(Part 3) Top products from r/Conservative

>I imagined myself brought before an academic disciplinary tribunal from Francine Prose’s Blue Angel, where all my past transgressions would be marshaled to prove that I don’t belong in the classroom.

If you haven't read this book I highly recommend it. It's a very enjoyable novel ridiculing sexual-harassment policies and enforcement and gender studies politics on campus.


http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Angel-Novel-Francine-Prose/dp/0060882034/ref=sr_1_1


>Trust the iconoclastic Prose to turn conventional received wisdom on such subjects as predatory professors, innocent female students and the necessity for a degree of political correctness on campus on their silly heads. In this astutely observed, often laugh-aloud funny and sometimes touching academic comedy, she proves more skeptic than cynic, with an affection for her central character that is surprisingly warm. He is Ted Swenson, a happily married and reasonably content novelist who teaches creative writing at a much less than Ivy League college in darkest Vermont. Stuck on his own latest book, he is nevertheless charmed and intrigued by the writing skills of the unlikely, ungainly and punky Angela Argo. (Prose takes the considerable risk of offering chunks of Angela's work, and the reader can see in it what poor Ted does.) Out of the best intentions--and an only half-acknowledged but not compelling concupiscent itch--he encourages the girl, who is soon hanging on his every word of praise and hinting that if only Ted's editor could see her work... One moment of lustful madness that is not even consummated (a broken tooth intervenes), a disinclination of Ted's editor to see Angela's novel-in-progress and Ted's goose is cooked. Suddenly, every tiny hint of lechery or unfairness toward his students, an outburst at an unbearable dinner party, a kindly gesture are all evidence against him, dragged out in a climactic academic hearing that is at once farcical and horribly realistic. A slightly indeterminate ending--for where does poor Ted, sans wife and job, go from here?--is the only minor blemish on a peerlessly accomplished performance, at once tinglingly contemporary and timelessly funny.

Free to Choose

Also, Friedman did several hour long documentaries based on this book that are all available on YouTube. Just search "free to choose milton friedman." He takes an issue, examines it over the first 30 minutes, and the second half is all discussion with various prominent people. There's some great debate between folks like Friedman and a young Thomas Sowell and their pro-union, pro-big government counterparts. Outstanding work. I've watched them all.

"no scientific consensus that black people are genetically predisposed to lower intelligence"

The report is by the APA from 1996. The APA in 96 to even acknowledge that there was a gap was a huge thing, considering its bias. Discoveries have ramped up in the last few years so I don't know why wikipedia is relying on sources from 94 & 96 considering the human genome mapping wasn't completed until 2003. Discoveries since then have been one after another.

It's no surprise wikipedia comes to the PC conclusion, but it suffers from problems. It acknowledges that the black-white test gap exists. Either it is genetic, or environmental. There has been decades of money, and time thrown at fixing the environment by rich billionaires like Gates, and others. Dozens upon dozens of education, nutrition, parent swapping (giving black babies to whites), and other experiments, and they all failed. There is not a single study in the world that can claim lasting gains in the IQ gap. This bit of evidence would point to a genetic basis right? That and the fact that twin studies (the only proper studies that can control for genes) shows intelligence, among other dispositions, are highly heritable. In that wikipedia page, they link to the actual numbers from the APA study: "A 1996 statement by the American Psychological Association gave about .45 for children and about .75 during and after adolescence."

Finally, does that statement even pass the laugh test? "Science" doesn't work by consensus, but if it did, wouldn't it be relevant to ask the actual scientists involved in intelligence research?

There are people with very high intelligence, very low IQ, and everyone between. Most people can recognize that height is highly heritable, but it isn't a guarantee, sometimes you are taller than your tallest parent, sometimes you are shorter than the shortest parents. Most times you regress towards the mean. The idea that the brain is a blank slate has been discredited by Steven Pinker, Noam Chomsky, and others. The brain comes with innate abilities, abilities that are partly inherited from your parents genes.

If you are actually concerned with finding the truth you can read Nicholas Wade, who writes for the NYTimes. The 10,000 Year Explosion. Or Gene Expression1. Or Gene Expression2. Rather than having your views filtered by whoever happens to be editing one of the many wikipedia pages.

I recommend “Signature in the Cell” by Stephen C. Meyer, Ph.D

It’s a long read, but it’s very well researched, and very much worth it.

Very interesting as well. https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design/dp/0061472786

Don’t let “Intelligent design” fool you; it’s a very scientific book.

A very insightful review. Thanks for sharing, /u/jimrosenz, I'll have to pick this one up.

Since he was mentioned in the review, I would always recommend Burnham's work, particularly The Managerial Revolution and Suicide of the West to anyone who hasn't read it. He is easily one of the most insightful minds of the 20th century. Red Diapers: Growing Up in the Communist Left seems similar to Oppenheimer's work here, but read both only after reading the Venona Papers.

Thanks for the encouragement. I did self-post here a while back on the differences between liberals and conservatives, and received some interesting responses, but the post as a whole was down-voted.

Since then Jonathon Haidt's book on the subject has been published, so I may post again, comparing and contrasting my position against his.

Two interesting recent books address those questions:

• Suicide of a Superpower by PJB
  
• Coming Apart by CM

http://www.amazon.com/Reverence-Renewing-Forgotten-Paul-Woodruff/dp/0195157958

:)

Here's a conservative favorite of mine: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Times-Revised-Twenties-Perennial/dp/0060935502?ie=UTF8&keywords=modern%20times&qid=1463701601&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2

The US should have the lowest rates in the world, not just in the OECD (which is full of sickened, overtaxed economies anyway)! I'm not sure who prepared this data, but measuring tax burdens in the US is extremely complicated, because of so many jurisdictions that cross over, and I would have to see their analysis. They may not, for example, have included Social Security "contributions," which of course are a tax, even if politicians and their minions do not wish to call them that.

Additionally, this does not take into account the costs associated with regulation and trade barriers, which are embedded in costs and reduce our standard of living.

If you actually are willing to consider the expansion of government in US history, I encourage you to read "Crisis and Leviathan" by Robert Higgs. Alternatively, you can listen to the related lectures here.

Follow the money. The Clintons have hundreds of millions from Russia but they just seem to get a pass.

reed

A Time for Truth.

A History of The Jews

If I were a Democrat and had half a brain, I'd totally vote for him.

Then again, if I had half a brain, I wouldn't be a Democrat. Hat tip to Ann Coulter.

sigh

I'll just leave this here. Enjoy.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348352250&sr=8-1&keywords=jerry+coyne+why+evolution+is+true

http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Show-Earth-Evidence-Evolution/dp/1416594795/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348352282&sr=1-1&keywords=the+greatest+show+on+earth

Think about how unbridled immigration from third-world countries and open-arms refugee policies affects a nation's law, culture, traditions, and political philosophy. Just go take a peek at Europe's cultural suicide.

And I challenge you to think critically about the related issues independent of ethnicity! Resist the leftist impulse to view everything through the lens of race, and you'll gain some harrowing insights about what is happening in the world.

***

Read one of these books:

• The Death of the West
  
  
• Slouching Towards Gomorrah
  
  
  
  Observe the destruction of the family and the increasing infidelity, glorification of casual sex, and out-of-wedlock child births (which is one of the major predictors of criminality). The media normalizes so much of this.
  
  
  
  Consider the growth of the government and the ever-increasing dependence on government by citizens.
  
  ***
  
  I could go on.
  
  
  

It's not the 19th century anymore. The scientific community's understanding of the relevant phenomena has progressed to such an extent that it's not reasonable to compare modern climate scientists to some medieval plague doctor who thinks that diseases are caused by imbalances of the humors or something equally wacky.

They've understood the greenhouse gas effect, they've learned how to analyze the isotopes of a sample of atmospheric carbon to determine if it came from an older or younger, organic or inorganic source of carbon, they can measure the temperatures of the past by proxy using elements frozen in ice cores extracted from Earth's ice sheets. They know for a fact that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have increased dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, that the burning of fossil fuels is primarily responsible for that increase, that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat inside Earth's atmosphere, and that Earth's temperature has increased at an unusually rapid pace in recent decades. You know what's bad for the economy? Rising sea levels caused by melting polar ice sheets, increased frequency and severity of natural disasters like drought and tropical storms, the desertification of semi-arid regions of the world including the American Southwest, and the resulting disruptions to agricultural production.

Burying our heads in the ground because the steps that we need to take to slow or stop climate change would be economically costly isn't going to make the problem go away; if anything it will make the problem more costly because the impacts of climate change will be even more severe.

These are widely accepted, mainstream predictions on the logical consequences of climate change. Whether climate change is going to result in considerable consequences for human civilization is not a subject of controversy among most scientists; what is a matter of debate is how severe those consequences will be.

Sources:

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/education/

Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know by physicist Joseph Romm

Thank you. A lot of people just resort to insults and Gish Gallop in the global warming argument.
I truly am not worried about the consequences of global climate change. Some things will be bad and some things will be good. But change is inevitable, to me it makes a lot more sense to adapt to your environment instead of trying to change it.

When you got educated people like Stephen Hawking spewing absolute drivel that the Earth could turn in to Venus or insanity like reporters wanting to criminalize dissenting ideas you realize that they are desperate to advance their agenda.

Climate change has been politicized in order to push an agenda.

Now before you say 'you are talking conspiracy, it can't be a conspiracy because too many people would have to be in on it', think about this.

That is the beauty of it, it is not some globally coordinated conspiracy, There is NO ONE at the top of this conspiracy.

The scientists fudge the data and focus on the worse possible interpretations of the data because that is what keeps the grant money flowing.

The politicians focus on the negatives and scare tactics because it is very easy to manipulate people with fear. This insures a frightened voting block that they can count on to deliver them votes. Fear means votes


The media focuses on the worse possible outcome because sensationalism sells. Have you ever heard the news term "If it bleeds it Leads"?


And finally the globalists see it as an excellent way to redistribute wealth from the rich countries to the poorer ones, a form of world socialism.

No, all of these groups did not get together and conspire to invent a global warming hoax.

But each and every one of the groups above see global climate change as a means to an end. And people just gobble it up while failing to realize that there have always been doomsday prophets who have predicted the end of the world.

The difference is today's instant global communications has given them a voice that they would not have had a hundred years ago.

Edit added link