Free Republic

Meritocracy doesn’t exist, and believing it does is bad for you Simply holding meritocracy as a value seems to promote discriminatory behavior. [Image: kristo74/iStock] By Clifton Mark6 minute Read Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life–money, power, jobs, university admission–should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the “even playing field” upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which...

President Trump is reversing his campaign commitment to reduce overall legal immigration levels to the United States in order to raise the wages of America’s working and middle class, as he is now demanding more immigration. During his State of the Union (SOTU) address this week, Trump went off-script while discussing national immigration policy, saying he wanted to admit “the largest numbers ever” of legal immigrants to the country. “Legal immigrants enrich our nation and strengthen our society in countless ways,” Trump said. “I want people to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever, but they have to...

....Our Immigration policy, laughed at all over the world, is very unfair to all of those people who have gone through the system legally and are waiting on line for years! Immigration must be based on merit - we need people who will help to Make America Great Again!https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1010902506422046721

President Trump has proposed nothing less than a vast overhaul of the country’s immigration policy, seeking an end to the diversity visa lottery and family sponsorship programs in favor of a system that would privilege immigrants from mostly white countries. “It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system,” Trump proudly proclaimed to a crowd of cheering Republicans in his first State of the Union on Tuesday night, “one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.”

New Top Cop's Fiancee Under Investigation For Alleged Police Exam Cheating By Mark Konkol and Heather Cherone Updated April 5, 2016 THE LOOP — Mayor Rahm Emanuel's newly appointed top cop Eddie Johnson's fiancee is a Chicago Police lieutenant named in an ongoing investigation into alleged cheating on the department's lieutenant's exam, DNAinfo Chicago has learned. It's the same cheating probe that sources said helped derail Deputy Chief Eugene Williams' chances of being promoted to police superintendent. Now the allegations are part of a separate probe, this one by Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson, sources said. Williams, one of the...

Instead of Joseph Mengele, MD, being placed in charge of the medical implications of "The Jewish Question"; What if he'd had to "Do The Hustle" in a Chicago-style political shakedown? The Thousand Year Reign (Reich) ran from 1933 to 1945, roughly twelve years. Its tally of non-person victims runs roughly 20 million. The General Secretariat of Ioseb Besarionis Jughashvili (Stalin) ran from 1922 to 1952, roughly thirty years. Its tally of non-person victims runs roughly 60 million. The First Chairmanship of Mao Zedong ran from 1945 to 1976, roughly thirty-one years. Its tally of non-person victims runs roughly 70 million....

In Carly Fiorina’s interview with Katie Couric from May, Fiorina went on and on about how if you don’t have a room full of “diversity” when making an important decision, you will not get the decision right. For Fiorina, it’s all about hiring women (and of course anyone else who isn’t a straight white male), and she goes on at length insisting that women in top positions absolutely and necessarily equates to merit; guarantees merit — the same thing Hillary Clinton just said, by the way. I had been inclined very favorably toward Fiorina, especially because of her ability to...

Nearly a century ago, Harvard had a big problem: Too many Jews. By 1922, Jews accounted for 21.5 percent of freshmen, up from 7 percent in 1900 and vastly more than at Yale or Princeton. In the Ivy League, only Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania had a greater proportion of Jews. Harvard’s president, A. Lawrence Lowell, warned that the “Jewish invasion” would “ruin the college.” He wanted a cap: 15 percent. When faculty members balked, he stacked the admissions process to achieve the same result. Bolstered by the nativism of the time, which led to sharp immigration restrictions, Harvard’s...

Note that either this new 'Sustainability' merit badge -to be released in July 2013- OR 'Environmental Science' is now required for attainment of the top Eagle Scout rank (makes me feel better about just getting to 'Life') So as with American schools, KGB-initiated leftist infiltration of our country is nearly complete- as is demoralization of the populace.  Continuing to force this junk science down our -and our childrens'- throats does nothing but distract the entire society from reality while NWO statists take the reigns... might as well offer an 'Alchemy' MB while they're at it: MeritBadge.org   h/t Doug Powers-

After the honor guard and the pipe and drum corps finished performing, after the recital of the pledge of allegiance and the national anthem, after the invocation and the official swearing-in had taken place, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel laid out his vision for the agency he was elected to lead. “There will be change,’’ Israel said. “I think that’s important. We will be transparent. We will have a new vision, and we will be a diverse group of men and women.’’

President Obama has been calling Olympic medal winners to congratulate them on their victories. However, some have found the calls “somewhat disconcerting.” A gold medal-winning athlete who asked that his name be withheld for fear of retribution said he has “mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s flattering to be called by the President. I mean, with all he’s got on his plate, the idea that he’s got time to talk to me is something special.” “On the other hand, I found his insistence that ‘you didn’t win that’ a bit unnerving,” the athlete admitted. “I know I’ve...

The title character of Horatio Alger’s 1867 novel Ragged Dick is an illiterate New York bootblack who, bolstered by his optimism, honesty, industriousness, and desire to “grow up ’spectable,” raises himself into the middle class. Alger’s novels are frequently misunderstood as mere rags-to-riches tales. In fact, they recount their protagonists’ journeys from rags to respectability, celebrating American capitalism and suggesting that the American dream is within everyone’s reach. The novels were idealized, of course; even in America, virtue alone never guaranteed success, and American capitalism during Alger’s time was far from perfect. Nevertheless, the stories were close enough to the...

JUSTICE SERVED? The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 black applicants who passed a firefighters entrance exam 16 years ago and pay millions of dollars to thousands more who took and passed the same test. Was justice served? An attorney for the group said that the 111 jobs would be filled from applicants who passed the 1995 test and that their pensions would be adjusted as if they’d been firefighters since 1995. Attorney Joshua Karsh also said that 6,000 other blacks who also passed the test will divide “tens of...

At Oscoda Area Schools, parental attendance at parent-teacher conferences has skyrocketed. Teachers are also having fewer absences and missing fewer professional development days. The success is being credited to a merit pay system that the school implemented two years ago to try to get teachers to reach performance goals. Oscoda Area Schools, located in northeast Michigan about 100 miles north of Bay City, has about 1,500 students. The district awards performance points to each of its 82-plus teachers if they reach goals like reducing teacher absences and getting higher attendance at parent-teacher conferences. Those points are used to dole out...

PHOENIX - Should the state of Arizona get rid of its affirmative action programs? That's what the backers of Proposition 107 want, and it's turning into an intense and emotional battle which voters will decide on Election Day. Proposition 107 calls for no more preferences for minorities and women in public employment, contracting, and education. "We think it should be passed because we do not think the government should be able to pick winners and losers based on race and sex we think that people should be judged on their character their merit and their experiences, not their skin color...

Frau Frump gives us the finest showing of girl power Melanie McDonagh The only thing to be said against Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, coming top in the Forbes list of the 100 most powerful women in the world is the nature of the list itself. Just think about it. Power isn’t like tennis: why should women be hived off into a separate little power category all of their own? In any list of the most powerful people on earth, Merkel would be right up there with the men: her fellow German the Pope, and not far behind Barack Obama...

Barack Obama ran for office as a unifier, but it was all a hustle. His brand of politics needs enemies. Like southern slave owners of old, today's conservative Republicans represent the enemy to be vanquished by enlightened progressives from the north.  This is an old storyline that provides unlimited nourishment to America's liberal elites.  Many of us, especially those of us who work in education, have long seen this coming.  In the early stages of the diversity movement for example it didn't take long to realize who was and was not included on the ubiquitous rainbow flag.  "Diversity" was simply...

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION GONE AMOK by Timothy Rollins, Editor and Columnist September 11, 2008On the seventh anniversary of World War III, most Americans still haven't learned a damn thing since terrorists declared war on the United States. Rather than unite as one people against the greater common threat of terrorism, evil and designing Democrats continue to practice their depraved politics of division on the American people with reckless disregard for our safety as a nation. Once again, Democrats are asking us to drink their Kool-Aid, and this year, Americans of conscience are again going to take a pass, notwithstanding liberal media...

HOUSTON (AP) -- The school district that runs the nation's largest merit pay program gave oversized bonuses to nearly 100 teachers and is asking them to give it back. The president of Houston's largest teachers' union is telling members not to return the overpayments, which range from $62.50 to $2,790. A total of almost $75,000 was overpaid because a computer program mistakenly calculated the bonuses of part-time personnel as if they were full-time employees, according to the Houston Independent School District. Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said the district can't force the 99 teachers to sign...

SANTA CRUZ — Pacific Collegiate School has developed a new performance-based pay scale for its teachers, a move intensely disliked by teachers unions and one that further distinguishes it from other county public schools. The new pay scale is borrowed from the private sector and based on the logic that the extra financial reward will help the school keep good teachers and motivate educators to stay sharp and keep students interested. "This really grew out of the fact that teachers are not paid enough," PCS board member Dusty Nelson said. "We're trying to experiment a little and see if there's...