Archive for 2021

IT DOES SEEM THAT WAY:

The Democrats seem to be operating with a haste and an openness that isn’t normal for a party with a razor-thin majority. It reminds me a bit of how Chinese companies were doing business in 2019 — as if it’s some kind of final period.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Greenies Against Grass: Climate Change Believers Now Attacking Legal Marijuana.

When the climate change hypothesis followers start attacking an industry for their carbon footprint, they never consider the loss of jobs resulting from their attacks. Their pot pugnacity is no different.

Despite the huge climate impact of the nation’s fastest-growing new industry—legal sales jumped 50 percent last year, topping $20 billion, while the industry added almost 80,000 jobs—Biden, most lawmakers and many environmental groups, even those supportive of cannabis legalization, have largely ignored the issue.

And that doesn’t even count the loss of jobs from the lower consumption of Cheetos, chips, and other munchies, or the secession of people ordering delivery from Domino’s pizza at 3am. Or the people who manufacture rolling papers, pipes, and/or bongs.

Heh, indeed.

NEWSWEEK: The Diversity Problem on Campus.

The words “diversity, equity and inclusion” sound just, and are often supported by well-intentioned people, but their effects are the opposite of noble sentiments. Most importantly, “equity” does not mean fair and equal treatment. DEI seeks to increase the representation of some groups through discrimination against members of other groups. The underlying premise of DEI is that any statistical difference between group representation on campus and national averages reflects systemic injustice and discrimination by the university itself. The magnitude of the distortions is significant: for some job searches discrimination rises to the level of implicitly or explicitly excluding applicants from certain groups.

DEI violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment. It entails treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell an applicant “I will ignore your merits and qualifications and deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group, and I have defined a more important social objective that justifies doing so.” It treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.

Yes. Plus: “DEI compromises the university’s mission. The core business of the university is the search for truth.”

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW, we’re hiring a new dean, and two new faculty members.

Position descriptions and application info at the links.

TIME FOR REPARATIONS: A Racial Reckoning for the Democrats:

Vermont Democrat Party chair Bruce Olsson published a commentary recently proclaiming yet again that Republicans are “racist.” This is particularly rich since the Democrat party is the oldest and most enduring racist political party in history, and its racism continues to this day. Here are the facts:

The Democrat Party was founded in 1828. Its first national party platform, ratified during the 1840 Presidential election, stated: “ that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery… are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people… and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.”

The message was clear: the Democrat Party did not consider Black Americans to be “people” deserving of “happiness.”

That same language was in every national Democrat party platform for the next 16 years.

Democrat party leaders acted on their racist principles, committing high treason against their country and their fellow Americans between 1861-1865 in order to preserve the system of Black human bondage.

In 1868, the Democrat Party platform urged amnesty for the traitors who, during the Civil War, killed hundreds of thousands of Americans for the purpose of preserving slavery. The platform also called for “the abolition of the Freedmen’s Bureau; and all political instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy”:

In 1904, seventy-six years after its founding, the Democrat party’s platform complained about the Republican platform:

“The race question has brought countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the American people should see to it that it brings no more.

To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed. We therefore deprecate and condemn the Bourbon-like selfish, and narrow spirit of the recent Republican Convention at Chicago which sought to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife, and we appeal from it to the sober common sense and patriotic spirit of the American people.” . . .

Throughout most of the 20th century, Democrats condoned or excused policies of apartheid and disenfranchisement of Black Americans. Senate Democrats successfully filibustered a Republican led anti-lynching bill in 1934, and a Republican-led effort to ban the poll tax in 1940. At the time, the poll tax was so effective in the American South that only 3% of Black Americans were registered to vote there. Elected Democrats fought tooth and nail against anti-racist legislation, filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and engaging in so-called “massive resistance” against school integration into the early 1970s. A century and half of racist policies vigorously supported by Democrat party leaders — no other political party in history comes close.

Reparations now!

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW, we’re hiring a new dean, and two new faculty members.

Position descriptions and application info at the links.

BYRON YORK: Why 2020 Was Unique.

In most years, a majority of respondents told pollsters the message they would send to the federal government was “leave me alone.” In 2014, 59 percent said “leave me alone.” In 2016, it was 54 percent. In 2012, it was 53 percent. At the same time, during those years, much smaller numbers of respondents, 32 percent, 39 percent, and 37 percent, respectively, said the message they would send the government would be “lend me a hand.”

In other words, majorities did not feel the need for an especially activist federal government. No, they were not saying they did not want existing government programs like Social Security or clean air standards. But they were saying they did not want broad new expansions of the government into everyday life.

That changed dramatically in August 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic. At that time, a solid majority, 57 percent, said their message to the government was “lend me a hand.” Just 36 percent said “leave me alone.”

The reasons were obvious. The public wanted a vaccine. Those who were unemployed through no fault of their own needed money. The same for small business owners trying to survive. Of course they wanted the government to lend a hand.

But by the time of the new poll, this week, with the nation — even with the Delta variant — pulling out of the worst effects of the pandemic, the “lend me a hand” number had fallen to 44 percent. That, by the way, is precisely what it was in 2011, when the nation was pulling out of the Great Recession. Barring some unexpected calamity, the “lend me a hand” number will likely fall further.

The increased “lend me a hand” sentiment was engineered, of course, by policies backed by the Democrats, and by media coverage. But I repeat myself.

HOW THE VACCINATED VIEW THE UNVACCINATED:

Relatively few of the vaccinated expressed anger at the unvaccinated (although a handful wished the unvaccinated would die). Instead of anger, there are many condescending comments about the perceived stupidity of the unvaccinated. Also, many comments about the unvaccinated being selfish, careless, or reckless.

Many also express a desire that the unvaccinated get vaccinated. Most such comments are fairly neutral. There were very few mentions of mandates.

Other recent survey data helps explain the lack of anger in the comments offered by vaccinated voters. Most (57%) are comfortable attending indoor social events without wearing a mask. Also, if they tested positive for COVID, 67% of voters think it’s they would recover quickly with only minor symptoms. Just 5% say such a recovery is Not at All Likely.

Sounds as if the general public is less exercised about Covid than the laptop classes.