Regarding July 4th post

A lot of ground was covered in the Fourth of July post, and some elaboration may be in order:

The question of whether any particular group (ethnic, racial, religious, etc.) may or may not have higher or lower average attributes of any kind (such as intelligence or talents of any kind) is irrelevant to the fact that individuals vary widely within the group. If there are differences in averages between groups, they are minor compared to the differences amongst individuals within the group. In other words, in the racial group of green people (if there were such a group), there would be some very stupid people, some very brilliant people and everything in between. The same is true of any major group. Our task as a modern society is to find the ones who can contribute the most and allow them to do so, despite whatever objections anyone may have to the group they belong to. Our system, our "American way" if you will, seeks to allow people to rise if they are able to do so, and attempts to eliminate barriers of prejudice, poverty, etc.

Even if it were true that there would be more brilliant people per capita in one group than another, that would not alter the fact that there are brilliant people in every group, and we need their talents.

The important thing is that we want to evaluate individuals as individuals, not as members of whatever group they belong to.