Archive for 2015
May 1, 2015
MEGAN MCARDLE: Riots Just Don’t Work:
You should be outraged. But you can be outraged, as I am, and still oppose the riots, as I do. The voices that try to rationalize the violence are presenting a dangerous false choice. They say that this was simply the inevitable result of monumental injustice, so let’s stop talking about the riots and start talking about the injustice. We should always talk about injustice, and strive to end it. The mass incarceration state, the erosion of Fourth Amendment rights and the vast excesses of the drug war are perhaps the most important moral crisis facing our nation. But we have to talk about the riots too, because they represent another urgent moral crisis.
Rioting is not simply a battle of opportunity between oppressor and oppressed. Saying that riots are the inevitable product of oppression turns out to be saying too much and too little: Oppression does not usually lead to rioting, and when rioting does happen, oppression is not always its target. Sports fans riot — sometimes after a win, sometimes after a loss. Economically oppressed blacks have rioted against the white power structure; so have whites, against their city’s black population. Some things, like ethnic diversity, seem to increase the chance of riots, but the link to inequality and poverty is much less clear than you’d think. Economically disadvantaged people and students seem much more prone to rioting, but that may be because those people have much less to lose from an arrest than middle-class people do.
Of course, rioting can fall on the continuum from flat-out immoral to justified. I certainly sympathize with the grievances of the people who rioted following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. more than I do with soccer hooligans or Tulsa lynch mobs. But regardless of justification, rioting is incredibly destructive, mostly in the neighborhoods where the rioters live. In my own city, Washington, D.C., the major retail corridors that were destroyed in the 1968 riots have only really begun to recover in the last five years (and one of them still hasn’t). Who suffered because of that? The store owners, obviously, and their insurers. But the people who suffered most grievously were the mostly black people who lived in those neighborhoods.
The question to ask isn’t who suffered from the riots. It’s who benefited.
HOUSE NDAA REAUTHORIZATION ENCOURAGES DOD TO HIRE ILLEGALS IN U.S. MILITARY: The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday passed the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), including an amendment offered by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) that explicitly encourages the Secretary of Defense to hire illegal aliens granted amnesty by President Obama’s unilateral executive orders.
On Congressman Gallego’s website, he explains the purpose of his amendment as follows:
Our military needs the best soldiers, marines and airmen it can get.
We shouldn’t let our broken immigration system stand in the way of our military’s recruitment goals.
By statute, the Secretary can authorize the enlistment of non-citizens when it is “vital to the national interest.” And enabling the best and brightest in our nation to serve in uniform, including DREAMers, is clearly “vital to the national interest.”
Gallego’s amendment squeaked by on a 33-30 vote, with the support of 3 Republicans. (The Committee has 36 Republicans and 27 Democrats). The 3 Republican “yes” votes came from: Frank LoBiodo (R-NJ); Mike Coffman (R-CO); and Chris Gibson (R-NY).
But Gallego’s Armed Services Committee colleague Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), issued a press release Thursday slamming the amendment:
“It makes no sense to me that, at the same time the Army is downsizing and issuing pink slips to American soldiers serving in Afghanistan, there are Congressmen who help illegal aliens deprive American citizens of military service opportunities.
“It’s appalling that some members of the Republican conference, and frankly all members of the Democratic conference, place illegal immigrants on pedestals over American citizens, contrary to the needs andwishes of the American people.
“Illegal aliens are already taking jobs from and suppressing the wages of struggling American families in the private job market. Now Democrats and wayward Republicans are similarly and actively undermining Americans’ opportunities to serve in the military.
“It is no wonder that, in the face of such economic hostility emanating from Washington, America’s youth are too often despondent and all-to-willing to express their dissatisfaction via arson, assaults, riots, and other forms of criminal conduct.”
Rep Brooks is right, and the his fellow Republicans– Reps. Coffman, LoBiondo and Gibson–ought to be ashamed. The Democrats have been trying to get this language approved for years. It is more than ironic that this language gets approved in a Republican-controlled committee, now that the Republicans have retaken control of Congress, in no small part because of Americans’ opposition to the President’s unconstitutional executive orders on immigration.
If you live in Rep. Coffman, LoBiondo or Gibson’s districts and oppose the Gallego amendment, give them a call:
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO): 202.225.7882
Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ): (202) 225-6572
Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY): (202) 225-5614
For national security reasons, the U.S. military should be restricted to U.S. citizens, and the invocation of this “vital national interest” must be rarely, if ever, invoked. And I hardly think that, in an era of Obama-ordered military troop reductions and even pay cuts, there is any “vital national interest” that would require hiring illegal immigrants, no matter how sincere their desire to serve our country. They can serve our country in other, honorable ways, such as working hard, paying taxes, going to school and being good, law-abiding neighbors.
TAKE NOTE: Ta-Nehisi Coates: Nonviolence As Compliance. “When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is ‘correct’ or ‘wise,’ any more than a forest fire can be ‘correct’ or ‘wise.’ Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.”
There are a lot of people in this country who feel disrespected, and who are increasingly seeing the law as “hollow” and the current social order as “failed,” and most of them don’t live in poor black neighborhoods. What “forest fire” might result from that, and has Coates — or The Atlantic — given this any thought at all? Because some of us have.
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WASHINGTON POST: Findings indicate Gray got head injuries in van. “Investigators believe Freddie Gray suffered serious head injuries while he was in a police transport van, although they have not concluded how the injuries occurred, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. One wound occurred when Gray struck his head on a bolt that jutted out in the van, the official said, but that was not Gray’s only head injury. And the injuries overall are consistent with what medical examiners often see in car collisions, the official said.”
TRIGGER WARNING: MICROAGGRESSION AHEAD!: So apparently liberals/progressives now need trigger warnings when other liberals/progressives try to educate the rest of us about our #whiteprivilege. The Asian American Students’ Association at Brandeis University was–get this–forced to apologize for a display of common microaggressions directed at Asian Americans. The display was so disturbing to the delicate flowers on campus that they were forced to apologize:
[W]e would like to acknowledge and apologize to the Asian students on campus who were triggered or hurt by the content of the microaggressions in our installation. We understand and empathize with the effects that this installation could have without the context of the explanation provided on our Tumblr. As a response to student concerns, we installed a condensed physical explanation of our mission statement today at the Rabb steps. We want to reinforce that this installation is a commentary on how these insults build up together to create a campus environment that does not welcome Asian students.
As Asian students, we had no intention of mocking or harming our own community and ourselves. We acknowledge the disconnect between intention and effect.
This is deliciously ironic: In their attempt to educate the world about how to avoid offending their hyper-sensitive feelings, liberals/progressives are offending hyper-sensitive liberals/progressives. Classic, entertaining idiocy–like a dog chasing its own tail.
Brandeis, btw, is a $60,000+ per year college, and a bastion of progressive thinking, best known for a “tolerant” and “open-minded” environment in which students and faculty successfully convinced the school’s administration to revoke its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an advocate for women and girls’ rights, to give a commencement speech, on grounds that she is “Islamophobic.”
Spoiled, intolerant, ignorant brats.
FLAWED, DELIBERATELY DISHONEST, WHATEVER: Ashe Schow: How flawed statistics create policies that ruin lives.
The headline could easily apply to any number of government policies, but I am (predictably, perhaps) going to use it to discuss campus sexual assault.
The doom-sayers began with the statistic that 1 in 5 college women will be sexually assaulted to get their foot in the door. They screamed from the mountaintop that any woman in college will probably be raped any day now. Not in India, not in Iran, not in South Africa, but here. In America. On campus.
Using that false statistic (most are at least intelligent enough now to stop using it), activists began a crusade to right the injustices of the past (and potentially present) by swinging the pendulum to the other side. This, not surprisingly, has created a new problem of male students losing their due process rights and being treated as guilty until proven innocent.
But 1-in-5 isn’t the only statistic being used to create these new policies. Now that the issue is consistently in the news, other statistics with equally dubious origins are cropping up.
One is that only 2 percent of rape accusations are false. This factoid traces back to a single source (Susan Brownmiller’s 1975 book Against Our Will), which in turn cites a police officer talking about a study that no one has been able to find. But from this dubious claim springs the dogma that one must therefore believe all rape-accusers to be true victims.
Couple the notion that all accusers must be believed to another statistic — that relatively few men commit the majority of sexual assaults — and the prevailing logic becomes that anyone accused of sexual assault must immediately be treated as a serial rapist, because they likely are or will be.
It’s as if the whole thing has more to do with sexist hatred and will to power than with any concerns about justice.
JEB BUSH DEFIANT ON IMMIGRATION: “I’m right about this.” “A feisty Jeb Bush gave a full-throated defense of his immigration stance in front of a Washington audience on Thursday, laying out the economic case that reforms he champions could return the nation to prosperity. Bush took a swipe at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely opponent against Bush for the Republican presidential nomination next year, for saying that he favors limiting legal immigration to the U.S. as a means of preserving jobs in the nation for current citizens.”
You can’t complain about stagnant wages and hype increased immigration at the same time. Well, you can, but . . . .
DAVID POST: Barry Bonds, Baseball, And Prosecutorial BS.
MOST VOCAL OPPONENTS OF OBAMA’S TRADE PACT? Fellow Democrats. I have to say, I’m with Elizabeth Warren on this one. I don’t want to pass the deal to find out what’s in it.
A LOOK AT America’s Mid-Sized Metropolitan Areas.
The United States has 53 mid-sized metropolitan areas, with populations from 500,000 to 1 million. These metropolitan areas together had a population of nearly 38 million in 2014, according to the most recent Census Bureau population estimates (Table). In number, they match the 53 major metropolitan areas (over 1 million population), though they have only one fifth of the population (178 million). The mid-sized metropolitan areas are growing somewhat slower than the major metropolitan areas, at an annual rate of 0.81% between 2010 and 2014, compared to 1.00% in the major metropolitan areas. Combined, the major metropolitan areas and the mid-sized metropolitan areas have two-thirds of the US population.
But I suspect there are pretty big differences between “major” and “mid-sized.” At least, Knoxville is #12 on the “mid-sized” list, and it’s not much like New York.
April 30, 2015
SOME PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING, BUT the Insta-Wife has found her Mother Of The Year. “This is a woman who has had enough of her kid acting like an idiot and putting himself in a very bad, and possibly dangerous situation. This mother let her son know that she did not approve of what he was doing and when he tried to walk away, she let him know that he had better listen to her. . . . But to compare an uncontrolled act of parenting to the justified anger that this Baltimore mom had in this dangerous and outrageous situation is wrong. To call it poor parenting is to misunderstand the difference between good parenting and feelings of guilt for lacking control. This mother was in control and she was teaching her son that his behavior warranted a strong response. I say a smack on the head here was the least of this teen’s problems. If in the end, he resents his mother for it, so what? Better that than end up in jail or dead because his mother was too concerned about appearing controlled.”
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BECAUSE IT’S ALL HE KNOWS HOW TO DO: Obama says he wants to return to community organizing after his presidency ends. And it can’t end soon enough. Too bad we can’t just buy out his contract or something.
WELL, THAT’S CERTAINLY NOT AUSPICIOUS: Creator of ‘The Wire’ Blames Martin O’Malley for Riots. I wonder how Hillary got to him. . . .?
ED DRISCOLL: Mary Whitehouse Finally Triumphs: “Swinging London” a half century in the rearview mirror, England’s feminist left finally goes full reactionary. “The sexy girl atop this post really is necessary to the plot — honest.”
DEFENSE SECRETARY ASHTON CARTER: More Men Than Women Victims Of Sexual Assault In Military.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Brookings: Ranking Colleges By Value Added.
DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE: White House defends Obama’s record on race relations. The real news is that things have gotten bad enough that they feel they have to step up and play defense.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Obama Admin. Won’t Let States Ask for Proof of Citizenship … On Voter Registration Form! The evidence clearly shows that non-citizens are ending up on the rolls as a result.
So let’s say they’re planning to flood the polls with illegals in 2016. What’s an appropriate response?
AFTER EXECUTIONS, AUSTRALIA RECALLS AMBASSADOR TO INDONESIA:
Indonesia executed eight people accused of drug trafficking, including two Australians, as part of President Joko Widodo’s “war on drugs”. Australian officials had made personal appeals for clemency from Indonesia’s government, but it all came to naught yesterday, when a firing squad carried out the state’s sentence and shot the convicts dead.
The official response from Australia was carefully measured outrage. . . .
The saga illustrates some of the problems in Australia’s relationship with its giant and increasingly powerful neighbor.
In Indonesia, colonialism remains a very live issue, and Australia’s support for East Timor’s independence has been a sore spot. Some also fear that the restive, mineral-rich Indonesian half of New Guinea might also some day come into play, and that Australia might find it convenient to meddle. And Indonesia, a mostly Muslim country with increasingly conservative social mores, shares the abhorrence of many of its neighbors for drug trafficking, and is deeply committed to tough drug laws.Australia knows that it needs good relations with its neighbor—for one thing, to help control what could otherwise be a tsunami of illegal immigration by desperate boat people—and Australian politicians of both of the major parties work hard to keep the relationship strong. But Australian public opinion sometimes chafes at what this means.
Far from fading away, these problems are likely in some ways to grow more serious. Indonesian Islam has traditionally taken a relaxed view on many social issues; that is beginning to change as more conservative strains of Islam gain ground. And the Indonesians, with the world’s fourth largest population and a rapidly growing economy, aren’t always averse to throwing their weight around on the diplomatic scene.
Add Australia to the list of nations worldwide that will want nuclear weapons, now that the United States seems an unreliable ally.
Related thoughts here.