Posted on 03/12/2012 11:45:08 AM PDT by jazusamo
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There have been many frauds of historic proportions for example, the financial pyramid scheme for which Charles Ponzi was sent to prison in the 1920s, and for which Franklin D. Roosevelt was praised in the 1930s, when he called it Social Security. In our own times, Bernie Madoff's hoax has made headlines. But the biggest hoax of the past two generations is still going strong namely, the hoax that statistical differences in outcomes for different groups are due to the way other people treat those groups. The latest example of this hoax is the joint crusade of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice against schools that discipline black males more often than other students. According to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, this disparity in punishment violates the "promise" of "equity." Just who made this promise remains unclear, and why equity should mean equal outcomes despite differences in behavior is even more unclear. This crusade by Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is only the latest in a long line of fraudulent arguments based on statistics. If black males get punished more often than Asian American females, does that mean that it is somebody else's fault? That it is impossible that black males are behaving differently from Asian American females? Nobody in his right mind believes that. But that is the unspoken premise, without which the punishment statistics prove nothing about "equity." What is the purpose or effect of this whole exercise by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice? To help black students or to secure the black vote in an election year by seeming to be coming to the rescue of blacks from white oppression? Among the many serious problems of ghetto schools is the legal difficulty of getting rid of disruptive hoodlums, a mere handful of whom can be enough to destroy the education of a far larger number of other black students and with it destroy their chances for a better life. Judges have already imposed too many legalistic procedures on schools that are more appropriate for a courtroom. "Due process" rules that are essential for courts can readily become "undue process" in a school setting, when letting clowns and thugs run amok, while legalistic procedures to suspend or expel them drag on. It is a formula for educational and social disaster. Now Secretary Duncan and Attorney General Holder want to play the race card in an election year, at the expense of the education of black students. Make no mistake about it, the black students who go to school to get an education are the main victims of the classroom disrupters whom Duncan and Holder are trying to protect. What they are more fundamentally trying to protect are the black votes which are essential for Democrats. For that, blacks must be constantly depicted as under siege from whites, so that Democrats can be seen as their rescuers. Promoting paranoia translates into votes. It is a very cynical political game, despite all the lofty rhetoric used to disguise it. Whether the current generation of black students get a decent education is infinitely more important than whether the current generation of Democratic politicians hang on to their jobs. Too many of the intelligentsia both black and white jump on the statistical bandwagon, and see statistical differences as proof of maltreatment, not only in schools but in jobs, in mortgage lending and in many other things. Some act as if their role is to protect the image of blacks by blaming their problems on whites. But the truth is far more important than racial image. Wherever we want to go, we can only get there from where we are. Not where we think we are, or wish we are, or where we want others to think we are, but where we are in fact right now. But political spin and pious euphemisms don't tell us where we are. After a while, such rhetorical exercises don't even fool others. If we don't have the truth, we don't have anything to start with and build on. A big start toward the truth would be getting rid of the kinds of statistical hoaxes being promoted by Secretary of Education Duncan and Attorney General Holder. |
"MBA and graduate of the Chicago public Schools when they used to teach the three R's and critical thinking."
Not only the Chicago schools, but the little "red schoolhouses" scattered all across the farmlands of America used to teach these things, inspire their students with words of hope from many sources, including those rooted in religious writings, and then leave the rest to the individual and his family.
Those schools produced physicians, teachers, scientists, military leaders, founders of universities and hospitals, nurses, ministers, business leaders and significant community leaders in every town in America.
Then came the so-called "progressives," with their ideas that "bigger is better" and consolidation of all these small schools into giant production plants, overseen by bureaucrats, unions, certification and licensing bureaucracies, politicians, and various other "group-think" propaganda organizations, and so much for "critical thinking."
This did not happen by accident, and it did not happen in isolation. It happened because the so-called "progressives" who took over the institution called "public education" in America was way out in front of the current President in their desire to "change" America from its foundations in liberty and individual freedom. The politicians learned they could use these groups and their various entities as vote-getting mechanisms.
The actions related on this thread are further proof of that agenda.
Blaming people who didnt cause the problem and cant cure it, of course.
Blaming people who didnt cause the problem and cant cure it, of course.
I raised 4 boys. Had to punish one 10 times more then the rest. He’s a great man now and tells me “I didn’t punish him enough cause I was worse then you knew Dad”.
= outcome for anything is a joke. Unless it’s pie!
Whatever you did you found the right balance, sad that more parents can’t do that.
Go Tom!
I love Thomas Sowell.
Can I say that and still be an old-fashioned manly-man type of guy who’s been fighting hard in the martial arts for 30 years?
Who cares. I’m saying it anyway.
I love Thomas Sowell.
Yes, but as with the Anthropogenic Global Warming lie, we need to stop using the term “hoax,” which implies a dishonesty or scam for the purpose of entertainment and humor and call it what it is:
Fraud (deceit with the intention of taking the property of another or of depriving another of their consent or freedom).
Good points.
Great post!
One carrot is one too many.
I hear you and love him too, he’s one of the few great minds in the country.
Well, yeah, if "hoax" = "lie".
To be a liberal is to be a liar and live a lie.
To my mind, martial artist or not, your manly-manhood could only be called into question, if you could *NOT* say it...
the infowarrior
Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried. - W. Churchill
The first law of the REAL universe is that LIFE IS NOT FAIR.
Second law of REAL univerise: There is NO FREE LUNCH.
Adapt or perish.
If they are worried about loosing the black vote then the Democrats are in deeper trouble than we imagined.
That’s why they worked so hard to smear Herman Cain.
[ Democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried. - W. Churchill ]
Winston was a hell of a man but he was not too smart...
Democracy was, IS, and will continue to be ... MOB Rule by mobsters..
He thought as many others think America is a democracy...
The term democracy or a version of that word appears NOWHERE in the American Constitution.. ON PURPOSE...
The British have this.... lost love for Monarchy..
A love for dictatorship... and have morphed it into a dictatorship of the proletariat.. <-Marx/Engels
England HOPES to be a dictatorship of the proletariat..
Which is Parliamentary Givernment.. did I say Winston was not too smart?..
BUT he was a hell of a man thats for sure..
Democracy is a filthy word.. a nasty meme that needs to be rejected.. as tribal governance..
Democracy is Mob Rule.. controlled by mobsters..
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism. -V.I. Lenin
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism .-Karl Marx
Great quortes!
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