" Is it my reference to Deliverance that is "tongue in cheek"?"

No. I mean Jack Wheeler can not be serious when he says there has been a genetic drift between Europe and America, although I don't know what is in the glass he holds in his hand. Maybe he means it is AS IF there had been a genetic drift.

Anyway, I don't understand why he says Europe's problem is a loss of civilizational confidence. Our main problem is immigration, which is due to leftism, and America has exactly the same problem. Is he saying that the USA has less to fear from islamization because it is not affected by "the fear of envy" ? In fact, the USA has less to fear from islam because Mexican immigrants are not muslim trouble-makers. It has nothing to do with the fear of envy, or the lack of civilizational confidence.

I said that genes count more than culture. I said that in reply to Marcfrans because I know he makes use of that debate to cast himself as a high-minded gentleman, and to depict common-sense people as racist hicks. The practical result is that he is pushing for more immigration, even though he doesn't really care about immigration increasing or decreasing. He is only interested in striking the right posture.

It is absurd to claim that the main difference between Europeans (or Americans) and third-world immigrants is cultural. We are obviously different at a deeper level, in our genes. However, gene differences cannot account for the difference in behavior between English people who live in Britain and their American cousins of English stock. In this particular case, Marcfrans is right to say it is about culture and not genes. But culture doesn't amount to much. For people descended from the same stock, the small differences in culture simply depend on the circumstances.

Is it my reference to Deliverance that is "tongue in cheek"?
 
...for I would not want to give the impression that I agreed with Wheeler's retarded discussion of American and European genetic differences in the least. If Mr. Wheeler was able to infiltrate the highest echelons of the American public administration with such ignorant and stupid ideas, then perhaps the abrupt end of the American dalliance with eugenics was ill-conceived...
 
Perhaps I am treating Mr. Wheeler too harshly, after all his comments are Sun-Tzu come again in comparison to those uttered by the current "leader of the free world".

marcfrans: Indeed, envy seems to increase as people become richer!
 
It certainly becomes more noticeable.
 
Firstly, I am an ethnic nationalist, whereas you are a civic one. These factors cause us to use divergent methods of analysis to arrive at differing conclusions on the subject of American cultural identity and socio-political viability. Secondly, I do not wholly reject genetic differences between human races and subraces, which correspondingly impact the ethnicities or nations these comprise, and am also fully cognisant that group differences can be acquired f.i. the high IQ found amongst Jews is due in large part to their emphasis on literacy over the centuries, principally to understand religious texts. Unfortunately, Wheeler's moronic attempts to buttress certain Americans' sense of national and cultural superiority entirely discredit legitimate racial anthropological research. Indeed, psychological research emphasizes the nature variable in the nature vs. nuture controversy of individual human development. Moreover, the vast majority of non-White societies are literally millennia behind Europe in all areas of development, Western aid notwithstanding, and the advent of increasingly culture-fair IQ testing has not altered the established superior rankings of Europeans and East Asians. Thirdly, though I agree that the cultural (or nuture) component of education should promote the greatest individual achievement possible, no amount of revision will erase genetic differences.

Kap.André: " his discussion of "genetic drift" is ludicrous "

I think he said that tongue in cheek.

Marcfrans: " nor is it about genetics, but it is all about culture. "

It is not about culture: Blacks behave like Blacks, Whites behave like Whites, and the Chinese behave like Chinese people. Everyone knows that.

@ KA
 

1) I agree with you on the limited importance of "envy", and that it should not be "dangerously asociated with poverty".  Indeed, envy seems to increase as people become richer!

2) "Efforts to distinguish" the nation - any nation - are unavoidable, or must be made, if one is to approach the laudable goal of achieving 'one out of many'.  The latter goal is a necessary one for any polity to survive over time.  Diversity (in detail) and unity (in substance), that must be the goal, and not uniformity of thinking with no common substance.

3) The American constitution has survived much longer than the constitutions of any European nation.  While there are certain mitigating explanatory factors for this, it does cast doubt over your assertion that American identity is "more fluid and volatile" than those of many European nations.  In fact, many of the latter appear on the verge of adopting a new undefined EU identity.  At the same time, there is little doubt that American identity is again facing severe strain, under the impact of naive-left influences emanating from academia and media, similar to cultural-suicidal tendencies in other Western 'democratic' countries.  

4) I agree with you that Wheeler's claim about the impact of "genetic differences" between Europe and America is suspect.  In my view, the different historical experiences of the respective peoples is much more important to explain differences in their current behavior patterns.  It's the 'old' culture-versus-race argument all over again.  I must point out though, that you seem to call on "genetics" when it suits you (e.g. in the context of immigration), but that you reject genetic differences when it does not suit you (in the context of the America-Europe comparison).  

When it comes to societies as a whole - as opposed to the distribution of 'intelligence' among children in a classroom - the vacuous Bill Clinton and the marxists are wrong: it's NOT "about the economy, stupid", nor is it about genetics, but it is all about culture.  

I agree in large part with the concept of "civilisational confidence" and find it lacking in European political, popular and academic discourse.
 
However, Wheeler's analyses of National Socialism, Marxism-Leninism, militant Islam and global underdevelopment are terribly flawed. I am not dismissing envy as an influential factor in the thoughts and actions of individuals and collectives; however, the issues that Wheeler discusses cannot be reduced to "envy" and/or "fear of the evil eye". In addition, Wheeler dangerously associates envy with poverty, which suffice it to say, is not a new or unusual attitude.
 
Furthermore, I take exception to Wheeler's evaluation of American cultural confidence and of the Euro-American relationship. Firstly, American confidence cannot be extricated from its deliberate attempts to distinguish the United States and Americans from all other societies before and since. Despite being a relatively 'young' country, the United States has successfully constructed national mythologies, symbols, etc. in order to forge its identity. However, the American identity is far more fluid and volatile than those of many European nations, and it is equally vulnerable to the divisive factors of ethnicity, race and religion. As American economic and military power wanes and the United States becomes one of a concert of great powers, what will be its mission then? Can the illegal aliens and their compatriots absorb American triumphs in the First and Second World Wars, let alone the Revolution or Civil War? Can capitalism thrive in the United States if its citizens are half or mostly derived from cultures that reject the tenets on which capitalism is founded?
 
Secondly, Wheeler's claim that there is a ridiculous "genetic difference" between Europe and the United States due the migration of Puritans, such that the United States has greater cultural confidence than Europe. Unfortunately, this assumes that the Puritans were the "best and brightest" of Europe and that the majority of Americans are descended from them. Deliverance (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068473/) aside, his discussion of "genetic drift" is ludicrous and belies a complete ignorance of genetics. I suppose that Wheeler's mulatto and Hispanic descendents will continue to pass the mysterious Puritan gene to their offspring...
 
The Earth has avoided an all-consuming nuclear conflagration not due to the efforts of Wheeler and his ilk, but in spite of them.

So, you could extend his remarks and say anti-Americanism in Europe is based on the fact that Americans suffer less from the fear of envy.

I was one of those callers btw
Pierre Legrand
The Pink Flamingo Bar

Just so you know I listened in on a BlogRadio Interview with Jack Wheeler. He moved me to call in and question him. For the record I have been a fan proved by these posts on my blog.

Vicar Self Immolates Himself to Warn of Islamization in Europe

here
US Has Threatened to Vaporize Mecca

and also here

Former Navy Secretary to Speak Out On Kerry Discharge

Which should establish that I am not some closet liberal out to get Jack Wheeler.

I was interested in talking to Jack because of a post he had put up on his blog regarding John McCain. The long and short of it is that under sharp questions from callers, Jack retreated faster than the French in 1940.

Needless to say that I was dismayed that I had put up this post based on his original nonsense post on John McCain.

Holy Smoke! The Ultimate Smoking Gun Against McCain! Jack Wheeler, President Reagan’s Fixer to the Rescue! UPDATED: I CALL BULL#$T TO THIS ARTICLE UNLESS WHEELER CAN BACK IT UP!

Danger Will Robinson, Danger...Jack lets his prejudices get in the way of his analysis.

Pierre Legrand
The Pink Flamingo Bar