Category Archives: morality

Racism in Student Selection

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Bill Powers, President of the University of Texas at Austin, put an op-ed into The Wall Street Journal in which he attempts to defend a particular version of “affirmative” action for admission to that university.  The case on which he commented is Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which is before the Supreme Court this term.  In this case, a young woman was denied admission in favor of a less qualified black student because, she argues, she’s white.

The subtitle for Powers’ piece is this:

My university once kept blacks out.  Now at Texas we ensure that their grandchildren can enter.

But what he omitted to say there is that UTA once kept blacks out for purely racial reasons.  Now UTA “ensures that their grandchildren can enter” also on racial grounds.

Before I expand on that, though, a couple of smaller points.  Powers wrote,

UT finds itself back in court superficially for the same reason—considering race in admissions—but with just the opposite motivation.

No motive can justify racism.  Woodrow Wilson’s racism was for lofty motives—poor, inferior blacks needed the protections of segregation.  Nor do the basest of motives justify it, as the Jim Crow laws demonstrated.  Racism is…racist.

Powers also wrote

[T]he fiction that will be dispelled by Fisher is that minority students are being admitted at the expense of more-qualified white students.  There are no unqualified students admitted to UT[.]

This is nothing but a non sequitur.  Admitting less qualified students at the expense of more qualified students in no way implies that unqualified students are being admitted.  Nor is this the argument Ms Fisher is making: she’s averring that race played the role, not qualifications.

But from his flawed logic, as illustrated by these minor nits, flows the larger problem.  Powers made his case thusly:

[D]iversity isn’t only acceptable but desirable in all aspects of life, especially education.  In my 38 years in the classroom, I often have seen how a diverse classroom enriches discussion, provides valuable insights and offers a deeper learning experience.

And

[W]e employ an entirely holistic review in which race is one of many factors along with leadership, extracurricular activities, awards, work experience, family-income level and community service.

With this argument, he’s demonstrated the bankruptcy of his race-based (however diffuse) admission policy.  That breadth of diversity for which he seeks—leadership, extracurricular activities, awards, work experience, family-income level, and community service—already is wide.  Moreover, those last two, family income and community service (which carry within them the diversity of communities in which his applicants live, that income is earned, and that service is performed), are alone richly diverse, and they contain ethnicity and race within them.  With that broad diversity built into his selection paradigm, there’s no need to consider race separately.  Doing so is just separate but equal papered over.

What diversity actually would accomplish, were it not for Powers’ double counting of race in  it, would be to give all disadvantaged applicants equal opportunities for access, rather than giving superior access to those belonging to Powers’ favored race.  Giving preference to race—regardless of the strength of that preference—is to give preference to race.  There’s no amount of lipstick that can be smeared on this bigotry by those who should know better that can disguise that.

There’s Defense

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…and then there’s defense.

According to Fox News, there was this exchange during and immediately after a day of testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last Wednesday.  At the end of his testimony, wherein he had expressed his frustration at not only not getting the additional security personnel and equipage he’d been requesting for the security of the consulate in Benghazi but getting the assets he already had materially reduced, LtCol Andrew Wood, former head of our Tripoli embassy’s military security, said

We were fighting a losing battle. We couldn’t even keep what we had[.]

Eric Nordstrom, erstwhile head of regional security for State, closed his own testimony by recounting a conversation he had had earlier with State about his own request for more security personnel.  That conversation included this Nordstrom frustration remark:

You know what (is) most frustrating about this assignment?  It’s not the hardships, it’s not the gunfire, it’s not the threats.  It’s dealing and fighting against the people, programs and personnel who are supposed to be supporting me.

And I added it by saying, “For me, the Taliban is on the inside of the building.”

In response, Under Secretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy, in a post-hearing press conference called for the purpose, emphasized that Wood’s team was in Tripoli, not Benghazi.  He also carefully pointed out that expanding Wood’s team and extending its area of responsibility to include Benghazi would not necessarily have prevented the attack on Benghazi.  After all,

The assault that occurred on the evening of Sep 11…was an unprecedented attack by dozens of heavily armed men[.]

Hmm….

Deterrence is not the only means of defense, as Nordstrom and Woods—and anyone with any competence in security—understands.  Sometimes defense involves, well, actual defense.  Actually shooting back.  Actually killing the attackers.  Even those taking part in “an unprecedented attack by dozens of heavily armed men.”

Listening to the experts on the ground, rather than putting the political theater of “acting normal” in a still-fluid environment (however hard the Libyan government and people may be trying) ahead of the lives of our embassy staff, would have put more assets into the area, would have beefed up the security at the Benghazi consulate.

Sure, the attack would have gone in, anyway.  As we now know—and as it turns out, State knew at the time—this was a terrorist assault that was going to occur.  Period.  But the plussed-up security might have successfully defended the consulate against those dozens.  Even without that, it might have saved the lives of our Ambassador and those three men who died with him in the terrorist assault.

But it’s more important to maintain the Obama narrative and get him reelected than it is for State—and the Executive Office—to do their jobs and to allow the security personnel they’ve emplaced for actual security to do theirs.

Lies of my President, Part 7

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This is Part 7 of my series on the lies told by Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama in the nearly four years in which he’s been in office.  As I said earlier, I’m not concerned with his broken campaign promises so much as I am with his dishonesty while in office.

Recall Obama’s promise of the most open and transparent administration in history.  This is how he’s carried out that “promise.”

Here’s secret collusion between the (publicly) hated health-care industry and the White House underlying the development of Obamacare.  These emails were sent in early/mid-June of 2009:

From: Jeffrey Kindler [Pfizer CEO]

To: Billy Tauzin [PhRMA lobbyist]

Billy—Sounds like you had very valuable conversations with [REDACTED]. They sound as though they both went quite well and that you established our key deal points that are, to some extent, as important as the total dollars. Thanks so much for doing that.

An ideal end game here would be a joint meeting to confirm any deal that we work out in a meeting with us and the principals ([White House Chief of Staff Rahm] Emanuel, [REDACTED]) early next week. Whether a deal fully sticks or not, we can’t be sure, but I for one would like to look the other side in the eye and shake their hand on whatever deal we work out. Jeff

From: Jeffrey Kindler

To: Billy Tauzin

Billy: As you know, yesterday’s discussion was premised on our understanding, as you informed the Board, that, given our willingness to work within the indicated range, the President would not, in fact, put Part D [the Medicare prescription drug plan] in play or otherwise offer new pharma pay-fors in tomorrow’s radio address. We need to confirm this inasmuch as it will completely undermine what we’re trying to do here if he, in fact, does say those kinds of things.

If this is not clear, I would strongly encourage you to engage personally on this with [REDACTED] and possibly others. Based on Bryant’s report yesterday, it does appear that [REDACTED] could, in fact, be helpful. Jeff

There’s lots more here.

These emails took a trade group’s efforts to expose, as the White House refused to cooperate with the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee attempts to review Obamacare’s development history.  The Wall Street Journal went on:

As a White House staffer put it in May 2009, “Rahm’s calling Nancy-Ann and knows Billy is going to talk to Nancy-Ann tonight. Rahm will make it clear that PhRMA needs a direct line of communication, separate and apart from any coalition.”  Nancy-Ann is Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House health reform director, and Rahm is, of course, Rahm.

Final development of the bill was done behind the locked-doors of the back offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D, NV) Senate office suite, and the Senate vote itself occurred after the 2,000 page bill had been on the Congress’ Web site for public perusal for just 72 hours.  The bill itself was so secret that nearly all of the Congressmen voting were utterly ignorant of the bill’s contents.

And the House’s attempts to investigate the Obama DoJ’s Fast and Furious fiasco?  I’ve written about it here, here, and here (which post describes, briefly, other of Obama’s attempts to block transparency), among other posts.  This “openness” has culminated in Obama’s assertion of Executive Privilege to block responses to subpoenas for the information issued by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The only thing transparent here is Obama’s dishonesty.

Lies of my President, Part 6

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This is Part 6 of my series on the lies told by Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama in the nearly four years in which he’s been in office.  As I said earlier, I’m not concerned with his broken campaign promises so much as I am with his dishonesty while in office.

Here are some of Obama’s campaign ad lies (as opposed to the exaggeration, hype, and distortion that are part and parcel of campaign ads), from The Wall Street Journal.

One Obama spot says, “To pay for huge, new tax breaks for millionaires like him, Romney would have to raise taxes on the middle class: $2,000 for a family with children.”

That claim has been thoroughly discredited, including by PolitiFact Virginia and editorials in this newspaper.

In fact, the Romney plan includes reductions in tax rates across the board—for wealthy, middle class, and the poor (to the extent the latter pay any taxes at all)—while eliminating many deductions.  Since most of the deductions to be eliminated are taken primarily by the upper middle class and wealthy, this would reduce the impact of the rate reduction for those compared to the middle class and poor—while still reducing those rates across the board.  No $2,000 increase.

Another ad says, “As a corporate raider, [Mr. Romney] shipped jobs to China and Mexico.” In response, the Washington Post editorialized, “On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue.”

The Post‘s Fact Checker article debunks the “corporate raider” slur, and it identifies the jobs outsourcing claim as an Obama cynical distortion.

An Obama ad aimed at northern Virginia women intones, “Mitt Romney opposes requiring coverage for contraception.”  In fact, Mr. Romney opposes the president’s unprecedented assault on religious liberties—in this case, the federal government forcing religious institutions (like church-sponsored hospitals, schools and charities) to provide insurance coverage for contraception in violation of their fundamental moral values and, incidentally, the First Amendment.

There’s nothing to add to this correction.

Finally, there’s this whopper in front of an Hispanic audience—the recent Univision “Town Hall” interview—now about his own performance in office:

Obama claimed that his Justice Department’s botched “Fast and Furious” gunrunning program was “begun under the previous administration.”  This time it was ABC’s Jake Tapper correcting the record, pointing out, “it was started in October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency.”

This is a rather blatant lie.  The program to which Obama is pretending to refer, the Wide Receiver program run under President Bush the Younger’s DoJ, had a number of significant differences with Obama’s Fast and Furious program, beyond the fact that Wide Receiver was terminated before the end of Bush’s term.

There are two differences of particular interest.  On the one hand, the program was done in coordination with the Mexican government, instead of behind its back, as was Fast and Furious.  On the other hand, far fewer guns were involved—about a quarter of the number of Fast and Furious.  In the end, Wide Receiver was terminated because it wasn’t working—most of the weapons were, in fact, lost.

But Obama’s DoJ apparently thought walking four times as many guns and doing it in secret from the Mexican government would help their version succeed.

Unemployment Numbers and Jobs

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In the aftermath of last week’s reported headline number of 7.8% unemployment, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama was out on the hustings bragging about how his policies had created some 5,000,000 jobs since the end of the Panic in 2009.  Like that’s a good performance.

Let’s look at that.  He promised in 2009 a 5.5% unemployment rate by now.  How many new jobs would have been created had we actually reached his promised number?  In December 2009 (some six months after the nominal end of the Panic of 2009), the civilian labor force was 153,059,000, of which 137,792,000 Americans were employed, a 10% unemployment rate, according to BLS statistics, and using round numbers.

In September 2012, again using BLS numbers, the civilian labor force was larger, at 155,063,000 (and it had a smaller participation rate than in 2009, but we’ll gloss over that).  There were some 142,974,000 Americans actually employed—that increase of 5,000,000 of which Obama is so proud.

However, a 5.5% unemployment rate corresponds, if my 1st grade arithmetic serves me well, to 94.5% of the civilian labor force actually employed: 146,535,000 Americans.  Again consulting my 1st grade arithmetic book, there are some 3,561,000 Americans that should be employed but aren’t—because Obama’s proudly proclaimed policies have come up short, and we aren’t anywhere near 5.5% unemployment.

Let’s look at this another way.  It’s been widely reported that this “recovery” is the weakest, most anemic post-recession recovery in our nation’s history.  Those reports aren’t far wrong.  A normal recovery coming out of a downturn as deep and steep as was the Panic of 2009 typically sees growth rates of 5%-6% per year, or more.  This Obama recovery has been 6.7% over the entirety of his term in office—nearly four years.  Had we seen a normal recovery (and using a pessimistic 5%/year growth rate), we would have reached today’s unemployment rate after a shade over one year—in 2010—and we would have been back to full employment (in the range of 4.8%-5.5%) in just under 2 years—by last year.

Obama says his policies are working.  Sure.