Tapsearch Com EditorD'Souza falls further
April 16th 2007 22:20
I've noted before how Dinesh D'Souza has abandoned respectability in favor of cheap partisanship. I negatively reviewed his latest book.
His t=04/16/2007&page=2" target="_blank">new column, though, takes the cake:
Well, the difference is that Imus' employers had every right to fire him. No one has a right to riot and kill people. If you're "silent" on that, that's a problem.
And then:
It's hard to tell what debate Dinesh has been following, because as I've documented, people have constantly piped up about free speech even though it doesn't apply. There's a huge difference between government censorship/public violence and private employers' decisions.
Let's put it this way: To say you can't fire a radio host for something he said is to say that you can't fire a radio host for doing his job poorly. To say you can't riot in response to a cartoon is to say, well, that rioting is wrong. They're not equal attacks on people's right to say what they please.
D'Souza proceeds to write The Politically Correct Guide To Insulting People, giving a few useful bits with a lot of garbage thrown in.
Take this:
He's right that men and women are, as groups, different intellectually. But the idiocy here is that he completely misunderstands the science of it.
There are two differences. One, women offset men's spatial skills with superior language skills. This is why, as Summers pointed out, men excel in engineering. But the sexes have (at least roughly) the same average IQ.
Two, men's IQs are more variable. That means there are more very dull and very smart men, with women tending more toward the middle. Thus, there are tons of individual women more than the "intellectual equal" of the average or even above-average male.
In fact, if you pick a random woman and a random man, the odds are 50/50 the woman will have a higher IQ. One could say a random man is more likely to be a genius than a random woman is, but I'd counter that a random man is more likely to be a dullard, too. So as a whole, women are indeed "as intellectually capable as men." It's great D'Souza gets a kick out of offending people, but he could at least do that via honest analysis.
By Robert VerBruggen
His t=04/16/2007&page=2" target="_blank">new column, though, takes the cake:
The traditional Muslims were right: I've noticed that the Middle Eastern media is treating the Imus story--and how our little scandals travel worldwide!--with a certain degree of relish. And I think I know why. Remember the Muhammad cartoon scandal? When the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed the cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, many in the West viewed this solely through the lens of free speech. The media coverage suggested a confirmation of Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis. We believe in free speech and they don't. Many conservatives rallied to this viewpoint.
Clearly the embassy-burnings and rabid protests of the Islamic radicals showed that there is a faction in the Muslim world that completely rejects open debate. But the traditional Muslims fell silent. They did not join with the radicals, but neither did they defend the cartoons. And indeed some commented that the way in which the West was treating the controversy was unfair and hypocritical.
Clearly the embassy-burnings and rabid protests of the Islamic radicals showed that there is a faction in the Muslim world that completely rejects open debate. But the traditional Muslims fell silent. They did not join with the radicals, but neither did they defend the cartoons. And indeed some commented that the way in which the West was treating the controversy was unfair and hypocritical.
Well, the difference is that Imus' employers had every right to fire him. No one has a right to riot and kill people. If you're "silent" on that, that's a problem.
And then:
The Imus controversy vindicates the argument of these traditional Muslims. How often during the Imus brouhaha have you heard the words "free speech"? Hardly.
Did the First Amendment even come up? Nyet.
Did the First Amendment even come up? Nyet.
It's hard to tell what debate Dinesh has been following, because as I've documented, people have constantly piped up about free speech even though it doesn't apply. There's a huge difference between government censorship/public violence and private employers' decisions.
Let's put it this way: To say you can't fire a radio host for something he said is to say that you can't fire a radio host for doing his job poorly. To say you can't riot in response to a cartoon is to say, well, that rioting is wrong. They're not equal attacks on people's right to say what they please.
D'Souza proceeds to write The Politically Correct Guide To Insulting People, giving a few useful bits with a lot of garbage thrown in.
Take this:
Rule Number 5: Never question that women are as intellectually capable as men. Ask Larry Summers, who tried to raise the issue in a scholarly way, but it didn't matter. Summers is now the sommelier at the dining room of the Harvard Club. I knew a guy at Dartmouth who liked to retort that "any man who thinks a woman is his intellectual equal is probably right." Much wittier than anything Imus will ever think of, but I haven't heard of the guy since. Probably he was found dead in a back alley, stabbed with a hat-pin.
He's right that men and women are, as groups, different intellectually. But the idiocy here is that he completely misunderstands the science of it.
There are two differences. One, women offset men's spatial skills with superior language skills. This is why, as Summers pointed out, men excel in engineering. But the sexes have (at least roughly) the same average IQ.
Two, men's IQs are more variable. That means there are more very dull and very smart men, with women tending more toward the middle. Thus, there are tons of individual women more than the "intellectual equal" of the average or even above-average male.
In fact, if you pick a random woman and a random man, the odds are 50/50 the woman will have a higher IQ. One could say a random man is more likely to be a genius than a random woman is, but I'd counter that a random man is more likely to be a dullard, too. So as a whole, women are indeed "as intellectually capable as men." It's great D'Souza gets a kick out of offending people, but he could at least do that via honest analysis.
By Robert VerBruggen
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