tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post427851094004160314..comments2024-02-06T16:17:25.826+00:00Comments on THE GRØNMARK BLOG: Why do politicians always sound so stupid when discussing Race?Scott Gronmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-20832784529682355062011-10-18T23:14:53.032+01:002011-10-18T23:14:53.032+01:00There are 176,000 Pakistanis in Yorkshire and the ...There are 176,000 Pakistanis in Yorkshire and the Humber, 44,000 in the East Midlands and 183,000 in the West Midlands. Something under 50 of them have been found guilty of grooming/pimping/rape. That’s 0.0124% of them. 99.9876% of them aren’t guilty.<br /><br />So how does the Inspector’s briefing go?<br />-- Detective Sergeant, you’re not getting anywhere with this rape investigation, I’ve called in the profilers and they’ve come up with an idea – pull in the Pakistanis, all 403,000 of them, and bingo!<br />-- OK Chief, I’ll get onto it right away.<br /><br />A diagnosis should imply a prescription, a course of action. Get the parents involved. And the schools. And the local newspaper. Distribute an educational video, with an information pack. Fine. They all make sense. They all help. But what course of action is implied by saying that the perpetrators can be identified by their race? Mass deportation, perhaps. Otherwise, none. It’s a useless diagnosis. It doesn’t help the police or anyone else. As Scott says, it’s a sign of stupidity.<br /><br />If medical researchers used statistics the way the Times article does, and Gilligan’s Telegraph article, we’d all be dead. It’s a disgrace. A disgrace to our education system. Have these people never studied the problems of induction? Do they know nothing about black swans?<br /><br />The concept of race comes into its own in the hands of someone like Roger Scruton, writing about England, informed by having read just about every book in the world and with a brain considerably bigger than the planet. It’s probably best left out of crime reporting, where we’re looking at individual motivation.<br /><br />Individual motivation. The subject of all the best literature in the world. Hugely complex. Not least when it comes to understanding the criminal mind. Acknowledged by all right-thinking people. Only Marxists believe that there is no such thing as individuality, that people are nothing more than ciphers, acting out their part, helpless cogs in the wheels of the laws of history. (George Orwell, whose essays I am reading at the moment, argues that literature is impossible in a totalitarian state.)<br /><br />Racism certainly exists. But it has little or no explanatory value in the case of these sick-making crimes. The perpetrators aren’t helpless victims of the genes and the culture of their race. They are criminals and perverts and despicable failures. Appeal to the public for help on those grounds, not on racist grounds, which is stupid and incomprehensible and creates a “damaging taboo”, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Edwards is right, talk about it, release the educational video and don’t suppress it, get all the local newspapers involved and the schools and the parents, and the police will then be helped. Not just the police. More to the point, the children, too.<br /><br />----------<br /><br />1. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article2884564.ece<br /><br />2. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article2883087.ece<br /><br />3. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/normantebbit/100052695/willie-whitelaw-was-right-to-protect-fr-james-chesney-the-ira-priest-exposing-him-would-have-led-to-civil-war/<br />Saturday, January 22, 2011 - 05:03 PMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-52439602884666013332011-10-18T23:14:35.057+01:002011-10-18T23:14:35.057+01:0017 vile crimes were committed between 1997 and 201...17 vile crimes were committed between 1997 and 2010 in Northern England and the Midlands. Something needed to be done. Something was done. 56 people have been found guilty.<br /><br />The Times have another ghastly story today [1], Men ‘used girls in exchange for drinks and mobile phone credit’. Something needed to be done. Something was done. Eight men appeared in court yesterday.<br /><br />That’s detection work. What about prevention?<br /><br />Andrew Gilligan reports successful work done since 2006 by parents, schools and the Lancashire Telegraph, Blackburn’s local paper.<br /><br />The Times clearly think that not enough is being done -- Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs, they say, and they quote a policeman as follows:<br /><br />QUOTE<br />A senior West Mercia detective has now called for an end to the “damaging taboo” surrounding gang-led on-street grooming, which he blames on a fear among police and child protection workers of being branded racist. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Edwards said: “These girls are being passed around and used as meat. To stop this type of crime you need to start talking about it, but everyone’s been too scared to address the ethnicity factor. No one wants to stand up and say that Pakistani guys in some parts of the country are recruiting young white girls and passing them around their relatives for sex, but we need to stop being worried about the racial complication.” <br />UNQUOTE<br /><br />“Everyone’s been too scared to address the ethnicity factor”? Not everyone. The Lancashire Telegraph haven’t been too scared. But the senior West Mercia detective is probably not wrong, too many people have been too scared. The Times had a report yesterday [2] about a video to be shown in schools to warn children about grooming, Anger as educational film on grooming withheld. It was ready to be shown to children in July 2008. It still hasn’t been.<br /><br />That seems outrageous. Justice is meant to be blind. She is meant to wield her sword without fear. Either the law is going to be upheld or it isn’t. No-one has the right to decide that it is better for a few dozen more children to be raped than to risk local unrest.<br /><br />Or do they? Norman Tebbit [3] seems to think that Willie Whitelaw was right to keep quiet about Fr James Chesney, the priest and IRA member who planned the Claudy bombing in 1972.<br /><br />I don’t know but I’m pretty sure that Tebbit and Whitelaw are wrong and so are the people who have suppressed this video.<br /><br />The Times identify 56 people of whom 53 are Asian, 50 are Muslim and a majority are Pakistani. That’s one species (people), one continent (Asia), one religion (Islam) and one country (Pakistan). Four categories. Soon joined by a fifth – racism.<br /><br />So what is meant by “racism” in this case? My answer – nothing. No-one reading that Times article is told what is meant by “racism”. So that, when Scott says “I simply don’t understand what the objection to identifying a certain racial group as being prone to a certain type of crime is”, the response must be no, of course he doesn’t understand, neither do I, it doesn’t mean anything.<br /><br />When you get a word behaving in this peculiar way, being used emphatically by a lot of people who are sure they disagree with each other but can’t say why, you need a criterion, a way to decide whether a sentence including the word is true or false. And Scott provides a criterion – “it should help the police”.<br /><br />If attributing these crimes of grooming, pimping and gang rape to race helps the police, then the attribution has some meaning. It doesn’t help the police. So it doesn’t have any meaning.<br /><br />How could it help? Three of the 56 guilty men aren’t Asian, Muslim or Pakistani. In London, according to the Times article, this crime is more Caribbean than Asian/Muslim/Pakistani. In Holland, it’s predominantly Moroccan. These are different races, as the term is normally understood, and so the crime can’t be pinned on race.<br /><br />(TO BE CONTINUED...)DMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-69660831525004357932011-10-18T23:13:28.609+01:002011-10-18T23:13:28.609+01:00Scott, I want to come back to you on these matters...Scott, I want to come back to you on these matters -- I've started so I'll finish -- but I'm still collecting my thoughts, and doing a few other things, so there may be days between posts, instead of the usual hours.<br />Monday, January 17, 2011 - 11:38 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-49044326289584817322011-10-18T23:12:28.327+01:002011-10-18T23:12:28.327+01:00And, yes, DM, I think the subject of race does lea...And, yes, DM, I think the subject of race does lead people - on both sides - to become utterly irrational the instant it arises. It's just that, given the laws on what people can and can't say these days, and the Liberal Left’s control of broadcasting, most of the time we’re only hearing from people who are absolutely determined to deny that race is ever a factor in anything – except as a guarantor of victimhood status. That’s why what Straw said – which struck me as pretty unexceptional - caused such outrage on the left, I suspect. <br /><br />I simply don’t understand what the objection to identifying a certain racial group as being prone to a certain type of crime is – it should help the police for a start (and, by God, do they need it!). White males are massively “overrepresented” when it comes to serial killings – an even rarer crime, as well as in burglaries (and probably underrepresented in muggings and pimping). I don’t feel I’m being picked on whenever these facts are mentioned!<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 04:48 PMScott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-59050400365208546462011-10-18T23:12:18.869+01:002011-10-18T23:12:18.869+01:00If Vaz isn’t stupid (and I agree that he has survi...If Vaz isn’t stupid (and I agree that he has survived many challenges in his time, which might suggest the contrary), then he is guilty of deliberately employing illogical arguments, or of deliberately misunderstanding the points being put to him. In which case he was being, at the very least, dishonest. (I’ve long suspected that the public’s perception of politicians’ dishonesty – before the expenses scandal – was as much to do with anger over hearing illogical arguments (possibly intuited rather than consciously identified) as it was to do with broken promises. As for raising the bar too high, I like a bit of emotiive (in the Milesian sense) rhetoric myself, but when I use an illogical argument (you’ll find plenty of examples throughout this site), it’s because I’m being thick rather than deliberately muddying waters, or because what I’m arguing for doesn’t lend itself to logical argument (the existence of a Supreme Being, for a start, Godel or no Godel). If Vaz had said, “I represent a lot of Pakistani constituents, and I think that by highlighting the facts in this way, Jack Straw is inadvertently putting them at risk of a backlash from the indigenous white population, and they voted for me to represent them and that’s what I’m doing”, I wouldn’t have a problem. I would argue that the safety of underaged white girls – no matter how gullible some of them might be – outranks the right of Vaz’s Pakistani constituents to enjoy a quiet life, and I’d argue that it would be a good thing if the Pakistani community as a whole admitted that there was a problem and started looking at ways of dealing with it – but at least we’d be having a proper dialogue. Or, if he thinks that Straw is factually incorrect, he should tell us that Pakistanis aren’t “overrepresented” when it comes to this sort of crime, and let’s argue facts. Here, the man’s just sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting “Not listening!”. The majority of political debate in the media is carried out at this level – listen to the Today programme on any morning.<br /><br />As for Ms Greer (who does sound like a worthy nominee for a WH award) have you come across “Intellectual Impostures” by Alain Sokal & Jean Bricmont, published in France in 1997, which is an hilarious attack on (mainly) French left-wing “thinkers” writing about science, or using scientific analogies, or hijacking technical terms while evidently knowing absolutely sod all about science – and all to prove that they can say what they like and never be wrong! You and the authors sound like soul-mates, as the book is crammed with potential WH Award winners.Scott Gronmarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15118026157459333174noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-77097178409035892572011-10-18T23:12:04.480+01:002011-10-18T23:12:04.480+01:00En passant, Kurt Gödel got a mention in an article...En passant, Kurt Gödel got a mention in an article by Bonnie Greer in the Guardian, 'Me and Sister Carmela', http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/19/catholic-church-sex-scandal-pope, where she claimed that Gödel's theorem proves that she can say what she likes and always be right.<br /><br />It doesn't.<br /><br />Scott will know that I believe that there should be an award, called the "Mr WH award", nothing to do with Shakespeare's sonnets, given to media folk who are paid to ply their trade and listened to attentively, despite actually being demonstrably and terminally stupid.<br /><br />I still treasure the unprecedented moment on Newsnight Review when Ian Hislop actually managed to silence Ms Greer by pointing out to her some of the failings she suffers and which her acute Gödelian mind seems somehow to have overlooked.<br /><br />I nominate Ms Greer for a WH and look to others for further nominations, with a supporting dedication where the egregious (FRM high five!) idiocy isn't entirely obvious.<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 11:58 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-45598360066954306682011-10-18T23:11:44.046+01:002011-10-18T23:11:44.046+01:00Impeccably, Scott, you start by defining your term...Impeccably, Scott, you start by defining your terms, you lay out your stall: "Here’s a question that I ask myself practically every time I hear a politician speak about racial issues: are they really as stupid as they seem? ... My measure of stupidity here is the inability to argue logically, i.e. from premises to conclusions ...".<br /><br />And I can't see anything wrong with your criticisms of, for example, Keith Vaz's responses to the Times story.<br /><br />Except that you run the risk of raising the bar impossibly high.<br /><br />We expect different degrees of strength in logical argument in different areas of discourse. The lowest level of all applies to off the cuff comments made by politicians. We don't expect too much of journalists in daily newspapers. We expect a lot more from published academic papers. Even there, it is easy to exert undue pressure and for the logical thread to snap.<br /><br />There is no escape from this problem. The hope that using formalised languages would allow us always and only to express truths that can be validated collapsed with Gödel's theorem, a day without mentioning which is wasted.<br /><br />I sincerely hope that people will accept that different levels of logical strength apply in different areas of discourse. Otherwise, I've had it. Look at the post above. One minute, I refer to "endless courses". Seven words later, I serve the last course.<br /><br />Vazza's comments really don't score that badly on the strength-of-the-logical-thread scale.<br /><br />And can we do any better?<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 11:22 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-49058094579733438432011-10-18T23:11:20.470+01:002011-10-18T23:11:20.470+01:00Picture the scene. It's 1988 (roughly) and my ...Picture the scene. It's 1988 (roughly) and my wife and I are at dinner in Wembley in a party of about 250. Tables for 10 and 12 stretched out across a restaurant the size of a football pitch, endless courses, the noise of ebullient conversation is deafening, the last course is served and the speaker gets up to give his after dinner speech.<br /><br />He speaks for about 15 minutes. He is impassioned. Drawing us in, his voice rises and breaks as he describes the evil of the Conservative party, a poisonous note of vitriol enters every time he mentions Mrs Thatcher, the failures of capitalism are lampooned and the promise is made of a new world when Labour get back into power.<br /><br />A dramatic crescendo, and he comes to the end of his speech and sits down to ... electric silence, the shocked tension was palpable, no pin would have dared to drop.<br /><br />Apart from Jane and me, just about everyone at the dinner was Indian. It was a Diwali party. They were immaculately dressed, their manners were courtly, they were amusing and confident and articulate and well-informed and worldly and powerful, they were apparently all successful financially, their children were all going to proper universities to study proper subjects, many of them were Ugandan Asians who had come to the UK with nothing 15 years before and, not to put too fine a point on it, the whole occasion was a Conservative wet dream -- the speaker had just delivered his sub-Spart Sink Estate speech to Aspiration City.<br /><br />Keith Vaz isn't stupid. Lots of other things. He has been suspended from the House at least once. But not stupid.<br /><br />And he can make mistakes.<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 02:11 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-8772050845894199122011-10-18T23:11:04.317+01:002011-10-18T23:11:04.317+01:00Scott's point is that a lot of people have sai...Scott's point is that a lot of people have said a lot of stupid things about this Times story and that that stupidity is because racism is involved. I would add that the sheer revoltingness of the crimes reported could also explain any stupidity -- brains don't work well when they're in shock.<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 01:41 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-78657370430505306362011-10-18T23:10:47.374+01:002011-10-18T23:10:47.374+01:00The facts are revolting: "In November, a cour...The facts are revolting: "In November, a court heard that when a South Yorkshire victim, aged 13, was examined by a nurse she appeared to have been raped more than 50 times".<br /><br />The Times say there have been 17 court prosecutions since 1997. Less than two a year. That's not exactly an epidemic, is it?<br /><br />56 people were found guilty in these 17 cases. That's not exactly a tidal wave of people.<br /><br />53 of them were Asian, 50 were Muslim and a majority were British Pakistani. Does that suggest that there is something especially Asian or Muslim or Pakistani about the crimes committed? No. The Times say:<br /><br />QUOTE<br />Most of the victims are white and most of the convicted offenders are of Pakistani heritage, unlike other known models of child-sex offending in Britain, including child abuse initiated by online grooming, in which the vast majority of perpetrators are white.<br />UNQUOTE<br /><br />It is suggested that many Asians/Muslims/Pakistanis have a low opinion of western culture and western women. That may be the case. It may be a view shared by the Gronmark Blog, among others, with its frequent references to Caliban. But it's not a reason to go out grooming and pimping. Mark Steyn, for example, has a low opinion of Islam, but he hasn't set up a grooming and pimping business.<br /><br />Pimps don't have a very high opinion of women. Not white pimps. Not any other pimps.<br /><br />Pimps have to recruit. It's a business. It's a business that has always included grooming.<br /><br />If the Times are surprised at the facts they have reported, it can only be because they didn't expect Asians/Muslims/Pakistanis to be involved in pimping. Which is sweet of the Times, but naïve.<br /><br />The Times need to set their story in context. They need to look at the whole country, not just a few regions. They need to provide statistics on all grooming- and prostitution-related crimes since 1997. It may be that we can then see a correlation between being Asian/Muslim/Pakistani and grooming young girls for prostitution. Without those statistics, we members of the public can't infer any such correlation.<br /><br />Jack Straw's case is different. He's been Home Secretary and Justice Minister. He's been a Bradford MP for 32 (?) years. He should know what he's talking about. If he thinks there's a specific problem among Asians/Muslims/Pakistanis, he should tell us why.<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 01:34 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-80568748269332293072011-10-18T23:10:23.637+01:002011-10-18T23:10:23.637+01:00Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs --...Revealed: conspiracy of silence on UK sex gangs -- http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article2863058.ece<br /><br />This is the Times story that started the debate.<br /><br />It's worth reading this letter to the Times from the Jill Dando Institute researchers who provided some of the data for the story, 'Sexual exploitation is vile, whatever the perpetrators’ colour', http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/letters/article2865492.ece<br />Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 12:52 AMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-14192389991521578092011-10-18T23:10:04.709+01:002011-10-18T23:10:04.709+01:00‘He took my girl and sold her for sex. How do you ...‘He took my girl and sold her for sex. How do you expect us to feel?’ -- http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article2875618.ece<br />Saturday, January 15, 2011 - 05:28 PMDMnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2215553202978284468.post-65390479001421334462011-10-18T23:09:22.627+01:002011-10-18T23:09:22.627+01:00"Queasy stomachs on the Today programme as th..."Queasy stomachs on the Today programme as the BBC looks into multicultural Britain" -- http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/100072016/queasy-stomachs-on-the-today-programme-as-the-bbc-looks-into-multi-cultural-britain/<br />Friday, January 14, 2011 - 03:44 PMdmnoreply@blogger.com