[damnyou]

"Supports welfare reform" and "edge cases of UBI" are doing a lot of work there.

I, too, support modernizing our governmental assistance programs, but not in a way that's white supremacist and eugenicist. There are welfare reform ideas I disagree with that I don't think are white supremacist either. Murray's ideas and policies, however, are beyond the pale.

[ALittleLight]

See: here is an interesting case where you think I'm summarizing you unfairly or incorrectly. Do you think Charles Murray would feel you were summarizing and characterizing his arguments fairly?

[damnyou]

No, I don't, because I'm sure he's constructed post hoc rationalizations in his head about how he's not actually as bad as it seems.

I evaluate him like I do any other public figure: based on his writing and the impact he's had on public policy debates. His internal state of mind does not matter at all.

[ALittleLight]

If you accurately state what someone believes, they'll probably agree with you. I don't think you've managed that here.

[damnyou]

Well, for his accurate beliefs, let's look to another excerpt from In Our Hands:

"The libertarian solution is to prevent the government from redistributing money in the first place. Imagine for a moment that the $2 trillion that the US government spends on transfer payments were left instead in the hands of the people who started with it. If I could wave a magic wand, that would be my solution. It is a case I have made elsewhere."

His eugenicist UBI is an alternative to his ideal proposal.

As a public figure with extensive writings, his internal state of mind does not matter.

---

edit to respond because I'm "posting too fast":

> So as long as you don't write anything down or have yourself recorded as having said racist things, you can't be racist?

What? A logical statement does not imply it's converse. I'm talking about public figures like Murray here, not average private individuals. Besides, structural racism of the sort Murray advocates for has a much greater impact on material conditions than what some rando believes in their heart.

[salawat]

Oh hohm.

So as long as you don't write anything down or have yourself recorded as having said racist things, you can't be racist?

I find you're making leaps reality can't cash here. I don't mind letting people's actions speak for themselves, but I'd caution against .

[ALittleLight]

You seem to be equating libertarians with racists here. Is that what you intend to do? i.e. You mean that anyone who thinks there shouldn't be taxes is racist?

[damnyou]

Not all libertarians, but many right-libertarians, certainly. (I have some wonderful left-libertarian friends.)

Anyone who ignores structural racism and espouses the policy positions that Murray does is either ignorant or racist. Murray, being a public figure whose ideas have had real impact on the material conditions of marginalized people, does not have the excuse of ignorance.

I'm speaking from personal experience here. I used to be on the right-libertarian train myself before I realized that oppression was primarily structural and that a laissez-faire approach always perpetuates it. I genuinely do not believe one can be non-racist and espouse Murray's policy positions once one understands this basic fact.

If you want to learn more about how welfare reform in the 1990s—something Murray influenced a great deal—affected millions of lives, I'd recommend the first season of a podcast called The Uncertain Hour.