Category: Education

Reparations: The Holy Grail of Identity Politics (Part III) – Bookworm Room

If we are to look to history for the wrong, let us look to history for the culprits as well.  As Deroy Murdock writes in the National Review today, slavery and its associated ills are identifiable with a particular group — Democrats:

. . .  As Black History Month draws to a close, it is vital to remember that slavery spread agony across the South under the watchful eyes of Democrats, such as President Andrew Jackson, from the party’s 1828 launch. It was not until 1860’s election of Republican Abraham Lincoln that the final, decisive push toward abolition began. The GOP-led Union Army crushed the Democrat-led Confederacy in 1865. That’s when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation came into full force, as Republicans freed the slaves.

The Republicans’ Radical Reconstruction empowered newly liberated blacks. Overriding the presidential vetoes of Democrat Andrew Johnson, congressional Republicans pressured southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing blacks equal protection under law. . . .

After detailing the many sins of Democrats as regards blacks, Murdock concludes:

. . . if Democrats want reparations to atone for their nearly 200 years of anti-black sins, they should finance them. From Barbra Streisand to George Clooney to Tom Steyer to George Soros, the Democratic 1 percenters should shove their billions into a huge pile and then show us the money.

Source: Reparations: The Holy Grail of Identity Politics (Part III) – Bookworm Room

Susan B. Anthony List President: ‘Safe, Legal and Rare – That Old

Susan B. Anthony List President Majorie Dannenfelser said Thursday:

“Every single Democrat in the Senate had the chance that day to take a stand against infanticide, against murder. All but three of them refused. The inhumanity of the modern Democratic Party’s position on abortion has not been exposed. We should be grateful for that. Safe, legal, and rare – that old Clinton way of looking at it is just a distant memory. Safe, legal and rare is not their mantra,” she added. It

Indeed Bill Clinton did say ‘safe, legal, and rare’ on his campaign. But one of his first acts as President was to break that promise. He lifted restrictions on abortion in military hospitals.

This is not making it ‘rare’ and Majorie Dannenfelser should have known this. It was just another Democrat lie. Democrats are Deathocrats.

Source: Susan B. Anthony List President: ‘Safe, Legal and Rare – That Old

Reparations: The Holy Grail Of Identity Politics (Part II) – Bookworm Room

Part 2 is a short history of slavery.

It requires incredible historic ignorance to condemn our Founding Fathers for owning slaves in the 18th century.  To the contrary, while by today’s standards we see their ownership of slaves as an atrocity, those are today’s standards and not applicable to other historical periods — unless you are a neomarxist proggie who wants to claim faux victimhood status.  The truth is that it was the colonists alive at our Founding who, for the first time in all of human history, began to battle successfully against the institution of slavery as immoral and incompatible with the Jewish and Christian religions.

“Incredible historic ignorance” is exactly what the Democrat Party and the National Education Association are all about. They’ve been incredibly successful at it too.

Source: Reparations: The Holy Grail Of Identity Politics (Part II) – Bookworm Room

Reparations: The Holy Grail Of Identity Politics (Part I) – Bookworm Room

Bookworm is doing a multi-part series on reparations.

Let us begin with the underlying moral and legal principle that each individual is responsible for his or her actions, and the sins of the father are not visited upon the son. This is a principle that first appears in the Bible…

Quote from Ezekiel 18:20 follows.

Before the Enlightenment, British monarchs often violated this moral and legal principle. These monarchs used Bills of Attainder to extort property and impose “corruption of blood.”…

Our Founders thought these acts so repugnant and immoral that they outlawed them — including imposing penalties for infractions only declared criminal by subsequent law (ex post facto laws) in the body of the Constitution itself, both at federal and state law, and for any crime, including treason.

See Article One, Sections 9 and 10, and Article Three, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

Read the whole article.

Source: Reparations: The Holy Grail Of Identity Politics (Part I) – Bookworm Room

How Dumb Is Ocasio-Cortez?

“You know, I think it’s really important that we understand that we need to invest in our economy, but we need to invest in our people, and to give away $3 billion to a company that has a history of worker exploitation that’s paying below what the cost of New York City is not acceptable for us.”

Of course, New York wasn’t going to “give” Amazon anything, let alone $3 billion. The $3 billion is an estimate of foregone tax revenues. In other words, money that Amazon won’t pay New York, not money that New York will pay Amazon. This is childishly simple, but apparently too much for AOC:

My guess is that she is a beneficiary of ‘affirmative action’. That’s the only explanation why somebody this ignorant can claim a degree in ECONOMICS!

Source: How Dumb Is Ocasio-Cortez?

‘Gender,’ Envy and Self-Pity

Ace of Spades summarizes a not-so-surprising discovery: [F]emale-to-male transgenders are discovering that “Male Privilege” actually doesn’t exist, and that the actual privilege belongs to women.

Source: ‘Gender,’ Envy and Self-Pity

Read the whole post. It is good. I do want to follow a digression in the article and ‘ditto’ this digression:

Incidentally, here’s something about me: I don’t watch YouTube videos. If you want to tell me something, write it. For any literate person, reading is far more efficient than listening to the spoken word. I am an extremely fast reader, and could fully comprehend the transcript of an entire 15-minute video in less than two minutes, and why should I waste that additional time? This is why I’m sometimes confounded by the fame, such as it is, of YouTube “celebrities.” There are people out there who have hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers and rate as “celebrities” within whatever niche of fandom they appeal to, and I’ve never heard of them, because I don’t watch YouTube videos. And when I see someone like Carl Benjamin (a/k/a, Sargon of Akkad) making a really good point in a YouTube video, I am tempted to yell at my computer: “WHERE’S THE F–KING TRANSCRIPT?” Like, you couldn’t even be bothered to write up your argument as a blog post? If you believe what you’re saying on your YouTube channel is important, wouldn’t it reach a wider audience and have more impact if you took time to publish a transcript, or at least a synopsis of your argument? But I digress . . .

Amen. I don’t watch YouTube videos either, with one exception: Learning a new skill or craft. I’ve been learning guitar off of YouTube videos. Also honing my woodworking skills with videos. That’s it. I can learn in several ways but some things you just have to be shown how to do. Opinions, history, philosophy, legislation, news… I want to READ it! I read and comprehend quickly. I was reading college level in fourth grade. (Doesn’t mean I understood it all, of course.)

The problem here is education, or the lack thereof, of the English language today. Most YouTubers probably can’t write a proper sentence. (or write it in cursive.) Those old ‘diagram a sentence’ exercises I had throughout school are probably not taught anymore. As for writing in cursive:

Some argue that cursive is no longer relevant because it isn’t included in the Common Core State Standards. But these standards only include those skills that are testable and measurable in the classroom; they don’t address basic foundation skills, like handwriting or even spelling. That said, the Common Core emphasizes the importance of expository writing to demonstrate understanding of key concepts, and fast, legible handwriting is the technology universally available to students to facilitate content development. Cursive, therefore, is vital to helping students master the standards of written expression and critical thinking, life skills that go well beyond the classroom.

Add in the fact that Johnny can’t read:

In 2015, said APR writer Emily Hanford, only 56 percent of Bethlehem students were proficient in reading, so Kim Harper was charged with finding out why.

The problem?

The teachers were talking about how students should attack words in a story. When a child came to a word she didn’t know, the teacher would tell her to look at the picture and guess.

Word-guessing. The teachers apparently had no idea how to teach reading. They thought if they could just throw words at the students, they would figure it out. They all had education degrees but none of them had ever been taught how to teach children to read.

Reading and writing go together. If you can’t do either you end up on YouTube talking way too much instead of writing down your arguments in clear, concise, logical paragraphs.

Like Robert Stacey McCain says in the article, I digress. But I thought I was the only one annoyed by this reliance on videos and just had to rant.

Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Shut U.S. Department of Education

Massie continued. “And then I ask the liberals who want the federal government involved, I say: Do you really want President Trump deciding what or how your children should learn?” the congressman said. “And so now you have got a situation where the left has to advocate for President Trump controlling the education of their children if they want to keep the Department of Education.”

My question is: Why wasn’t this introduced two years ago when the Republicans ran the House, the Senate, and the Presidency? This is just another RINO attempt to fool the base into thinking that the RINOs are conservatives who support the Constitution. Notice they always introduce these bills when there is no chance of them passing.

Source: Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Shut U.S. Department of Education

Is There Any Intellectual Value in ‘Gender Studies’? | National Review

Gender studies is not about trying to understand the world, but is all about trying to change it in certain ways. It doesn’t seek to convey a body of knowledge, but just a set of grievances.

So the answer is ‘no.’ The U.S. needs to follow Hungary in banning such programs in colleges and unversities.

Source: Is There Any Intellectual Value in ‘Gender Studies’? | National Review

The White Man’s Burden

A question no one asks, at least not out loud: To what extent are blacks dependent on the charity of whites? What would happen if all public assistance, all programs specifically or de facto for blacks were withdrawn?

What would happen if Section Eight housing were abandoned, Head Start, AFDC, free lunch and breakfasts in inner-city schools, food stamps, and all the rest? I do not recommend doing this–the consequences would be hideous–but do suggest thinking about it. The conclusion will probably be that blacks are in custodial care. If this is not true, tell me why it is not.

I never even thought to ask that. Hmmm…

Source: The White Man’s Burden