Comments on: Africa: cry, the beloved continent

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 20:29:07 +0000

Of course, this is highly inflammatory to the current politically correct crowd, many of whom deny that there’s even a genetic basis for race.

They also deny that DNA separates male and female. Sex operations are natural and a human right, they consider. This is like eugenics, except flipped on the obverse. They thin human tech gives them the power to play God, yet at the same time say environment is being damaged by tech. So a combination of technocrat with luddite, whereas Sanger though tech could wipe clean the Race.

By: Maggie's Farm

Maggie's Farm — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 09:49:35 +0000

Wednesday morning links

Napoleon and Josephine had a prenup 10 Drinking Games That Are Still Fun Why Is Wikipedia Deleting All References To Neil Tyson’s Fabrication? Barone: Hispanic Immigrants Differ From Those At Ellis Island The weather has been beautiful. Blam

By: Matt_SE

Matt_SE — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 06:37:02 +0000

African politicians becoming dictators simply follows in the tradition of tribal chiefs, or strongmen.
In that case, western governance is actually the unnatural state.

A more interesting theory is offered by Nicholas Wade in A Troublesome Inheritance: That Africans share too many behaviorally-modifying genes that promote impatience or violence.
Starting on page 53, he describes the gene MAO-A. People can have 2 to 5 copies of the promoters in their DNA, and the fewer they have, the more violent they are.
In a study with 2,524 African-American subjects, 5% had the two-promoter allele and significantly higher rates of arrest and imprisonment. Caucasians were found to have only a 0.1% rate of the two-promoter allele.

Wade’s central thesis is that social institutions have arisen under the influence of genetic differences, especially for behavioral genes.
If genes like the two-promoter version of MAO-A have been selected for in Africa, thereby selecting for more aggression, then the failure of African cultures to escape from the strongman paradigm takes on new meaning.
Of course, this is highly inflammatory to the current politically correct crowd, many of whom deny that there’s even a genetic basis for race.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 02:43:35 +0000

The only Western education I would provide to women in Africa or Afghanistan are the medieval swordmanship schools, warrior virtues, and the psychological WMDs of the West.

That’s about it. The goal isn’t to teach their girls to obey a different authority than their fathers. The goal is to teach their girls how to kill enemies of their family’s clan. The result would be somewhat different than what people see with “Westernization” these days.

Strength, first, foremost, only. Westerners have given up on the concept of might or right or strength. They lack a spine to do much but meddle and call it Good. Even the virtuous Westerners, the missionaries, can only change the locality minutely. And that’s assuming they aren’t assassinated.

By: Sharon W

Sharon W — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 15:48:02 +0000

Neo, you covered a lot in that post and the comments have been informative. My sister and her husband have been in Mozambique as missionaries for 4 years now. I was originally highly opposed to their choice to leave their young adult children and head to that country. We invited a priest serving at our church with permission of the Archdiocese of Nigeria to discuss with him, Africa and missions, etc. We have formed a friendship and he blessed our daughter’s marriage (having been married in a civil service in San Fran) and performed Last Rite’s for my MIL. He and another visiting priest (both relatively young men, as priest these days in America are relatively old) from Kenya, who we invited to our home for dinner, on the fly when he brought a message on missions in July of 2013, are 2 of the best priests I have encountered in the last 10 years. They regularly keep in touch with me, requesting prayer and sending benedictions (via text). Last year our youngest (24 years) went to Mozambique to help his uncle work on their home that they built there. His opinion of Africa meshes with some of what is recorded in the comments here. He came away with an opinion of general low intelligence, however there were a handful of people that he felt the highest respect for because of their honesty and work ethic. Really is that any different than what we are experiencing in our own crumbling Republic? We are finding we are now outnumbered by the takers as opposed to producers. Among the academic and political elites, there is adherence to foolish, destructive understandings and policies. I can’t remember the book, but an economist studying poverty came to the understanding that the fundamental premise of a society must be the respect of private property. This fits with the biblical demand that “Thou shalt not steal”. That commandment automatically assumes ownership exists. In Paton’s widow’s unhappy account, theft and murder are what drove her out. In our own country we are seeing this on all kinds of levels, from the confiscatory policies of our city, state and federal government, all the way to the products of our public education system, many amoral individuals, a number of whom are out there robbing, stealing and murdering in our midst.

By: MollyNH

MollyNH — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 15:06:48 +0000

My complements to all the posters in this thread it has been a very engrossing read. Punctuated by a hearty belly laugh courtesy of RA & the story of scoping out the pilots to see if they were white !!!
Comic relief, it points to our common humanity, a sense only available to God & us !!!
Also I never gave much *thought* to female education & just went along with, *must be a good thing* but I can see when pointed out how fraught with *problems* it turns out to be.
Interestingly back in Euro history educated women were set up in their own *society*, so to speak
a Female Abbey, a nunnery, where modest, useful, education & domestic female skills were utilized.
There was a hierarcy in the nunnery the head being referred to as the Abbess & they operated autonomously except for necessary*faith* matters.
In our own family we had a laugh the other day in a conversation harkening back to prehistoric times.
I happened to mention Africa & commented that it is the *cradle* of humanity “that’s where we all got our start” then we all chuckled THAT we’d like to give a heart slap on the back to our long ago forebearers who had the *smarts* to get out of that place & never look back ! LOL. Sure they traded the *fruited plain* for a tougher life in a
4 season climate with formidable winters, but I have read that the challenges of THAT climate
caused increased brain development that was so pervasive that it became capable of being passed on genetically.

By: RA

RA — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 12:17:59 +0000

My sister in law went to Zimbabwe years ago with a group toting a ton of donated glasses. Thing was, they’d do an eye exam and give the local the glasses they had with them with the closest prescription. That was going okay but they couldn’t figure out who to bribe to spring the ton of glasses from the customs guys. Ended up giving everybody a sheet with their ‘scrip and telling them to come back when their countrymen let go of the glasses. I believe it happened eventually, but that meant two trips by foot for some of these folks over a long distance, instead of one.

By: colagirl

colagirl — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:12:09 +0000

Kevin Richburg, an African American journalist who covered Africa during the 90s, talks about some of this in his book Out of America. He also talks about staggering corruption levels among the African political elite, and iIRC has a fair amount of blame for a certain type of donor/political activist who chooses to make excuses for these leaders and/or just throw money at the problem without looking to see if that money’s actually doing any good or getting to where it needs to go.

I think he also says there is a rule of thumb among old Africa hands that if you want to know what place is doing the best, head for the place that was under British rule the longest, but I may be misattributing here.

By: blert

blert — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 04:08:32 +0000

Moderate Muslim = Stealthy Muslim.

All Muslims are compelled towards the same end state: the totalitarian subjugation of all humanity — them and us.

The ultimate Islamic state today is KSA. It holds the distinction of having less religious and intellectual freedom than Stalinist Russia or Hitlerist Germany.

Wow. That’s saying something!

By: RA

RA — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 03:19:46 +0000

A moderate Muslim is one who is moderatly Muslim. That means what, for us, exactly?