# 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:** 87
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1721 "2018-10-13T07:48:08Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Mr. Harris is rhetorically torn apart here: > > [Being Mr. Reasonable ❧ Current Affairs](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/10/being-mr-reasonable) > > That is a brutal and well-cited takedown. Admittedly, I didn’t read the whole thing because I was turned off by this: “…Each time Harris said something about Islam that created outrage, he had a defense prepared. When he wondered why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims,” he was merely playing “Devil’s advocate.”” This is a complete lie and I remember (and anyone else can validate) Sam was definitely improvising and saying what opponents of the immigration policy idea would say. I also listen to Sam Sedar’s Majority Report and for some reason they have a real problem with Sam Harris. One episode, the #2 on the show was the host and played a snippet of this exact conversation where Sam sounded like a xenophobic racist and Sedar’s guest host railed on him about it for a good while. The next time the #2 hosted the show, he admitted the sound clip he received, after further research, was taken out of context and that Sam wasn’t saying what he was told. But that was it, no apology or anything, and if fact continued to rail on Sam for other things. So seeing the bullshit in an early paragraph says a lot to me about the dishonest intentions of the author. Maybe he had some good points, but putting obvious lies in your screed will make someone like me dismiss your entire argument. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1722 "2018-10-13T08:18:38Z")
> [@nate](#): > > “…Each time Harris said something about Islam that created outrage, he had a defense prepared. When he wondered why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims,” he was merely playing “Devil’s advocate.”” “Fucking muslims” might have been out of context but he definitely uses the devil’s advocate defence. I would urge you to read on. I was also turned off by this article at first, when they mischaracterized the “new atheists”, implying that people like Richard Dawkins are not civil. However, the article details quite a lot of Sam’s arguments, explaining why they are are irrational or based on an ignorance of history, for example: > [@Current Affairs article](#): > > > [@Sam Harris](#): > > > > What distinguishes us from many of our enemies is that this indiscriminate violence appalls us. The massacre at My Lai is remembered as a signature moment of shame for the American military. Even at the time, U.S. soldiers were dumbstruck with horror by the behavior of their comrades. One helicopter pilot who arrived on the scene ordered his subordinates to use their machine guns against their own troops if they would not stop killing villagers. > > This passage is fascinating, because it shows the extraordinary extent to which Americans can distort the historical record in order to flatter their sense of their own goodness. First, the helicopter pilot Harris mentions was Hugh Thompson, Jr., and far from representing the American moral mainstream, Thompson was ostracized and condemned by his fellow soldiers for his intervention in the massacre.[40] In fact, popular opinion was overwhelmingly on the side of William Calley, the lieutenant who had ordered the killings. There were pro-Calley sympathy marches across the country, and the White House was flooded with calls for his release. A song called “The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley,” honoring the man who had ordered the execution of dozens of Vietnamese children, sold a million copies. Out of 26 soldiers initially charged with offenses related to the massacre, only Calley was convicted. But there was such a public outcry over the conviction that Richard Nixon reduced the sentence, and Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest, the only punishment handed out for a mass rape and the systematic murder of approximately 400 unarmed Vietnamese peasants. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1723 "2018-10-13T09:05:07Z")
> [@nate](#): > > Admittedly, I didn’t read the whole thing because I was turned off by this: > > “…Each time Harris said something about Islam that created outrage, he had a defense prepared. When he wondered why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims,” he was merely playing “Devil’s advocate.”” > > This is a complete lie and I remember (and anyone else can validate) Sam was definitely improvising and saying what opponents of the immigration policy idea would say. I consistently see this happening amongst Sam Harris’s critics. They frequently pull quotes out of context to make Harris look like a monster. As someone who has listened to virtually all of Sam Harris’s podcasts and read all of his books, I believe Sam Harris is basically a good person. I do think he’s way too deferential towards U.S foreign policy, and that it’s simply naïve to believe that the United States is a “well intentioned giant.” I disagreed with his preference for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. But in spite of those disagreements, I love his podcast. He has amazing conversations with interesting people, and I wouldn’t dare deprive myself of that just because I don’t agree with him 100%. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1724 "2018-10-13T09:53:46Z")
Just so we’re clear, I consider myself a fan too. I think he’s a fantastically clever man and I agree with him on at least 95% of the stuff he talks about. But unfortunately, when it comes to Islam and related topics he has an odd blindspot where he makes bigoted statements based on shaky logic (and endorses others that do worse). And he’s dug himself in too deep – he can’t concede even a single argument in this area now. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1725 "2018-10-13T15:12:35Z")
_FTR, I’m breaking my usual weekend radio silence because I’m out of town visiting my in-laws, and trying to avoid awkward small talk they are as happy to eschew as I am._ So let’s look at this very mixed bag of a Sam Harris takedown: > [@](#): > > Yet even in a group that included Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris stood out for the aggressiveness of his attacks on faith and the faithful. :dubious: I can only conclude that these writers are not terribly familiar with Dawkins and Hitch. They do have a point about Israel. I have always felt Sam goes too easy on that country. But the rest of Part I? No. They are mistaking a feature for a bug. Fuck Islam. (Screw going back in a time machine to kill Hitler: Mohammed would be on the top of my hit list.) They quote Sam pointing out that > [@](#): > > the world is filled with poor, uneducated, and exploited peoples who do not commit acts of terrorism, indeed who would never commit acts of terrorism of the sort that has become so commonplace among Muslims; and the Muslim world has no shortage of educated and prosperous men and women, suffering little more than their infatuation with Koranic eschatology, who are eager to murder infidels for God’s sake. The authors think they have busted him with an obvious fallacy: > [@](#): > > It should go in elementary logic textbooks to introduce the “Fallacies” section. As Robert Wright points out in an essay on Harris, arguing that “because there are lots of poor and exploited people who do not commit terrorism, poverty can be excluded as a cause of terrorism” is like arguing that “because there are plenty of people who smoke and do not get cancer, smoking can be excluded as a cause of cancer.” No. :smack: This first of all ignores the point Sam made about prosperous Muslim terrorists. But further, smoking doesn’t only cause cancer among one distinct group of people. Yet it is exclusively Muslims carrying out terrorism against the West. Where are the Mexican suicide bombers? Is it really similar to smoking and cancer, and somehow they have escaped the effects of poverty in a way that has nothing to do with not having been indoctrinated into Islam? Come ON. :rolleyes: Then their misunderstanding, or distortion, of the “perfect weapon” thought experiment is a total WTF. And anyone who read the email exchange with Chomsky and thought Noam got the better of Sam? That line of thought is completely alien to me. Their critiques of all the “moral landscape” stuff, OTOH, are well placed. Hence the mixed bag. A more focused rebuttal of those positions would be a solid piece that Sam couldn’t so easily dismiss. I’m not going to rehash points about Murray that we’ve gone over again and again. The following is a weird line of attack, though: > [@](#): > > Harris leaves out all of Herrnstein and Murray’s normative claims about the need to recognize inherent racial difference, destigmatize discrimination, reject egalitarianism, and return to the social ideals of Thomas Jefferson, who raped a slave child. These authors reek of being the type to be Ralph Nader fans. Are they aware that Nader told PBS Newshour his #1 role model for the presidency was Jefferson? I mean, it’s fine to dislike TJ or other “Founding Fathers”. But I’m pretty sure we aren’t at a point as a society where “s/he is a fan of Jeffersonian principles” serves to automatically discredit someone. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1726 "2018-10-13T15:43:10Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > […] smoking doesn’t only cause cancer among one distinct group of people. Yet it is exclusively Muslims carrying out terrorism against the West. Can you run by me again why, for example, Dylann Roof shooting up a black church in the hope of starting a race war doesn’t count as terrorism? When I was a child the big terror threat in the UK was the IRA. Perhaps the talking point for a while was “Not all Irish are terrorists, but all terrorists are Irish…” ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1727 "2018-10-13T16:07:57Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > “Fucking muslims” might have been out of context but he definitely uses the devil’s advocate defence. > > I would urge you to read on. I was also turned off by this article at first, when they mischaracterized the “new atheists”, implying that people like Richard Dawkins are not civil. I’m sorry, I can’t possibly take any of the article seriously after such an intentional misrepresentation of Sam’s comments. How could anyone? The author should have been more careful if his intentions were to present legit criticisms. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2018, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1728 "2018-10-13T16:32:32Z")
I’m reading through the tendentious endnotes now. Not sure if the authors are unfamiliar with some of the fine points of Sam’s philosophy, or are disingenuously strawmanning him. For instance, in note 16: > [@](#): > > \*n practice once people have a justification for torture, they will tend to start seeing every situation as a ticking time bomb scenario and torturing “just to be safe,” a categorical prohibition on torture is, on balance, the only way to avoid a much worse set of consequences (e.g., torture is used one time to save a busload of children but then becomes a routine part of police procedure and the state becomes slowly more brutal in the name of safety, constantly pointing to the busload of children incident as a way of shutting down debate). Harris has said he can account for this, and proposes that the law should only permit torture when the torturers are really, really sure that they’re in a ticking time bomb scenario, but to think a torture regime can be administered in accordance with care and principle is to live in a fantastical land of thought experiments rather than in the real world. What Sam actually said is that the “categorical prohibition on torture” should remain the law, for essentially the reasons they outline—but in true “busload of children” scenarios, the torturers should be spared imprisonment, either via jury nullification or presidential pardon. > [@Mijin](#): > > Can you run by me again why, for example, Dylann Roof shooting up a black church in the hope of starting a race war doesn’t count as terrorism? Sure, we could call what Roof did “terrorism”. So let me more carefully define what I mean. The West engaged in colonial exploitation of many non-Western peoples. But only in the Muslim world have people been consistently, for decades now, plotting to attack the West. How do you explain that? The U.S. behaved abominably in Latin America, right up through the Reagan years. Why aren’t people from that region, who can get here much more easily than Middle Easterners can, attacking us this way? To the contrary, it is a very reasonable counterpoint to right wing paranoia about the southern border to point out that immigrants from that direction are a notably benign group. How do you explain this? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1729 "2018-10-13T17:04:10Z")
> [@nate](#): > > “…Each time Harris said something about Islam that created outrage, he had a defense prepared. When he wondered why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims,” he was merely playing “Devil’s advocate.”” > > This is a complete lie and I remember (and anyone else can validate) Sam was definitely improvising and saying what opponents of the immigration policy idea would say. This is not even a lie much less a complete one. This is a textbook example of playing Devil’s advocate. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2018, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1730 "2018-10-13T17:57:12Z")
The concluding sentence of note 43 sums up the gist of the authors’ fundamental plaint: > [@](#): > > The United States has revealed its character over and over. So Sam is insufficiently anti-American for their tastes. Which, hey: they are entitled to that opinion. But we have to recognize that it’s a take no one to the right of Chomsky is going to live up to this standard. Even Howard Zinn has a more charitable view of the American people than these guys do. So why specifically target Sam? He shares this insufficient lack of anti-Americanism with virtually all Democrats, and probably 98-99% of the population overall. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1731 "2018-10-13T18:15:50Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > This is not even a lie much less a complete one. This is a textbook example of playing Devil’s advocate. The author is clearly misrepresenting Sam. “…he had a defense prepared” implies that when called out on it, he had a defense. But in context, Sam clearly prestated he was playing Devil’s advocate and then made statements that included the ‘why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims”’ and then immediately rebutted that argument with his own stance. Reading the article, it is clear the author intentionally wanted to misrepresent this. Have you heard the part in the podcast the article is referring to? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1732 "2018-10-13T18:34:43Z")
The article says that he claimed he was playing Devil’s advocate and Sam Harris claimed that he was playing Devil’s advocate. That’s not a lie. Not a complete lie. Not any kind of lie. You are inventing secret motivations and attributing them to the article’s author. Then you are declaring that the author’s secret motivation was to lie. That’s not very convincing. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1733 "2018-10-13T18:44:07Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I was also turned off by this article at first, when they mischaracterized the “new atheists”, implying that people like Richard Dawkins are not civil. Really? Richard Dawkins of the “dear muslima” Rebecca Watson debacle? Going after teenagers like Ahmed Mohamed for no good reason other than being a jerk? Seems out of bounds to you to imply that Dawkins may not be all that civil? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1734 "2018-10-13T18:45:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > The concluding sentence of note 43 sums up the gist of the authors’ fundamental plaint: > > So Sam is insufficiently anti-American for their tastes. Which, hey: they are entitled to that opinion. But we have to recognize that it’s a take no one to the right of Chomsky is going to live up to this standard. Even Howard Zinn has a more charitable view of the American people than these guys do. So why specifically target Sam? He shares this insufficient lack of anti-Americanism with virtually all Democrats, and probably 98-99% of the population overall. One would be very hard pressed to find **any** elected Democrats that come anywhere close to Noam Chomsky in harshly critiquing U.S foreign policy. Certainly not in Congress. Maybe there’s a city council member somewhere, but nobody of significance. Chomsky is an Anarchist, and they tend not to run for office. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1735 "2018-10-13T18:47:52Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > The article says that he claimed he was playing Devil’s advocate and Sam Harris claimed that he was playing Devil’s advocate. That’s not a lie. Not a complete lie. Not any kind of lie. > > You are inventing secret motivations and attributing them to the article’s author. Then you are declaring that the author’s secret motivation was to lie. > > That’s not very convincing. Oh please. “Each time Harris said something about Islam that created outrage, he had a defense prepared. When he wondered why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims,” he was merely playing “Devil’s advocate.”” If you read that AND know what Harris actually said and think the author is not trying paint it in a completely unfair light, you are kidding yourself. ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1736 "2018-10-13T18:58:58Z")
Here is a transcript I found so if you don’t want to listen, you can read it in context: > [@](#): > > … As a counterpoint to all of the hopeful noises you just made, I would just like to offer this. > > This is kind of a gut reaction that I know millions upon millions of people are having to things like what we just saw in Germany — the recent atrocity at the Christmas market… You see something like this, and this is happening in the context of this wave of immigration coming into Europe by virtue of, largely by virtue of the war in Syria, although there are other reasons. > > And there’s just the brute fact that 100% of Jihadists are Muslim, right? These are not the Amish. They are not the Scientologists. They are not the Anglicans. If you take a community of Muslims from Syria or Iraq or any other country on Earth and place them in the heart of Europe, you are importing, by definition, some percentage, however small, of radicalized people. Or people who will be prone to radicalism at some future date where they just decide to start watching too many Anwar al-Awlaki videos, you know?… This only happens to Muslims or people who are likely to become Muslim, right? > > So you see this massacre in the Christmas market, and I think many people will feel: What is the fucking point of having more Muslims in your society? It seems perfectly rational to say “We don’t want any more! We have enough,” right? And certainly, increasing the percentage is not a help to anyone who loves freedom of speech and any of the other liberal values that you and I just spoke about maximizing. It’s not worth the trouble, and if we can figure out some way to keep the number of Muslims down in any society, whether we’re honest about this, or whether we do this covertly, clearly it’s rational to want to do this. And this is where someone like Robert Spencer would say “Amen,” I would presume. Can you speak to that despair? Again, this is not an expression of xenophobia. This is the implication of statistics, and the fact that it’s only rational not to want to live in a world that looks more and more like Jerusalem at the height of the Intifada, right? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1737 "2018-10-13T19:02:07Z")
> [@nate](#): > > If you read that AND know what Harris actually said and think the author is not trying paint it in a completely unfair light, you are kidding yourself. Number one, the painting done by the author is your interpretation. “Each time Harris said something about Islam that created outrage, he had a defense prepared. When he wondered why anybody would want any more “fucking Muslims,” he was merely playing “Devil’s advocate.”” That’s a true statement. Number, even if your interpretation is correct (it isn’t), painting something in a completely unfair light is vastly different from a complete lie. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1738 "2018-10-13T19:09:13Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > Really? Richard Dawkins of the “dear muslima” Rebecca Watson debacle? Going after teenagers like Ahmed Mohamed for no good reason other than being a jerk? Seems out of bounds to you to imply that Dawkins may not be all that civil? I don’t judge Dawkins the same way, and I think that clock kid deserved a takedown. But I do agree that Dawkins is more strident than Harris, so my criticism of these authors comes from the opposite direction: they are IMO off base to claim Harris “stands out” even compared to Dawkins and Hitchens (Hitch also took a more uncompromisingly scorched earth approach to religion than Sam ever has). > [@Blalron](#): > > One would be very hard pressed to find **any** elected Democrats that come anywhere close to Noam Chomsky in harshly critiquing U.S foreign policy. Certainly not in Congress. Maybe there’s a city council member somewhere, but nobody of significance. Chomsky is an Anarchist, and they tend not to run for office. Oh, I definitely agree. When I said “virtually all Democrats”, I was including Democratic rank-and-file voters as well. ETA: > [@](#): > > I think many people will feel: What is the fucking point of having more Muslims in your society? It seems perfectly rational to say “We don’t want any more! We have enough,” right? And certainly, increasing the percentage is not a help to anyone who loves freedom of speech and any of the other liberal values that you and I just spoke about maximizing. It’s not worth the trouble, and if we can figure out some way to keep the number of Muslims down in any society, whether we’re honest about this, or whether we do this covertly, clearly it’s rational to want to do this. I agree that this is not playing devil’s advocate. It’s just expressing good common sense. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2018, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1739 "2018-10-13T19:36:12Z")
Most Americans are ignorant of foreign policy, how the hell would you expect Democrats to be omniscient and somehow criticize U.S foreign policy [https://www.cato.org/blog/americas-foreign-policy-attention-deficit](https://www.cato.org/blog/americas-foreign-policy-attention-deficit) Of my group, everyone who knew about the reality were highly critical of Obama drone strikes. Obviously if you didn’t see criticism of Obama’s policies you weren’t very diverse in your reading of the news. The difference is that typically it did focus on policy, where Trump is professing objectively evil ideals just as Sam Harris does on his obsessive anti-Muslim and ignorant eugenics like biological morality. Sam Harris went to school to get a PHD to justify his biological based bigotry, and like the eugenicists earlier in this century is making the same mistakes while trying to use a similar pseudo-scientific justification. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2018, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052/1740 "2018-10-13T19:55:14Z")
Sure, I saw those criticisms of Obama’s drone strikes, from the peacenik crowd (including my own mom). The same naive crowd who thinks if we zero out the Pentagon’s budget and replace the Defense Department with a Department of Peace, everything will be yippee skippee and we can all run around peacing out to double rainbows. :rolleyes: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=86) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/interesting-podcast-conversation-between-sam-harris-and-charles-murray-of-bell-curve-fame/785052.md?page=88)