When Romney makes a statement that is plainly and obviously true and verifiable and the Press call it a gaffe, they are trying to convince us that no reasonable person could believe what is so obviously true.

… Cue the appropriate music

Neoconscum’s recommendation of Thomas Sowell’s book, “Intellectuals and Society” will help you understand why post modernism cannot accept those plain facts about culture. Post modernism is not about reality. It’s about pretending that all people and cultures are the same and that anyone who has ever been shortchanged, defeated, lost out, or otherwise inconvenienced has the right to be given special victim treatment…..in perpetuity.

Curtis is right. The Jews have been the universal victims. Yet they just keep on pulling their socks up and getting on with improving themselves. That the Israelis are condemned for being successful in defending themselves and turning desert into productive land is just another chapter in a long book of abuse.

I’m with vanderleun. My compassion for perpetual victims has run mighty low.

“If a group is not doing well it is either genetics, culture, or some combination thereof.”

If it’s genetics then the discussion is in no better state than under the iron fist of Marxist-enforced political correctness.

Taking the issue of blacks in America as an example, a discussion looks pretty near impossible on both sides of the political aisle. We all know why it is so on the Left, so I’ll just give a brief overview: They are wedded to the notion that the plight of blacks must be Whitey’s fault, and you’re WACISTâ„¢ if you dare to insinuate any of the fault lies with blacks.

Since no such artificial ruling exists on the Right, surely discussion must be unfettered on that side? Wrong. On the Right, the discussion of this issue is beset by a different problem: No sooner does it begin than the thread is witness to the arrival of the IQist Brigade, those who with the expected tropes like “average IQ of 75” (a scientific-sounding way of saying “Blacks are born chtoopid and fated to stay that way”) achieve the same effect of denying blacks any responsibility, or any hope of lifting themselves up–from the opposite direction that the Left does it, but the result is the same.

What I’m not saying is there should be a ban on IQism, however much I may disbelieve in that materialist dogma. But it means, by its very nature, that the discussion is over, because the facts of genetics are set in stone. Once you have argued that a certain group is either privileged or disadvantage by its genetics, there’s no room for calling for responsibility or change or entertaining any sort of hope for a brighter future. Genetics is the killer of all prospect of free will and personal improvement, and it is there that the Far Left and the Far Right meet in the Circle of Politics: Where the former view whites as congenital oppressors, evildoers no matter what they do, and the latter view the darker races as immutably fated for inferiority because of their lower average IQ.

You tell me eye color is inherited and genetically determined, I’ve never had a problem with that. But the character and soul of people–well, the Torah has the final say on the matter, and it says no human being of good mental health is exempt from free will and responsibility. That’s why I brook no deterministic buck-passing from either Left or Right.

All here would find Dr.Sowell’s book well worth reading.

Real grownups don’t have such a simpleton black and white view of the world.

1 – unions are not poor or powerless; they outspend everyone else in politics.

don’t conflate unions with workers. most workers re not unionized and prefer it that way.

2 – blacks are not powerless. we have a balck president, and have had black secretaries of every major cabinet department.

3 – women are not powerless. (see above)

and so on.

who are the “powerless”?

a – the catholic church – who can;t stop our liberal-fascist administration from forcing them to do things that violate their religious beliefs.

b – babies in the womb – who are powerless to fight against the abortion industry which has murdered millions of babies – mostly black babies.

c –