Category Archives: Social Commentary

Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Racism In Higher Education

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And they can’t even see their own problem:

Perhaps we should not be surprised that Ivy League and other top-notch schools practice such ugly discrimination. After all, they had similar practices in the 1920s to ensure their schools did not have “too many” Jewish students. Today, they just want to make sure they don’t have “too many” Caucasians or Asians on campus. All they have done is change the groups targeted for discrimination.

Suzy Weiss and many other high-school seniors across the United States are being discriminated against because of their skin color or because they have an epicanthic fold in their eyes. Such racial and ethnic discrimination is morally wrong, and neither “diversity” nor anything else can justify it.

And yet they continue to attempt to do so, while calling us racists.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The GOP Problem With Minorities

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It’s not that they’re for small government — it’s that they’re inconsistently so:

Consider Indian Americans: More than 85 percent voted for Barack Obama, and 65 percent generally vote Democratic. This despite the fact that, like Jews (another anti-Republican minority), Indian Americans are wealthier and less likely to receive government support than the overall population. What’s more, Indian Americans should be natural allies of limited-government politicians, given how much government dysfunction they’ve witnessed back home.

So how do Republicans manage to alienate nearly every minority? By applying limited-government principles very selectively. During the last 50 years the GOP has opposed welfare handouts, racial preferences, and multiculturalism. Yet the Party of Lincoln has looked the other way when the government has oppressed minorities through racial profiling, discriminatory sentencing laws, and, above all, immigration policy.

America’s immigration laws are an exercise in social engineering that should offend any sincere believer in limited government. They strictly limit the number of foreigners allowed from any one country, largely to prevent America from being overrun by Hispanics and Asians.

We definitely need immigration reform, but not the kind being worked on by the Gang of Eight.

Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space

An Authentic Screed

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That is to say, a righteous screed about suburbia and authenticity,and our intellectual betters (just ask them!) in the “studies” departments, by Lileks, unleashed by the not-to-be-lamented death of Paolo Solari.

You know, it strikes me that these snotty urbaphiles should love the idea of space colonies, at least in the regard of their being planned communities.

Business, Health, Social Commentary

Stairs

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How to make them irresistible.

This is a pet peeve of mine. For anything less than four or five floors, I much prefer stairs to elevators, not just for health reasons, but because it can be faster than waiting for one, but in a lot of places, they make it very hard. I just found the stairway here at the Broadmoor Conference Center, but it’s very clear that they’d prefer the guests not see or use it. At the Grace Inn in Phoenix, where Space Access has been for the past few years, they lock the doors to enter it from the bottom, so you can go down, but not up.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Bachelor Of Arts Degree

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The new high-school diploma:

Obviously, if Beaudry et al right, this is ferociously depressing news. It suggests that we’re pushing more and more people into (more and more expensive) college programs, even as the number of jobs in which they can use those skills has declined. A growing number of students may be in a credentialling arms race to gain access to routine service jobs. Or maybe the productivity of our nation’s wait staff is spiking as more skilled workers flood into these jobs.

And as evidence, McDonald’s is now requiring a college degree to be a cashier. And it’s positively destroying the low-skilled workers. This isn’t going to end well.

[Update on Friday]

OK, so it turns out that the McDonald’s help-wanted ad was erroneous. But the fact that it was believable should concern, and it may in fact be a sign of things to come.

Business, Economics, Education, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary

The Corruption Of Once-Liberal Education

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What’s the matter with Vassar?

The students I contacted were angry about the walkout and embarrassed for Vassar. The protesters, on the other hand, tweeted a proud picture with a poster they’d ripped down. These students may fancy themselves courageous, but hiding behind masks and refusing to risk public contradiction by questioning a political opponent is cowardly.

As for the talk itself, you can watch it on video. The walkout comes at about 29 minutes into the tape. You can hear students criticizing the protesters as they leave. (A brief video with a better camera angle on the walkout can be found here.) But the real takeaway from the video is that, agree or disagree, the dreaded Epstein laid out a perfectly reasonable case for the importance of fossil fuels and the dangers of putting the industry that produces them out of business without an economically viable substitute. The notion that a talk like this is out of place at a an institution of higher education is pernicious. If anything, students desperately need to hear Epstein’s side of the story.

I asked Vassar’s administration for a comment on the walkout, the ripping down of ads for the talk, and on the threat by a student to harm himself at the talk as a protest. Acting Vassar College President, Jonathan Chenette has so far addressed only the walkout. Chenette’s statement, forwarded to me by Vassar, emphasizes that Epstein took the walkout in stride (true), yet added that the students who “[exited] rather than engaging” had “lost an opportunity for exchange and questioning.” (I have some serious concerns about this statement, but I’ll raise them when I reproduce the full text in a follow-up post.) My first response to Chenette’s statement is that it won’t do much to address the underlying problems at Vassar, which run deep.

There may be faculty at Vassar who still respect the ideals of liberal education as classically understood. Notwithstanding that, Vassar appears to have passed a tipping point beyond which these ideals no longer meaningfully operate where they’re most needed. Classes filled with courteous and respectful discussion don’t mean much if students dare not raise questions that half the country might ask.

If only the problem were just at Vassar.

And always remember, it’s a right-wing war on science.