This is what Republicans believe about women, minorities, and the poor

[YoungDemCA]

Charles Murray:

In September 2005, after Harvard University president Larry Summers was forced out for suggesting women were under-represented in fields of science because of a lower aptitude, Murray wrote an essay defending Summers’ statement.

In it he wrote, “no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great philosophical traditions.”

He also said “Women have produced a smaller number of important visual artists, and none that is clearly in the first rank. No female composer is even close to the first rank.”

He credits that theory to women and men are cognitively different — and women wanting to have babies, which pulls them out of the workplace during key times.

“I have omitted perhaps the most obvious reason why men and women differ at the highest levels of accomplishment: men take more risks, are more competitive, and are more aggressive than women,” he also stated.

Gregg Abbott:

Abbott’s reference to Murray was a footnote. The GOP nominee for governor’s plan talks about funding early education programs, but only those that meet certain gold standards. Abbott also says that universal pre-K education would be a “waste” and state money should be reserved for programs whose success can be measured.

Abbott cited Murray’s book Real Education when he stated, “Family background has the most decisive effect on student achievement, contributing to a large performance gap between children from economically disadvantaged families and those from middle class homes.”

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/greg-abbotts-education-plan-cites-controversial-thinker-on-race-gender.html/

Paul Ryan:

Citing Charles Murray, the libertarian academic and pundit who has previously argued that poverty is largely a consequence of low IQ and race, Rep. Paul Ryan told right-wing radio host Bill Bennett on Wednesday morning that poverty in America is largely a product of a “tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”

“So there’s a real culture problem here,” Ryan continued, “that has to be dealt with.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/12/paul_ryan_poverty_due_to_real_culture_problem_in_americas_inner_cities/

Jeb Bush:

Lowry asked Bush, "... is there any policy or anything public officials can do to help turn back what has been a rising tide of family breakdown crossing decades now?"

"Absolutely, there is," Bush, a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said. "It's not exactly the core. My views on this were shaped a lot on this by Charles Murray's book, except I was reading the book and I was waiting for the last chapter with the really cool solutions — didn't quite get there."

Later in the interview, Lowry asked Bush what he likes to read. Again, he cited Murray.

"I like Charles Murray books to be honest with you, which means I'm a total nerd I guess," Bush said.

and finally, Charles Murray, again:

Murray is the author of the highly influential 1984 book Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 which argued that social welfare programs of the 1960s and 1970s actually hurt the poor rather than helped. It was and remains a seminal work in the conservative policy canon.

Ten years later Murray authored the highly controversial The Bell Curve, which he co-authored with Richard Herrnstein. Critics denounced it as racist, saying it essentially argued that African-Americans aren't as intelligent as white Americans because of genetic differences. In 1994 Bob Herbert, then a columnist at The New York Times, described the book as a "scabrous piece of racial pornography masquerading as serious scholarship."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-charles-murray-the-bell-curve

These are all mainstream Republican politicians, FWIW. They have all had very successful political careers. And they are far from the only ones who are still citing the likes of Charles Murray.

This is what angers and terrifies me about the GOP. They have been trying to make racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, hatred of the poor, and other forms of historical prejudice- part of the ad hoc rationalization and justification for slavery, genocide, imperialism, colonialism, discrimination, domination, and subjugation of much of the world's population - intellectually fashionable, socially acceptable, and politically palatable. They might have already succeeded, to a significant extent in this country.

I hope I am wrong. But, I fear otherwise.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. Love this, wow. So well put together and accurate and truth.

have you seen Carlin on Politically Correct episode 15 yrs ago?

[undergroundpanther]

2. Murray is disguising his asshole sociopath tendencies

With pseudophilosphy, i am a living refute to every fucking thing murray wrote,fuck him and the sociopaths that fancy themselves philosophers and social scientists,leo strauss,all of em,ayn rand they are all shit writers.