I ask you a hypothetical … [What if] they want to have a sign next to the [shopping mall] Santa that says, ‘only white children.’ Why isn’t your argument that they should be able to do that?” [The hypothetical went on for hours, but that was the gist of it.]

These were a few of Justice Sotomayor’s questions:

— “What’s the difference between that and ‘I don’t believe black people and white people should get married’?”

— “Tell me how that’s different, by the way. What you’re basically saying is, in our Ollie’s Barbecue case, the company there said, ‘I’ll serve blacks but only on a takeout window, not inside my restaurant because that sends a message that I endorse integration ….’”

— “Well, when I sit down to eat a meal by a full chef who creates this beautiful picture on a plate, why can’t he say, ‘I make specialized meals for my clients. I will not serve a black person.’”

Here’s a cheat sheet that should help answer the justices’ questions:

Can I refuse to let black kids sit on Santa’s lap? — NO.

Can I refuse to serve black people at my restaurant? — NO.

Can I refuse to bake one of my wedding cakes for black people? — NO.

Can I refuse to write speeches for black people? — NO.

Can I refuse to perform marriage ceremonies for black people — NO.

Can I refuse to let black people into the Marines? — NO.

Can I discriminate against black people for any reason, ever? — NO.

Displaying his own unique approach, Eric Olson, Colorado’s solicitor general, who was defending the law (popular name: “We Won the Right to Gay Marriage and Now We’re Shooting the Wounded”), made this pioneering argument: “What [a business] can’t do is say, ‘I reserve the right to refuse service, which means in practice I will not serve black people.’”

A good rule of thumb is that any claim of discrimination that requires a comparison to black people is sophistry.

No offense — I’m sure the rest of you have really moving tales of woe, full of pathos and suffering. But gays, atheists, disabled people, women (whatever the hell that is), immigrants, illegals, please try to remember: YOU’RE NOT BLACK.

It’s discrimination on the basis of race — and only discrimination on the basis of race — that is forbidden by our Constitution. Other forms of “discrimination” may be stupid (if so, the market will punish you) or blindingly logical (football teams allowing only healthy young men to try out, or religious groups limiting officeholders to practitioners of the religion).

Only one type of discrimination ever stirred up such mass revulsion in this country that we decided to amend our Constitution to prohibit it: race discrimination.

You’d think that at a moment when our entire national dialogue is fixated on the legacy of slavery, it wouldn’t be so difficult for people to grasp that black Americans’ unique history is not amenable to cut-and-paste victimhood.

To make up for slavery and Jim Crow, we abrogated constitutional provisions about freedom of association, freedom of contract and freedom of speech. We tossed out basic rules of fairness to allow (temporarily) affirmative action, set-asides and quotas. Behemoth departments were created in Washington to stamp out the last vestiges of discrimination on the basis of race.

By now, of course, the only discrimination involving black Americans is in their favor. But that doesn’t change the rule: NO DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF RACE.

As G.K. Chesterton said, “When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom, you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.”

That’s what “discrimination” law is today. Instead of one big law: “No Race Discrimination!” we have a million little laws about strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis test, public accommodations, bona fide occupational qualifications, and on and on and on. At the same time, we have open race discrimination against whites and Asians.

Unless you’re alleging race discrimination, take your lumps like a cis-gendered white man. You can be fired, not hired, turned away, rejected, called names, disciplined, looked askance at — and no one cares.  

This simple rule allows us to live in what we call “freedom.” As the libertarians would say (if they were real libertarians), start your own website business, bakery, Hillel organization, professional football team, holiday, all-women’s eating club, etc. etc. etc.

Gays, you’re not black. (And you’re not Allan Bakke.) Gays’ median household income is about $115,000 — the highest of any group in America. It’s $45,000 for black people. To my gay readers, answer this honestly: When you move into a neighborhood, do home prices go up or down?

Blacks must be looking at gay rights activists in bewilderment, thinking: Why couldn’t we be oppressed like that?

For the rest of you, memorize this, recite it in the shower, write it on your hand: “Unless I’m being discriminated against on the basis of my race, I will stop being a pain in everyone’s ass.”

     COPYRIGHT 2022 ANN COULTER

New Address

/9 Comments/in /by

Some people are still mailing to the old address. So once again, here’s the new one:

The Occidental Observer
285 W. Prairie Shopping Center
PMB 115
Hayden, ID 83835

And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank people who are contributing. You make this effort possible!

What Does Watching the Film “Shadowlands” Bring Up for You?

/11 Comments/in /by

This was posted a week ago for a day with comments put off until this re-posting—the writing gets into what that’s about.   If you missed this post the first time around and want to participate in the comments section, you have time.   This will be on the site a week or so before being archived. 

*   *   *

Much of getting clear about something and figuring out what to do about it involves reactivity.   You stay vigilant to what’s going on in the world and what people are saying and writing about it and what is going on inside you—physical sensations and thoughts and memories and images in your head—and put words to what you make of all of that, and give it articulate meaning, get specific about its significance, what it implies for you, your goals and actions with regard to it and what you think it implies for people collectively.

This contrasts with uncritically taking in what others put in front of you—the media (movies and TV, etc.) and what politicians, journalists, professors, advocates, podcasters, and such insert into the public discourse—and go, “Yes, that sounds good” or “Nah” and leave it at that or offer an off-the-top remark to people around you or on social media or in comments sections in webzines like this one.

Especially if the second paragraph above characterizes you more than the first, I’d like to push up against that a little in this writing.  This post is an invitation to respond in depth to something.

*   *   *

I streamed a movie the other day that prompted responses in me that made a difference in how I see things, including myself, and that have stayed with me, and I think it might do the same for you.  It’s “Shadowlands,” a 1993 British based-on-a-true-story drama about the mid-life relationship between the British Oxford and Cambridge academic and popular Christian theologian and writer C.S. Lewis—he’s best known for his children’s Narnia stories—and the Jewish-American poet Joy Davidson.  The story takes place in Britain in the 1950s.    It’s directed by the Brit David Attenborough and stars Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Davidson.

I found “Shadowlands” a superb film.  Hopkins’ and Winger’s performances, wow.   If nothing else comes out of the activity I’m going to suggest, you might see a good movie. But the big thing in this context, I think “Shadowlands’ is nutritious food for thought, so to speak, including about mortality, though I don’t want to go into themes or possible perspectives more than that because I don’t want to channel your engagement with the film.  I’ll leave it that it seems to me that if you’re of the sort drawn to reading a publication like this one, there’s a lot for you to work with here.

You can stream “Shadowlands” on Google Play, Vudu, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Apple TV, and I’m sure other places, and you can buy it inexpensively—you know where to go for that.  You can watch it free as a YouTube, though the resolution isn’t very sharp on that print and I’m concerned that that will keep you distant from the reality of what is being depicted, including the breathtaking landscapes that dot the film; better to pay the $3.95, or whatever it is, rental and get the full measure of the “Shadowland” experience.

Here’s what I’m thinking:  This post is only up for the day and no comments allowed.  This same post will be up a week from now with the comments section open then.  The time between now and next week will give you the chance to pay the dues required to comment—namely, to see the film and work with it so that your comment can go into some depth, offer more than the opinion spurt so prevalent in this text-and-social-media-conditioned age.

I realize you may not be up for either watching the film or giving over time to discerning what it prompted in you and sharing that, and that’s perfectly fine, you may well have better things to do with your time, but that’s the invitation.  What’s behind making it is my hope that, in a small way, for some people, this exercise will move them toward becoming more of a participant in the meaning-making and public-dialogue-and-debate process rather than remaining essentially a recipient and yea-or-nay reactor to the pronouncements of others.

*   *   *

So, if you’re up for it, watch “Shadowlands” over the next week and share the best of your thinking as a comment when it’s back on this site.  Let’s say that what you give the rest of us is within the focus of this webzine, that you believe it will contribute positively to us, that you write at least one crafted paragraph, and that your response(s) to other commenters are of this same sort.  I’ll respond to every comment that meets those criteria.

I hope this turns out to be an enjoyable and productive time for you.  All I know for sure is that I was engaged by “Shadowlands” and respected it as a film and that it prompted thoughts and feelings that matter to me—I’ll get into some of them in the comments section next week—and that the idea of week-delayed, in-depth comments had enough weight for me to put energy today into writing up this post.  But that’s me, you do you.

Perhaps you and I and some others will meet up here next week.  In any case, have the best week you can in the one chance you’ll get to live it.

 

Trump IS Nick Fuentes

/30 Comments/in /by
Trump IS Nick Fuentes

Who’s the happiest guy in America this week?

Nick Fuentes. In a matter of days, he’s gone from total obscurity to the most famous person in the country. Everybody’s talking about him!

Until he had dinner with Trump, literally, no one had ever heard of him (except various “hate watch” groups scamming money out of the perpetually alarmed). That’s not for lack of trying on Fuentes’ part. He was doing anything he could think of to get people to notice him.

You say praising Hitler will get me in the news? Watch this!

[Twenty researchers at People for the American Way earnestly type up reports titled, “The Dangerous Rise of Far-Right Extremism,” then blast them to the Upper West Side.]

Serendipitously, Donald Trump is also desperate for attention. As president of the United States, he used to brag to anyone who would listen about the important people who called him. (You know, the way a lot of serious adults do.) Rupert Murdoch calls me every day!

     He proudly produced the letters he’d exchanged with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to journalist Bob Woodward, telling him the letters were “soooo top secret,” and asking Woodward (again, a JOURNALIST) (for The Washington Post!), “Don’t say I gave them to you. OK?”

This is a man who faked a Time magazine featuring him on the cover with the headline, “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS … EVEN TV!” — and hung them on the walls of his golf clubs.

It’s like an episode of “Dynasty.”

So you can well imagine Trump’s state of mind right now. He blew the midterms, everyone knows he blew the midterms, and then held a funereal presidential announcement at Mar-a-Lago, attended by only losers and grifters.

After the grim event, those of us unlucky enough to be on his email list were bombarded with messages announcing the MAJOR ENDORSEMENTS he’d received! (Nearly 10!)

Endorsement of President Donald J. Trump by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller

Endorsement of President Donald J. Trump by the New York Young Republican Club

Each of the no-name and/or crazy people endorsing him was proclaimed in a separate email for maximum impact. I don’t know whose endorsement carries any weight these days — definitely not Trump’s — but it’s sure not these guys.

The point is: When you’re the former president and you’re bragging about the Young Republican Club of New York City endorsing you for president, Nick Fuentes is a HUGE “get.”

Trump was dying to have anyone famous come to Mar-a-Lago. Kanye West (Ye) is a big name, right? A strongly strong name. Plus, he’s probably not getting a lot of dinner invitations these days anyway. So Trump invited Ye, and Ye brought Fuentes.

MAJOR SCORE!

For days, Trump’s “Springtime for Hitler” dinner led on every program on MSNBC. Also CNN. Probably ESPN and the Cartoon Network, too.

Fuentes is the biggest news since a white guy shot up a Chesapeake Walmart. Scratch that — he was Black. Since a White guy shot up a Colorado Springs gay nightclub! Oops, let’s move on — he’s nonbinary.

Oh well, never mind. Fuentes is big, big news! Extensive clips of his sad little podcast (six viewers) have been playing around the clock on TV. He’s been featured in 20 separate articles in The New York Times alone, getting billboarded, front-page coverage.

Even with the Times’ flood-the-zone approach toward any vaguely White man who says something stupid, Fuentes never made the paper until Dec. 16, 2020 — in the 26th paragraph of a Thomas Edsall column: “At the pro-Trump rally in Washington on Dec. 12, the day after the Supreme Court decision, the crowd chanted ‘Destroy the G.O.P.’ at the urging of Nick Fuentes, a far-right opponent of immigration.”

Since then, despite his leaping in front of any microphone within 50 miles, Fuentes has appeared only in buried asides in a few dozen articles (about Jan. 6, natch).

But now — now, Fuentes is a star! Just like Trump. Fuentes and Trump: Narcissistic baby morons whose sole driving force in life is being FAMOUS!

Most people are unfamiliar with this emotion. A normal person likes everything about fame — except the fame part. (I tried to turn down the Time magazine cover, as the reporter John Cloud could confirm.)

Another similarity of the narcissistic baby morons: Both briefly gained respectability when, amid their babbling idiocies, they happened to hit upon immigration, and were rewarded by a nation crying out for anyone to give a damn about our country.

We didn’t want the incendiary stuff, but if that’s what it took to get immigration on the table, fine, we’ll take it. At least they weren’t calling illegal immigration an “act of love.” (Jeb!™)

Sadly, it turned out they were just monkeys typing for an infinite amount of time and producing Shakespeare. Recall that Trump first tried running for president in 2012 by pushing birtherism. Crash and burn.

Then by complete chance — the happy accident of Trump seeing me discuss my book Adios, America! and requesting a copy — in 2015, he started talking about immigration. He was pointlessly nasty, utterly ignorant, but at least he was talking about it. No one else would, so he became president.

But now, it’s perfectly clear that Trump’s bluster about a wall and deporting illegals was just random words that he assembled. He didn’t intend to do it, didn’t understand it and didn’t care.

Now, he’s back to his loony-tunes, get this! mode, still perseverating about his “sacred landslide election victory” being “viciously” stolen from him — in an election year when there was a red wave for every Republican but him.

From what I’ve read, Fuentes has roughly the same B.S.-to-sanity ratio, winning fans on those occasions when he talked about immigration, then deciding to spend 99% of his time trying to say things so repellent that he’d make news.

He’s made it now! You can’t turn on the TV without seeing Fuentes talking about imposing a Catholic dictatorship, Hitler is great, women should be forced to marry young and have children, and Trump must be made dictator for life.

Is he humiliated? No! He’s on TEE-VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

The irony is: All the cable news hosts making Fuentes a star are driven by the same weird compulsion. No one paid by a television network is any less craven than Trump and Fuentes. Liberals are suddenly reborn as right-wingers at Fox, and the reverse happens at MSNBC and CNN. What do I have to believe? Please. I’m willing to say anything.

Of all the addictions — gambling, drinking, drugs — none leads to more embarrassing behavior than the quest for fame.

Unfortunately for the country, we are now locked in a situation where Trump, Fuentes and the media have identical interests: Keep Trump and Fuentes in the news.

     COPYRIGHT 2022 ANN COULTER

Book Review of Culture of Critique with Mark Collett

/9 Comments/in /by

 

On the Khazar theory, again

/48 Comments/in /by

Given the interest in the Khazar theory of Ashkenazi origins, an article in today’s New York Times is of interest. The population genetic and cultural evidence has never supported this theory, but the new research adds to the verdict.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Cell, compared DNA extracted from the teeth of 33 men, women and children buried in the cemetery with DNA taken from hundreds of modern Jews from around the world. Previous studies have shown that modern communities are a genetic mélange, with Ashkenazim the world over carrying essentially the same collection of DNA sequences.

But the medieval remains tell a different story. They show that European Jews at the time came from two divergent gene pools.

Each group shared the same genetic ancestry, dating back to a small founder population that most likely emigrated from Southern Europe and reached the German Rhineland at the turn of the first millennium. But the DNA analysis also revealed a genetic divide among the skeletons, which could have several explanations. In one scenario, both groups originated from the Rhineland. One branch then stuck around the region, while the other headed east to modern-day Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and eastern Germany.

Alternatively, Eastern Europe might have been settled by a different population of Jews who then mixed to a limited extent with their Jewish neighbors to the west.

Either way, the two groups remained fairly isolated from each other for generations, as evidenced by their discrete genetic lineages.

Thus population genetic studies on Ashkenazim show genetic commonality “the world over,” and this study finds that the two different lineages nevertheless “shared the same genetic ancestry” prior to splitting off and then reuniting. Note that the second alternative mentioned essentially states that the two populations that later reunited started out as a single ancestral group of Jews.

The article also highlights a reality of medieval life — that  towns and other jurisdictions often invited Jews in the hopes of getting some of the money they generated, essentially a way to exploit their own people.

The existence of an east-meets-west community in Erfurt is also supported by the historical record, which includes detailed accounts of a violent pogrom on March 21, 1349 — a Saturday. Angry mobs entered the local synagogue and attacked Jews in the midst of prayer. Few, if any, survived.

After the massacre, Erfurt’s leaders took possession of property and belongings. They even collected on debts owed to the murdered Jews. But just five years later, the need for lost tax revenue prompted the city to invite Jews back.

They came from far and wide. Tax records show names denoting origins from all over Europe — including some from distant cities that had experienced their own antisemitic upheavals. “In the middle of the German-speaking lands, this was the place to be at the time,” said Maria Stürzebecher, a medievalist who is the curator of the Old Synagogue Museum in Erfurt. At least, that is, until 1453, when Jews were forced out again.

And, although the new arrivals became one group, they preferentially went into business with Jews from the same area they came from, showing that genetic distance is important even in within-Jewish contexts, likely because it promotes trust, as discussed in Ch. 6 of A People That Shall Dwell Alone.

Preserved documents on money-lending practices show that the Jews from each subgroup largely formed business alliances with members of their own kind, according to Maike Lämmerhirt, a historian at the University of Erfurt and a co-author of the study. But both groups prayed in the same synagogue. They all cleansed in the same ritual bath. And, ultimately, they all lay side by side in the same cemetery.

And over the centuries, they intermarried.