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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Even a first year math student can prove that discriminatory hiring is not the easiest way to correct the situation. Look at job replacement (next person to get a job after previous one retires) and just stop being bigoted about hiring.
What's worse than bigotry... bigotry covered up by PC and "good intentions".
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
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On 2009-07-28 16:24, LobowolfXXX wrote: Wonderful the way those with privilege defend their privilege. Ignore history. While whites were running the race, non-whites were deliberately held back; to be intellectually honest and truly believe in fairness, then FAIRNESS, not discrimination, demands all start off from the same place. Thought experiment: Suppose --for economic purposes only--you had a choice to be born white or non-white, which would you choose? Do you really think there would be no difference in your choice? Or maybe you'll be lucky and turn out to be Obama's daughter. BTW The SATs are bunch of c**p also. (And I say that as one who used to make his money SAT tutoring) Lots of research on how they (don't) correlate with college success. As to the poor white coal miner's son or daughter, of course there should be fairness for them too. Miners have been exploited as well. It's not one or the other, race or class, it's both. But there are those who would love to keep people divided. Quote:
On 2009-07-28 16:36, Jonathan Townsend wrote: Perhaps some first year math student you know might want to suggest a solution that would be the "easiest way to correct the situation." I guess you have another 225 years to wait. "Just stop being bigoted about hiring." What mechanism do you propose to accomplish this? The percentage of non-whites in the NYC Fire Department? Three percent in 2002. Jack
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
At the risk of seeming even more moderate than usual, neither math students nor anyone else knows the easiest way to achieve a high level of equality of opportunity.
It appears that since affirmative action policies there have been some desirable consequences, but it is not at all clear how much the policies deserve the credit. Nor is it clear that stronger--or less stringent--policies would have been better. And as Lobo points out (but I'm not sure if this is the point he was trying to make) there are always individuals within disadvantaged groups who are not disadvantaged. Simple policies based on gender, or disability or something relatively simple to define have the tremendous advantage of being easy to implement and easy to audit. They have the tremendous disadvantage of being very crude tools. Equality is easy to say; very hard to achieve. John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
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On 2009-07-28 17:47, Magnus Eisengrim wrote: Not so easy to define, either. Is equality when Fire Department X has Y% of African American captains, or when 100% of African Americans are considered entirely on their merits? Maybe every hockey team should have 7 women and an Asian guy. Jack, of course, for rhetorical purposes, frames "privilege" as if it's the cornerstone of the affirmative action debate. But in the context of historical discrimination, some of the victims of affirmative affirmative action are historically unprivileged entities, i.e. Asian Americans. When affirmative action programs are in place on college campuses, individual Asian American students are intentionally discriminated against because of the disproportionate success of their ethnic cohort. "Sorry, we'd take you on your qualifications, but we have enough Chinese guys." Unfortunately, you can't really make smarmy remarks about privilege or justify the discrimination on it, because historically, it's been decidedly a NON-privilege to be of Asian descent in the United States (for instance, the camps for Japanese American citizens in World War II, and Supreme Court language arguing for equal rights of black Americans but not Asian ones (I believe it was the dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson)). So what's the rationale for penalizing the historically UNDERprivileged Asian American student with respect to college admissions? Of course, we could also dissect the "225 years of white privilege" argument with respect to Jewish Americans, "Irish need not apply," etc.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Do we really want to address the hiring practices and social issues that go with the local fire police and fire departments? I grew up in NYC and now live in Ossining. Just recently I watched way too much news coverage of off duty cops getting shot for *whatever reason* by those who are supposed to be their peers.
Ah the white man's burden - with appropriate hand-wringing by some who would be the intellectual ruling class. The rhetoric works if you wish to foster resentment and then lead a revolution. Been tested a few times actually. But fairness? Please - this is not a gradeschool debate over the necessity of evil or the revelations offered by Orwell via Goldstein's book. By the age when on can make a claim of being adult one is expected to understand that while life is not fair it will always be a personal choice how one treats others. If you would address matters honestly as regards jobs, look at flow of people over time - say a generation and watch how things stabilize pretty quickly. If you want to discuss the economics - then we have some issues as regards the flow of capital and the time it takes to aggregate sufficient capital to establish holdings. As best I understand it large families have to pool resources for two generations. Nothing new there. And by the way, just how much is citizenship worth? How much would you trade yours for?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
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On 2009-07-28 18:40, LobowolfXXX wrote: It is not a statistical accident that the NYFD is 97% white. This pattern is not unusual throughout the US. Colleges, sports teams, local governments, private corporations, have long discriminated while maintaining they were judging admissions through a meritocratic system. Look up the history of IQ tests. The examples are numerous. That a college has a finite number of spots means that there will always be someone who would have gotten in if only someone else didn't. We can say that a particular Asian A didn't get in because of favoritism show towards a particular Black B. But, given the history of discrimination in this country, in fact what is much more likely is that Asian A and Black C didn't get in because of favoritism shown towards Whites D, E, and F. This is not to blame D, E and F; but the chances are greater for them that they come from families that have the accumulation of money, education, social connections, and yes, privilege that makes for college admission. Jews, Irish, Italians were seen as non-white when they first came to the US. It's no secret that they came to be considered white (in some respects) by the elite because it served to split the working class in an age of increased industrialization. Quote:
On 2009-07-28 19:07, Jonathan Townsend wrote: There was an assumption about affirmative action put out that I believe is false. Hiring practices of such departments are a useful window on attitudes towards race. Quote:
Ah the white man's burden - with appropriate hand-wringing by some who would be the intellectual ruling class. The rhetoric works if you wish to foster resentment and then lead a revolution. Been tested a few times actually. I doubt the Magic Café is the vanguard of the revolution. I am pointing out some obvious clues as to how life is lived here. Quote:
But fairness? Please - this is not a gradeschool debate over the necessity of evil or the revelations offered by Orwell via Goldstein's book. By the age when on can make a claim of being adult one is expected to understand that while life is not fair it will always be a personal choice how one treats others. Of course it is a personal choice how one treats others. It would hardly be a discussion if that were the point. Societies, by definition, have rules. What are those rules? Are they mutable? Can law and policy make for more equality? Or shall we bring back the poll tax because you can't legislate what's in a person's heart? Quote:
If you would address matters honestly as regards jobs, look at flow of people over time - say a generation and watch how things stabilize pretty quickly. If you want to discuss the economics - then we have some issues as regards the flow of capital and the time it takes to aggregate sufficient capital to establish holdings. As best I understand it large families have to pool resources for two generations. "Stabilize pretty quickly" as if our context were some airless void? A foreground without a background? Stability for whom? The growing disparity in income between the rich and poor in the US in the last thirty years is sufficient proof that things don't just take care of themselves that way. A lot of serious struggle had to occur so that things were not even worse. Quote:
And by the way, just how much is citizenship worth? How much would you trade yours for? Does that mean I should go back to Russia where I come from, as we used to say back in the day? If you're serious, compared to what? Jack
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
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it served to split the working class hmm - guess you understood the line about profitability of "the division of labor" when that came up in class. Many have paid dearly to become citizens here and had to leave family members behind. A family I met from Poland told me about their situation. The kids are now doctors and their mother, after over a decade of being mistreated, finally got back her status as a neurophysician. They spoke French, Polish and English almost interchangeably at home. Folks here do (or should) know about the miscegenation laws. Whatever was in folks minds back then it really seems like they imagined someone from Italy marrying someone from Ireland as genetic experimentation and so set up laws to keep those experiments contained. Same mentality that could look at another person and see "property" or maybe the way we look at animals in the zoo. IMHO we are better served by looking at that question I asked earlier about our ethos than fretting over past wrongs and repeating horrible pattens of social change where the pendulum swings serve as distraction to offer a shift in state for a few and much loss for many. "Meet the new boss - same as the old boss" - or must be be fooled again?
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Within the confines of the US political system, indeed, the difference between the old boss and new boss is small. This is not the case in some other countries where the allowed range of approved political discourse is much wider. This is not to say that popular struggle has no effect. There are many local victories, and some smaller victories on a larger scale.
The Polish family sounds admirable. There were laws and policies enacted that contributed to their mistreatment. There can be laws and policies enacted to relieve some of that mistreatment. It is not some natural law that all will be well if we just leave everything as is. The letter that is never sent has consequences as well. I know several families who risked much to come here--and then returned because the discrimination and prejudice they encountered were so extreme and unexpected. The fundamentalists have full sway in many parts of the country. Darwin's ideas are banned from serious discussion in many high school texts, sexual repression is the ideal, and being a Christian to some means killing doctors. Should I be fined if I say so? Is that blasphemous? Jack
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
I'm pleased that we have come so far in this discussion.
Is it possible to make the case that blasphemy is harmful in a politically significant sense? I don't think it could be done in Canada or the US. Is blasphemy harmful in Ireland?
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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Tom Bartlett Special user Our southern border could use 763 Posts |
I know several families who risked much to come here, persevered and overcame the discrimination and prejudice they encountered, unexpected but still less than they escaped from in their native land.
Darwin's ideas are not banned from serious discussion in any public high school in the U.S. it is creationism that is banned. It also seems, some think that teaching personal responsibility is sexual repression, and they think being a Christian is a bad thing because of some sick-o killing a doctor when these actions are the rear exception not the norm, but you have the right to think and say anything you want here, at least for now. Some here in the U.S. are trying to change that, they are going after the conservative talk show host first and then they will come for you.
Our friends don't have to agree with me about everything and some that I hold very dear don't have to agree about anything, except where we are going to meet them for dinner.
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
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On 2009-07-28 22:20, landmark wrote: Sort of a non-answer. In California, for instance at UCLA, Asian-Americans are "overrepresented" with respect to their proportion of the population as a whole. When it became illegal in California to use race as a criterion for admissions, the percentage of Asian-American students went up. Re-instituting race-based affirmative action would certainly result in a decrease in enrollment among Asian-American applicants. There would be Asian-American applicants who would have gotten in on their merits, but would be denied spots they would have been granted had their race not been considered. When it's Caucasian students being denied spots, you can dismiss that and say, "Well, you're part of a group that's long been privileged." What do you say to the Asian-American students who would be denied spots, given that Asian-Americans are a traditionally DISadvantaged group? Unless you're trying to claim with a straight face that there wouldn't be a decrease in Asian-American student enrollment, in which case I'll gladly drop out of the discussion, as that's about the equivalent of denying the moon landing or the Holocaust. Asian-American applicants benefitted tremendously from California's ban on race-based affirmative action in college admissions.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
This morning at work I found some a note with some lines attributed to Lincoln. They seem timely here as well.
The quotes were published in 1942 by William J. H. Boetcker, a Presbyterian minister. He released a pamphlet titled Lincoln On Limitations, which did include a Lincoln quote, but also added 10 statements written by Boetcker himself. They were: 1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. 2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong 3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. 4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. 5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. 6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. 7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. 8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. 9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. 10 You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves. http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/l/lincoln-quotes.htm
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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Tom Bartlett Special user Our southern border could use 763 Posts |
Jonathan,
Thank you for posting that. Tom
Our friends don't have to agree with me about everything and some that I hold very dear don't have to agree about anything, except where we are going to meet them for dinner.
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Magnus Eisengrim Inner circle Sulla placed heads on 1053 Posts |
I believe the date given at truthorfiction.com is incorrect. Rev. Boetker wrote published his pamphlet in 1916 according to the NY Times and others.
Of course, some relevant questions are 1. Are the maxims true? 2. Do they meaningfully apply to anything currently under discussion. 3. What does this have to do with blasphemy laws? Or Ireland? John
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.--Yeats |
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landmark Inner circle within a triangle 5194 Posts |
Lobo:
Quote:
Re-instituting race-based affirmative action would certainly result in a decrease in enrollment among Asian-American applicants. There would be Asian-American applicants who would have gotten in on their merits, but would be denied spots they would have been granted had their race not been considered. I have no way of knowing what would happen for sure, nor do you. Your assumption is always that one minority can only be admitted at the expense of other minorities. It could well be, for example, that legacy admissions which tend to be more Caucasian, would be cut back in order to make room for both Black and Asian applicants. Or more simply, that both Black and Asian applicants would both get some kind of extra admission points, and fewer Caucasians would be admitted. Jon It's always nice to share homilies and I understand that they reflect your beliefs, but I'm sure I could find quotes from, say, the Old and New Testament that are equally if not more profound. I'm fascinated by the inclusion of Nos. 3, 4, and 7 in this list. I would like to know more about the Reverend who wrote this, and what the political context was. I wonder what his church was like. Tom, Well at least we both agree on freedom of speech, if not the content of the speech. I did not write that Darwin could not be discussed, I wrote that in many high school texts Darwin is not discussed. Writing a biology text without using Darwin as the unifying theme is sort of like writing a physics text without referencing Newton, but some publishers are afraid that their texts may not be approved by some fundamentalist school boards, so they play it safe. For the record, I believe in personal responsibility and do not think that being a Christian is a bad thing. I think you bring up something interesting when you talk about the conservative radio shows; from them one gets the idea that say, Obama is a wild eyed socialist. And that tells me the range of political discourse allowed in the US in the media. You are allowed for example in the media to say the Iraq War is noble, or you can say that the Iraq War was handled incompetently and wastefully, but what you cannot say in the media--what is blasphemy--is to say that the War is immoral, and that the US does not have the right to pick and choose where it will send its troops. That is outside the allowed parameters of thought. John--And this is the function of banning blasphemy; to set up parameters within which one may think. When governments set up even more restrictive barriers to what may be thought, it is usually a sign that the ruling powers are getting very scared of losing power. Ireland, has recently been facing severe economic depression, on the verge of national bankruptcy, civil unrest and workers' strikes becoming common. I don't think that is unrelated to the new blasphemy laws. Jack
Click here to get Gerald Deutsch's Perverse Magic: The First Sixteen Years
All proceeds to Open Heart Magic charity. |
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Tom Bartlett Special user Our southern border could use 763 Posts |
Jack,
I really don’t think you have the ability to know what motivates text book publishers one way or the other and for you to imply you do is stretching thing a bit to far even for you. What you say is outside the allowed parameters of thought, is stated by U.S. Representatives, Congressmen and people in the media all the time, so for you to say different is simply false. I expected more from someone as educated, well read and knowledgeable as you, I guess I was wrong. Tom
Our friends don't have to agree with me about everything and some that I hold very dear don't have to agree about anything, except where we are going to meet them for dinner.
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
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On 2009-07-30 00:14, landmark wrote: Again, this is nonsense, and it's no surprise that you don't want to address the question. It's much easier to push affirmative action when you can take the position that the only people who will suffer from its effects are the "privileged majority." We (in California) certainly know what DID happen when race-based affirmative action was banned; Asian-American admissions in top public universities increased dramatically. The affirmative action debate (i.e. Proposition 209) is still a hot one in California, and not even the most ardent advocates of affirmative action pretend that it wouldn't hurt Asian-American college applicants; they simply assert that it's for the greater overall good of diversity.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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LobowolfXXX Inner circle La Famiglia 1196 Posts |
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On 2009-07-30 00:14, landmark wrote: LOL LOL LOL Uhhh yeah, nobody ever criticizes the war in the media.
"Torture doesn't work" lol
Guess they forgot to tell Bill Buckley. "...as we reason and love, we are able to hope. And hope enables us to resist those things that would enslave us." |
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Jonathan Townsend Eternal Order Ossining, NY 27297 Posts |
Folks might want to look again at that Lincoln post to review where my opinions on the matter are stated or not.
And those who would like to improve their reading skills might want to try replacing some of the words to put in ones that are context appropriate and see where that line of thinking goes. "you cannot help some to divinity by destroying the divinity of others" for example - and contrast that to the dismissive attitude expressed about Zeus, Juno... There is no santa? This should help you quickly find some of the walls of your box. Then I suggest you look at the shipping label.
...to all the coins I've dropped here
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abc Inner circle South African in Taiwan 1081 Posts |
What does Darwin have to do with blasphemy. Are we no longer allowed to name our children Charles?
While I mostly agree with what has been posted by people likeminded to myself (meaning I am obviously right) I reject the notion that all Christian people try to destroy the divinity of others. I think it is against the instruction of the Bible to make gods out of the laws within the Bible. I think that discussing AA in a thread that started about blashemy is counter productive but I also have to say that I am yet to encounter any environment in which AA has been successful. Coming from South Africa I guess my experiences are different from most people but I can name at least 20 very talented black athletes in South Africa whose careers were destroyed by pushing them into something the were not ready for purely because they were black and the agenda was to push AA. If we have to talk about business and education there are thousands that I don't even know about. AA in general is a failed concept. |
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