Occam's Razor says.. Chris Hayes is a moron!

Chris Hayes tweeted out perhaps the most moronic tweet of the day.  He invokes Occam's Razor to claim that the most likely explanation for Trump and his team denying that there is any involvement with the Russians is... 'a vast criminal conspiracy'!

 He clearly does not understand what Occam's Razor is, or how it works.

As Wikipedia explains,

Occam's razor ... is the problem-solving principle that the simplest solution tends to be the correct one. When presented with competing hypotheses to solve a problem, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions.

It is typically used to debunk crazy conspiracy theories. 

For example, which competing theory has the fewest assumptions: 

Chemtrails are secret mind control chemicals sprayed by the government as a part of a vast criminal conspiracy, or, simple physics dictates that water vapor from jet engines condenses in the cold.  

The Moon Landings were faked as a part of a vast criminal conspiracy, or, we landed on the moon. 

The Earth is Flat and there is a vast criminal conspiracy to hide the truth, or, the Earth is round because of gravity.

In each case above, we discard the 'vast criminal conspiracy' theory as violating Occam's Razor.  There are too many assumptions and incentives to tell the truth that make it obvious that the conspiracy theories are not correct.  

And yet, today we have Chris Hayes come up with this beauty of insight and analysis: 


The Occam's Razor Take here is: lots of folks in Trumpworld really did engage in a vast criminal conspiracy that they are desperately trying to keep hidden by lying about it.


This is NOT the 'Occam's Razor take' and Chris Hayes is a moron. 

Each of the crazy conspiracy theories above can be debunked by looking at the huge number of people that would have to be in on the secret and yet have never leaked that information.  Where are the Chemtrail airports, ground crews, pilots, chemical manufacturers, etc.  Why has no one EVER come forward to expose this vast criminal conspiracy?  Most likely answer: there is no conspiracy. 

Here Hayes turns Occam's Razor on it's head.  The complete lack of evidence and the consistent denials are proof that there is a vast criminal conspiracy.   

Simple question: If there is evidence that Trump conspired with the Russians, why didn't anything leak prior to the mid term elections?  Why would hundreds of Democrats that have access to evidence of real misconduct not leak that to the press, despite a steady flow of leaks about other information?   

Simple Answer: there is no evidence of a crime, much less a vast criminal conspiracy. 

This is the end...

We have finally reached the end of the Global Warming hysteria.  Ok, maybe not. 

But we should be near the end if the media were even slightly honest in it's reporting.

Two events happened this week that demonstrate the two flaws with the entire AGW scare industry.

1.  The research is all badly compromised by ideological bias.  Once again, studies that were touted as proof that AGW is real have been shown to have been flawed.  And once again, the 'errors' have been shown to magnify the effects or certainty of AGW.   From IBD:

The study itself, by no fewer than ten authors, made sweeping claims. The authors wrote that the study held "implications for policy-relevant measurements of the Earth response to climate change, such as climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases and the thermal component of sea-level rise."

In other words, this study is a game-changer that policy makers ignored at their own — and our — peril.

Media around the world seized upon the report as yet another indicator of climate-change doom and runaway global warming. No surprise, since most of the media faithfully adhere to the Holy Church of Global Warming.

The only problem: The study made a crucial math error, something that happens often in published reports. Its alarming conclusion was all but invalidated, as The Daily Caller's Michael Bastasch reported.

Why is it that ALL of the errors in these models and studies reinforce the claims of the AGW doomsday evangelists?  Real mistakes would cut both ways -- probability demands that some of the errors would undermine the case for AGW, but this never happens.  We can only conclude that these are not 'mistakes' at all.

2. The climate is not cooperating -- again.  This fall has had the earliest recorded snowfall EVER in several parts of the country.   New York and Houston are getting snow while Colorado ski resorts are open early with 4 feet of snow dropping over the early November weekend.    This does not appear to be just weather. The past two years have seen a record drop in global temperatures.  If the trend for the past two years continues for 5 more months, all the warming recorded since 1980 will have been erased.  This does not align with any of the models for Climate Change. 

When will the Cult of Global Warming accept that their models are wrong and that they have wildly missed the mark for real science?  If the media were even close to fair on this topic, this would be then end. 

But the media is biased.  And so the cult will continue to chant their insipid slogans while attempting to take over the global economy and destroy civilization.

A Short Story...

I voted!

Shocker! It’s another race hoax!

Recent reports that someone had placed an offensive note on the apartment door at Kansas State University produced the usual histrionics and pearl clutching about how Trump has inspired racists to start being more active and vocal.

After a brief investigation, police have determined that the perpetrator was… 

wait for it…

the ‘victim’ himself.   He wrote the sign and taped it to his own door.

Of course, the initial report reached millions, and the retraction reached a few hundred people.

Virtually every race based incident over the past ten years has been a hoax.  Time and time again, police investigations have revealed that the entire incident was a hoax.  Or, in some cases, an innocent piece of trash that caused a panic. 

The problem is that the media reports, and people remember, the initial report of the incident.  Very few people ever see the retraction.  This drumbeat of false race incidents creates a false impression that America is a hot bed of racial hatred, when the opposite is true. 

Democrats push Gun Control? Don’t believe it…

The Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 8 years, and they have announced a few priorities:

• Investigate Trump
• Impeach Trump
• Gun Control

This entire agenda is disingenuous crap.  

Let’s look at the Gun Control agenda as an example.

A number of leading Democrats are insisting that Gun Control will be at the top of their agenda in the new Congress.  According the the Wall Street Journal,  'Democrats say they will pass the most aggressive gun-control legislation in decades when they become the House majority in January, plans they renewed this week in the aftermath of a mass killing in a California bar.'

There are a few problems with this ambitious agenda, not the least of which is that they have no intention of actually doing anything.

Trump is President and the Republicans control the Senate.   No anti-gun legislation stands a chance of being passed by the Senate and Trump.  Democratic caterwauling about guns is pure grandstanding.

Remember, when the Obama-era Democrats controlled both Houses and the Presidency with filibuster-proof majorities, they did not pass a single gun control law.   Not one. 

Democrats are fundamentally un-serious about gun control.  When they had the chance to pass laws, they did nothing.  They only make noise about gun control when they are not a risk of actually having to vote on legislation.

They think that they can use gun control as a club to wield against Republicans for the next two years.   They have no intention of actually making law. 

How Trump Wins in the Next 30 Days

President Trump has an opportunity to win it all in the next 30 days.  All he has to do is do the following steps:

Illegal Immigrant Accused of the Murder of Mollie Tibbets

• Call a joint session of Congress to deliver a major announcement.  Have all of the White House staff immediately and desperately deny that the President is resigning.   End all Twitter communication and do not appear in public for the week leading up to the event.  This will, of course, fuel wild speculation that the President is resigning.  This will ensure 100% coverage and the largest live TV audience in history
• Come on stage and apologize for failing the American people. Explain that you have personally let the American people down.  Resignation fever will hit a peak. 
• Then discuss Mollie Tibbetts and Katie Steinle and the opioid crisis and how all of this is that result of not having a Wall.  Talk about MS13 and how Nancy Pelosi defended them with her 'divine spark' defense.   Talk about serial illegal criminals and how Chuck Shumer and Kamala Harris believe in sanctuary cities. 
• Explain that you have let the American people down by not building the Wall.  But now you are going to make things right.  You are going to deport illegal aliens and build the wall to prevent them and others from coming back. 
• Then immediately have Congress called into session on live TV, with an immediate up or down vote on the funding the Wall. 

This will make it clear to all Americans where Democrats stand on America and illegal immigration. 

Call it Mollie's Wall.

Make Democrats show where their loyalties really lie.  

New York Times Opines on 'Legal Rules'

The 'legal rules' that the New York Times are complaining about is the law Congress passed in 1952 giving the President complete control over who enters the country.  So this headline actually should read, "The Supreme Court upheld the plain meaning of the law". 

This is why people no longer trust the media -- they are either lying outright, or twisting words beyond recognition. 

IQ, the new gold standard

Hotel California, ICE Style

No Direct Flights to Wisconsin....?

Nancy Pelosi and a thousand points of MS-13

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously defended MS-13 gang members against charges that they are 'animals' by noting the "spark of divinity" in them.   Well, not quite 'famously'.  You have to scroll down through several pages of Google search to find a MSM outlet that mentioned the quote, and even then you have to go all the way to the bottom paragraph of the story to find it mentioned.  

Then this happened...

Gun Twitter -- the gift that keeps on giving

Captcha is Savage

Hillary, Chris Stevens wants to talk to you about defending diplomats...

Follow me on Twitter

I have been venting most of my frustration with Lefties and other assorted imbeciles on Twitter.  Follow me at @PeterM878

Gender Insanity is Insane

We have been subjected to an ever changing list of genders over the past few years. 

No longer are we simply male or female.  We now have an expansive list of genders at which we can marvel.  Containing neither Male nor Female, it purports to be the complete list of genders. 

Disclaimer:  Written by William Larsson aka @YoongisScalp, I think this is list is serious.  I can't really tell however, since the contents of the list of genders is completely and obviously bat-shit insane it might be a joke. 

So normally, I would construct a detailed and persuasive argument for why this gender studies stuff is bananas.  But in this case, I will simply let the gender people speak for themselves. Behold!:

Adamasgender- A gender which refuses to be categorized.

Adeptogender– When your gender identity was obtained through your realization of your kinself. as in your kin realization spurred your gender realization. (note: the gender and kin type do not necessarily have to correlate with each other)

Aerogender– See evaisgender.

Aesthetgender– A gender derived from an aesthetic, also known as videgender.

Aethergender–  A gender that feels very wide, commanding, breathtaking and powerful.

Affectugender– A gender affected by mood swings.

Agender– Having no gender or a lack of gender identity

Agenderfluid– See cancegender.

Agenderflux– See librafluid.

Alexigender– Gender identity which is fluid between more than one gender, but the individual cannot tell what those genders are.

Aliusgender– A gender which is removed from common gender descriptors and guidelines.

Ambigender– A feeling of two genders simultaneously, but without fluidity/shifting. May be used synonymously in some cases with bigender.

Amaregender- A gender that changes depending on who you're in love with.

Ambonec– Identifying as both man and woman, yet neither at the same time.

Amicagender– A gender that changes depending on which friend you're with at the moment.

Amogender– See flirtgender.

Amorgender– When your gender changes whilst in the presence of an individual to whom you have developed a deep connection for. This could be a romantic attraction, platonic connection, a spiritual affinity or anything similar.

Androgyne– Feeling in between, or a combination of, man and woman (or boy and girl).

Anesigender– Physically feeling like a certain gender but feeling more comfortable identifying as another.

Angeligender– A gender found only among angels, that is hard to describe to non-angels. For godkin and angelkin only.

Angenital–  A desire to be without primary sexual characteristics, without necessarily being genderless.

Anogender– A gender which fades in and out, but always comes back feeling the same.

Anongender– A gender that is unknown to both yourself and others.

Antegender– A protean gender which has the potential to be anything, but is formless and motionless, and, therefore, does not manifest as any particular gender.

Antigender– A gender which can only be described as the opposite of another gender, eg. an antiboy being the opposite of a boy. Also known as ungender.

Anxiegender– A gender affected by anxiety.

Anvisgender– See apagender.

Apagender– A feeling of apathy toward one's gender that causes one to have no desire to look further into it. Also known as lethargender, inersgender and anvisgender.

Apconsugender– A gender in which you know what it isn't, but not what it is, sort of like the gender is hiding itself from you.

Apogender– A subset of agender in which you feel not only genderless, but entirely removed from the concept of gender.

Apollogender– When you have around 9 (can be anywhere from 6 to 10) different distinct feelings of gender that have combined into one big gender identity.

Aporagender– A gender separate from man/boy, woman/girl, and anything in between while still having a gendered feeling.

Aptugender– A gender which feels fitted and secured.

Aquarigender– A gender which is fluid between infinite feelings. Sometimes, these feelings may be close to an existing term, and sometimes they are indescribable or abstract. Also known as genderflow.

Archaigender– A gender that is ancient/old and big, and can either only be described with those words, or is correlated to them.

Arifluid– See arigender.

Arigender– Switching between nonbinary genders while feeling particularly associated with one feeling. Also known as arifluid.

Arithmagender– A numerical gender. it can range from any number/s, positive, negative, decimals, fractions, etc.

Argogender– A subset of genderfluid wherein the changes between one's separate genders or the parts of one's gender happen gradually, or a gender that is defined by its slowness.

Astergender– A gender that feels bright and celestial.

Astralgender– A gender that feels connected to space.

Atmosgender–  Having a gender which is present, but unable to be grasped or firmly defined.

Autigender- A gender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic.

Autogender– A gender experience that feels deeply personal to one's self.

Axigender– When a person experiences two genders that sit on opposite ends of an axis, one being agender and the other being any other gender; these genders are experienced one at a time with no overlapping and with very short transition time

These are just the A's.  Yes.  There are 26 more letters of this nonsense. 

A quick read of this list exposes this gender nonsense as the insane ravings of the demented. 

Here are a few of my favorites from later in this alphabet soup of insanity:

Canisgender– A small, doglike gender

Circgender– A gender that feels so magical and grand as to be indescribable.

Ekragender– A gender one has blown up into a million pieces or destroyed via detonation. Also describes those who wish they could do so.

Glassgender– A gender that is very sensitive and fragile.
Jupitergender– A gender that is so large and present, one is not quite sure what it is because it's too big to see clearly, but it is definitely there and one knows that they're definitely not cis

The Jupitergender refers to cis gender, which is the state of identifying with your biological sex.  A gender which is notably absent from the 'complete list of genders'. 

This nonsense is taken seriously by far too many people.  It is now becoming a crime in some states and cities to use the wrong pronoun when addressing someone, ie, misgendering someone.  

Given the completely over the top craziness of the genderfluid crowd, it should be a blast guessing which pronoun sends you to jail and which one makes you an ally.  

Rap Music is Cultural Poison

Music is an important repository of culture.  It is a window into the soul of a culture, and a way to understand the values and priorities of that people.  Music can illustrate what is perceived to be good and evil, what is beautiful and ugly, and what behaviors are admirable and deplored. 

Hip Hop, or Rap, or whatever the music of the Urban landscape is called these days, reflects and transmits the urban culture across people, places, and time. The music of this sub-culture is very popular, and spreading across our national culture at a rapid pace.   Rap stars are cultural icons and rap is leaking into more mainstream culture.  This makes it worth reviewing.

Rap is rampant with misogyny, drugs, violence, and anti-social values.   The lyrics and the videos depict a hyper-violent world in which money is earned through drug dealing, prostitution and gang activity.  Women are objects to be used, and the police are enemies to be fear, or worse, demons to be exorcised. 

Let’s take a look at a popular rap song from 2016 and compare it to another song from a different genre that is also popular among another sub-culture, the rural poor.  Country music is the equivalent of rap for the rural poor, and it is enlightening to look at some popular songs to understand the message and the values that are reflected.

The second most popular Rap song of 2016 was Bad and Boujee.  The full lyrics are here, and the song begins:

Smokin' on cookie in the hotbox (cookie)
Fuckin' on your bitch she a thot, thot, thot (thot)
Cookin' up dope in the crockpot (pot)
We came from nothin' to somethin' nigga (hey)
I don't trust nobody grip the trigger (nobody)
Call up the gang, and they come and get you (gang)
Cry me a river, give you a tissue (hey)
My bitch is bad and boujee (bad)
Cookin' up dope with a Uzi (blaow)
My niggas is savage, ruthless (savage)
We got 30's and 100 rounds too (grrah)
My bitch is bad and boujee (bad)
Cookin' up dope with a Uzi (dope)
My niggas is savage, ruthless (hey)
We got 30's and 100 rounds too (glah)
  

The song obviously promotes a culture of violence and misogyny, with explicit references to gangs, guns, illegal drugs, and cheap sex.

If we compare this to a country song of similar popularity and time frame, we can examine Chris Jason's  Buy me a Boat.  Here we find lyrics like:

I ain’t rich, but I damn sure wanna be
Working like a dog all day, ain’t working for me
I wish I had a rich uncle that’d kick the bucket
And that I was sitting on a pile like Warren Buffett
I know everybody says
Money can’t buy happiness

But it could buy me a boat, it could buy me a truck to pull it
It could buy me a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets
Yeah, and I know what they say,
Money can’t buy everything
Well, maybe so,
But it could buy me a boat

They call me redneck, white trash and blue collar
But I could change all that if I had a couple million dollars
I keep hearing that money is the root of all evil
And you can’t fit a camel through the eye of a needle
I’m sure that’s probably true,
But it still sounds pretty cool

The transmitted values mention hard work, bible references,  beer (a legal drug), and recreational fishing.

If we compare and contrast the two cultural messages, it is not hard to see which one will have better outcomes. One glorifies violence, sex, and drugs.  The other talks about hard work, the bible, and fishing. 

Does the music create or reflect the culture?  I think it is a little of both, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.   The cultural values of Urban music are poison.   The cultural values that Rap conveys are toxic and destructive to everything they touch.  

Hunting 'Accident' gets a Manslaughter Charge

Killed by a 'Hunter' while walking her dog

A hunter recently shot and killed a neighbor and it has made national news.  The media, of course, hype anti-hunting stories and the deaths of pretty women, and this story is no exception.

That hunter has been charged with manslaughter.

And he richly deserves it. 

This 'hunter' allegedly shot at the woman as she was walking her dog behind his home.  He fired the fatal shot after mistaking her for a deer.  He fired the shot after dark, after the end of legal hunting hours. 

This is gross negligence and the 'hunter' deserves prison time. 

Aside from the fact that he was hunting illegally, he clearly could not identify his target.  One of the most basic rules of both shooting and hunting is to know what you are shooting at.  Firing blindly in the dark at something moving in the woods is sheer stupidity.

This sort of thing makes hunters look bad. This makes gun owners look bad.

I think he should have the book thrown at him.  Felony manslaughter with prison time, lifetime loss of hunting privileges, and be stripped of his right to keep and bear arms.

There is no excuse for this stupidity. 

 

Gun Confiscation – the True Cost

The Boston Globe recently discussed gun confiscation as the goal of all gun control advocates. 

Unlike most gun buy-back or gun control programs, they openly discuss what it would take to confiscate guns from Americans.

As we discussed here several years ago, the cost of an attempted gun buy back would be horrific, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead, if not outright civil war. 

There are millions of gun owners that possess guns that would presumably be confiscated under such a scheme. 

760,000 Police Raids will end badly for the US

There is no way to know the exact numbers involved here, but we can make some conservative estimates that will help us understand the magnitude of what they are proposing. 

Some 75 million Americans own guns, with an average of 8 guns per household.

It is impossible to know with certainty what percentage of those gun owners would comply with a gun confiscation order. 

The key question would be what percentage of non-compliant gun owners would resist with gunfire when the police showed up to confiscate their guns. 

For the sake of being extremely conservative, let’s assume that 99% of gun owners will turn in all their guns.  And of the remaining 1% of resisters, or 760,000 people, 99% of them are just posers that won’t resist when the midnight knock on the door comes.   That leaves 7,600 gun crazies that will start shooting when the cops show up.  That is almost 18 shoot outs in each congressional district, and 150 in each state. 

7,600 shootouts between cops and armed, prepared fanatics.  The problem is that the cops don’t know for sure which gun owners will shoot back.

They will have to knock on 760,000 doors and will got shot at randomly 7,600 times.  (And these are extremely conservative estimates!)

The police will not tolerate this situation.  They will immediately transition to heavy handed raid tactics for all confiscation encounters, not just where they meet active resistance. 

Imagine hundreds of thousands of raids, each with a SWAT team, breaching explosives, and more. 

The carnage would be incredible.  It would require 20 raids per day in each state, or over 1,000 per day for 2 years in order to confiscate guns from a 99% compliant population. 

The police don’t have the manpower.  The public will never stand for it open warfare against the people.   The violence will escalate until there is open civil war. 

This idea is utter madness that will kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, if not millions.

And yet is openly endorsed by a major newspaper...   Let that sink in for a moment. 

The Gun Control Freaks Worst Nightmare

The recent mass shooting in Texas is turning out to be the worst case scenario for the anti-gun fanatics.

Police Tagging Bodies in a Gun Free Zone

Every single talking point of the anti gun Left is destroyed in a single incident.

The typical anti gun talking points are:

• There is no valid reason to own an assault weapon
• We need more laws to ban dangerous people from owning guns
• The NRA has blood on its hands
• The police will protect you
• Gun free zones prevent violence

It turns out that none of these points are true, and the evidence in all wrapped up in a single incident.

The shooter was a prohibited possessor using an assault rifle and wearing body armor while murdering people in a gun free zone.   He was then engaged by an NRA member using an AR-15 style rifle that was able to penetrate the body armor of the shooter, effectively ending the shooting rampage. The police arrived at the scene well after the shooting and subsequent car chase was over.


There is no valid reason to own an assault weapon -- the NRA member was roused from a nap and ran barefoot to the church to engage the shooter who was wearing body armor.  If the good guy with a gun was armed with only a pistol or single shot rifle the outcome would have been very different. This is also a good argument against 'safe storage' laws that would have required the good Samaritan to have stored his gun broken down or otherwise less accessible.  The shooter murdered a number of people in the time it took him to retrieve his gun from his gun safe and load it.  Making that process slower would only cost lives. 

We need more laws to ban dangerous people from owning guns -- the shooter was already legally barred from purchasing or possessing guns.  The US government failed to follow the law and update the appropriate databases that would have prevented the sale of the weapon.  You can't make things illegal-er.  The current laws need to be enforced before we start calling for new laws.

The NRA has blood on its hands -- the NRA is blameless in this shooting.  The good guy with a gun was not only an NRA member, but also an NRA certified instructor.  The NRA saved lives. This talking point is baseless slander.  

The police will protect you -- the entire incident, including a prolonged car chase, was over before the police arrived.  The police do great work, and I am confident that they would have eventually brought the shooter to justice.  But the casualties would have been far higher if the shooter had 10 minutes of additional time to slaughter his helpless victims.

Gun free zones prevent violence -- gun free zones only guarantee that the victims will be unarmed as they are murdered.  In fact, many gun control zealots call for gun free zones around churches and schools that extend up to 1,000 feet.  Such a zone would have barred the good guy with a gun neighbor from owning a gun close enough to have saved the day.   Gun free zones are workplace safety measures for mass murderers. 

Gun control does not work.   Gun control laws are counter productive and cost lives. 

All of the gun control talking points are completely demolished by this one incident.

Unfortunately, this won't prevent the Lefty morons from parroting the usual bromides after the next shooting.

The Feminist war on Reality

Feminist Professors are questioning the validity of math and science because these disciplines were created largely by white males.   

Rochelle Gutierrez  is a professor at University of Illinois specializing in “equity issues in mathematics education.” Her focus is on “paying particular attention to how race, class, and language affect teaching and learning,” which basically means that she sees “white privilege” in every facet of education. In the case of math, Gutierrez thinks that because minorities are supposedly deficient in the subject compared to “whites,” the subject is flawed and in need of an overhaul.

Sara Giordano, a feminist professor at the University of California-Davis has vowed to “challenge the authority of Science” by “rewriting knowledge” through a feminist lens. She argues that "traditional science" relies on "a colonial and racialized form of power," and must be replaced with an "anti-science, antiracist, feminist approach to knowledge production.

However, Giordano is hopeful that feminists can work towards creating new approaches that don’t conflate science with truth.

“We need to disrupt the epistemic authority of Science…[and] the assumption that science = truth,” Giordano writes, further arguing that this can be done by implementing a “feminist science practice that explicitly unsticks Science from Truth.”

'Unsticks science from Truth'?  'Knowledge production must be approached with anti-science'?? How are these statements not grounds for immediate removal from the University faculty?

You can get a sense of the motivation here when you read the tweets pictured above.  Feminists claim that rape culture exists.  When rational people demand proof to support this claim, the Feminists attack the idea that evidence is needed.  This is fundamentally irrational and evidence that there is not proof of rape culture.

This is more than a war on science, this is a war on reality itself.  The Left is engaged in a full retreat from reality and is in the process of constructing its own bubble where facts and logic do not exist.

There is a very simple reason for this:  Marxism and critical race theory are not supported by the facts.   None of their favorite theories are aligned with the real world or work when tried.  And when reality and theory conflict, naturally, it is reality that must be modified. 

This is truly amazing.  The denial of reality in the service of dogma. 

When your theory is not supported by the evidence, you are supposed to modify the theory.  Instead, they are seeking to keep the theory and throw out the idea of science itself.

The Left is losing the battle of facts.  They have lost the battle of logic.  This is a clear example that the Left understands that the facts are not on their side.

It's Not a Sprint, and other Lessons about Life...

A recent video entitled Life of Privilege Explained in a $100 Race tries to explain how 'privilege' gives people unearned advantages in life.   The premise is that life is a sprint for money and that there are many unearned privileges that give you an unfair advantage in life.

Life Privilege explained as a footrace

The narrator calls this race model 'a picture of life'.

This analogy is flawed and incredibly damaging to those who believe in it and the underlying philosophy.  Not to mention the narrator is incredibly racist when he claims that "some of these black dudes will smoke all of you" in a race.

The overt racism aside, the underlying premise is completely flawed.  I don't claim to fully understand the meaning of life, but it certainly not best represented as a foot race for money.  From a flawed premise and model, you cannot draw valid conclusions.  But let's examine what happens when you use this flawed model to instruct your world view.

The things that are listed in the video as 'unfair privilege' are:

• Both parents are still married
• Grew up with a father figure in the home
• Access to a private education 
• Access to a free tutor (what ever the heck that means)
• Never had to worry about your cell phone being shut off
• Never had to help mom or dad with the bills
• Didn't have to pay for your education
• Didn't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from 

So basically this amounts to two categories:  1.) Is your family intact, and 2.) did you have money.  Essentially, it boils down to: did your parents make good life decisions?  Did your parents do the things required to give you a better life?

Parents who defer childbirth until after they get married, get a full time job, and get a high school education are statistically guaranteed to be above the poverty line.  Children of two parent families have much better life outcomes, as has been pointed out repeatedly by the likes of Robert Bork and Ann Coulter.

So, yes, if your parents make good decisions about who to marry and how to manage money, you will have a greater chance of success in life.  So what?

Isn't that the entire point of raising children? Isn't that the American dream?  In fact, making the world a better place for our children is the basis of civilization itself.  If we can't improve conditions for our children because it is somehow unfair to other children, then how is progress to be made?  Are we supposed to tear up the roads every generation to ensure that some children don't walk on dirt roads while others ride the bus? 

Beyond the inherent stupidity of the idea that we cannot improve life for our children by making good decisions, the model that life is a sprint is incredibly damaging to the least privileged in our society.

When you tell people the race is rigged against them, they give up entirely.  Watch what happens a the end of the video.  Many of the people who are standing at the start line never even move.  They make no attempt to succeed at life at all.

Life is not a sprint.  If you insist on using life-is-a-race model, it is more like an inter-generational relay race.  Each generation advances their position, or they fall back in the race.  Just because you are way behind the others on the current leg of the race doesn't mean you can’t succeed over the inter-generational long run.

The video also offers no prescription for how to address this alleged problem.  The conclusion the video seems to reach is that people should feel guilty for having privilege and hand over some of their hard-earned money to someone else. 

This video is pure evil.  It promotes a flawed view of the meaning of life that damages everyone who subscribes to it.  The video also exposes the racist feelings of the Left when they assume that black dudes can run.   It attempts to create guilt in people with privilege without a prescription for change, 

And finally, if you did change the world so that the good decisions of parents had no effect on outcomes for their children, you tear down the very foundations of civilization.  This is evil.

Or maybe that is the entire point.