Category: Glenn Reynolds

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Glenn Reynolds thinks single White women are neurotic and thus creating all of our problems because they vote Democratic. Because only crazy people would vote Democratic. The sane people here are married men and women and single men mostly because they vote Republican. This is about all I can get from this muddled bit of writing.

Reynolds starts by talking about how fearful people became about COVID. In their panic, they opted mindlessly to support restrictions in order to stem the infection. This is apparently a bad thing. Reynolds believes that people should be more willing to take risks and to resist following instructions given by medical professionals. I don’t know about you but when a highly infectious deadly disease starts killing people, my first inclination is to listen to medical experts. What were we supposed to do? Particularly at the beginning when we knew so little and people began dying.

The medical establishment recommended the most extreme measures because they didn’t know how dangerous the disease was. It was new for Christ’s sake. Nobody knew. Now that we know more about COVID, we can discuss the lessons of COVID and how best to handle the next infectious disease. I am sure that we can do things differently and better. Discuss away. But to elude that the medical establishment allied with the Federal Government used COVID to install world government and just make life unpleasant for everybody because that’s what the evil Dr. Fauci and the Commies want, is simply unbelievable.

Any way, it shouldn’t be surprising that the medical establishment opts for the most restrictive options available because the best way to stay healthy is to follow their every word. Has Reynolds never been to a doctor. Stop smoking. Stop drinking so much. Stop eating so much. Drink more water, exercise more, take this pill for that. I don’t want to hear those things and I certainly don’t want to do those things but my doctor needs to tell me those restrictions and I need to hear them. The one thing I am confident about is that if I did follow his instructions to the T, I would have a healthier life. Doctors don’t want to see anyone die or get sick if they can convince people to take better care of themselves. It is in their job description.

Now, an economist might think differently about the same situation. She might think protecting people from an infectious disease is just one aspect to consider. The doctor is focused on keeping the most people possible healthy and alive. The economist, on the other hand, is focused on keeping a largely healthy population participating in the economy while keeping a deadly infectious disease from killing too many people. A death toll is more acceptable to the economist where it is failure to the doctor. Looking at a large population, the economist will determine an acceptable death rate that will protect most people while also keeping the economy going. This is why a lot of experts need to sit down and figure out the best way forward. What is most important — keeping the death rate as low as possible or keeping the economy humming along during a medical crisis? Again, I am betting the medical group will always opt for what ever path causes the least amount of deaths.

After determining that Americans just aren’t willing to take risks anymore, Reynolds careens wildly to find out who is responsible for all this caution — liberal white women. Not only are they liberal, they are also neurotic. Dear Lord, that explains everything. Except it doesn’t. Reynolds refers to a survey of people who have been called neurotic by another person. I am not least surprised that Liberal White women top the list. If you also asked the question who is most likely to take advantage of psychiatric care, guess who you would find on the top of the list — women who live in large urban areas. Men and people who live in rural areas are less likely to seek psychiatric help. Hmm, could that affect the number of people who have been called neurotic. Gee I don’t know. Perhaps Reynolds could redo this survey with a question like, “has the devil ever tempted you into sin.” I am certain he would receive some startling new information regarding his Republican friends.

Finally, I am not sure what Reynolds wants to do about it. He definitely thinks the world would be better if these silly neurotic White liberal women would just stop voting Democratic. But how? He suggest nothing to address their fears which drives them to vote Democratic. Deep down, I think he wants them to settle down with a nice White Republican male and, after experiencing the unparalleled sexual prowess of such a manly man, they will meekly follow his lead and vote Republican. Good luck with that.

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I keep up with Conservative thinking just to make sure I know what exactly is going on in their fevered minds. On the other hand, keeping up didn’t mean I wanted to spend too much time exploring their murky depths. I decided to pick one website and to read that website religiously. I can’t recall exactly why but I choose Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit site. I wasn’t disappointed. Reynolds is easy to read and links to a wide variety of Conservative and Libertarians writers that range from the slightly unbalanced to the completely wacko. He was clearly connected to Conservative and Libertarian thinking so I felt a wise choice in my pulse taking endeavor.

Instapundit also serves as an alternate to a cup of coffee in the morning. Every day Reynolds and company serve up some tidbit that will spark my rage. Yesterday I was jolted awake when I read Reynolds discussion with David Bernstein regarding race classification. Bernstein believes that the present racial classifications are dated, arbitrary and eventually going to be meaningless with the increasing popularity of intermarriage between the races. He claims that in the not so distant future 80% of all Americans will have some minority status that will qualify them for minority business enterprise designation. Because of this racial mixing, racial classifications will cease to have any meaning, much less any use.

To a point, I agree. What percentage of racial makeup makes someone black? Does one grandparent make one Black or must someone have four grandparents one Black? What if you have significant black heritage but your pigmentation is white — can you still be called black? If you have to wade through a your gene pool to determine your race, what is the point of racial classification?

The future sure sounds great. The problem is we aren’t quite there yet. People still use racial classifications because people still see race. I googled Black incarceration statistics and quickly found an example. Eugene Volokh wrote in Reason about the difference in incarceration rates between Blacks and Whites. Volokh says Blacks commit more crimes than Whites which explains why they are jailed more than whites. Well, then, how is Volokh defining race? Is it anyone with any black heritage? Is it one, two, three or four grandparents? Or is it someone who has black pigmentation? Or is the person self-reporting? You can’t say racial classifications are meaningless when people still use them when discussing issues like crime and poverty because Racial classification definitely mean something to Volokh. More importantly, his audience understands what he means when he uses racial classifications. Are Reynolds and Bernstein suggesting eliminating racial classifications when discussing crime and poverty? Would elimination of these classifications help us to understand the best way to address these issues?

The problem here is that, while making progress, Americans still see racial differences. Maybe 50 years from now Black and White won’t mean anything. Right now they have a powerful meaning. It isn’t as if Blacks created the distinctions. Whites did. First to distinguish slave from master and then to know when to practice discrimination. To suddenly say these are now meaningless lets White history off the hook. Discrimination is illegal now so racial classifications no longer have a purpose. To White conservatives maybe, but not so for Blacks.

Racism didn’t end with the passage of Civil Rights Legislation in 1960’s although many Conservatives like to think it did. It still lingers on and has an effect of Black people’s lives now. Slavery happened. Discrimination happened. Lynchings happened. Blacks, the largest minority group for the most of American history, suffered horribly . In didn’t happen in quite the same way to the Irish or to the Italians or to the Japanese or to the Pakistanis. These other groups undoubtedly experienced difficulties but they don’t compare to the crucible that Blacks endured. So until people stop seeing race, how do you measure racial discrimination? People will need to see that things are getting better with data, how would you prove your point?