# Interesting podcast conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray (of "Bell Curve" fame) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2017, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052 "2017-04-23T09:21:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 107
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2121 "2018-12-10T13:19:57Z")
Okay, well: assuming you do mean that, it’s useless to attempt any political discussion, or even debate, with someone who believes there are no relevant differences worth caring about between Steve King and Barack Obama. We’re just not sharing the same, or even overlapping, frames of reference. I will note however that mountains of empirical evidence demonstrate the absurdity, and in fact the rank callousness, of taking that line. When politicians like Obama are in power, we get expansion of health care for low income families and more robust nutrition programs for hungry kids. When the Steve Kings of the world control the levers of government, those same families are more likely to go hungry, to become homeless, even to die for lack of access to needed health care. So your extremism, your precious rigid ideological purity, may make you feel better about yourself—but it hurts most those who have the least. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2122 "2018-12-10T14:07:42Z")
Nice strawman - I didn’t say there were “no relevant differences”, I just indicated that the differences that exist don’t make Obama Left enough to have a significant impact on the overall Right-leaning nature of the American political landscape. He’s not Left, he’s just Less Right (while being more right, for all that) Yes, Obama enacted ACA - but ACA is _not_ a leftist program. It works within a corporatist framework. So you don’t get to use it as a counter to charges of America being an overall Right-leaning society. The very existence of ACA, rather than state-run UHC, is a symptom of the fact that America is overall RW. And my ideological purity doesn’t hurt anyone, since I’m not a voter for any American politicians. I wish I could say the same for American politicians, though, who’ve hurt me and mine plenty in the past. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2123 "2018-12-10T14:26:54Z")
You’re trying to redefine the paramaters of the discussion to suit you. I never said Obama was a “Leftist”. I said that making people with ultraconservative religious doctrines American citizens can hurt us, and that the example of the Dutch Calvinists in northwestern Iowa, and their congressman Steve King, demonstrates that it’s not necessarily just for a generation or two. Any abstract haggling over the precise definition of “Left” (including the ostentatious capitalization you lefties seem to love) is entirely irrelevant. ETA: And no, you don’t get to absolve yourself of any consequences if you spread ideas like this about American politics. Many Americans read this board, including the kind of impressionable young people who are most susceptible to this kind of dogmatic rhetoric. And this can have a very real impact. For a very recent and painful instance, Donald Trump didn’t get any more support than Romney did. In fact, he got less. But third parties like Jill Stein got a lot more than their 2012 counterparts did, most significantly from young people who were persuaded it didn’t matter whether Hillary or Trump won, since both were irredeemably right wing. You might as well be a Russian bot when you spread that kind of narrative. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2124 "2018-12-10T15:42:26Z")
Did I say you said Obama was a Leftist? No, I asked if you thought that\* I \*thought that, since you seemed to think bringing him up was in any way relevant and it would only be if he was Left enough to be a counter to my observation that being very RW in a middling RW country is not the same thing as being _very_ fundamentalist in secular states. And fuck me, “Think of the (American) children!” as an argument? Really? Weak sauce, motherfucker. Note that I haven’t said word one about who anyone should vote for (in 2008, I would have said Obama and 2012, BTW, and Hillary in 2016. Just because they’re far to my Right doesn’t mean I’d tell people not to vote for them - check my posts here) ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2125 "2018-12-10T15:55:18Z")
Then your entire “point” here is incoherent at best. —It’s a bad thing to have voters who would support someone like Steve King. —The voters in that region are quite obviously as awful as they are because their ancestors were Dutch Calvinists who immigrated here and brought their toxic religious ideology with them. —Nearly two centuries later, they still stand out from the society around them, where King would not stand a chance. —So dismissing conservative religiosity as something that always fades away in a generation or two is contradicted by this counterexample. This is what I actually said, not any of this nonsense about “the Left”. If you dispute any of what I was _actually_ arguing, feel free to explain. Up to now, you haven’t done anything but blather on about a bunch of utterly irrelevant self-righteous “Leftist” nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2126 "2018-12-10T20:13:02Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > —So dismissing conservative religiosity as something that always fades away in a generation or two is contradicted by this counterexample. Except that’s not what I’m saying. I never said anything about “\*always \*fade away”. I said the one situation isn’t like the other - there are factors sustaining the Calvinists that won’t be sustaining the Islamicists. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2127 "2018-12-10T21:35:27Z")
Liiiike…that supposedly surrounding conservative society? Which somehow won’t be around Muslim immigrants? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2128 "2018-12-11T08:14:50Z")
Mmm, I wonder if there’s a commonality between Iowan Calvinists and their surrounding mainstream culture, that isn’t there for Islamicists in Europe and _their_ surrounding culture? Why, even leaving aside the fact that mainstream European culture is nowhere near as RW as mainstream American culture, I feel there could almost be something that would _colour_ the degree of tolerance each group would receive from their host culture. I wonder what that might be… ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2129 "2018-12-11T09:32:07Z")
When you are demonstrably far more right wing than your immediate neighbors in the state, it makes zero sense to say that those neighbors are reinforcing your right-wingness, regardless of their skin color. In fact, it’s even more striking, the effect that immigration history and religion clearly has, given that there is obviously much more opportunity for commingling given that no one today would notice an ethnic or language difference. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2130 "2018-12-11T10:11:13Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > When you are demonstrably far more right wing than your immediate neighbors in the state, it makes zero sense to say that those neighbors are reinforcing your right-wingness Good thing no-one’s said that, then. Tolerating/allowing to continue is not the same as reinforcing. Look at how the decidedly more _outré_ elements of the LDS movement are able to survive because they’re tolerated by a surrounding more mainstream LDS-dominated populace. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2131 "2018-12-11T11:17:08Z")
Anyway - back to more important things: So, getting your uncut penis caught in a zipper - _worse_ than infibulation, or _so very much_ worse - let’s turn to this [del]Oxford[/del]Yale egghead to mansplain it to us… ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2132 "2018-12-11T12:15:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Tolerating/allowing to continue is not the same as reinforcing. “Tolerating/allowing to continue”. Interesting phrasing. Something tells me you would not have wandered into this territory if you were keeping track of the origin of this back-and-forth. I was the one advocating non-tolerance, precisely by insisting that women like the one in France be required to shake hands at the naturalization ceremony (and I would also support other measures that have been put in place in Europe, like burqa bans). So I guess to be consistent with what you are claiming here, you must actually support those measures too! Huh. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2133 "2018-12-11T14:30:13Z")
You’re _always_ the one advocating non-tolerance, ya dumb racist. That’s what racism is. No surprises there. But where have\* I \*advocated it in this discussion? I’ve merely made an observation that Christian RW hicks in America are a piss-poor analogy for Muslim Fundamentalists in Europe, in regards to how “sticky” their attitudes may be over time, and why that might be. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2134 "2018-12-11T14:33:10Z")
Anyway, back on topic with some clickbait - The ONE reason only small-dicked men fear discussion of Female Genital Mutilation! (Spoiler Alert : It’s because their micropenises resemble clitorises in size and shape) ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2135 "2018-12-11T14:38:17Z")
And you don’t even know what “clickbait” means. Sad! ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2136 "2018-12-11T15:57:50Z")
What, you can’t see the link? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2018, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2137 "2018-12-11T15:59:28Z")
Funny. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2018, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2138 "2018-12-12T05:42:11Z")
If I had a micropenis, I’d learn to laugh at everything, too. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2018, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2139 "2018-12-12T16:19:48Z")
Evidence of why we need people like Sam and the rest of the IDW, to be voices of sanity: > **[He Makes a Joke. She Isn’t Laughing: ‘Lingerie’ Comment in Elevator Leads to...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/he-makes-a-joke-she-isnt-laughing-lingerie-comment-in-elevator-leads-to-uproar-among-scholars/)** > > A female professor complained to their association about a male professor’s unprofessional remark at a conference. Told to write an “unequivocal apology,” he refused. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/2140 "2018-12-12T18:18:46Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Evidence of why we need people like Sam and the rest of the IDW, to be voices of sanity: > > [https://www.chronicle.com/article/He-Makes-a-Joke-She-Isn-t/243350](https://www.chronicle.com/article/He-Makes-a-Joke-She-Isn-t/243350) I’d expect more of a defence of his harassment from a Politics Professor than a combo of “that’s how we did it in the 50s” and the fallacy of false dilemma… I don’t see why this clear-cut case of an idiot and his deserved censure needs any input from Sam Harris… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=106) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=108)