The World is Safe for White Firefighters

Maybe now that Justice Sotomayor’s racist firefighter ruling has been overturned, we can see the last vestiges of affirmative action wiped away from this country.  I guess it has gotten to the point where its absurdity and hypocrisy can no longer be disguised by well-meaning liberal social policies.

I don’t even know how people defend this garbage.  Several white (and one Hispanic) firefighters pass a proficiency test and qualify for pay raises.  But, surprise to them, they’re denied the raises because not enough minority firefighters passed the test and qualified for higher pay.  So despite the fact that they performed better than their peers (which I thought was the whole point of taking proficiency tests and getting raises), they get held back.  In what backwards, antimatter universe does this make moral, legal, or logical sense?  How does Sotomayor and anyone who supports policies like this justify it?  I’m honestly curious about what goes on in their heads.

Look, if there’s racist discrimination going on in a firehouse or anywhere else, it should be stamped out.  If those minority firefighters were being denied raises and promotions because of their ethnicity, we should all be there supporting them.  But they weren’t; they simply didn’t perform as well on the test.  That’s called life.  Deal with it, stop whining, and do better next time.  (Of course, next we’ll probably hear that those proficiency tests were “culturally biased” and therefore unfair to minority firefighters.)

It’s funny, but just the other day I was watching one of the best and rawest movies I’ve seen on the issue of race: American History X.  Remember the flashback scene where Edward Norton’s young character was eating breakfast with his firefighter dad and talking about how “white” classic books in school were being replaced by “black” classics?  Remember how the father complained about his minority peers getting promotions before better qualified white men?  Remember how this was supposed to be the seed that spawned the son’s racial hatred?

Affirmative action is unfair, unjust, immoral, and illogical.  And perhaps even worse, it gives the actual racists something legitimate to gripe about.

Michale Jackson and Blaxploitation

Is it just me, or does it seem that guys like Mark Lamont Hill are the only ones still making race a real issue in this country?  Practically every time I see Professor Hill as a guest on O’Reilly, he’s got some new gripe about a race-related issue.  Could be cops arresting too many black kids, could be teachers discriminating against black kids, could be … oh, who cares?  It’s always the same story: He quotes a study that seems to support his view, all the while ignoring the difference between causation and correlation.

The latest is that the media is apparently bringing up Michael Jackson’s drug, health, and legal problems “too quickly” after his death.  I hadn’t noticed this myself.  I’ve seen the requisite tragedy-exploitation and twenty-four-seven coverage that accompanies the death of any big name, but according to Professor Hill, Mr. Jackson is being treated unfairly because he’s black.  He brought up the point that when Frank Sinatra and Elvis died, there was no real mention of mob ties and drugs, at least not right away.  He also said there was similar grace period for drug-related deaths like those of Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, and Heath Ledger.  And why do they get this so-called grace period?  Considering this is Mark Lamont Hill here, why do you think?

Well, Professor, I’m sorry to say that you’re full of it.  There was no grace period for people like Cobain, Smith, and Ledger.  Those facts were out there right from the beginning.  As a kid, Cobain’s suicide was one of the most memorable moments of my life, and I remember quite well the nonstop buzzword “heroin.”  I learned what the word “junkie” meant and the propensity of rock stars to use drugs from the news about Kurt Cobain.

And Anna Nicole Smith?  You must be joking.  The tales of her drug woes were pervasive before and after her death; they never abated.  There was no “grace period” in the media.

Also, the fact is that Michael Jackson, like every celebrity death story, is an individual case - a quite unique individual case.  Do you want to know why Jackson’s troubles are being mentioned a lot more than Frank Sinatra’s and Elvis’s troubles?  Because he had a lot more of them.  Jackson may have been a singular talent, but he was also a singular oddity.  He was radically eccentric, to put it in the nicest terms possible.  I guarantee that if Elvis had dangled his baby out a window, or if Frank Sinatra had admitted to sleeping with young boys in his bed, you’d have the same coverage. 

The media isn’t treating Micahel Jackson any differently because he’s black, Professor Hill.  Indeed, voices like yours seem to be the only ones doing that.  The media is treating him differently because he was different.

O’Reilly, Tiller, and American Unreason

What’s funny to me is that so many liberals point to people like Bill O’Reilly and say that he was complicit in Edward Tiller’s murder.  This is a prime example of “hate” on the right creating the environment that leads to acts like this, they claim.  This is nonsense; O’Reilly and those like him have a right to report on Tiller, and they have a right to disagree with what he was doing.  In fact, they should be doing those things.  Saying that they’re complicit is as intellectually bankrupt as saying Brian Wilson was complicit in Sharon Tate’s murder – after all, Charles Manson liked the Beach Boys.  Or how about Jodie Foster being blamed because she “created the atmosphere” for Hinkley?

To me, this situation brings to the forefront another example of O’Reilly’s rampant anti-intellectualism.  If people like O’Reilly are contributing anything to American culture, it’s not an environment of hate, it’s an environment of irrational thinking, muddy reasoning, and moral certitude.

First, O’Reilly heralds his “incontrovertible proof” that Tiller was aborting fetuses without good cause and simply to make a buck: The report of a doctor at a prominent university who is – surprise – sympathetic to the pro-life cause.  If you question this “evidence,” O’Reilly says, “So you’re calling him a liar?”

Second, O’Reilly plays the footage of the young woman saying over and over that Tiller burned her baby with saline solution, had her sit on a toilet, and other explicit details.  Where is the voice of opposition that might say something like, “Perhaps this girl shouldn’t have gotten an abortion in the first place?”

Third, O’Reilly says to a pro-choice advocate on his show that she has “blood on her hands” for calling Tiller a hero.  You get that?  O’Reilly is rightfully indignant that some are blaming him, and yet he does the same thing to this woman.

So we have appeal to authority, ad hominem attacks, emotional blackmail, and rank hypocrisy.  On top of all that, O’Reilly thinks it’s appropriate to get angry and scream about this topic, as if wearing his emotions on his sleeve is going to make his point any more compelling.  It doesn’t.  The only thing it does is let everyone know that he feels strongly about abortion.

Three minutes of O’Reilly’s indignant, emotional, anti-intellectual pontificating, then a commercial break, then a switch to the freaking Great American Culture Quiz or another rant about how the internet is evil.  And this is the top-rated cable news show in America.  Yikes.

Obamanomics 101

Does being a liberal Democrat turn off some kind of reality switch in your brain?  Honestly, President Obama went to college, right?  He studied and even taught constitutional law, a subject that does not suffer dunces, from what I understand.  I mean this as a compliment; I think Obama is an extremely smart person.

But then I heard him talking about his new health care plan, and the charge that government-run agencies inevitably perform terribly in contrast to the private sector.

Addressing this topic in relation to health care, Obama scoffed.  Why, he asked, if government is so terrible at everything, are all the health insurance companies saying they won’t be able to compete with it?  “That’s not logical,” he said, leading me to wonder if our president can define the adjective “logical.”

Mr. President, the private health insurance companies won’t be able to compete with your health care monstrosity because yours can’t fail.  You won’t let it.  You can keep pumping cash into it no matter how badly it performs.  You can undercut any private insurance company because you don’t have to turn a profit to keep running.  You just take the money from us through taxes and use it to prop up your program.  The private insurance companies don’t have the bottomless pockets of Uncle Sam to back them – and they also don’t have the law-making power of Washington in their corner.

Furthermore, where do you think the price cuts are going to come from, Mr. President?  Say a private company charges $1000 for insurance, and your program comes in and offers it for $800.  Who takes that loss?  The doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and private medical practices, that’s who.  They’re going to be squeezed; not you.

And of course, let’s not forget about the fact that taxes will be raised (are already being raised) to pay for this health care program.  I love how Obama’s big slogan during the campaign is that “for 95% of Americans, their taxes will not be raised one bit.”  What, are ninety-five percent of Americans tee-totalers, or Amish, or diabetic?  Because from what I hear, taxes on alcohol, gas, and soda are going up.

What’s illogical, Mr. President, is to ignore reality in favor of idealism.

The “Coarse” Culture

I hear conservatives lamenting our “coarsening” culture all the time.  What do we expect to get out of society, they ask, when kids are constantly inundated with violence from the internet, video games, and music?  The more reasonable ones aren’t silly enough to say that Marilyn Manson and shoot-em-up games produce violent kids, but they do say that all this violence becomes so commonplace to kids that they view it as the norm.  I’ve even heard Bill O’Reilly say that kids are “living in video games nowadays,” as if young people are so inured against violence that they can’t tell fantasy from reality.

I hardly think the youth of America is that stupid.  In fact, I’m quite sure most of them would laugh at how stupid such a statement like that is.  I think that there is an argument to be made against the glorification of violence, instant gratification, and image in modern culture, but I think we’re going way overboard in some instances.

But how coarse is our culture nowadays?  Sure, kids see violent video games and violent TV, as well as all sorts of butchery and human monsters on the news.  But I also see a culture in which you can get charged with assault for smacking some idiot who’s in your face.  A culture that infantilizes young people by instructing them that running to a parent or teacher is the best way to solve your problems.  A culture in which the government decides what’s good and bad for us by banning trans-fats and putting taxes on junk food.

A couple hundred years ago, you had pistol duels in the streets and horse-thieves hanged by ad hoc militias.  You had the expectation of getting shot (or at least beat up) if you got out of line with someone.  A nineteenth century kid didn’t have video games; he got to watch people hang in the streets and get (lawfully) shot over an argument.  Think of all those kids on the frontier, where law enforcement wasn’t always present to handle thieves and thugs.  These kids grew up with real-live, actual violence, not fantasy images, actors, and pixels on a screen.  They weren’t being raised to sit in front of monitors, gorge themselves on sugar, attend self-esteem seminars, and play schoolyard games where you don’t keep score so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings.  And they probably didn’t have parents telling them that “violence never solves anything” and “come tell me and we’ll sue those bastards.”

I’m not saying that the Wild West and vigilante justice is the best social environment.  I’m saying that it seems to me, compared to the culture of a few generations ago, the kids today are growing up in pansy-land.

Liberal Moral Certitude

So ABC is once again setting itself up as another mouthpiece for the Obama administration.  Wow, what a shock.  And just the other day, Obama was whining (I’m sorry, there’s just no other word for it) about how Fox News seems intent on “attacking” him.

No, Mr. President, they’re not attacking you.  Other than partisan scarecrows like Sean Hannity, they’re simply being critical of your administration and the decisions you make.  I mean, you didn’t honestly think to just do whatever you want, pass any bill, make any policy decision, and we’d all just go along with it because you’re a cool guy, did you?  We need the media to be critical of especially politicians and most definitely the president.  This is a requisite part of the United States of America.  Those in power should always – always, President Obama – be challenged.  And it is certainly not the job of the media to print “positive” stories about you.  How about the truth instead?

This is the biggest problem with the debate in this country nowadays.  It’s no longer about the actual policy.  It’s not about the facts, or the numbers, or the reality.  It’s all about feelings.  Obama thinks Fox News is being unfair to him.  He (and the left) think they’re on the side of moral supremacy.  Therefore, if you disagree with them, you can’t possibly be making a rational argument – you’re just a big fat meanie.

Look at the way the health care debate has devolved.  When an opponent of universal health care says we can’t afford it, it will take away choice, it will lead to rationing, it will lower the standard of care, it doesn’t work in other countries, etc., the Democrats don’t care.  They don’t hear any of that.  They simply think that anyone opposed to this wonderful plan of theirs is a heartless greedy bastard who wants to see kids deprived of medical care.

How else do you explain this willful dive into economic ruin?  How else do you explain how an otherwise rational man like President Obama trumpets about how he inherited this huge deficit and yet his plan is to run up a deficit that’s not only unprecedented, but literally impossible to sustain?

Ignoring reality has become convenient to them.  They think feelings and hopes can substitute for cold hard facts.  I’m sure it woud be a much nicer world if that were so, but nothing can stand proxy for the truth.

Whining About God

I have a sticker in my room that says “No Prayer in School” with a big red line crossing through a pair of clasped hands.  When I first put it up, I took it to mean that teachers in public schools should not - cannot – lead their students in prayer, to whatever god.  This would be a clear example of the government establishing a religion, which the First Amendment is pretty conspicuous about.

But some Americans think “No Prayer in School” should mean that no one is allowed to pray in school, at all.  Why?  If kids want to pray in school, so what?  I understand that a line has to be drawn somewhere, but preventing people from expressing their faith (or lack thereof) in public seems a poor place to draw it.  No atheist student is going to be hurt if he sees one of his peers praying.  Similarly, religious kids probably won’t be scarred for life if they witness a classmate pray to a deity different than theirs.

I’ve also seen stories on the news about memorial crosses being taken down because of lawsuits, the word “God” taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and students being prohibited from using faith-based rhetoric.  I’ve even seen grown men and women on television mewling about “In God We Trust” on currency.  I think that in most of these cases, people just need to grow up.  Separation of Church and State doesn’t mean the destruction of the Church.  If all those people out there who use “Separation of Church and State” as a mantra to abolish religion are really concerned with the Constitution, they would be defending the rights of Christians to practice their faith as much as they defend the rights of atheists to deny it.

To be clear, I’m a secularist who doesn’t take the supernatural claims of Christianity any more seriously than those of Greek Mythology.  But you’ll never catch me acting like I’m offended by seeing a cross or hearing about God in public.  This is foolishness.  Enough with the “I’m a victim” mentality.  America has a long tradition of Christianity – deal with it.  Stop pretending like the government is trying to convert you every time God is mentioned.  And you Christians out there aren’t helping when you try to get “Intelligent Design” taught as science in public schools or the Ten Commandments displayed in courtrooms.

We’re supposed to be living with each other’s viewpoints – not trying to make everyone conform to one viewpoint.  I’ve always thought that one of the greatest things about America is that there’s room for everyone.