Category Archives: Individualism Vs. Collectivism

An Individualist’s Position On Rubbing-In Racial Differences In Intelligence

Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intelligence, Morality, Paleolibertarianism, Political Correctness, Race, Racism, Reason

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It’s about etiquette and kindness, really.

I had tweeted out the American Renaissance interview with a young black man, the point being to note how he was “ostracized as an Uncle Tom for being a bookish, high-achiever, high IQ individual, who spoke standard English.”

On the Facebook thread, our reader made this point:

Paul Bustion: “I find articles like this distasteful. I find it distasteful to emphasize the racial differences in intelligence. Its probably true that Europeans, Northeast Asians and Ashkenazi Jews on average are more intelligent than Africans, but I think its distasteful to make a point of emphasizing the fact.”

My reply:

Ilana Mercer, Author: “Perfectly put. My sentiment exactly. The lady in me recoils from such cruelty. I could never. I’m an individualist. While I recognize reality about everything—cleave to it in writing, closely deduce from it—I find no redeeming personal virtue in [rubbing-in the point on inter-racial, aggregate differences in IQ scores]. I do, and will, fight tooth-and-nail when I am called a racist because of the intellectual and moral shortfalls of others.”

“Kudos [to our reader] for making this point! “

This quagmire is touched on in my “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.”

UPDATED: FACEBOOK THREAD:

Ilana Mercer, Author Agreed, John Cronk. It’s just something I find tacky. What am I confronting a nice black man about? I’ll confront him if he dare to accuse me of racism b/c not as smart as I, or blame me for his lower inhibitions. I will not tell a perfectly good individual he is inferior. For one, maybe he isn’t? You interact with individuals based on their individual characteristics, not on an aggregate character of a group, valid though it is.

Ilana Mercer, Author: Kerry, I don’t ignore the rule for the exception. You treat each individual as an individual. I write copiously about race and aggregate racial differences. People here are obviously not keeping up with this work. Other than Steve Sailer, Peter Brimelow, Jared Taylor, I don’t know who has incorporated the topic more into analysis than this writer. (Colin Flaherty wisely sticks to chronicling and providing us with an enormous reservoir of data. But he’s a sweet man. I think he might agree with me about personal interactions. Ditto Jack Kerwick.) The point I am making is one of manners and courtesy to a fellow human being. ‘Tis all. We need to be virtuous, too. And anyone who suggests I am not a fierce writer, aggressive too, on the topic, hasn’t been reading. Search under Racial Issues: http://www.ilanamercer.com/…/public_article_list_list.php

Beware The Values Cudgel

Conservatism, Government, IMMIGRATION, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Islam, Liberty, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Politics

“Beware The Values Cudgel” is the current column, now on The Daily Caller (founded by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson). An Excerpt:

… When you hear an appeal to “permanent values”—”the values that make our country great,” to quote Hillary Clinton—know you are dealing with world-class crooks. These crooks want to swindle you out of the freedom to think and believe as you wish. For in the classical conservative and libertarian traditions, values are private things, to be left to civil society—the individual, family and church—to practice and police.

The American government is charged purely with upholding the law, no more. Why so? Because government has police and military powers with which to enforce its “values.” A free people dare not entrust such an omnipotent entity with policing values, at home or abroad, because values enforced are dogma.

When incontestable majorities call on government to curb Islamic and other in-migration because this imperils American lives, President Trump’s unswerving opponents—the Obama, Clinton, Ryan, McCain, Graham, Schumer and media mafia—will invariably intone, “That’s not who we are.”

When you hear that manipulative mantra, tell them to shut up, mind their own business, and stick to their constitutional mandate to protect the people, not police their minds.

Remember that through an appeal to values, the State aggrandizes itself.

A limited government, serving an ostensibly free people, must thus never enforce values. …

… Read the rest. “Beware The Values Cudgel” is now on The Daily Caller.

If you’d like to feature the Mercer Column (criminally underexposed in paleolibertarian and paleoconservative quarters), in your magazine, paper or pixels, contact me at ilana@ilanamercer.com. My gratitude to the wonderful, intellectually honest publishers who’ve taken the leap.

The Lesson of Thanksgiving: Private Property Rights

Colonialism, History, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Private Property, Socialism

John Stossel has a lesson in history and political economy for the nation’s brainless Bernieacs:

… before that first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims nearly starved to death because they didn’t respect private property.

When they first arrived in Massachusetts, they acted like Bernie Sanders wants us to act. They farmed “collectively.” Pilgrims said, “We’ll grow food together and divide the harvest equally.”

Bad idea. Economists call this the “tragedy of the commons.” When everyone works “together,” some people don’t work very hard.

Likewise, when the crops were ready to eat, some grabbed extra food — sometimes picking corn at night, before it was fully ready. Teenagers were especially lazy and likely to steal the commune’s crops.

Pilgrims almost starved. Governor Bradford wrote in his diary, “So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could … that they might not still thus languish in misery.”

His answer: He divided the commune into parcels and assigned each Pilgrim his own property, or as Bradford put it, “set corn every man for his own particular. … Assigned every family a parcel of land.”

That simple change brought the Pilgrims so much plenty that they could share food with Indians.

… It’s a myth that the Native Americans had no property rules. They had property — and European settlers should have treated those rules with respect. … The U.S. government, after killing thousands of Native Americans and restricting others to reservations, gave tribal governments control over Indians’ lives, in collaboration with the government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Since then, no group in America has been more “helped” and “managed” by the federal government than Indians. Because of that, no group has done worse. …

Deprogram your kids with “Thanksgiving Tragedy.”

Bernie Sanders Economics: The Reason Venezuela Is Starving

Communism, Economy, Individual Rights, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intellectualism, Private Property, Socialism

If you plant a Bernie Sanders sign in your yard—a man who has promises variations on price controls and nationalization of industries—you should suffer the worst of fates. The problem: Everybody will be affected by your emotions-driven economic and ethical ignorance—ignorance of the natural laws of economics and oblivion to the rights of free individuals to freely exchange titles to private property. In Bernie style, shortages will be blamed on “evil producers.” Further incursions will follow as “evil producers” are roped into bondage by the state. As such interventions beget more of the same, we will end up with the “Venezuela Playbook: The Communist Manifesto.”

… This choice between “fair” prices and arrest is now the norm for business owners in Venezuela. The most outrageous instance of this took place in early November, when government security forces occupied local electronics stores and began handing out TVs and other wares at “fair” (read: rock-bottom) prices. Hebert Garcia, head of the High Commission for the People’s Defense of the Economy, put it bluntly: “We have to guarantee that everybody has a plasma television and the latest-generation fridge.”
Not surprisingly, the masses lined up around the block for their piece of the government’s action. Too bad the government has failed to provide enough electricity to power the plunder. In most countries, this would be called government theft. But, under Maduro’s reign of Marxism, this redistribution has become business as usual. …

Discussion on Facebook.

Michael Walls: The fact that communism appeals so heavily to “intellectuals” is disturbing. Socialism is just “communism lite”, and the communism that socialism derived from is so absurd in it’s details it’s hard not to laugh out loud reading it. Maybe we need to re-examine the term “intellectual”.

Ilana Mercer No, Michael Walls, the fact that some communists are deemed or called “heavily intellectual” is what’s disturbing—disturbing for what it says on how we judge intellect. Your conclusion is 100%.

Educate yourself by reading.