Monthly Archives: February 2012

More on Free Speech

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It would seem that civility is in the ear of the speaker.  The Wichita Eagle mentions, courtesy of those evil Koch brothers, some examples of civility from our Progressive…acquaintances.  Last Thursday, it seems, Charles Koch authorized the release of a large sampling of the emails he, his company, and his employees have been getting over the last year, or so.

Among the incisive, tightly reasoned arguments offered him and his from the civil Left are these:

I hope you all DIE.

You people are ruining our country, and all for $$$.

And an especially cogent pair of correspondences:

Choose your expiration Date, Brothers….

The Koch brothers will DIE!!!!!

These careful insights aren’t limited to the ordinary Left, either.  The NLMSM also rises to the occasion, albeit more…subtly.  In an AP article picked up by The Northwestern from USA Today, we find this:

Wichita Police Lt. Doug Nolte said Friday that the last reports the department had on file from Koch were in 2010 involving a complaint about someone putting signs on his property and a 2009 arrest for trespassing at his house.

Not a word on the nature of this Progressive civility—just had it been (lightly) reported to the authorities.

On the other hand, we have this from none other than Elliot Spitzer.  According to The Daily Caller, in an interview with Bill Maher, he offered this in the context of the free speech rights of a corporation (like Koch Industries, or Time Warner, which owns HBO, which carries “Real Time with Bill Maher”):

Your show is owned by a corporation.  You have a First Amendment right. And so I don’t know how you distinguish between the New York Times editorial page, The Rachel Maddow Show, George [Stephanopoulos]‘s show — all owned by corporations.

The First Amendment shall pass no law abridging the right of speech.

Doesn’t say by anybody. It says speech. I don’t care whose speech it is.

That’s how Progressive civility fits in.

The President’s Jobs Performance

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Much has been made of the recent fall in the headline unemployment rate.  Among others, I’ve written about some of the data this publicly bandied-about number conceals.

Here’s another look at the employment picture, with a h/t to Power Line.  The figure was prepared by the Republican Study Committee, and it depicts the percentage of Americans actually in the labor force from January 2005 through January 2012. The RSC also points out that [emphasis theirs] 36.3% of working-age Americans do not have a job and are not even looking.

More Affirmative Action Fail

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Here is the Party of Progressives’ paternalistic view of minorities made plain.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) apparently doesn’t think Latinos can succeed on their own—they must have the overt support of the Progressive Know Betters because Latinos are not otherwise capable—they must have affirmative action support.

Here’s what he said about Senator Marco Rubio’s (R, FL) opposition to Mari Carmen Aponte’s nomination for Ambassador to El Salvador.

In Nevada, this woman is seen by the Puerto Rican community, the Hispanic community, as really somebody who is an up-and-rising star. … I just think it’s a mistake for someone who is supposedly representing Hispanic issues to do what [Rubio] has done.

Hmm….  Rubio is supposed to support Aponte because of the color of her skin, and not at all based on her qualifications or the content of her character.  Furthermore, Rubio is not allowed to do what’s done routinely (with some justification) by other Senators—hold up a confirmation as leverage to obtain another goal (in Rubio’s case to try to force the Obama administration to overtly acknowledge Nicaragua’s, et al., enmity toward democracy)—no, the minority (in a couple senses of the word) Senator himself is just supposed to sit quietly and betters have their way.

Many recipients of Progressive race-based affirmative action (excuse my redundancy) support also exposed their addiction to that support: an Orlando, FL community activist, Javier Cuebas said

This is not the first time Sen Rubio has expressed concerns about a Puerto Rican nominee—when he was a candidate, he expressed similar concerns about Judge Sotomayor.  People don’t forget these things. … And remember, Cubans only make up about one-third of the Hispanic population in Florida.

At least Aponte seems to understand the legitimately political (if that’s not an oxymoron) nature of the maneuverings and the lack of place for Progressive racial politics in America.  She emailed Rubio after this latest Progressive tempest, signing it familiarly “Mari Carmen” (Politico says they have a copy of the email):

Thank you very much for all of your support during my confirmation process.  Although the outcome is not what all of us had hoped for—friendships were made and a lot of strength was gathered from the effort. I will forever be grateful for your hard work.

She’s not alone; others also reject Progressive paternalism.  The Executive Director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, Alfonso Aguilar, said that Reid’s remark was “appalling,” and

This blatant attempt at racial identity politics is offensive and condescending to all Latinos.  It’s insulting for Reid and Obama’s minions to imply that all Latinos support a person’s nomination to federal office just because he or she is a fellow Latino.

Entitlement

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On a recent broadcast, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly asked whether the United States was becoming a nation whose population demanded entitlement—”Are we a welfare nation?” [and select the Talking Points Memos tab, then the Talking Points: 2/14|Are we a welfare nation? link.]

Then comes an article in The Weekly Standard by Heather Mac Donald titled “Affirmative Disaster.”  Here Ms Donald describes a rigorously executed bit of research conducted at Duke University that indicates that students granted admission to Duke according to racial preference criteria rather than academic performance don’t fare as well as classmates who didn’t get an affirmative action boost, but were admitted instead on the basis of academic performance.

What’s interesting here, though, is the hue and cry raised over the paper.  Despite the rigor with which the research was carried out, the authors were decried, not so much for being outright racist—not in this day and age—but for “re-opening old racial wounds.”  A senior research scholar (Donald’s term, not mine), Tim Tyson, wrote an op-ed that insisted the paper was a “political tract disguised as scholarly inquiry,” and that it was a “crusade to reduce the numbers of black students at elite institutions.”

Others of the school’s leadership were just, plain squishy.  Provost Peter Lange bleated

We understand how the conclusions of the research paper can be interpreted in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes.

And then

At the same time, our goal of academic success for all should not inhibit research and discussion to clarify important issues of academic choice and achievement.

None of the criticism (I hesitate to call them critiques) addressed the research itself, just the implications for the efficacy of affirmative action programs and their fairness to the minorities victimizedsupported by them.

Donald concludes

[U]ntil it becomes possible to discuss the effects of preferences without being accused of racial animus, it may be impossible to dislodge academic affirmative action, no matter how discredited its purported justifications.

Or, don’t you dare interfere with our affirmative action programs.  We deserve them.

I conclude that the answer to O’Reilly’s question is, “Apparently yes.”