I just finished reading John Stossel’s Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity. He deals with many issues in this book; more than can be covered in a review such as this. It is definitely worth-while reading and very entertaining. The fact that each chapter (most of them short) stands on its own, without any vital connection to the chapters before it, make it ideal reading for waiting rooms or breaks at work.
There are two chapters I want to mention here, since they are relevant to this blog. Both topics have been covered, at length, by race realists and serious scholars but it is refreshing to see a respected media personality like John Stossel write words of truth that are usually stifled.
The first topic, “Myth: Some people are just born happy. Truth: Apparently so” (pg. 271-273) has to do with the heritability of personality traits. Stossel writes:
Barbara Herbert and Daphne Goodship are absurdly happy…
Barbara and Daphne are identical twins. You might explain their happiness as the result of a good childhood or their influence on each other – except that as kids, they never knew each other. They were born twelve minutes apart and were immediately given up for adoption…
Dr. Thomas Bouchard, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, thought Barbara and Daphne would be good candidates for his ground-breaking study of twins raised apart. “When they got here, they really shook us up in terms of a remarkable similarity…”
For Barbara, there was no doubt as to whether the cause of their good mood was nature or nurture. “It’s definitely nature,” she said. “I don’t think the environment or anything else has affected us, it’s just what we are like.” Science bears her out: The outlooks of twins-sunny or not- tend to be remarkably similar, the Minnesota study found, whether they are raised together or apart. “If only environment shaped our personality, identical twins reared apart would have no similarity,” said Dr. Bouchard, “and yet they’re every bit as similar as identical twins reared together.”
If we accept that there is a genetic component to personality, then it follows that there might also be a racial component to personality – since the only thing that distinguishes one (true) race from another is genes/alleles. In other words, when we speak of “race”, what we mean is varying sets of (average) genes between populations.
The second topic, “John Stossel is a conservative. Truth: I’m a libertarian” (pg. 281-284) deals, partly, with the contrast between the conservative establishment (or what passes for “conservative” these days) and the liberal one. Stossel writes:
Yet conservatives are at least willing to talk about them. I am continually amazed at how generous conservatives are in debate. Even those who disagree with my ideas welcome me warmly at their conferences. The supposedly “narrow-minded” social conservatives politely hear me out. The liberals, by contrast, don’t want to talk at all.
When I wrote my last book, Give Me a Break, I assumed the high poobahs of the leftist media would be eager to debate my ideas, if only to demonstrate how foolish my arguments were, or to discredit the reporting of their misguided colleague who had gone “over to the dark side”, as one TV writer put it.
I was wrong.
The conservatives were eager to have me… But the liberal media – CNN, NPR, and the New York Times – basically held their noses and ignored me. Where was the “open debate” the liberals always praise? Mostly on the conservative broadcasts.
This attitude is painfully familiar to those of us who recognize the biological reality of race. The main difference, between us and Stossel, is that there is no conservative media when it comes to race. In racial matters, they are all “liberal”. I have no idea if John Stossel is a race realist. I seriously doubt it – and what good is the recognition of truth if it cannot be uttered?
What is the leftist policy regarding race? Hide it, Bury it, Deny it = It is the dark side of H.B.D.
Jewamongyou's Blog 
” – since the only thing that distinguishes one (true) race from another is genes/alleles. In other words, when we speak of “race”, what we mean is varying sets of (average) genes between populations.”
When we speak of race, we mean ‘ancestry.’
This is from etymological root of the term. This is why ‘race’ has several different meanings. It can have an ideological meaning, in the sense of fidelity to ones lineage and kinship, which can be real or based on Ur-myth. I can have a social meaning in the sense of groups defined, more or less, by regional ancestry. And it can have a taxonomic meaning in the sense of major human descendencies. What makes sense of these different meanings is that they all relate to genealogy.
My point here is that the content of ‘race’ is ancestry. Genes/alleles result form differences in that and, when not genealogy proper, are used to define the boundaries. It’s a subtle difference, but it makes coherent the various historic ideas of race.
“If we accept that there is a genetic component to personality, then it follows that there might also be a racial component to personality”
Refer to: Penke, 2010. Bridging the gap between modern evolutionary psychology and the study of individual differences
I should have been more specific which meaning of “race” I was referring to, thanks.
Do you have a link for Penke, 2010?
Click to access Penke_in_press_-_Bridging_evolutionary_psychology_and_study_of_individual_differences.pdf
Stossel is a libertarian in every sense of the word, if he actually means what he says his ideology is as detrimental to the future existence of white countries as modern liberalism.
I don’t think there is any contradiction between libertarianism and racialism – though Stossel, specifically, may oppose racialism.
I wanted to point out that, despite the huge range of topics Stossel deals with in this book, not once does he try to tackle “race myths”. This could mean that he knows the truth but, afraid of ruining his career, he chose to remain silent. If he truly believed the leftist dogma about race, I think he would have written about it in this book.
I consider Libertarianism at its core to be hyper individualism.
The libertarians I have run into chant “groups are just collections of individuals”.
I consider libertarianism as an ideology to be incompatible with the concept of a nation or any type of governing body set to enforce rules such as a immigration and national identity.
This isn’t to say someone can not support certain libertarian beliefs while sharing racial/nationalistic beliefs only that at their core they are not a libertarian.
L Penke – The evolution of personality and individual differences, 2010