Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Exactly What is Steve Sailer’s Beef with Norman Podhoretz, and with Jews in General?

By Nicholas Stix

Back when I started reading my future colleague Steve Sailer in the early aughts, I assumed he was a Jew. The intellectual brilliance, the irony, the humor, each often seemingly as an end-in-itself. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in suspecting Sailer of being one of the tribe. These days, it seems at times that Sailer is at pains to disprove such suspicions. Doth he protest too much?

In Sailer’s new VDARE.com (where I am also a contributor) column, “Norman Podhoretz’s Why Are Jews Liberal? Not Good Enough,” he criticizes Norman Podhoretz’ new book, and by extension, the 78 percent of Jews who voted for the John Doe calling himself Barack Obama, for:

• Ethnocentrism, and

• For not voting Republican

Meanwhile, since Jewish “liberals” consistently vote against their own interests, they can’t be accused of ethnocentrism. But Steve doesn’t embrace them, either.

Is his beef with them that they do not vote Republican? But one of the most powerful themes of Sailer’s work in recent years, both on the rhetoric and the facts, is the electoral unworthiness of the Republican Party and, in particular, John McCain. Sailer can hardly then condemn Jews for not having voted for McCain. (Note, too, that his graph shows approximately 40 percent of them voting twice for Ronald Reagan, and for George H.W. Bush in 1988.) Thus, what must they do, in order to return to Sailer’s good graces? Embrace immigration restriction? But then they would be guilty of ethnocentrism.

I smell a rigged game.

8 comments:

Stopped Clock said...

I'd say there's a difference between voting in your best interests and thinking you're voting your best interests. I really doubt that all the white Democrats are voting that way because it makes them feel warm inside; they actually think Republicans are their worst enemies, and that Democrats will make life easier for them. I'd suspect it is so for the majority of Jewish Democrats as well.

Glaivester said...

In this article it strikes me that Sailer seems rather jealous of Israelis for their ability to actually control their borders.

Anonymous said...

Steve seems profoundly confused on the issue of Jewry and edging more and more into the MacDonaldian camp.

Anonymous said...

There are basically two kinds of White people in the U.S.: Democrats and Republicans. They are both mostly uninformed and vote as an emotional response. But how they vote is an indicator about what kind of people they are.

A Democrat will usually be a typical stinking neo-hippy; a cowardly, politically-correct left-wing fascist who doesn't understand that the Stuff White People Like website is making fun of them. They are humorless, sanctimonious twits who are single-handedly responsible for ruining the U.S. over the last fifty years.

Those who vote Republican are usually decent citizens who are essentially apolitical. They want to be left alone to live their lives and are constantly outraged at the left-wing obstacles that confront them at every turn. They don't understand that the
Republicans have increasingly embraced left-wing fascism and haven't really been a decent alternative to the Democratic tyrants since Goldwater. In my experience, Republicans are not fooled by left-wing lies and social fads. They understand that cowardice is not courage and that victimhood does not confer moral superiority. They are simply naive when it comes to the lies of the Republican branch of our one-party system.

Republican voters definitely hate that deeply-stupid, affirmative-action parasite Obama. That means they are decent people who simply can't imagine that the media and Republican politicians would actually lie to the extent that they NEVER tell the truth.

How these two groups of White people vote essentially indicates who is most in touch with reality and who still maintains at least some moral and ethical standards. Republican voters win on both indicators.

Our current economic depression has been caused by the leftist government policies of the the last fifty years. An increasing number of White people are going to be ambushed by that reality in the very near future to the extent that they won't be able to ignore it.

Anonymous said...

I love your work, Nick. Whatever you do, please don't get mad at Vdare and stop writing for them. I think Sailer's "problem with the Jews" is that they tend to support open-borders immigration policies. Steinlight and "the Kvetcher" will support this hypothesis. By the way, I thought Sailer was half Jewish. Can anybody verify or disprove this?

Anonymous said...

I would suspect that Sailer, whom I generally admire, has a Jewish parent or grandparent. If so, this would be a matter of interest, but not a crime. While he is sometimes critical of Jews, I would not accuse him of frank anti-Semitism. I do think he takes the position they are letting down the west, and themselves, by failing to support the Republican Party. The latter, it must be admitted, has a fairly atavistic base (fundamentalists, etc) and I am not surprised that Jewish voters (urbane, sophisticated and educated with very few exceptions) are not instinctively drawn to them, despite their firm support for Israel.
This is the problem that needs to be solved.

Anon.

Anon.

sociologist said...

I agree that Sailer is "edging...into the MacDonaldian camp," and it makes me very uncomfortable. I don't know what his ethnic heritage is by birth, but I know he's adopted, and whatever hangups he may have because of this, he seems to be turning on the Jews.
I am Jewish and I favor an immediate immigration time-out (on legal as well as illegal immigration.) Then, I think we need to limit immigration from Africa, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East. Sailer seems to accept the notion that Asians (presumably including people from the Indian subcontinent) are just another part of the American people and that their "rights" to admission to selective institutions of higher education must be protected. Wrong. They have substantially changed the medical profession and now they're starting in on the legal profession. The Third World needs its bright people; we don't need them!

Anonymous said...

I am Jewish and I favor an immediate immigration time-out (on legal as well as illegal immigration.) Then, I think we need to limit immigration from Africa, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Middle East.

But L. America, that's just fine and dandy. Rofl. Then you wonder why people hate you.

Face it, feller, you're just another self-obsessed jibbidy jewbidy who thinks the world revolves around jewish interests. Go fuck yourself.