Randomly asking a person at a mall on a Saturday afternoon about healthcare will be met with blank stares, bumbling utterances, and the mall’s background noise. Maybe not everyone, but a good number.
Why? Well, people don’t care about it till they need it; there’s a nearly complete disconnect about costs; people won’t read anything longer than the 3 lines of a Facebook post or Tweet; our politicans have been allowed to demagogue the issue; and self-serving special interests (AARP, and the list found here: https://votesmart.org/interest-groups/NA/38#.WLMbF_nyuUk) pettifog the issue. It’s scandalous … and all so confusing to a largely inattentive and ill-informed public.
Here’s some points of confusion. First, “healthcare” and “health insurance” have been jumbled together. The reality is that a person can have healthcare without health insurance, and health insurance without healthcare. Unless we enslave medical practitioners, we are learning that we can possess insurance that few with a medical license will honor. Conversely, healthcare can exist as a form of “welfare” without purchasing a premium.
Secondly, somebody else paying the bills creates childlike fantasies. It’s called the third-party-payer problem in economics. A barrier exists between seller and buyer called the insurance middle-man. Bottom line, particularly for the consumer: Who cares? The result is a chronic escalation of prices.
Thirdly, government can’t give you anything without taking from somebody else first. A Robin Hood society isn’t a healthy one, if we can project beyond our nose. Eventually healthcare will resemble a combination of the DMV and Saturday night in the emergency room at the public hospital.
Where does this leave us? Block grant Medicaid to the states; phase-in Medicare reforms; expand Health Savings Accounts; allow stripped-down policies; restrict sign-ups to one deadline per year; treat health insurance like car insurance; and grandfather existing policies. If some states love Obamacare, they can keep it … and foot the bill. How’s that for starters?
California’s Oroville Dam poses a threat. Here’s the dam’s layout.
Oroville Dam layout
Last week, northern California residents awoke to the dangers of major flooding in areas downstream from Oroville Dam. The concern was over the possible failure of the dam’s main and emergency spillways. Spillways help regulate the volume of water behind the dams during periods of heavy incoming stream flows. Look below at what has recently happened.
Oroville Dam with releases down the main splillwayOroville Dam’s main spillway rupturesOroville Dam’s main spillway at point of ruptureOroville Dam’s adjacent emergency spillway releases cause serious erosion
If the spillways fail, uncontrolled amounts of water flow through the breach till the water behind the dam falls below the level of the spillways. The rush of water could last some time if high volumes from the Feather River persistently flows into the lake.
How could this happen? Was it poor foresight? Was it due to a policy of the deferral of monitoring and maintenance of critical infrastructure, like dams? It is true, at a 2005 FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) re-licensing hearing, that a proposal to concrete-line the slope below the emergency spillway (last photo from above) was rejected by the state’s Department of Water Resources as too expensive. Since the dam is owned and controlled by the state, it owns full responsibility for this and all other decisions.
Resentment from many of those in the path of possible destruction is directed at the State of California, a government seen as more beholding to the passions of heavily-populated coastal realms than the needs of the interior. USA Today’s Trevor Hughes sensed the discord when he recently wrote while covering the dam situation, “Here, residents distrust a state government they think is all-too-eager to help undocumented immigrants and build a bullet train to serve the rich coastal elites, leaving them with little.”
California’s interior is so much different from the coast in more than temperament . The area to the east of the Coast Range provides much of California’s water, power, and resource industries. Yet, they bear the full brunt of the policies built around the coast’s lifestyle progressivism, especially the region’s passion for environmentalism in all its guises.
California’s mountain ranges. The Norther and Southern Ranges are the major political divide in the state.
“Progress” for coastal activists is subsidies for solar panels and windmills while ensuring high prices for electricity. As it is, California is 42nd among all states in terms of the average price per kilowatthour. In other words, 41 states are cheaper. The impact is minimal if all you have to do in Monterey to cool down the house is open a window.
Not true in Bakersfield-to-Redding. You’ll take the solar panel subsidies – always paid for by somebody else – and drill into your roof trusses to anchor the things, as well as learn about sweltering during the hottest part of the day. If you want to sleep at night by using air conditioning, be prepared to be labelled an energy “hog” by the state’s commissars as you cool your way to bankruptcy.
The whole scheme is a hammer to anyone living on the sunrise side of the Coast Range. All the while, coastal sophisticates get to indulge their Europhilia and Japanophilia fantasies with bullet trains and light rail. There is a complete disconnect depending on which side of the Coast Range that you reside.
It shows in elections. As the the whole state seemed to go for Hillary-mania in 2016, giving her 4.2 million more votes than Trump, counties in the path of the flooding tacked quite differently. For instance, Butte County, in spite of being home to liberal Chico and Chico State University, went Trump 46% to 42%. Yuba County awarded Trump with 58%. The red/blue divide doesn’t follow state lines. Out west, the line of demarcation follows the ridge of the Coast Range.
2016 California election results by county. The last remaining Republican counties in the state reside east of the Coast Range.
The near calamity of the Oroville Dam is resurrecting the call for secession of the far northern counties and a union with the similarly disaffected southern counties of Oregon to form the long sought-after State of Jefferson. Rallies and signs are reappearing.
The State of Jefferson map.State of Jefferson sign on fence near construction site for repairing the Oroville Dam.State of Jefferson sign near Red Bluff, northern California, between Chico and Redding.State of Jefferson Christmas float, Redding, Ca.State of Jefferson sign in Tuolumme County.Recent rally in Sacramento for the State of Jefferson.
Recently, we’ve been hearing cries from some elements within California’s governing coalition (read “coastal elites”) to secede to get away from Trump. I wonder if it ever crossed the minds of these coastal urbanites that there are people who want to get away from them.
To the east of the coastal divide, there’s a growing realization that the state is no bargain for the hard working taxpayer. Instead of getting well-maintained roads, the folks get ruts, cracks, and potholes. Just rattling off the stats could turn any state resident into a Prozac patient.
* The state ranks 45 for the efficiency of its state highway system (Reason Foundation, Sept. 2014 report).
* 68% of its roads are in poor condition according to a State Senate report.
* The state has $135 billion of unfunded repairs according to state and local officials.
* 5 of the 10 cities with the worst road systems are in California according to TRIPP, a Washington DC research group.
* California’s interstate are the worst in the nation according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
* The state is developing a habit of chronically under-funding its roads by two-thirds.
Not enough money for roads? How’s that possible? The state is tax happy. It should be rolling in the dough. And it is, but the money gets lost somewhere along the way from the motorists’s wallet and paycheck to the pavement underneath his or her tires.
The state’s taxes on fuel are one of the highest in the nation. The Reason Foundation ranks them at #5, meaning there are only 4 states with higher rates.
This dour claim-to-fame doesn’t tell the whole story. Breaking into the molecular structure of the California gas tax reveals a gas excise tax of 39.5¢/gal, state and local sales taxes from 7.5% to 10%, and a “cap-and-trade” fee of 13¢ to 20¢/gal assessed on wholesalers. Of course, the cap-and-trade hustle is passed onto the lowly motorist.
The meandering course of the “cap-and-trade” money has a dubious destination. Its first billion dollars goes to the dream of a bullet train from LA to San Francisco.
Conception of “high speed rail” hurtling its way through the hills and Central Valley of California.The reality?
Since the revenue haul from the various fuel taxes is hitched to rising fuel prices, keeping them on a upward path is a fiscal necessity to fund the state’s low-carbon schemes. Thankfully, fuel prices in California are like a piece of foam in the water. There are forces keeping prices buoyant (up).
The buoyant effect arises from the powerful environmentalist lobby’s mania for punishing carbon fuels. California demands a very special low-emissions fuel. So special, in fact, no other state requires it. The base ingredient for fuel is called “blendstock”. Certain approved reformulated “blendstocks” are required by the EPA: CBOB and RBOB. RBOB is more expensive to produce. Not only is RBOB mandated by the state, an uncommon form of it, CARBOB, is the only one allowed. It’s even more expensive to make.
The expansion of supply could work to moderate the effect of the state’s fussy gasoline taste buds, if suppliers could expand capacity to produce more. Discouragingly, enlarging an existing refinery or building a new one in the state necessitates the patience of Job and the political muscle of Hercules.
CEQA’s maze for project approval. It rivals the labyrinth of King Minos of Crete.
The California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 creates a daunting maze with bountiful opportunities for eco-activists and NIMBY’s (Not In My Back Yard) to block and delay any project, particularly big ones, inflating its costs. The last refinery built in the state was Valero’s Wilmington plant in 1980, but the state has added 15 million souls since then. Sclerotic production leads to price shocks down to the gas station pump when a single pipe breaks at any one of the few remaining refineries. The state is always living on the edge.
A typical resident of California pays more to gas up the family sedan, as it is driven on cracked and rutted roads, to flee the floods from failing spillways. The state is trying to survive on 30-year-old fuel supply chains and a 50-year-old water and flood control infrastructure. It’s running on the fumes of the past.
Eventually, the fumes dissipate. Before then, either join the the rebel movement in the State of Jefferson or load up the U-haul to escape the clutches of the coastal eco-warriors. Good luck.
An interesting story appeared in Tacoma’s The News Tribune on February 15, 2017. A routine driver’s license check by a Washington State trooper at the scene of a multi-car accident revealed a man, Armando Chavez Corona, who was a deported felon convicted of a drug charge. A trooper then notified ICE and two hours later ICE agents arrived to take the man into custody.
Ironically, the state trooper making the call to ICE may be in as much hot water as Mr. Corona. The Washington State Patrol is investigating the officer for not following department guidelines about not detaining or questioning people based on immigration status.
Mr. Corona presents an intriguing case. According to ICE spokeswoman Rose Richeson, he was a “previously deported criminal with an aggravated felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance and a conviction in the U.S. District Court for illegal re-entry. He was removed to Mexico on four separate occasions between 1996 to 2000.”
What of the state guidelines in question? The so-called protocols pronounce that the agency will not “not stop, detain or interrogate or place an immigration hold on any person solely for the purpose of ascertaining immigration status or in any other way attempt to enforce federal immigration laws.” The troopers at the scene didn’t detain or otherwise question Mr. Corona. Corona had to wait at the crash site for cars to be cleared. While waiting, ICE arrived to take Mr. Corona into custody.
Now, what if Mr. Corona was a citizen? What if a routine driver’s license check revealed an outstanding FBI notification of him to be a person of interest in a federal matter? Local law enforcement would have taken him into custody in a heartbeat.
The only consequential difference in the two scenarios is the real “undocumented” status of Mr. Corona in the first and his hypothetical status as a citizen in the second. In the real story, the “undocumented” Mr. Corona has a halo of protection from federal arrest as a result of Gov. Jay Inslee’s (D) declaration that state and local law enforcement are not to be “mini-immigration agencies”. Mr. Corona has greater legal protections in the state of Washington as an illegal resident than as a citizen.
Certainly, residents of the state of Washington who happen to be citizens wouldn’t evade the federal hammer. How does this comport with our veneration for the constitutional principle of “equal protection”? Equal protection requires the government to guarantee the same rights, protections, and privileges to all citizens. Apparently, the non-citizen designation of “undocumented” by the state of Washington means a greater level of protection, not equal protection. Eschewing the “citizen” label while violating our immigration laws perversely means a higher status than the lowly citizen.
Citizens get hauled away by the feds as the “undocumented” receive sanctuary. We have most certainly entered the pretzel logic world of Alice’s Wonderland of the Sanctuary City.
The following is a response to an article by Charles Krauthammer, “The Cover-up in Search of a Crime”, in National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445005/flynn-phone-call-coverup-searching-crime
Vice President Mike Pence with National Security Adviser Mike Flynn
This story is much richer than the matter of a subordinate misleading the Vice President. Be careful, though, the deeper story may not follow the path to a collusion with Russia during the election. The scent may lead to Obama. Andrew McCarthy was astute to mention it.
Obama’s people got a FISA-approved wiretap on Russian operatives prior to the election and in the waning days of Obama’s term after DNC and Podesta’s emails became public. This has “politics” written all over it. Then, the always present partisan operatives, entrenched in the upper reaches of the agencies, still clinging to power during the transition, leaked the edited results to an Obama-pliant press.
Yes, this whole affair may be a cover-up in search of a crime. It may also be an intense version of the long twilight struggle that is politics in modern America.
The following was a response to an article by Kevin D. Williamson in National Review Online, “Abolish President’s Day”, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445013/presidents-day-imperial-cult
KDW, interesting idea about abolishing President’s Day – one that I find intriguing. Electing a president, as popularly viewed, has nearly become an exercise in choosing our next 4-year emperor. Most risible is the infantile incantations about him (or her, but we haven’t had one yet) as the “leader of the economy” and “leader of the people”, a grand vizier, or caliph, of all living souls within the country.
We even have our own Roman Forum in the form of the Washington Mall. The Lincoln Memorial is as close to a functioning temple as one can possibly get, with its gargantuan Athena-like statue. Still missing, though, are the vestial virgins and temple priests.
Artists rendering of the Roman ForumThe National Mall, Washington, D.C., looking west.
Watch that space for raising Obama to the godhead.
Are we morphing from a self-governing citizenry into adolescent dependencies of a father-god? Even more profound, are we now the kind of people who desire persons to worship since the traditional object of veneration is held in disrepute by the fashionable currents of lifestyle progressivism? The gigantic and ostentatious has replaced the humility and modesty more appropriate for a republic.
Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court, 1/31/17
Today, nominations to the Supreme Court are the casus belli for apocalyptic struggles. It’s understandable. The courts have achieved a god-like status in our political system. A court’s decision is treated as the thundering voice of Yahweh. As demigods, their judgments intervene into every nook and cranny of creation. It was not always so.
Does our Constitution demand the supremacy of the courts? No. Has the judiciary achieved primacy in our constitutional order? Yes. The former is a hot topic of debate in academic circles. The latter is the current reality.
The primacy of the courts is the inescapable result of the way the subject of our government is taught and discussed. Take for example the ubiquitous, and misleading, definition of “judicial review”. Scholastic’s translation would be at home in any public school textbook.
“Judicial review is the power of courts to decide the validity of acts of the legislative and executive branches of government. If the courts decide that a legislative act is unconstitutional, it is nullified. The decisions of the executive and administrative agencies can also be overruled by the courts as not conforming to the law or the Constitution.”
Is it true? Maybe not. Could it be that determining the constitutionality of an act may not be an exclusive power of the courts? The logic of the primacy of a court’s decision, rising above the powers and acts of the other branches, would leave us at the mercy of an unelected cabal, appointed for life. Really, swearing an oath of loyalty to the Constitution upon taking office would essentially mean swearing an oath of loyalty to the Supreme Court, through the meanings it confers on the document.
The other branches (called departments), the executive and legislative, and states would be forced into the thickets of constitutional amendments and impeachment to reverse the ukases of this grand council. Neither of which are likely avenues for success.
Judicial supremacy as currently construed is not prudent nor in conformance with “separate but equal branches” (Federalist Papers, No. 47). The claims of the courts’ primacy is a hot mess.
Andrew Jackson
History gives us a different picture of the courts’ reach. Andrew Jackson was famous for his blunt ripostes. The Supreme Court had just issued its ruling in Worcester v. Georgia wherein it invalidated a Georgia statute governing non-Native Americans on Indian lands. In a letter to John Coffee, Jackson allegedly wrote, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” Since Chief Justice John Marshall didn’t order U. S. marshals to enforce the decision, he avoided a showdown with the hot-tempered Jackson over the matter. He knew the limits of the Court’s authority and didn’t want to test them against Jackson.
Announcement for a meeting to protest the Dred Scott decision
The confrontation wouldn’t happen today because of the expectation of an immediate surrender of the president to the Court, something Lincoln would have found strange. The Dred Scott case is highly instructive in this respect. Theruling created, to put it mildly, an uproar. It led to the rise of the Republican Party, the candidacy of Lincoln, and the first Republican president.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s disdain for the monstrosity of the Dred Scott decision was palpable. In his first inaugural address, with Dred Scott in mind, Lincoln laid out the danger posed by the Court’s claim of supremacy on all matters constitutional.
“… the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, … the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.”
Once as president, he used his executive powers to put the kibosh to the thing. He ordered the issuance of passports to free blacks in direct contradiction of the Court’s finding that blacks weren’t citizens under the Constitution. There’s more. He supported and signed legislation to ban slavery in the western territories. In effect, gutting Dred Scott through executive and legislative fiat.
What would be the reaction if George W. Bush treated Roe v. Wade with as much contemptas Lincoln did Dred Scott? The wailing and gnashing of teeth from abortion absolutists would be heard for miles. The media, the partisan bloodhounds in academia, and the satraps in the Democratic Party – the usual haunts of progressivism – would be howling for scalps.
Jackson, Lincoln, the founders, and almost anyone on the scene prior to the progressives’ mangling of our Constitution, would have recognized what is referred to today as “departmentalism”. It holds that each department has the decisive authority to interpret the Constitution regarding its core constitutional functions. The concept flies in the face of the court’s pedestal placement in a high school textbook.
Bringing the concept to the present, President Trump could simply ignore the Ninth Circuit’s decision on his temporary travel ban executive order. To borrow from Jackson, he could announce, “Judges Michelle Friedland, William Canby, and Richard Clifton have made their decision; now let them enforce it.” Directing foreign affairs and national defense are, if anything, integral to the functions of a chief executive. Without these powers, he’d be as ill-equipped as a eunuch in a pagan fertility rite. What would be the point in having the office?
The potential for the courts to emasculate a president or legislature is real. What is the check on their power if the judiciary has the final say on all matters before it? Point of act: there is none!
Forget about departmentalism. The Supreme Court killed it. The judiciary has conferred upon itself supremacy. In Cooper v Aaron in 1958 – and in other near contemporaneous rulings- the Court bellowed that all governing entities must bow to their will. As legal scholar Matthew Franck wrote about Cooper,
“It is quite another thing to say, as Cooper did, that Supreme Court rulings are ‘the supreme law of the land’ owing to an exact identity with the Constitution itself, and thus binding with Article VI force on all rival interpreters of the Constitution. From this it would follow that Congress and the president, no less than the states, are bound by their oaths to accept Supreme Court decisions as binding expositions of the meaning of the Constitution.”
From here on out, the judiciary has an unlimited veto power on the other two branches.
Appointed for life, they can stray into any issue arising from the plethora of interactions in all of creation. No limit on the subject matter or their power to intervene. The situation is eerily like Rome’s shift from republic to empire. Our courts are seated like Augustus in the Roman governmental order, the wise check on an unruly Senate. In effect, Rome had an emperor. In effect, we have black-robed jurists, appointed for life, with power to command anything, as our new emperors. The only thing lacking is the hereditary principle.
Maecenas Presenting the Liberal Arts to Emperor Augustus, Tiepolo Giovanni Battista
Don’t worry, some court in the not-too-distant future will read it into the Constitution. It’s coming.
With so much power in the hands of a judge, an Armageddon erupts over every Supreme Court vacancy – if, as of yet, they haven’t given themselves the power to appoint their own successors. Our only hope is the seating of judges who will exercise self-restraint, because there are no external ones.
The juiced-up political battle over filling Supreme Court vacancies is a sign of our dysfunction. Filling a Supreme Court vacancy has much greater weight than electing a Congress or President. All sides recognize its importance, but few understand that it was never meant to be that way.
Missing in the debate is the realization that we’re now ruled by demigods. Do we really want to go the way of Rome? Is emperor worship next?
“Populist Presidents and ‘Demoralized’ Judges”, Andrew C. McCarthy, NRO, 2/10/17, Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444786/donald-trump-judges-attacks-andrew-jackson-did-much-worse
Thank God for removing barriers to women (pic 1), but why do we have to push it into the land of Orwellian delusions? It’s as if there is a concerted propaganda campaign to habituate us into accepting the falsehood of the physical and martial equality of men and women. A steady stream of TV shows (pic 2-3), movies (pics 4-5), commercials, and video games are perpetuating the lie. Have you noticed?
pic 2 – Xenia Warrior Princess – Lucille Frances “Lucy” Lawlesspic 3 – Kylie Bunbury – Pitch, Fox tv showpic 4 – Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff in Iron Man 2pic 5 – Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Gamespic 6 – Female Marine recruits Princesse Aldrete, left, and Genisis Ordonez stand in formation following hand-to-hand combat training during boot camp Parris Island, South Carolina.
As a result, we have the absurdity of trying to create a “fair” army, not an “effective” one (pic 6). We have prepubescent, pre-teen girls taking roster spots on Little League teams (pic 7).
pic 7 – Girl on a boys baseball team
If biology is more than a social construct, estrogen isn’t a muscle-enhancing secretion – and the US Civil Rights Commission can’t make it otherwise.
Wait, before you brand me as a misogynist, please consider whether it’s in the interests of our girls to force them into living a lie.
Thanks to Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/…/a-gop-regulatory-game-changer-14854780…) for breaking the news that the GOP has a potential political nuke in its arsenal to defang the administrative state. Dems are shuddering at the thought.
It’s all about the Congressional Review Act of 1996. It will post facto confiscate Obama’s “pen and phone”. Rules, regulations, and guidance letters can be reversed by a simple congressional majority. Here’s how it works:
(1) The CRA allows for the repeal of any of the above 60 days from the publishing date or date of report … whichever is latest.
(2) Any rule published without a report could extend eligibility back to 1996, not just the most recent stuff.
(3) Once a rule is repealed, it can’t be resubmitted in a similar form again.
As USC coach John McKay once said when asked about his heavy use of O.J. Simpson, “When you have a big gun, you should use it”. Well, GOP, start firing.
The much talked-about divide in America of “blue” versus “red” is real. The two factions conflict at the most basic cultural level. A “blue” mind-set pervades almost everywhere by its control of and access to media, corporate America, and educational institutions. It invades and conflicts with the more traditional outlook of “red” America. You can’t get away from blue-America’s weltanschauung (worldview). It’s omnipresent.
Super Bowl LI provided no sanctuary from the onslaught. An Audi ad has a male voice worrying about the discrimination his daughter will face: “Do I tell her that despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets?” You can watch it here.
If the commercial was targeting the NFL fan base, the probable $10 million ad buy may have missed the mark. NFL fans are almost two-thirds male, three-quarters white, 91% age 18 or older, and almost three-quarters earning $40k or more (as of 2013). Was this advertising or sermonizing?
An alternative explanation follows the provocation principle of media marketing. Just be over-the-top in some way and you’ll get looks, clicks, and tweets. But why does outrageousness appear to overwhelmingly lean left? I suspect sermonizing to be closer to the truth.
Pontificating wasn’t limited to a compulsive anguish over alleged gender inequities. If the audience wasn’t pummeled with the usual pickups and beer, multiculturalism and its cousin “diversity” were thrust at viewers. Airbnb, a marketer of vacation properties, seemed more intent on establishing its multicultural bonafides than renting a Maui condo.
Coca-cola trotted out a 2014 Super Bowl commercial with the same message. Beauty and goodness are glued to racial and ethnic diversity, not to individual goodness, in these things. To be in the land of the righteous, “difference” as part of group identity is the sanctifying grace. Group “difference” alone is all that matters. It stops there.
Once ethnic and racial diversity is conferred with the halo of goodness, where is a person to stand on the key “diversity” issue of immigration? Quite frankly, opposition to open borders must place you somewhere between purgatory and hell.
An all-in for diversity creates a mind prejudiced against accepting the jarring realities related to “diversity”. Harvard’s Robert Putnam stumbled into a hornets’ nest in 2007 when he uncovered the downside. His research discovered a decline in civic engagement and social capital in diverse communities. People don’t care much about each other and they withdraw into the isolation of their homes. He writes, “People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle.”
Maybe the withdrawal “like a turtle” could have something to do with the ethnic youth gangs. Nortenos and Surenos gang alliances, MS-13, etc., plague many of the poorer ethnic neighborhoods.
MS-13 gang members, Los Angeles
Granted, gangs have been evident throughout U.S. history in all slices of the poorer demographic pie.
Camorra mob, NYC – Navy St. Gang – Sicilian, Italian immigrantPurple Gang, Detroit – Jewish immigrant gang
They are a notable feature of ethnic districts, much replenished with new arrivals during periods of high immigration. It may be a result of a social anomie, an uprooted people without the civic controls of the old country. Still, the prospect of declining public morality is threatening to any family having to live with it. Perhaps, “hunkering down” and separating oneself from the immediate surroundings is an understandable reaction.
My guess is that ethnically and racially diverse neighborhoods have a better chance if residents have common values and language, and a common middle class educational, income, and occupational orientation. That would mean some sense of assimilation. “Assimilation”, though, is blasphemy in the church of diversity.
Many of the Super Bowl commercials were sermons from the diversity seminary. More than that, they are a window into the modern corporate soul. Along with the appropriate dress and manners in the corporate boardroom, part of the uniform includes a blue-America ethos.
The secular martyring of girls and immigrants and the worship of diversity are elements of the dogma. Rob Schwartz, chief executive of the marketing firm of TBWA\Chiat\Day New York (whose clients include McDonald’s, Michelin, GoDaddy, Nissan) at halftime proclaimed, “If there’s anything that’s screaming out here, it’s diversity. People are saying, ‘Is this trolling Trump?’ I don’t think it’s trolling. It’s a big smack in the face of ‘dude, this is America.”
Corporate mission statements are bland affirmations of Schwartz’s enthusiastic declaration. “Diversity” is a mantra in Coca-cola’s self-professed mission: “The Coca-Cola Company’s global diversity mission is to mirror the rich diversity of the marketplace we serve and be recognized for our leadership in Diversity, Inclusion and Fairness in all aspects of our business …. Diversity is at the heart of our business.”
Apple proudly announces its fealty at the “diversity” altar. It’s integral to their employee relations and hiring:
“We see diversity as everything that makes an employee who they are. We foster a diverse culture that’s inclusive of disability, religious belief, sexual orientation, and service to country …. Creating an inclusive culture takes both commitment and action. We’re helping employees identify and address unconscious racial and gender bias. We’re cultivating diverse leadership and tech talent. We’re continuing our advocacy for LGBTQ equality, investing in resources for Veterans and service members and their families, and exploring new ways to support employees with disabilities.”
Apple’s corporate scripture is a veritable laundry list of the fashionable victims’ groups.
Seattle-based Starbucks is similarly hitched to the “diversity” train. Under the mission statement heading “Creating A Culture of Belonging, Inclusion and Diversity” we find the following bullet points,
“At the heart of our business, we seek to inspire and nurture the human spirit – understanding that each person brings a distinct life experience to the table. Our partners are diverse not only in gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, religion and age, but also in cultural backgrounds, life experiences, thoughts and ideas.”
“Embracing diversity only enhances our work culture, it also drives our business success. It is the inclusion of these diverse experiences and perspectives that create a culture of empowerment, one that fosters innovation, economic growth and new ideas.”
A Google search would uncover more of the stuff. Corporate America is immersed in the doctrines of secular martyring and diversity. And so are the kiddies. The education blob is wallowing in it as much as any corporate HR department. Nothing like spreading the faith to the next generation of soon-to-be activists.
“Diversity” has a prominent place in the curricular standards for the youngest of the blob’s clients, kindergartners. Under California’s “Historical and Cultural Context” of the “Visual Arts Content Standards” for kindergarten, the state pays homage to “diversity” in the section titled “Understanding the Historical Contributions and Cultural Dimensions of the Visual Arts”:
“Students analyze the role and development of the visual arts in past and present cultures throughout the world, noting human diversity as it relates to the visual arts and artists.”
The “diversity” incantation is littered throughout your public school protocols. I’ve got nearly 30 years of exposure to the hogwash as a public school teacher at the secondary and community college levels.
How does this secular doctrine enter the state’s mandates for teaching the kids? The stuff percolates from the college ed departments, and they train the teachers and administrators. A sample of such guidance is enlightening.
Lily Wong Fillmore of UC Berkeley, like many of her professional kin in college ed departments, lays out her view of the situation in her study, “The Common Core State Standards & Student Diversity Making them work for everyone !” . Beware, teachers, you’re part of the problem in her estimation. Under the heading “But is diversity the problem?”, she writes,
“The problem has never been that the kids, whatever their background, couldn’t handle the rigors of the school’s curriculum––they could, and would have––the problem has been that educators have doubted that all of their students are prepared or motivated to do the work the curriculum required.”
You see, cutting to the chase, according to Fillmore, teachers and others are not sufficiently devoted to the “diversity” mantra. More likely, teachers face the realities that Ms. Fillmore pretends doesn’t exist. Ms. Fillmore, et al, can’t accept the uncomfortable possibility that “diversity” puts intense stress on public institutions. But don’t mention that, and don’t dare bring into question the false god of “diversity”.
Despite the pressures on the schools, the ed blob’s satellites fully embrace the same party line. The ASCD (the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), one of the blob’s guidance and lobbying arms, is a stickler for “diversity”. In its “Introduction: Teaching in Diverse, Standards-Based Classrooms”, “diversity” is approvingly referred to as a “mosaic”.
“Factors such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, and language also contribute to the classroom mosaic and may influence the cultural characteristics that students bring.”
And what do the ASCD’s “experts” want to do about it? “Diversity”, the abstraction, is always-and-forevermore good and the young ‘uns must be made to accept it. Littered throughout the “Teaching in Diverse …” document is fetishization of “diversity”. As in,
“Cultural diversity gives students a chance to learn about different languages, customs, and worldviews.”
“Through everyday activities in diverse school settings, students are challenged to find ways of interacting effectively with students who are culturally different. In so doing, they develop important skills in cross-cultural competence.”
The mind-set is buried in the psyche from a person’s earliest days all the way through adulthood. The problem isn’t with “diversity” as such. It’s the worship of “diversity”. The thing absorbs so much of the attention of the school that other necessities begin to recede, like discipline. In fact, “diversity” may be encouraging behavioral problems by giving a green light to grievance, real or imagined. The result can be unsafe schools. Take a look.
What is needed is to replace the overbearing “diversity” dogma with simple human kindness and respect. Yet, simple kindness isn’t nearly as useful in preparing young minds if your goal is the student taking one side in controversial issues … like immigration. C.S. Lewis wrote about the mind-forming potential of a biased curriculum in Abolition of Man.
“It is not a theory they put into his [the student] mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. The authors themselves, I suspect, hardly know what they are doing to the boy, and he cannot know what is being done to him.”
After years of “diversity” sermonizing, we have a generation much less likely to understand the counter argument to broad and nearly unfettered immigration. Not being able to understand the argument makes it easier to dismiss as mere bigotry. However, the real bigotry is a prejudice against other and unfamiliar arguments. This bigotry was implanted by a tendentious abstraction from the beginning.
Everywhere we look, we find the tentacles of the exhortation to treat girls and immigrants as secular martyrs. Alongside, the drumbeat of “diversity” plants multiculturalism as an unalloyed good. Counterfactual realities are waved aside as nonexistent. From Super Bowl commercials to the corporate boardroom to the classroom, it’s the same mind-numbing message. It’s as if we are expected to ignore the daily realities that brush up against us on the street and in our classrooms.
Chico Marx in Duck Soup could very well be the spokesman for the blue-America congregation when he said, “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”
RogerG
Sources:
“Escapism Reigns in Super Bowl Commercials, but Politics Proves Inescapable”, Sapna Maheshwari, NYT, 2/5/17, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/business/super-bowl-commercials-politics.html?_r=0
“27 JAN 2013 SPORTS FAN DEMOGRAPHICS”, Danielle Eby, openddorse, http://opendorse.com/blog/2013-sports-fan-demographics/
“Challenge for Super Bowl Commercials: Not Taking Sides, Politically”, Sapna Maheshwari, NYT, 2/2/17, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/business/media/super-bowl-advertising-fox-border-wall.html
“The Common Core State Standards & Student Diversity Making them work for everyone !” Lily Wong Fillmore, University of California at Berkeley, The Common Core State Standards & Student Diversity Making them work for everyone !”
ASCD, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109011/chapters/Introduction@_Teaching_in_Diverse,_Standards-Based_Classrooms.aspx
“The downside of diversity: A Harvard political scientist finds that diversity hurts civic life. What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an inconvenient truth?”, Michael Jonas, 8/5/2007, Boston Globe, http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/
Betsy DeVos has run into a particularly energized buzzsaw. Why? Of all the possible flash-points, the Education Department isn’t considered one of the plumb appointments in a president’s cabinet. Could Roxanne Bland’s witticism be the answer? Could be, but wisecracks may be more wit than wisdom. Yet, in the case of DeVos, it’s a starting point.
DeVos, Trump, Pence
Yesterday, 2/1/2017, it was announced that two Republican senators would oppose the DeVos nomination – Maine’s Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Susan CollinsLisa Murkowski
What accounts for the defection into the arms of all 11 Democrats on the Senate’s Heath, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee? These two Republicans have an unusually cozy relationship with the two monolithic teacher unions in the country, the NEA and AFT.
To begin with, the DeVos resume’ isn’t one to warm the heart of the NEA’s Lily Garcia or Randi Weingarten of the AFT. These unions represent government employees – government employed teachers – not students, their parents, or education in general. The word “choice” is sacrosanct in regards to abortion in these precincts, but watch the needle fly off the chart when it’s connected to “school”.
Lily GarciaRandi Weingarten
The hive flies into action with the mere mention of “school choice”.
DeVos’s claim to fame is vouchers and charter schools, the things that’ll give options to mom and dad but panic attacks to the union leadership. In 1993, along with her husband, she gave contributions to Michigan lawmakers to pass the state’s charter school law. In 2000, they pushed the Michigan Voucher Initiative but failed. Smarting from the loss, they were instrumental in forming the American Federation for Children, a PAC to support school choice candidates. It’s success is admirable with a 121-60 winning record.
But then Trump nominated her to head the Education Department – considered by the unions as part of their fiefdom – and they went into spasms.
Randi Weingarten announced, “The president-elect, in his selection of Betsy DeVos, has chosen the most ideological, anti-public education nominee put forward since President Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education.”
Protests were engineered in the usual haunts, like this one in Oakland.
Protesters applaud at a noon rally at the The Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. Nearly 1,000 people denounced the appointment of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education after a Senate committee advanced her nomination. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
The union reaction wasn’t limited to ginning up the membership. They have allies in the Senate, on both sides of the aisle. We expect the Democrats to be in lock step for the obvious reasons. The stinky money trail, though, becomes more conspicuous when we follow it into the Republican caucus.
It turns out that both Collins and Murkowski have been on the “take” with the unions for at least the last few elections cycles. In 2002 and ’08, Collins received contributions from the NEA along with a “straight A” grade. The same for Murkowski, only more. She got $23,500 in ’02 and ’08; in 2016, an additional $10,000. Surprise, surprise, they both were blessed with endorsement for 2010 and 2016.
At first, the public hears of two Republicans breaking ranks. A person might be forgiven for thinking it to be a matter of principle over blind loyalty. Think again.
I wonder what the voters of red-state Alaska will think once they learn that one of their Senators is in the corral of one of the worst partisans of “blue” America.
“Bay Area teachers band together to oppose DeVos, Trump’s ed secretary nominee”, East bay Times, 1/31/17, http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01/31/bay-area-teachers-band-together-to-oppose-devos-trumps-ed-secretary-nominee/
