Comments on: The neoliberal imagination

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:09:47 +0000

I object to quota systems because they reinforce the idea that minorities are incapable. I object to the fact that the law is interpreted as mandating quotas even though the debate clearly suggested that the law would not.

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 15:58:29 +0000

Mona,

I’m not even sure what you mean here. Do you think federal enforcement of civil rights is a small matter?

Since you seem to have such strong views on the CRA, I expect you can reel off what you are opposed to. If you are having trouble deciding, pick the three things you most object to and go from there. Simple as that.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 15:49:54 +0000

serial catowner,
Even if everyone agrees that making the 99% white police force ~80% black, there are still good faith arguements against AA. For one, AA often involves lowering standards do to including lesser qualified individuals. So one argument is that AA is a poor band-aid when the focus should be on education and training. One could start by asking why some minorities require AA and others don’t. For instance, the US Census Bureau has Asian/Pacific Islander’s earning $3,500 more per yeah than Non-Hispanic Whites.

By: serial catowner

serial catowner — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 15:25:29 +0000

Jeez. The purpose of Affirmative Action is not to give minority individuals a fair chance- it is to procure to society the benefits of a race-blind policy.

Affirmative Action is a crude first attempt at doing that. You got a better idea, put it out there.

It’s all crude metrics and simple thinking. Our society is not set up to recognize racial differences. Like an engine, the society won’t work well if you give it the wrong fuel or oil. When a city is 80% black but the police are 99% white, something’s wrong. You may not know exactly what, but you do know you will pay the price of racial discrimination if you can’t get those numbers more in order.

There’s a lot of stuff AA can’t do and won’t do. It’s just a tool, and one widely used, because other better ideas haven’t worked out yet.

By: soru

soru — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 15:20:55 +0000

Comparing ‘social mobility’ statistics, especially ones based on quintiles/quartiles/…, always seemed to me to be rather like taking two films, digitising them, and then using some clever algorithm to calculate a single value called ‘cinematic dynamism’ from the pixel values of each frame.

Anyone think that could replace Ebert and Roeper?

Of course, a film is considerably simpler than a society, and more easily digitisable, so that activity would be rather less ludicrously pointless than that current academic fad.

soru

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:57:09 +0000

“And doesn’t th ecompromise of Roe v. Wade better reflect the views of the Americam electorate than the Republican party does?”

In a word, no.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:26:23 +0000

James Wimberley,
Heh, I think Hamilton and Madison were vindicated a few years later in a little place called France. (Horrific) Tyranny of the majority and all that. And wasn’t Socrates sentenced to death by the unwashed masses for speaking poorly of those same newly enfranchised unwashed masses?

Either way, I’d hate to be in the 49nth percentile of a pure Democracy.

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 14:11:49 +0000

Someone should also challenge the phrase about “the common-sense of citizens as reflected through democratically-elected legislatures”.
The whole point of representative government for Hamilton and Madison was as a safeguard against democracy. You don’t hav eto agree with their values to agree that their scheme works. Representative democracy filters the raw opinions and attitudes of the citizens through non-representative, co-optative structures like parties, disproprtionately influenced by ideologues, special interests and political junkies. Hence Blair goes to war and Bush gets elected. Direct democracy in the USA would long ago have brought about national health insurance, gun control and strong support of the United Nations. And doesn’t th ecompromise of Roe v. Wade better reflect the views of the Americam electorate than the Republican party does?

By: Don Quijote

Don Quijote — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:18:29 +0000

This certainly seems to be true in US politics vis-a-vis class compared to European politics. Not many European countries have analogs to Carter, Reagan or Clinton in terms of ‘class’ at the head of their governments. Thats 's at least two over the last quarter century.. Argaret Thatcher Tomy Blair Helmut Schmidt

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:06:02 +0000

re #19: Mrs T, that is very much my point. Where is the German MIT? The German Caltech? The German Stanford? The German Georgetown? (Or even the German Oxbridge, Insead or ENA for that matter?)

There are no recognizably world-class German universities, and this is a significant problem for a leading industrial economy. Humboldt, so to speak, has long since left the building.

The guild-like structures of the upper reaches are another matter entirely. But the lack of recognizable excellence strikes me as a net negative for the whole system.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:00:10 +0000

re #13: I wonder, however, if one can trace the low percentage of children from parents with no university degree to attain one themselves to the way primary education is conducted here. What happens is that after elementary school (or perhaps a little after, I can’t remember exactly), the better students are put into University track, schools, where the poorer students go into more technical track ones. One’s destiny is in large part determined by the time one becomes a teenager.

However, I think maybe only a third or so of Germans end up going to universities in the first place. Not sure what its like in the US.

Tracking is absolutely a huge issue for Germany. Another issue is the time it takes to attain the first university degree, which is often much longer than in other European countries. Tuition fees are thus less of an issue than the simple fact of supporting a young adult, often in a separate household, for as much as seven or eight years until the degree is done. Fees in Bavaria will, at the start, be less than the deposit on an in-town apartment in Munich.

The share of people in the US with some university education is now, I think, more than half of the relevant age cohort. Many Germans will tell you that the relatively low share of young adults with a university education is a feature, not a bug, of their system. They are wrong.

By: Mona

Mona — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 04:16:37 +0000

How about you be more specific then?

Sure, but first, can you tell me what portions of the CRA you identify as “small aspects?” That would help me know what I should address.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 04:15:36 +0000

Don Quijote, I certainly didn’t say none.

Individual European states have lots more instances to have heads of government than the US does, because there are more countries and thus more heads of government. That alone should make them fairly easy to find if there were lots.

Finding a single low class example does little to change the fact that in the last 29 years, 20 of them in the US have been led by someone not from the upper crust. That is quite a difference.

By: Hektor Bim

Hektor Bim — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 02:55:26 +0000

Mona,

How about you be more specific then? Precisely what parts of the civil rights act do you disagree with, and explain why the evil those did outweighed the clear good of enfranchisement that resulted from the CRA.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 02:18:55 +0000

Thankfully Long Sunday (namely my attention-seeking self) has now posted the largest chunk missing from the Globe abbreviation.