A TX Reader Finds Wisdom In Shakespeare On "Hate Facts"

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02/18/09 - A CT Soccer Mom Reader Confronts Daily News Columnist Prida

From: Scott Wilson (email him)

Re: "Hate Stats" by Steve Sailer

Can facts be moral or immoral?

If I say over a million children in the United States are sexually assaulted each year, isn't that fact immoral? No. It is immoral that it occurs but its existence as a fact cannot be a question of morality.  That's why if I tell you a statistic like the one above, you would not respond, "No that can't be right because it would be awful if true! Shame on you for saying such a thing!"

But a "hate fact" is special.  If I say 90 percent of all interracial crime in the U.S. is black-on-white, a person hears this statistic differently.  In their minds the truth of this assertion is of secondary importance.

The most important issue instantly becomes, why are you saying this? Maybe you are saying this because in some way you want it to be true. Perhaps you are a racist.

The perceived ethical culpability of racism is so strong that even if one were to express, upfront, the regrettable nature of this fact's existence (i.e. "isn't it awful that 90 percent of all interracial crime in the US is black-on-white") little is changed. After all, the hearer thinks, might not a racist (horrible as they are) feign concern over a statistic in which they secretly revel?

And even if the statistic were true, aren't we told that it is the pervasive character of bigotry that is ultimately responsible for black-on-white crime? Thus, in repeating a "hate fact" a person sets himself up as a contributor to the racism which causes blacks to violently react against whites in the first place.

So what's the solution? In Henry IV, Part II, Shakespeare notes, "Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news / Hath but a losing office". And I think this offers us a clue. If an unwelcome fact is heard enough times from various sources, the hearers (all but the most pathologically committed) will begin to sense its reality. To this end, the crumbling of the American media monolith and the rise of Internet-based news and talk radio is all to the good.

It is my hope and belief that sources like VDARE.COM are becoming voices in a chorus that will ultimately dispel such insulated modes of thought.

The author lives near Dallas, Texas. He is a former assistant editor of American Renaissance and the author of the dystopian novel, Utopia X.