Friends, back in 1992 that great American patriot and escaped mental patient Ross Perot warned us about "that giant sucking sound" produced by the departure of American jobs for allegedly greener pastures in Mexico and elsewhere in the Third World. Well, outsourcing is child's play compared to the economic devastation inflicted on our nation, and on our world, by the Chinese coronavirus. China has a lot to answer for, assuming the rumors are true and COVID-19 was designed in a lab and released accidentally, followed by the mother-of-all-coverups. For instance, the toll on American small businesses has been horrific. Massive corporations, on the other hand, have in many cases benefitted. And thus the concentration of wealth, and the rise in inequality, continue apace. Lefties allegedly care about such problems. Of course, they don't really care. They want power, and now they have it. The rest is mere trivia.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/nearly-40-percent-us-small-businesses-shutter-pandemic
Every conservative's favorite Governor, Ron DeSantis, has signed a bill mandating a moment of silence in Florida public schools. I applaud the effort to reinvigorate the faltering morals of our youth, BUT the micromanagement of what goes on in classrooms is a little troubling. Sadly, we conservatives are coming to assume that teachers are the natural enemy of decency and truth, and so the only way to ensure that students receive a non-Bolshevik education is to prescribe for educators exactly how they should do their jobs. The sad part is that the underlying assumption is probably valid.
Real progress is being made on the development of a bipartisan infrastructure bill in the Senate. Is this good news or bad? That's hard to say. Obviously, on one level, the last thing our country needs is to spend more money. On the other hand, the only way Biden and the Dems will get a bipartisan bill is by compromising on A LOT of the items on their wish list. Progressives, in addition, will fume, because moderate Democrats made a "deal with the devil", i.e. us. Overall, I'm inclined to see the progress in these talks as a confirmation of Dem weakness...and that fills me with good cheer.
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/congress-infrastructure/2021/06/16/id/1025379/
Our buddy Rod informs us that we don't know squat about critical race theory. Maybe we do, and maybe we don't, but according to this poll most Americans think they know what CRT is, and they don't care for it. In fact, a majority of Americans have a "very unfavorable" view of critical race theory. Maybe that's why the Rod Squad is so desperate to reframe the debate?
America's moral values are circling the drain. That's the view of the vast majority of Republicans, and it's the view of many Democrats and independents as well. Now, you know me: I'm the eternal optimist, so I think a lot of our doomsaying is misplaced. On the other hand, I do view our nation as morally debauched. It's our material circumstances that I view as overwhelmingly favorable, much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise.
Nick, the only reason to "reframe" the debate about Critical Race Theory is that the conservatives creating a moral panic about it don't know shit about what the hell they are talking about. They confuse Critical Race Theory with the "anti-racism" that permeates most DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) training and educational curricula. Most anti-racism thinking comes from Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X Kendi, and that stuff is pure crap.
ReplyDeleteBut, attacking "anti-racism" is not cool. Rather, if you are a conservative, why not mislabel "anti-racism" as "Critical Race Theory." There you have three words conservatives hate -- critical, race and theory. It's clever. Unethical, but clever.
And complete and utter bullshit.
Rod
DeleteAs usual (or perhaps I should say, all too often) you blast conservatives (whatever that word means these days) as a bunch of racist fools (usually White) who really don't understand CRT. Of course you do, but you fail to explain anything beyond the fact that YOU like it, or believe in in, so it must be true. In other words. you present no case to convince anyone as to why they need to understand it, and believe in it. If you were in court prosecuting or defending a case, the jury would be laughing their asses off. Present your case, or shut the hell up!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: What the hell is so wrong with our "infrastructure"? If the opportunistic Dems find fault with it, improbably unfree that is of their ideological animus to the basesof American polity and society, we must yet question their intellectual or objectibe grounds.
ReplyDeleteDrWaddy from Jack: The Dems clearly, through any stategem, seek imposition of totalitarian control of any factor limiting their direction of policy mandating allegiance to the unproven conviction that perceived global warming is enabled only by ignorant and atavistic recalcitrants!
ReplyDeleteRod, I'm pleased to hear that you reject "anti-racism". If so, there's a perfectly good political party that shares your feelings on the subject, and which you're welcome to join. It's called the Republican Party. It's the same party that abolished slavery in the first place, as a matter of fact. Look into it. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for CRT, words acquire meaning from common usage. I realize you may be right about what CRT meant to academics a few years back, but now it's a politically loaded term that conveys "anti-racism", "neo-Marxism", reverse discrimination, and the shaming of whites. Rather than debating terminology, though, we should probably be debating the specifics about how this country should handle race. Hoe does Rod feel about the abandonment of standardized testing to promote increased diversity, for instance? Answer carefully! Big Brother Anti-Racist is Watching!
Jack: your question about American "infrastructure" is a sound one. Everyone likes roads and bridges, I suppose, and it's politically popular to dump money into them, but the fundamental claim that the Dems are making is that America suffers from a lack of government spending. Moreover, that spending has SURGED in the last year. The current high levels, however, are, to them, still insufficient. It may be time to ask the Left, therefore: what percentage of GDP should we be spending on government programs? 40%? 50%? 60%? It would be nice to know just how socialist the Dems intend to get.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spending-to-gdp
Nick, nice try. but CRT is only a politically loaded word because people like Christopher Rufo and others are lying about the term -- out of malice or ignorance, and often both. As a result, public policy is being made by legislators who don't know and don't care to know about CRT. Reminds me of 100 years ago when state legislatures like TN barred the teaching of evolution.
ReplyDeleteThe issue with standardized testing is not race but income. Control for income and parental level of education, and any difference between whites and blacks disappear.
That being said, I am not unhappy to see standardized testing be eliminated. We've known for a long time that coaching makes a difference on the test -- coaching that is too expensive for lower income test takers. My concern is that the variation in the quality of education across the country makes grades hard to compare. College admissions is a flawed system, and really needs much more thought to make the system fair.
Unlike the Republican Party, I am not against the concept of DEI. But, the current way a lot of the training gets done is just garbage. There is good training out there, but 1) college administrations are often lazy and 2) DEI hustlers like DiAngelo and Ibram have done such a great job of self-promotion that their garbage too often forms the basis of such anti-racism training.
Dr. Waddy from Jack : It is a fully demonstrated truth and an expectation certain enough justity party policy, once a spending bill is passed, Dems "feel" free to spend the funds in any manner they please,be it within or without the stated scope of the statute. They've been doing this with "arts" spending for decades by favoring works notable not for artistic quality but for their advocacy of leftist causes.
ReplyDeleteRod, you're a purist to the end, but I'm afraid the train has left the station on CRT. Your lot would be better off admitting that CRT is bad, and then fighting another day on some more fruitful battlefield...like "equity", I suppose. Sounds harmless enough.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that you're wrong about results being the same for blacks and whites on standardized tests, if you correct for income and parental education. Think about it: if that's all you had to do to eliminate the disparity, then that's what every college and probably every business in America WOULD be doing. The truth is that, if you start basing "affirmative action" on income and parental education, you end up giving many whites and Asians a leg up. No, colleges and universities use race preferences because they have to. Sad, but true.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016/01/12/poverty-preference-admissions-the-new-affirmative-action
But I agree that creating a "fair" standard for college admissions, or any other social reward, is a tough thing to accomplish. Personally, I like standardized tests, but obviously the tide is flowing in the other direction these days. I just fear that race preferences, in a country that soon won't have a racial or ethnic majority, set us up for endless strife and resentment.
Jack: a big part of the problem is the bureaucracy, which can always be trusted to spend money and administer programs to leftists' "tastes".