Making racism a mental disorder was advocated back when the DSMR (sp?) was originally being compiled in the crunchy 1960s or 70s and it was rejected then because it was to amorphous a disorder. If it didn't happen then, I don't see it happening now.

I'm convinced that the single greatest factor in the level of crime in a society is not genes are poverty but the level of enforcement. Look at Russia. 20 years ago under the Soviet Union, you were safe walking the streets even though few people lived above what we would call the lower middle class. Now, there is little strict enforcement and crime is rampant. Cuba is also in the former phase right now.

Razib: I'm told that the Israelis have a saying that goes something like this, "When you visit a country, if you want to know who really runs it, find out who it is who no one is talking about."

I find your hesitancy in not talking about Jews annoying (and telling?). Perhaps part of the reason for your hesitancy is that they make such a stink about being citicized, and they are so good at derision that people internalize a sense of shame at the idea of criticizing them. And if Jews are able to control you and others in that way, then they indeed have won a major psychological battle.

In my opinion, all people grouped by race or religion or any other category are open to criticism. If you are afraid or hesitant to criticize, you wind up letting a group get away with things. This is exactly how an idiot like Jesse Jackson has had such success and is still able to damage race relations after all these years.

The educational philosophy of the Jews themselves is to create psycic dissonance, and I for one am certainly willing to help them out with that by pointing out their own contradictions. I find their diversity mantra ridiculous (it is theirs in the sense that they use it a lot) when on the one hand multiculturalism causes such obvious problems and on the other the pursuit of diversity seems to be leading to a globalized homogeneous cultural and the possibility of miscegenation to the point of minimal human biodiversity. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with those things, but I think that Jews are not always forthcoming about their real motiviations.

At any rate, my advice is that you ignore your hesitancy and criticize away as you feel inclined.

Godless:

I listened to Amy Chua for an hour yestereday. She has interesting ideas and I will read her book. However, she does not believe that the market dominate minority phenomenon is a product of either genes or culture. Instead, she gave some inscrutable PC reason for it.

For those concerned about this issue, may I suggest a contribution to your favorite immigration reform organization.

I'm a little late arriving but the discussion looked interesting.

It's true Duende. America was more like Japan than it is today when Christianity was more popular in the United States. Take Henry Ford, for instance. He had his employees attend mandatory company picnics and dance the Virginia Reel to instill cultural unity and group harmony. He imposed very rigorous work schedules on his employees and produced a very prosperous company. He generously shared his profits with his employees. At the same time however, profits were not his main concern, rather the greater social good was what he focused on. Sounds a lot like Japan to me. Some people argue that it was Ford and his emphasis on a strong national group identity that, through the financial effect this philosophy had on his own company, led to other companies following his model and in turn building solid middle class jobs out of industrial labor, which would make any kind of class revolution unlikely.

Regardless, I think that what you say about a lower class revolution within our lifetimes is probably incorrect. In the past, these sorts of class revolutions, like the French and Russian revolutions, occurred because of very impoverished conditions. This is not happening in the United States. Even most families who work so hard just to get by are still able to afford luxury items. We would only have a revolution of the type you are talking about in this country if one of three things happened. 1) We have a serious and prolonged economic downturn of the Latin American variety, or 2) People become so mesmerized by commercialism's gotta have it message that they feel they must beat down your door in order to afford that extra pair of Nikes (granted this does happen, but not on so wide a scale), or 3) There are ethnic and racial conflicts that occur as a result of people having it drummed into their heads that all races are the same on the inside, and yet they see that all races do not achieve at the same rate, so therefore the races near the top of the economic ladder, namely the Asians and Caucasians, must be cheating somehow.

Godlesscapatilist:

Chile is a strange anomaly. I think it might be worth trying to understand how its economic development over the last 40 years has differed from all the other countries in Latin America (as for race, it's largely white). It has a reported corruption rate approximately that of the United States. I also know that Pinochet was good enough to voluntarily allow elections after he got rid of the Communists (which was a prerequisite to Chile's economic growth).

Scott: I think he is so used to the double-speak of his Latino Supremacist days in college (and today?) that this really doesn't fase him. He's aware of the irony, but just doesn't care.

American workers are a family that should be protected. It doesn't matter whether they are IT workers or unskilled laborers. This is one of the ideas behind a nation; that there is a group of people that a nation's laws protects against the interests of other people in other nations. I think we should get rid of the H1-B category entirely, except for people with exceptional skills.

I was wondering when someone was going to mention lack of circumcision. I once looked at a map that showed the AIDS belt in Africa superimposed on the parts of Africa where circumcsision is not practiced. There was about an 85% overlap. This was several years ago.

Godlesscapitalist and R: Back to lack of circumcision for a moment. Apparently it is much easier to develop sores when a penis is uncircumcised than when it is circumcised. Open sores greatly expedite the transmission of HIV.

As for the anal question, anal sex is rougher and therefore more likely to cause abraisions, which have the same effect on HIV-transmission as sores do.