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Michael Farris, Conservative Schizophrenic

February 15, 2010 by generation5

My wife recently gave me a copy of Michael Farris’ What a Daughter Needs from Her Dad.  Overall, a good book encouraging fathers to do right by daughters, including working hard to build a relationship that meets her emotional needs.  Farris is a Virginian, lawyer, father of ten and founder of Patrick Henry College, the premier college for homeschooled students with significant academic ability.

When reading the book, I nearly fell off my chair when he mentioned that he’s read aloud Uncle Tom’s Cabin to his children, in his words to teach them both “history” and “compassion for other people” at the same time.

So here’s a Southern, Christian man reading aloud to his daughters third-rate melodramatic propaganda written by a Yankee Unitarian (with no direct experience with southern slavery) who maligns his daughters’ ancestors as savage rapists.  It could be argued that the false charges of rape in this novel led directly to the fervor of Northern citizens to support a civil war against their southern brethren. And he presents this to his daughters as “history”?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  I mean, this is like a Jewish family snuggling up to read aloud from Mein Kempf (the analogy is apt: both were books of propaganda that motivated violence towards their targets).  This ought to be obviously ridiculous, except to that curious American species, the conservative schizophrenic.

A friend of mine sent his daughter to Patrick Henry College and had a unique perspective on what was going on there.  Mostly, the kids receive an excellent education, pulling from original sources and assembling a comprehensive Christian worldview.  However, there’s a twist.  Farris used to (and may still) teach one of the history or constitutional law courses, and the course included his clever rationalization of Lincoln (I forget the specific argument Farris uses).  My friend related that most of the homeschool students, being marinated in the original sources, naturally bristled at Farris’ sophistry to justify Lincoln, but it’s clear to me in part where Farris’ motives lie.  The school routinely brags about how many of its students serve in the federal government, as Congressional interns and (under Bush II) at the White House.

So the school, named after the great anti-federalist prophet Patrick Henry, serves to take the cream of the homeschool community and turn them into brilliant, well-educated servants and apologists for the federal Beast.  The schizophrenia of this worldview is staggering: name a college after Henry, who warned against ratification of the Constitution because of the threat of a tyrant like Lincoln, then use it to propagandize homeschooled kids about why Lincoln was right.  Farris rehabilitates the legitimacy of a federal government that sanctions the murder of unborn children while making southern kids feel guilty because their ancestors caused black people to be slaves in America instead of slaves in Africa.

This reminds me of why we badly need a real American history curriculum.  On the one side are the liberals who portray America as an evil, racist country.  On the other side are largely the conservative schizophrenics, like Michael Farris and David Barton, who share the egalitarian premises of the liberals but try to rehabilitate our history by portraying it as a progressive revelation of salvation through equality, with God’s Providence working all the way from Thomas Jefferson’s Abrahamic promise in the Declaration, to Moses Lincoln leading us out of the wilderness and to the Promised Land and finally culminating in the legacy of the true King of kings, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior.  Think I’m kidding? Ask Barton or Farris if they support a federal holiday for MLKJ.  The only other holy-day we celebrate for a man is Jesus Christ.

Here’s an idea: how about we teach our children to love our land and ancestors as it and they really were?  We’re not perfect, but nor is any other race of fallen human beings.  I’m tired of white guilt, and I’m determined to liberate my children from it.

Posted in Conservative Schizophrenia, Homeschooling | Leave a Comment »

Thinking About Haiti

February 13, 2010 by generation5

One of my well-meaning Christian friends just sent me an invite on Facebook to become a fan of Doug Phillips’ “Rescuing Haiti’s Children” page.  A few thoughts:

1. God’s Providence is a deep, dark thing.  The people of Haiti have fundamental limitations that preclude them from properly preparing for such an event.  It is hard to understand why God would have allowed this to happen to Haiti, possibly the most vulnerable population on Earth to such an event.  These are people created in the image of God, and it’s hard to see the suffering of the people and orphans.  Those going to Haiti to help meet urgent needs while spreading the Gospel to those who will hear are doing God’s work.  However, it’s important that we not romanticize the narrative of Haiti, as unrealistic notions will lead to bad strategies.

2. Haiti’s history can be identified as a root cause of the scale of the tragedy.  The island, once with a GDP exceeding that of the entire US in colonial times, suffered a slave revolt.  The slaves viciously and without mercy murdered virtually every white person on the island.  Later, subsequent revolutions resulted in the murder of most of the mulattoes and quadroons, for the black masses could not tolerate their natural advantages and the resultant divergence of outcomes for the two groups.

3. Many of Haiti’s problems, exacerbated by this crisis, are related to problems of IQ.  Any functioning society requires a certain number of individuals with IQ’s exceeding 115 (the average IQ of a college graduate from a real school with a somewhat selective admissions policy) or so to function.  Long-term planning and delaying gratification are essential for any society, and high-IQ individuals facilitate this (for example, by following well-known building techniques so structures can survive earthquakes without killing everyone inside). Among whites, about 16% of people fall into this vital high-IQ category.  Among blacks, only about 2%.  By killing off its white population in envy-driven rage, Haiti planted the seeds for its current sorry state.

4. Phillips rightly believes that Haiti must have its culture reformed before any permanent change can come to the nation.  In another post he talks about the need for jobs for Haitian men.  That, however, Mr. Phillips, is going to require foreign investment.  This means white people getting rich from the natural forces of the free market while helping to rebuild Haiti (a win-win, as free market transactions are).  Is there any indication that the racist attitudes of Haitians towards the property rights of white people can be reformed?  If it is true, as I believe it is, that whites have certain natural advantages in wealth creation (higher IQ), then the Haitian blacks are going to notice the difference in outcomes between the groups.  The natural, fallen human instinct is to respond with envy and accuse the more successful group of exploitation, much like many blacks here in the US whine about their lack of success and blame it on racism.  The only way to square this circle is either to A) talk openly about the reality of white advantages and hope that this explanation assuages blacks’ envy and hatred or B) pursue racial separation as a means of preventing the opportunity for conflict.  Haiti has in its history chosen B), through murderous means, with horrible consequences for her people.

5. Phillips is also encouraging Americans to adopt Haitian orphans.  I have discussed international adoption previously, but I’ll say a bit more about Haiti.  One relative advantage of adopting out of China is a normal Chinese child is going to have an IQ at or above the white average.  The Chinese also have natural personality traits (self-control, conformity, etc) that will tend to make Chinese children comfortably successful in America.  Blacks, on the other hand, have certain natural disadvantages in our society except in very specific areas with limited employment opportunities (sports, entertainment, etc).  A family of Christian homeschoolers, likely with IQ’s exceeding 115, who adopts a black orphan with an IQ of 80 is going to have serious problems with integrating this child.  The child will feel alien in its family, and always have a sense of resentment towards the natural-born children who will be more naturally successful.  It seems to me that not many people have considered that these cute little orphans grow up into adult blacks; as orphans, they will long for a sense of identity, and black American culture is more than happy to provide it (it provides a sense of cultural identity for many white kids sporting backwards baseball caps and baggy pants).

Yet many Christians are getting caught up in the emotion of the thing, not considering the long-term consequences of an unalterable decision.  Better in my view to use the same resources (adoptions can cost thousands) to build up the true church in Haiti and fully fund Christian orphanages there.  A quote from Rushdoony brings perspective, as he discusses a strategy the statists use to displace the private sphere:

First, make men feel guilty for all things and for everyone. Whatever happens on any continent or country is their responsibility and their burden. All the starving, needy, oppressed, and all the indigents, criminals, and diseased of the world are their burden, and they are guilty of evading their responsibilities if they do nothing about them.

If American Christians help Haiti, it is an act of charity.  But we are not responsible now or ever for suffering of people not in our own sphere of influence.  Haiti, in committing genocide of its white population, effectively severed itself from our influence and responsibility long ago.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Reconsidering Interracial Marriage: The Christian Case for Intra-Racial Marriage, Part One

February 9, 2010 by generation5

“I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

The question of the relevance of race to marriage, for those seeking the truth with no preordained conclusions, is observed to be a one-sided exercise in rhetorical prejudice.

The issue is usually addressed in a negative manner, such as “Does the Bible forbid interracial marriage?”  The answer likewise is given in a negative manner, assuring the questioner that the only requirement of a believer is that their spouse be Christian, and that those, presumably parents, who oppose such a union must necessarily care only about racial heritage rather than the more important spiritual qualifications of potential mates for their children.  With the “straw man” thus established, the answerer proceeds to invoke the politically correct shibboleths of our age, complete with the usual slippery slope logical fallacies leading inevitably to a passing reference to Hitler[1] and condemnations of racism[2].

But these answers, while helping pastors and teachers ingratiate themselves with the multicultural, globalist zeitgeist of the world, do little to answer the real question.  While all honest Christians must acknowledge a minimum Biblical requirement for Christians to marry Christians, in addition to, not instead of that requirement, can the Bible or practical wisdom offer lessons on the question of interracial marriage?

I am convinced after careful study of the question that the weight of Scripture and empirical evidence favors a norm of intra-racial marriage, that is, marriage within the same race.  Furthermore, the question of whether interracial marriage is forbidden carries with it the baggage of an extra-Biblical and decadent Western individualism.  This extreme individualism, born of the atheistic influence of the Enlightenment and coming of age among the devils of the French Revolution, vainly seeks to transcend the limits God has placed on us as creatures.  In His Providence, He has created and ordained our lot not as merely spiritual abstractions but as members of a particular family, tribe, nation and race with concentric levels of responsibilities toward each.

Before proceeding, I wish to make a general disclaimer regarding the purpose of this document.  There are a small but slowly growing number of individuals in the Church who have married interracially.  This document is not addressed to those individuals or meant as a condemnation of their decisions.  My audience, frankly, consists of my own children and my future grandchildren, Lord willing.  I am not here to offend or condemn, but to pass along wisdom to my descendents and to others who may agree with my reasoning and profit from it.  For any who are offended, I humbly ask for your forgiveness and forbearance as an imperfect brother in Christ[3].

This subject is important because many families feel an instinctual preference that their children marry within their race.  However, due to the politically correct pressures of our time, these preferences are either repressed or uttered in secret.  This issue, like any other, must fly or fail in the face of Scripture.  Silencing or censoring our feelings on this issue for the sake of political correctness gives the appearance that there is something wrong with such a preference, when in fact this may not be the case.

Finally, it is important to limit the scope of our discussion.  Many Christians have had the displeasure of attempting to discuss some moral issue on a Biblical basis, perhaps in a political context, and someone takes issue by making fallacious arguments that such positions lead directly to a Religious Right theocracy and from thence to the Inquisition.

Let us reason together on this most controversial of subjects with humility and self-control.  The question of preserving the historical norm of intra-racial marriage is not about denying any person their civil rights.  It is not about denying the beautiful diversity that God has created among the human race (to the contrary, as we shall see, it is about preserving it), or denying that all men and women, of every race, are made in the image of God.  It is not about unlawfully and unjustly segregating people on the basis of race.  It is not about hating anyone or denying the fundamental multiracial nature of Christ’s Church.

This is simply my attempt as a father to come to terms with the realities of our multicultural society and set a course for my family to navigate this new era without losing our sense of identity, place and purpose.

The History of Race and Marriage

“It has become fashionable in recent times to talk of the leveling of nations, and of various peoples disappearing into the melting pot of contemporary civilization. I disagree with this, but that is another matter; all that should be said here is that the disappearance of whole nations would impoverish us no less than if all people were to become identical, with the same character and the same face. Nations are the wealth of humanity, its generalized personalities. The least among them has its own special colors, and harbors within itself a special aspect of God’s design.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In the Bible, we see a human grouping quite alien to the contemporary Western perspective, that of tribe.  One way to define the tribe is that of a sufficiently distantly related group of individuals for whom intra-marriage would not result in the competitive disadvantages of incest.  In the bare-bones scarcity of the ancient world, tribes were the smallest coherent group competing with other groups for land, dominance and resources.

From nearly the beginning of history, men have surely noticed that marriages of close relatives result in both moral and physical degeneracy.  We now understand the problems with incest scientifically, but it is a testament to Biblical inerrancy that what must have seemed, to the unregenerate, arbitrary and capricious restrictions in the Law of Moses also coincide with empirically validated practices in our best interest.

We now know that many human deformities are prevented due to our having two copies of each of our chromosomes, one from our father and one from our mother.  In most cases, deformities never occur because the body will mostly or totally ignore the “bad copy” on one chromosome and use the “good copy” instead.  Incest results in too many of the same copies of chromosomes, which means a higher incidence of observed deformities, since the body has no “good copy” in the case of identical chromosomes. [4]

Thus, the tribe is a practical grouping for marriage.  Of course, it is not merely that, for as I will remind the reader in the coming pages, God uses means.[5] The tribe is God’s ordained basic human grouping.  The tribe’s integrity is maintained even after the formation of the nation of Israel, as God, through the practice of the Jubilee, restored to each family its ancestral tribal land.

Similarly, the nation is a combination of tribes sharing a common lineage.  The nation of Israel is formed of the seed of Jacob and the twelve tribes correspond to those descended from Jacob’s respective children.  The word nation itself literally means of common birth, sharing a Latin root with words like neo-natal (meaning newborn) or the Nativity.

As we look at Old Testament history, an important observation is that once Israel had conquered the Promised Land, God nowhere sanctions further expansion.  Israel, of course, fought defensive wars to protect its territory, but God never ordained that Israel become an empire like her neighbors in the Middle East such as the Egyptians, Medes, Babylonians and Persians.

When Solomon attempted to build an empire, God judged him for, among other things, taking to himself foreign wives[6], a common diplomatic practice among would-be empire builders.

A reasonable conclusion from both the Bible and secular history is that the nation is the upper limit of human organization ordained by God.  All multinational empires eventually die, even mighty Greece and Rome.

Thus, God has organized men into three primary spheres of identity: family, tribe and nation.  For 99.99% of people throughout human history, one’s tribe and perhaps one’s nation contained the total universe of potential spouses[7].  When we ponder the wisdom of the previously unprecedented possibility of mass interracial marriage, it is not appropriate to justify such a position as normative based on what may be a few Biblical exceptions to a widely established historical norm.

Even these purported exceptions, such as the “Ethiopian” wife of Moses, may not be as they seem.  Let us examine a few Biblical case studies.

To be continued in Part Two…

[1] Among the early Internet enthusiasts of Usenet, the first online forums, it was observed that, given the combustible cyber-combination of anonymity and instant distribution, all arguments would inevitably degenerate into some sort of reference to Hitler or the Nazis.  Eventually, such a reference became shorthand to indicate that a discussion had exceeded its productive shelf life, as both sides had produced whatever actual arguments might support their position and proceeded to the ultimate ad hominum.

[2] Racism is notoriously hard to define in contemporary America.  Leftists decry anything short of absolute equality of outcome as racist, while conservatives point to examples like Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright as those truly motivated by hate.  There are, of course, many reasons other than hate why a parent may or may not approve of a particular mate for their child.   We should not judge others’ motives in their proper sphere of parental authority.  The Apostle Paul’s warnings against being busybodies and gossips seem particularly appropriate here.

[3] St. Paul again offers much wisdom.  For those who believe Scripture supports interracial marriage, I believe the Biblical position regarding those who do not is one of tolerance, not condemnation.  As the early brothers did regarding differing opinions on meat and drink, let us avoid being stumbling blocks for each other despite our honest disagreement on this issue.

[4] This also explains the higher incidence of birth defects among males (who have only one copy each of the X and Y chromosomes) and among relatively isolated populations like Ashkenazi Jews and the Acadians of Louisiana.

[5] This phrase is simply shorthand for a particular theological understanding of Divine Providence, in that the normative work of God is done through observable, ordinary causes.  We should not, of course, commit one of the errors of Deism and restrict God to merely ordinary causes, but when seeking to interpret Divine Intent, ordinary causes are not dismissed simply because they are ordinary.

[6] See Nehemiah 13:26.

[7] This is almost a tautology.  For example, in Mitchell’s Daily Life in Victorian England it is reported that most people never traveled more than ten or twenty miles from home before the development of railways.

Posted in Interracial Marriage | Leave a Comment »

An Alternative to Transracial / International Adoption for the Infertile

February 9, 2010 by generation5

A recent post on The Thinking Housewife asks what can be done for Christians who are infertile but wish to have their own children, but may have ethical problems with in-vitro procedures.  A not-so-obvious alternative for many women is a new form of adoption called embryo adoption.  This is a process where “leftover” embryos from other couples’ in-vitro procedures can be implanted into an adoptive mother.  There are several advantages to this alternative:

1. Since you carry and give birth to the child, the child is your natural-born child under the law.  The rights of the genetic parents to come and harass your claim to the child is limited.  I know this is a major factor in many international / transracial adoptions, as it’s harder for a birth mother in a Third World country to change her mind and sue you.

2. The child is better prepared psychologically for the reality of their adoption.  The birth mother is their mother in every way except genetics.

3. It is easy, almost trivial, to adopt Caucasian embryos, unlike live Caucasian babies.  In fact, you can even select a donor family that resembles your own as much as possible.  If this is done, the child may care little about their genetic origins given they were carried to term by their actual birth mother, since they look like their family.  Most of the trauma of adoption is related to feelings of rejection from the birth mother, and this is totally avoided with embryo adoption.

4. Embryo adoption is half the price of IVF, and carries none of the ethical concerns.  You are giving life to embryos that would otherwise be discarded or frozen indefinitely.

5. The genetic traits of the children, their intelligence, health and personalities, will be similar to those of the genetic parents, who tend to come from stable middle class homes.  People who undergo IVF have to spend $10,000 cash per try, so that generally means the genetics of the child come from responsible, functional middle class adults.  Many Christians are naive to the influences of genetics on child behavior, and the limitations of even the best parents to improve a child with genetic limitations.  Blood always tells, as Southerners used to say.

For women who cannot give birth to an adopted embryo, it is also still possible to find Caucasian children available for care in the foster home system.  While I would never bring a foster child in to live with my natural born children, such an outreach ministry to a child could make sense to an infertile couple without their own children.  While the adoption process is more painful (with more opportunities for birth parents to change their minds and such), the benefits to a child thrown away by the system could be immeasurable.  And as a foster parent you can kind of “try out” the child, at no harm to them (they’re already in the system anyway), to see if they might be a good fit as an adopted child.

There are many reasonable alternatives to trotting halfway around the world at great expense to adopt a child; there are many children of our own people and country who need adoptive parents.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Reconsidering Interracial / Transracial Adoption

January 27, 2010 by generation5

I have observed with some alarm the Christian fad of interracial adoption. More and more people I know are doing this and I thought a contrary perspective might be useful. Since the spirit of our postmodern age is to meet any disagreement with one’s lifestyle choices with personal offense, it is best that this critique is offered anonymously here.

I understand that I will change few minds, especially among those who have already adopted interracially. Nevertheless, I feel I must say my piece and perhaps influence and encourage a few souls out there who feel social pressure (masquerading as superior spirituality) to do this but know somehow it’s probably a bad idea. This is addressed particularly to men, who as heads of their families may be able to better evaluate this choice in an objective manner.

Let’s discuss a number of reasons why interracial adoption might be a bad idea.

1. The Feminization of Christianity

This reason is fundamental to the rest, as all of my arguments are to some extent based on reason. However, in most of the evangelical church these days, reason is seen as unspiritual while following the wisps of one’s emotions is seen as very spiritual.

Life, of course, would be meaningless without emotion, but emotion without reason is insanity. The head must lead the heart, yet much of Christianity today consists of Christians using their heart (which they assume is the true voice of God in their life) to overcome the perfectly rational objections of their head.

For example, churches go into deep debt to build new facilities because the pastor has a vision, and the emotion of that vision trumps the Biblical wisdom on debt. Much of this can be attributed to the feminization of the church, where the male tendency to analyze objective facts to arrive at a decision is derided as inferior spiritually to the more feminine decision making process.

Biblically, of course, both approaches are important, but it is also clear the husband is placed in authority over the wife at least partially because of this difference in reasoning styles. Neither is superior, as both are necessary for good decisions, but ultimately facts and reason must enjoy a privileged position over emotion. Men and women are fallen creatures who can use their emotions to justify any decision, whereas facts tend to be more stubborn things and more resistant to our vanity.

In interracial adoptions, I have noticed that many if not most of these are driven by the female half of the couple, and the decision is reached very emotionally. First, the excitement of discovery that you could adopt and the natural excitement that accompanies the idea of a new child. Second, the reluctance and fear of the unknown. Third, the thrill of the rescue fantasy, which appeals to our vanity as we think of ourselves as “rich Americans” (Americans are rich in debt as a rule, but little else) traveling the world to save a poor little orphan. Fourth, the drama of the process, meeting the child, and taking them home.

For many people, this process produces an emotional high more attractive than simply bearing their own child (though in many cases it must be noted these adoptions are done by Christians who cannot have any or more children for whatever reason).

The man in the relationship is at a significant disadvantage in attempting to process this through his natural thinking process. Any objection is either chalked up to A) the devil is trying to stop us or B) you’re not as spiritual as me because you won’t “let go and let God”. It never occurs to them that ANY foolish idea can be justified in this manner, where rationally assessed roadblocks are seen as tools of Satan and any progress is interpreted as a “sign” of God’s approval.

The truth is that God’s Will is simply whatever happens, and it’s impossible to know in advance what His Will is, because it’s impossible to know the future as a human being. The best we can do is pray for wisdom and use the brain God gave us to make a good decision. This endless spiritual navel-gazing, tea-leaf-reading and drama is not Christianity.

I really wish every Christian would read the book Just Do Something. There’s really not a whole lot I can add to that book’s take on the will of God. It’s quite liberating for those stuck in “prayer paralysis.”

So let’s move on to the practical reasons. Feel free to disagree with one or all, but here they are.

2. The Fundamental Nature of Race and Tribe

The Bible is very big on tribes and genealogy. Western individualism is a foreign concept to Old Testament Hebrews, who were very aware that tribal and racial distinctions were important to God. I will not belabor this point, as it will be covered more thoroughly in a subsequent post on interracial marriage, but let us just consider an example.

The logical end result of interracial adoption and interracial marriage is a world of people with no identifiable single racial heritage, a total mixing of all peoples, tongues and nations. Such a situation is ideal for the establishment of a world government.

I believe the Bible makes it clear at Babel that such an outcome would multiply evil in our world. John Calvin attempts to explain the Providence of national and racial distinctions:

“Just as there are in a military camp separate lines for each platoon and section, men are placed on the earth so that each nation may be content with its own boundaries. [In this manner,] God, by his providence, reduces to order that which is confused.”

3. Potential Psychological Issues Among Adopted Interracial Children

One obvious problem with interracial adoption is that the child knows they are obviously different from the rest of the family from a very young age. One benefit of intra-racial adoption from birth is that the tender child enjoys a time of “plausible deniability” and the fact of their adoption can be dealt with when the child is more mature and able to handle the situation.

Race and tribe are also fundamental parts of who we are. The child already has the emotional burden of not being raised by their biological family, but also the burden of not even being raised among their own people, but being raised by strangers in a strange land. Since everyone wants to have an ethnic identity, this could lead to serious problems as the child approaches adulthood and starts to form their self-image.

For example, see here.

Barack Obama is the epitome of the psychological issues associated with mixed race families.  Here is a man abandoned by his black African father, raised by his white mother, Asian stepfather and white grandparents.  Yet his whole life he has desperately sought to prove himself “black enough” because of his confused heritage.  Though a talented individual, he has embraced poisonous left-wing ideology in a continual attempt to earn his father’s approval.

4. Financial Issues

Part of the reasoning of international, transracial adoption is the idea that we as Christians in America are very “blessed” and we should seek to share this blessing. You would think America was a nation of people living on majestic estates, nobly allowing foreign peasants to work their fields. In reality, the middle class lifestyle enjoyed by many American Christians is a hollow edifice built on easy credit and debt.

These adoptions can cost north of $20,000 net of travel, fees, etc.  Most of the people paying this outrageous amount don’t even own their house, not to mention car notes and student loans.  American Christians assume the good times will go on forever and so think nothing of spending this kind of money on an adoption.  The fantasy of being someone’s benefactor is irresistible to people who are in reality debt and wage slaves in need of liberation themselves.  If the family’s income were cut in half, how long could these “rich” American Christians maintain their lifestyle?

If their house were paid for, would they borrow against their equity to pay for the adoption?  It’s the same question when Christians put $20,000 towards an unnecessary expense like international adoption, money that could be used to liberate themselves from debt bondage.  The New Testament commands us to (legally) seek our freedom if we are slaves.  Debt slavery is in some ways worse, as it gives the illusion of freedom and hides the true nature of our situation.

5. Moral Issues with Some Transracial Adoption

Many of the children adopted are special needs.  While it is truly a terrible lot to be born special needs in a poor country, why do you think their home countries are willing to allow Americans to adopt them?  Simply, because exporting these children relieves their home countries of social costs and places them on American society.

American laws require employer health insurance to cover adopted special needs children the same as natural born children, some of whom immediately need hundreds of thousands in medical treatments, and a lifetime of continuing care (disabled children can remain on their parent’s health insurance indefinitely regardless of age).

I am an employer who runs a small business.  We have a group policy whose cost is driven by the usage of the plan.  If one of my employees were to deliberately seek out a special needs child to adopt, that child’s immediate and continuing medical needs would drive the premiums for the rest of our group sky-high.  It’s one thing if a natural born child is afflicted with a problem.  This is the purpose of insurance, to insure against unpredictable risks.  But when we deliberately add known risks to an insurance pool, it unfairly drives up costs for everyone.

So “rich” American Christians delay paying off or go into debt to finance the adoption, and then sponge on their employer’s health insurance to pay for special needs medical care.  Everyone pays the cost in increased insurance premiums, but the individual family gets the credit for “saving” a child from a Third World existence.  It is fundamentally immoral in my view to burden one’s employer and fellow employees in this way.  No one has the right to force someone else, even under cover of law, to participate in their charity.

6. Birthright / Legacy Issues

My postmillenial tendencies cause me to take a long view of my family.  My natural-born children have a birthright in their inheritance, the accumulated capital of their family.  This is the vision of the Biblical trustee family.  I do not believe it is fair to force my natural born children to share with someone who is not, and to seek this out.  However, most Christians are debt slaves with no capital to speak of, and when they “die broke” there’s nothing left for any children to get anyway.  This is yet another problem with the debt slave mentality of most American Christians, always seeking out a short-term spiritual high instead of focusing on a multi-generational legacy.

7. Technology Issues

Adoption has historically been a local act of charity, most often among relatives and sometimes among unrelated people of the same race and nation, to meet a specific need of a specific orphaned child.  There is a world of need out there, and technology makes it easy to find this need.  However, there is more need out there than can ever be met with the limited supply of charity available.  Simply, adopting the Third World is not a sustainable strategy for helping the Third World (many Americans have a provincial naivety of the sheer number of people out there: there are 5 billion people on this planet poorer than the average Mexican), though the importation of millions of Third Worlders can certainly ruin a First World country.

Bottom line:

I would only consider adoption if Providence literally placed it in my path: a relative or local orphan with no other options who could be easily integrated in my family.  If I could not in good conscience integrate the child, I would work hard to find a family who could so the child could grow up with as natural an environment as possible.

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Kinism: Friend or Foe?

September 21, 2009 by generation5

Kinism would seem to be a friend to a Christian human biodiversity realist, in that it’s comforting to know there are some Christians out there who have not reinterpreted the Church to be some sort of non-secular United Nations.  However, the group can be a bit rough around the edges.  A few friendly critiques (though these will apply to only some Kinists, not all):

1. Stop using words like “Aryan” or “Negro” or even worse “nigger”.  Every group has the right to name itself (for example I call “Christian Scientists” by their preferred name even though they’re neither Christian nor scientific, but quite the contrary!), and though the African-American name du jour does change every few decades (likely for the same reason the euphemisms we use for mentally challenged people change: the technical, respectable term becomes too strongly associated with negative connotations), there’s no need to alienate potential readers with status-destroying verbiage.  I share many of your views, but many of your readers are strangers in a public forum; I would not think highly of any young man who came to court my daughter and lacked the self-control, barely knowing me as a stranger, to not spout off several n-bombs in the conversation.  Status does matter for those of us living in the real world, and if it makes no difference to your essential argument, why advertise low status?  Yggdrasil says it best:

One unintended tactical benefit of the dumbing-down of our educational system and culture is that few in the middle class associate low status with abstract concepts. Rather, they associate low status only with specific words and slogans.

It takes billions of dollars of investment and years of propaganda before the mass-media can associate a new set of words and phrases with low status European-Americans. It is relatively easy for you to maneuver within this slow strategic cycle created by our mass media and the dumbed-down culture it has produced.

Use it to your advantage! Avoid those stereotyped phrases and words, and the status threat to the middle class audience is removed. They will listen intently to your concepts as long as they are unaccompanied by ignorant sounding slogans.

The establishment will be left with its feeble efforts to silence you. They dare not debate the merits. They dare not argue openly that multi-racial empires are conducive to peace. They dare not begin a debate over the proposition, inherent in all integrationist mythology, that blacks and browns lose that predisposition toward racial hatred and aggression that they exhibit everywhere else in the world once on North American or European soil.

They cannot afford to address publicly that ultimate question of how much European-Americans must give up to buy racial peace.

So exploit their weaknesses! Explain reality but avoid the words and phrases that provoke status fears.

Stop talking about “loving your own race” when accused of hating other races. Talk instead about the inevitability of conflict within multi-racial empires irrespective of the races involved, and talk about the obvious economic motives for their creation – the manipulation of the most numerous and productive.

Stop talking about the achievements of the white race, and focus on the demands of blacks and browns.

Stop talking about genetic differences and focus instead on pracitcal ways of preventing conflict and reducing costs.

And for goodness sake, stop using the “n” word.

2. Kinism has a very good first principle: we have concentric circles of obligation to our family, and our race/nation is analogous to family in relation to humanity at large.  However, one of its smaller principles is likely to ensure its continued marginalization: their theological belief that interracial marriages are illegitimate and adulterous.  Their argument is based on a theonomic interpretation of Nehemiah, where the prophet commands the Jews to part with their foreign wives and children.  Modern theologians like to say this was on a spiritual, not a racial, basis.  However, Kinists rightly respond that Paul expressly commands Christians to not divorce non-Christians, and most Kinists would also agree that if a white Christian willfully and sinfully marries a white non-Christian, then there is no cause for divorce or nullification of the marriage.  How, then, the Kinist responds, is it that God lawfully commands the Israelites to divorce their foreign wives and abandon their children?

Logically, goes the Kinist argument, there is a special category of nullification for interracial marriages, i.e. it’s as if they had never taken place.

The principle of unequal yoking was expanded with some Old Testament Law support by Rushdoony to include interracial and intercultural marriages.  However, Rushdoony never goes so far as to command men in interracial marriages to divorce and abandon their wives and children.  This Kinist argument is weak in that it proves too much.  The Bible has been around a long time, and absent more proof that mainstream theologians (Calvin, Henry, Dabney, etc) accept the Kinist argument here, I simply cannot accept it and must call it a reactionary innovation.

The idea of men abandoning their families simply shocks the conscience, and if this were indeed a general principle to be derived from Nehemiah I would simply expect more attention paid to it in other parts of Scripture, specifically in the New Testament.  I believe that interracial marriage is unwise, maybe even sinful (and certainly so when it involves disobeying parents).  But to say that interracial marriages should be nullified and children abandoned, I can’t buy that.

This particular doctrine will also be flown as a bloody shirt by liberals looking to smear all HBD realist Christians.  Major Kinist sites for the curious (again, these critiques do not necessarily apply to all Kinists):

kinism.net

spiritwaterblood.com

firstword.us

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