To say that the solution to academic or professional underachievement or disproportionate criminality among any class of people lies in family and education is not being republican. It is applying hundreds of years of historical experience and common sense, and it is an argument that has many black and Hispanic and Asian-American advocates.
Every wave of immigration brought to this country ethnic groups who were discriminated against, who underachieved, who committed crimes disproportionate to the general population. Their assimilation took generations and was not imposed by law. It was achieved by will, encouraged by the culture, and supported by the law.
True, they were not enslaved when they came here. But as Jason Riley points out in "Stop Helping Us", divorce and out of wedlock births soared after the Great Society reforms were introduced. They have soared among whites, too. He argues persuasively that it was family and education drove black achievement since slavery, and that has suffered most since the Great Society.
The Marcus comment is interesting because it sought to apply the same affirmative action standard that has been operative in academia and fire houses and police departments for decades to another walk of life: lawyers.
The book of lawyers jokes is as thick as "War and Peace," but one of the best ones was, "Do you think affirmative action would be legal if lawyers had to do it?" That joke is now dated, because every institution in the country has mindlessly bought in to the rationale of outcome-based hiring and is now extending it into the other realms, like compensation and sentencing. The outcome-based standard is now being applied in medical schools and airlines, where skills are rare, and without them, people die needlessly.
Rather than being its own private island of nonsense living apart from "the real world," academia now sets the standard for the real world. Might as well change the signs on the door from "Equal Opportunity Employer" to "Equal Outcome Employer."
It seems to me the crux of the matter is whether policies for admission, hiring, compensation, sentencing, etc., are based on equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. The former was a consensus standard that was reversed during the Obama/Holder regime, even though our law speaks clearly about discrimination not about outcomes. This was a seminal moment; discrimination laws were now being interpreted not to protect the individual against arbitrary judgements, but to benefit classes of people based on an ever-growing list of attributes (skin color, ethnicity, sex, and now 47 genders and counting). It will be fine day if SCOTUS returns us to the opportunity standard.
The absurdity of race-based law was demonstrated during the Nuremberg trials, when judges examined the trouble German law ran into when defining a Jew. Not even the most doctrinaire Nazis could agree, and the law settled on an arbitrary 1/6th genealogical standard. Probably, they supposed this would suffice to make Germany "judenrein" without sending their wives or mistresses or doctors to the concentration camps. Our own legal geniuses on the left are running into the same problem as they struggle to figure out who should get reparations for slavery. When law attempts to establish such fine-grained standards – especially regarding highly subjective matters – it usually becomes arbitrary. The whole episode was illustrative of the saying, "The law is a blunt instrument, not a scalpel."
One would have thought that German experience would have to put the whole concept of racialist preferences in the proverbial dustbin of history, but no. As Paul points out, nobody voted for this and it is unpopular even with people who benefit from it. Rather, it was imposed by Marxist ideologues who view the law as a means to their nefarious ends. Once again, we are trying to use the law as a scalpel to correct complex, highly subjective and long-standing cultural problems.
Now we are using racialist law not to dispossess and murder reviled classes of people, but to elevate some classes over others. Whether one phrases discrimination positively (as we do) or negatively (as the Nazis did), the result is state-picked winners and losers. The losers suffer real material and personal loss, and the winners win on the basis of sketchy and arbitrary claims.
That leads me to my final point. The question "How is this good for America?" is misplaced, and illustrative of how America has strayed. First principles tell us the law should not be written to protect the state, but the individual, his life and property. It is the individual who has become lost in this country.
"I recognize that many fair-minded people are bothered by the latter phenomenon."
No, no fair-minded people are bothered by the latter phenomenon. And Paul Mirengoff reveals himself to be a hopeless republican by the end of his column.
"Clearly, some things will have to change if blacks as a group are to compete successfully with whites and Asian-Americans for these kinds of jobs. Among the changes that would help are more 'school choice' and better black family structure."
Are blacks going to suddenly develop an average IQ of 100? No. Imposserus! "More school choice"?! "Better black family structure"?! When republicans make such idiotic statements, it's no wonder that they are destroying the country. You guys would rather destroy the country than tell the truth.
Racial preferences are good for America the same way that arsenic is good for your cocktail.
Definitely a buzz-kill.
To say that the solution to academic or professional underachievement or disproportionate criminality among any class of people lies in family and education is not being republican. It is applying hundreds of years of historical experience and common sense, and it is an argument that has many black and Hispanic and Asian-American advocates.
Every wave of immigration brought to this country ethnic groups who were discriminated against, who underachieved, who committed crimes disproportionate to the general population. Their assimilation took generations and was not imposed by law. It was achieved by will, encouraged by the culture, and supported by the law.
True, they were not enslaved when they came here. But as Jason Riley points out in "Stop Helping Us", divorce and out of wedlock births soared after the Great Society reforms were introduced. They have soared among whites, too. He argues persuasively that it was family and education drove black achievement since slavery, and that has suffered most since the Great Society.
The Marcus comment is interesting because it sought to apply the same affirmative action standard that has been operative in academia and fire houses and police departments for decades to another walk of life: lawyers.
The book of lawyers jokes is as thick as "War and Peace," but one of the best ones was, "Do you think affirmative action would be legal if lawyers had to do it?" That joke is now dated, because every institution in the country has mindlessly bought in to the rationale of outcome-based hiring and is now extending it into the other realms, like compensation and sentencing. The outcome-based standard is now being applied in medical schools and airlines, where skills are rare, and without them, people die needlessly.
Rather than being its own private island of nonsense living apart from "the real world," academia now sets the standard for the real world. Might as well change the signs on the door from "Equal Opportunity Employer" to "Equal Outcome Employer."
It seems to me the crux of the matter is whether policies for admission, hiring, compensation, sentencing, etc., are based on equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. The former was a consensus standard that was reversed during the Obama/Holder regime, even though our law speaks clearly about discrimination not about outcomes. This was a seminal moment; discrimination laws were now being interpreted not to protect the individual against arbitrary judgements, but to benefit classes of people based on an ever-growing list of attributes (skin color, ethnicity, sex, and now 47 genders and counting). It will be fine day if SCOTUS returns us to the opportunity standard.
The absurdity of race-based law was demonstrated during the Nuremberg trials, when judges examined the trouble German law ran into when defining a Jew. Not even the most doctrinaire Nazis could agree, and the law settled on an arbitrary 1/6th genealogical standard. Probably, they supposed this would suffice to make Germany "judenrein" without sending their wives or mistresses or doctors to the concentration camps. Our own legal geniuses on the left are running into the same problem as they struggle to figure out who should get reparations for slavery. When law attempts to establish such fine-grained standards – especially regarding highly subjective matters – it usually becomes arbitrary. The whole episode was illustrative of the saying, "The law is a blunt instrument, not a scalpel."
One would have thought that German experience would have to put the whole concept of racialist preferences in the proverbial dustbin of history, but no. As Paul points out, nobody voted for this and it is unpopular even with people who benefit from it. Rather, it was imposed by Marxist ideologues who view the law as a means to their nefarious ends. Once again, we are trying to use the law as a scalpel to correct complex, highly subjective and long-standing cultural problems.
Now we are using racialist law not to dispossess and murder reviled classes of people, but to elevate some classes over others. Whether one phrases discrimination positively (as we do) or negatively (as the Nazis did), the result is state-picked winners and losers. The losers suffer real material and personal loss, and the winners win on the basis of sketchy and arbitrary claims.
That leads me to my final point. The question "How is this good for America?" is misplaced, and illustrative of how America has strayed. First principles tell us the law should not be written to protect the state, but the individual, his life and property. It is the individual who has become lost in this country.
"I recognize that many fair-minded people are bothered by the latter phenomenon."
No, no fair-minded people are bothered by the latter phenomenon. And Paul Mirengoff reveals himself to be a hopeless republican by the end of his column.
"Clearly, some things will have to change if blacks as a group are to compete successfully with whites and Asian-Americans for these kinds of jobs. Among the changes that would help are more 'school choice' and better black family structure."
Are blacks going to suddenly develop an average IQ of 100? No. Imposserus! "More school choice"?! "Better black family structure"?! When republicans make such idiotic statements, it's no wonder that they are destroying the country. You guys would rather destroy the country than tell the truth.
What do you think the truth is? That blacks are genetically inferior?! Do tell.