Patterico's Pontifications

12/5/2006

Supreme Court Hears Cases on Forced Integration

Filed under: Constitutional Law,Court Decisions,Dog Trainer,General,Race — Patterico @ 12:02 am



The L.A. Times‘s David Savage has an article titled Cases retread Brown vs. Board of Education steps, which opens:

For the first time in a decade, the Supreme Court will revisit the legacy of a landmark: the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 that declared unconstitutional the racial segregation of public schools.

This certainly seems like an alarming paragraph. The Supreme Court “will revisit” the legacy of the landmark decision banning state separation of children by race in public schools??

But if you read the rest of the piece, it appears that nothing so upsetting is in the offing. Rather, the Supreme Court is simply weighing whether school boards may use racial classifications to assign students to schools based on the color of their skin, in order to accomplish racial diversity.

In other words, nobody is saying that government may once again institute forced segregation of schools as a matter of state policy. The issue is whether government may institute forced integration of schools as a matter of state policy. If not done to remedy a specific and demonstrated past history of discrimination, this would arguably violate the very idea behind Brown: that the state may not assign pupils to different schools on the basis of race, even if the schools are arguably similar in quality.

Listen to the argument in the first case here, and read the transcript here. Listen to the argument in the second case here, and read the transcript here. (All links via Howard.)

By the way, Savage is correct to counter the arguments of the hysterics who implausibly claim that magnet schools are jeopardized by the cases before the Court:

The [L.A. Unified School] district filed its own brief with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to uphold voluntary integration programs. Loss of the magnet program would be “devastating,” its lawyers said. . . . But such a dire outcome is not certain, even if the court does rule for the parents in Seattle and Louisville. They are objecting because their children were turned away from a nearby school because of their race. A voluntary busing program that moved children from the city to a suburb, or from a low-income neighborhood to a more affluent one, would not be affected by a ruling striking “race-based assignment” policies.

Anyone who listens to the arguments can easily tell that magnet programs will not be affected, and it’s good of Savage to note that.

My impression (and apparently Savage’s as well) is that a majority of the Justices believe that while achieving racial balance in schools might be a laudable goal for school boards, it is not something that can be achieved by alloting spaces on the basis of skin color, absent extraordinary circumstances not present in these cases. Expect a reasonable decision from the Court.

P.S. Ali Bubba is much less kind to Savage.

UPDATE: La Shawn Barber has a Washington Examiner column on the subject, as well as a roundup of reaction at her blog.

48 Responses to “Supreme Court Hears Cases on Forced Integration”

  1. If discrimination against is bad, then discrimination for is just as bad.

    No matter who you discriminate for, you in turn discriminate someone else. The ‘lefty’ justices are worried that schools are become segregated by allowing free choice, what next? Will the SCOTUS start making people live in certain neighborhoods?

    They shouldn’t try to fix the population of the schools, they should work on fixing the schools. (they being the school boards and lawyers) Make each school the same (money-wise, education-wise) and there are no more problems. You can legislate all you want (or dictate in the case of SCOTUS) but you can’t make people into something they aren’t (willing to ‘bus’ to a different school to maintain a race quota).

    Lord Nazh (d282eb)

  2. White house press conference–

    Q Isn’t it striking that this administration was accusing the likes of John Murtha and other Democrats who suggested course correction, including phased withdrawal, of cutting and running —

    MR. SNOW: No, let me —

    Q — at the same time that the Defense Secretary was suggesting just the same option?

    MR. SNOW: No.

    Q You don’t see hypocrisy there?

    MR. SNOW: No, because you’re talking about apples and oranges. If you take a look at -etc etc blah blah blah.

    How does it feel to be redundant and irrelevant, Patterico? Clutching at racist straws to justify your failed world view, forever seeking divisive issues to build some facile argument around so as to bolster your imaginary visions.
    Like Snow, you’ll never stop defending the ridiculous; smearing good people who are trying to integrate and harmonise American society so as to cover for the legion of perverts that instigated the holocaust in Iraq is Oreillyan in it’s thick-headedness and ignorance.
    I told you Murtha would prevail while you were questioning his honesty using the same disengenuous tactics you always use; digging up a non-issue, distorting it so as to suit your own straw-man argument and sucking up to the neo-con perverts who have delivered your country to infamy.
    And just like in Germany at the end of the war, when the bombs were raining down, all the erstwhile nazis were complaining “it’s those damn leftists fault that we lost. If we had achieved the final solution…”
    Pathetic, Patterico, just… pathetic.

    waldo (9e21fb)

  3. I suppose I could say something about a commenter who compares his opponents to Nazis while complaining about “smears”, but I doubt it’s worth the effort.

    John Barrett Jr. (ea8aed)

  4. Race-Based School Assignment Cases Before the Supreme Court…

    My latest Washington Examiner column is about the two race-based school assignment cases currently before the Supreme Court.
    White parents in Seattle and Jefferson County, Kentucky, sued the school districts for assigning students to schools based on…

    La Shawn Barber's Corner (1b383c)

  5. I told you Murtha would prevail while you were questioning his honesty using the same disengenuous tactics you always use

    Did Murtha win the Majority Leader spot after all?

    Pinch me. I must be dreaming.

    Patterico (de0616)

  6. How does it feel to be redundant and irrelevant, Patterico?

    Project much, waldo?

    Darleen (03346c)

  7. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that post (you know the one) had absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

    “…smearing good people who are trying to integrate and harmonise American society…”

    -waldo

    How Utopian. I’m all for big government, but I have my limits, and giving The Man the power to “harmonise” society is one of them.

    You don’t see the potential for this power to be abused, waldo? The ability to assign schools based on race can lead to integration, yes, but it can also lead to segregation, especially over time.

    Weird. Patterico, why do people loathe you so?

    [Well, Levi, I think it has something to do with my dashing good looks and cool, calculating demeanor. People just can’t stand it that I’m right all the time. Can you stand it? I think not. -P]

    [The preceding bracketed insert is not mine. It is brought to you by Leviticus, who is failing his tag-closing classes. I gotcha covered, Leviticus. — (the real) P]

    Leviticus (43095b)

  8. Harr. That looked pretty good.

    Sorry, P. I couldn’t resist. If that was wrong of me by the rules of the “blogosphere”, let me know, and I’ll cease and desist. I’m still new at this stuff.

    Keep in mind that it was entirely good-natured, and that I have the utmost respect for you.

    [That was very cute, Leviticus. I found it very amusing. Don’t ever do it again. — P]

    Leviticus (43095b)

  9. AAARGH! Perpetual italics! Help! For the love of all that is good and holy, help!

    I have received just retribution for my technological sin. In the course of impersonation, I was unknowingly branded a pariah.

    Damn karma.

    Leviticus (43095b)

  10. (Now let’s close out that lingering italics tag.)

    Patterico’s Theme Song of the Moment: They Might Be Giants, “Extra Savoir-Faire”

    PCachu (e072b7)

  11. Wow, that didn’t work at all.

    PCachu (e072b7)

  12. I have doomed us all.

    [Well, he just tried, with another unclosed tag in this here comment, which has since been removed. – ~P]

    [~P = X? In any event, do any of you clowns have a comment on the actual topic of the post? — P]

    Leviticus (43095b)

  13. I commented on the actual post before where’s waldo went looking for the utopian government sale o.O

    Lord Nazh (285c90)

  14. schools are raised up in the community and should be controlled by the community. piling on one federal guideline after another is not conservative as i understand that word.
    each child is an individual, not a demographic commodity. nothing in the constitution gives the government the authority to say to a family, well, you’re white, and we don’t have enough whites over here, so we’re moving your kid over here.
    public school itself is a joke where educational is strictly coincidental. it’s much more about 1) taking the kids off the parents’ hands for six hours a day so the parents can enjoy a child-free space part of the time, and 2) fostering a certain consumerist, sheepful groupthink where excessive deference is given to dubious authority.

    i don’t even know **how** to type in italics in this space.

    @waldo:
    your comment made me laugh. other than john murtha “prevailing” (tee-hee) you said
    “smearing good people who are trying to integrate and harmonize american society…”
    see, i had just read an article about one of those good people in today’s los angeles times. that ageless libwhore, mervyn dymally, had passed out fake “assembly commissioner” badges, including one to a young, a young…..
    (the only word that comes to mind here is “macaca”)
    who flashed it at redondo beach cops when they contacted him about his loud music. after he was arrested for impersonating a state official, mr. dymally was asked about this, and here’s what he said in reply:
    “go out and arrest some white people.”
    mr. dymally, that integrating harmonizer, deserves to be slapped hard upside the head for saying that, as you do for your comment.

    assistant devil's advocate (bbbd90)

  15. Well, I’ll be swizzled. I could’ve sworn I closed my tags after italicizing my imPersonation. The power must’ve gone to my head.

    That was very cute, Leviticus. I found it very amusing. Don’t ever do it again.

    — P

    Don’t worry, P, it was a one time thing. Spur-of-the-moment, you know, and I figured I’d do it in a totally irrelevant way that wouldn’t reflect badly upon you (and that couldn’t possibly be confused as authentic).

    Like I said, I have a lot of respect for you and this site.

    Leviticus (43095b)

  16. Damn…I noticed that your brackets aren’t italicized, just the text inside them. I thought about that, but couldn’t remember.

    So much for the Perfect Forgery.

    Leviticus (43095b)

  17. “[Public school]’s much more about 1) taking the kids off the parents’ hands for six hours a day so the parents can enjoy a child-free space part of the time, and 2) fostering a certain consumerist, sheepful groupthink where excessive deference is given to dubious authority.”

    -ada

    True, especially the second part. Literally forcing kids to watch crap like Channel One (where advertisements are rammed down their throats)is a reprehensible practice. So are administrative restrictions on what can or cannot be posted on school walls (Censorship 101-Core Curriculum for the Well-Rounded Student).

    The only solution is to rattle people’s cages by doing things like wearing warpaint to your finals (it isn’t prohibited by the dress code) or posting letters encouraging students to ignore the administration’s censorship policies and post politically charged information all over the place.

    Vive le Recess-volution!

    Leviticus (43095b)

  18. I don’t want to comment on this particular case without first taking the time to familiarize myself with it, but i’m unsurprised to see grumbling about the reporting: it’s almost a truism that *any* reporting on supreme court cases will infuriate me with its inaccuracy.

    (And i’m not a lawyer!)

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  19. Levi, there is a live comment preview, that works pretty well as long as you don’t use the blockquote function. For some reason, if you use the blockquote function, the preview stops working; I just do my entire comment, then go back and insert the blockquotes — assuming I don’t foul up and forget. 🙁

    Dana (3e4784)

  20. Thye public schools in Wilmington, Delaware were ordered integrated in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and the resulting chaos practically destroyed thye public schools. The rule when I lived there was simple: if you could in any way afford it, you sent your kids to private school.

    The Catholic schools were packed, including the non-diocesian Catholic schools like Archmere and Ursiline, which were charging $12,000+ a year, there were segregation academies which had sprung up all over the county, you name it.

    After growing up in the South, the most segregated place I ever saw was in the North, in Wilmington.

    Dana (3e4784)

  21. I have to address one falacy that is constantly tossed around by anti-affirmative action folks — namely that affirmaitive action is “wrong” because it is “reverse discrimination,” and that “discrimination” was the wrong we were trying to remedy with affirmative action in the first place.

    While it may well be that affirmative action of any kind in fact is a bad thing, it’s not because it’s “reverse discrimination.”

    Affirmative action is not a remedy for mere “discrimination.” (Those who say it is are wrong — they’re either to lazy to describe what was really being remedied, or they’re disingenuous). Discrimination is not an evil in and of itself. Discrimination is simply an act; a choice; a decision of some kind. Any choice of any kind is discrimination between two options.

    “Discrimination” is overbroad and fails to properly describe the phenominon that both desegrigation and affirmative action were addressing — namely, the unacceptable levels of marginalization and disenfranchisement of African-Americans in our society, to the benefit of the white majority. Basically, our society was incredibly unfair for African Americans.

    The key words in the above paragraph are “unacceptable” and “unfair.” They are subjective, and situation-specific, and cannot be generalized to future situations, such as the impact of affirmative action on white Americans. What was happening at the time of desegrigation and the initiation of affirmative action was simply unacceptable as a whole.

    The remedies for what was happening, such as affirmative action, are entirely different in effect on whites in America. They are not simply a mirror image of what was occuring prior to the 1960s to African Americans.

    Those who claim affirmative action is bad because it is “reverse discrimination” are being obtuse, in my opinion intentionally, in order to avoid addressing the more complex question.

    The real question is simply this: Certain factors out of human beings’ control, including race, place of birth, sex, age, disability, etc., can drastically affect the amount of opportunity a person has at any particular time, and also has affected the amount of opportunity that person has had in the past, and will have in the future.

    In other words, life isn’t fair; what are we going to do about it? Does affirmative action help? I wish people would just acknowledge that that’s the real question, rather than talking in code worlds like “discrimination.”

    Phil (88ab5b)

  22. The New York Times Calls The Conservative Supreme Court ‘Hostile’…

    The New York Times has a stake in framing this case in the manner in which they do because race baiting sells in the narrow minds of liberals who view every test and every rule as one designed to favor whites over blacks.

    ……

    Webloggin (a2d188)

  23. “Levi, there is a live comment preview, that works pretty well as long as you don’t use the blockquote function.”

    -Dana

    (I assume you’re talking about the whole italics thing)

    The italics I used were at the end of my prank post, which meant that it wasn’t apparent to me that anything was wrong…until the next post, and I didn’t know that tags carried over like that (actually, I know very little about *why* the system works, only how to use it [for the most part, obviously]).

    Leviticus (ed6d31)

  24. ~P = X?

    In this case, yes, but as a general rule, not necessarily; ~P could have any value except P.

    Xrlq (1c888e)

  25. Phil raises some good points, but I believe he has missed one very important point. He stated that the problem is not discrimination (which he correctly defined as simply a point on which a decision is taken), but with the unequal outcomes in our society:

    the unacceptable levels of marginalization and disenfranchisement of African-Americans in our society, to the benefit of the white majority. Basically, our society was incredibly unfair for African Americans.

    Where Phil misses the point is that the outcomes in our society are the result of free choices taken by millions of people, whether those decisions were to favor one group of people over another, or the aggregate impact of individual choices to drop out of school.

    But our laws are such that it is illegal for the government to use race as a factor in taking decisions — unless, of course, the courts, being somehow unable to read the law as it is written, instead decide to impose their own ideas of “justice.”¹

    Phil’s points are interesting, but our society has decided, through its elected representatives, that using race as a discrimination point is wrong, and such a decision must cut both ways. In Michigan, where the two Bollinger cases had their genesis, the voters have decided to amend their state constitution to prohibit just such discrimination by state entities, regardless of how benevolently intended the discrimination might be, and regardless of what societal outcomes such discrimination seeks to redress.

    Phil concludes with:

    In other words, life isn’t fair; what are we going to do about it? Does affirmative action help? I wish people would just acknowledge that that’s the real question, rather than talking in code worlds like “discrimination.”

    Perhaps the answer, Phil, is that we aren’t going to do anything about life being unfair. There comes a point at which the individual is responsible for himself, and if we might have sympathy for an unfortunate situation, it is not necessarily the obligation of the government to redress all inequities.
    ___________________
    ¹ – Shameless blog self-promotion.

    Dana (3e4784)

  26. Savage alleges: “Today, lawyers in a pair of integration cases will debate whether school boards may use racial guidelines to assign students.” “A pair of integration cases”? Hahahahaha. Try: A pair of racial discrimination cases. “[R]acial guidelines”? Hahahaha. Again, try: Racial discrimination. What a shock! Savage’s cliches and talking points mirror the cliches and talking points of other leftist dupes.

    Tom (d5cd55)

  27. “Perhaps the answer, Phil, is that we aren’t going to do anything about life being unfair.”

    Perhaps. It’s certainly an option many anti-affirmative action folks truly prefer. And And if they would step up and make that argument (rather than suggesting that affirmative action is the modern equivalent of the way African Americans were treated before the civil rights laws), then we could get down to evaluating that particular option.

    Phil (88ab5b)

  28. It’s amazing that this debate even needs to take place. The empirical evidence of the failure of mandatory desegregation / forced busing is available right here in Pasadena, CA.

    Here’s a synopsis from Wikipedia:

    Pasadena, California

    In 1970 a federal court ordered the desegregation of the public schools in Pasadena, California. At that time, the proportion of white students in those schools reflected the proportion of whites in the community, 54% and 53%, respectively. After the desegregation process began, large numbers of whites in the upper and middle classes who could afford it pulled their children from the integrated public school system and placed them into private schools instead. As a result, by 2004 Pasadena became home to sixty-three private schools, which educated one-third of all school-aged children in the city, and the proportion of white students in the public schools had fallen to 16%. The superintendent of Pasadena’s public schools characterized them as being to whites “like the bogey-man,” and mounted policy changes, including a curtailment of busing, and a publicity drive to induce affluent whites to put their children back into public schools.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing

    Anyone want to guess what the racial makeup of the Pasadena schools looks like? Care to guess how the test scores compare with other districts? The net effect was academic devastation of the Pasadena schools and even greater segregation

    TakeFive (8f1d11)

  29. Phil wrote:

    Perhaps. It’s certainly an option many anti-affirmative action folks truly prefer. And And if they would step up and make that argument (rather than suggesting that affirmative action is the modern equivalent of the way African Americans were treated before the civil rights laws), then we could get down to evaluating that particular option.

    Perhaps I was unclear, Phil. While doing nothing would certainly be my preferred option, even if we did decide that we wished to address such disparities, solutions which involve government choices based upon racial classifications are both wrong and illegal (save that some judges can’t read, and can’t see that such are illegal).

    Even if you wish to address the problems you see as the result of past discrimination, current and future discrimination ought to be a tool which is not allowed to be used.

    Dana (3e4784)

  30. David Savage is as much a virulent, militant leftist feminist dupe, kook, freak and useful idiot as Linda Greenhouse.

    Tom (d5cd55)

  31. Tom: oddly enough, Savage is one of the better reporters on Supreme Court cases.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  32. See Dana, that’s where I think there’s a disconnect. On one hand, you don’t think that the effects of “discrimination” against African Americans requires any response. Sure, it’s unfair, but that’s life. Let them be responsible for themselves.

    But then, when this same “discrimination” is done via affirmative action, suddenly we need to do something about it, and stop this terrible practice of favoring people based on improper classifications.

    If you aren’t getting worked up about how unfair discrimination is to African Americans, why are you so worked up about the government discriminating against white folk in affirmative action? OK, you can say “well thats GOVERNMENT action, and that’s just not right.”

    So discrimination by the government, a la affirmative action, is “wrong” and “illegal,” but if society just spontaneously creates a discriminatory effect because there are more white people than non-whites, well that’s just life?

    Frankly, I think the bottom line is, you hate unfairness against YOU, but don’t want to lose any priviliges you end up with as a result of lifes unfairness to OTHERS. In other words, you’re a self-interested human being. Like all of us.

    But if you expect me to give a gosh-darn about this unfairness that you see arising out of affirmative action, you’ve got to show me that you recognize that between social actors, there’s reciprocity. If you don’t want to be treated unfairly, you gotta be willing to look out for situations where others are being treated unfairly, too.

    That’s where I think the “affirmative action is bad because it’s DISCRIMINATION” crowd fails — they are mad about the unfair effects of discrimination against THEM, but don’t care about the effects of discrimination against others.

    Phil (88ab5b)

  33. TakeFive: ISTM that the situation you described could also be read to say that desegregation is bad because white parents are so insistent on their children not going to school with minority children that, if the public schools don’t segregate, the white parents who can afford to will do so by taking their children out of public schools.

    At the very least, it’s not clear from your description or from the wikipedia article why white parents were withdrawing their children, so absent any other evidence, the “racist white parents pulled their kids out to avoid having them schooled with black kids” argument is just as plausible as the “white parents didn’t like such-and-such side-effects of mandatory desegregation” argument.

    It’s really not clear to me that this proves anything about the merits of mandatory desegregation per se; it just proves that some people didn’t like it and so they refused to participate.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  34. Hey I have a great idea—lets take up a collection fund to “redeploy” Waldo and his fellow traitor Murtha to Okinawa. Nah, I hear the girls are cute there—lets send them to Tehran. As die-hard supporters of totaletarian death cults like Communism and Islam, they should LOVE it there!!! 🙂

    McGee (56001e)

  35. Phil—I have a suggestion—why don’t we all just acknowledge that life isn’t “fair” (i.e., we’re never going to get away from unequal outcomes—do you really want blind airline pilots??) and just get off our lazy asses and work hard and EARN what we want? WHAT A CONCEPT!!!!!

    McGee (56001e)

  36. McGee, what makes you think I haven’t accepted that life is unfair? I believe I have recognized and that life is unfair. However, I do try to make this unfair life more fair when I can, rather than less fair. In other words, I believe

    life

    is unfair, but I also believe that fairness is a good guiding principle for determining whether a particular

    social outcome

    is superior to another.

    Are you saying I should stop trying to making this unfair life more fair? Do you dislike fairness as a general principle for judging social outcomes?

    If you do, just be honest about it — don’t act like unfairness is a bad thing we should get rid of when it negatively affects you (via affirmative action).

    Phil (88ab5b)

  37. A particular “outcome” might be unfair? You mean like people who do nothing but lie around all day smoking crack, committing robbery, and complaining about “the man” not winding up with million dollar a year jobs? Is that the kind of “unfair outcome” you’re talking about? Because somehow, it doesn’t really seem all that “unfair” to me…..

    McGee (56001e)

  38. Re: Aphrael

    “…so absent any other evidence, the “racist white parents pulled their kids out to avoid having them schooled with black kids” argument is just as plausible as the “white parents didn’t like such-and-such side-effects of mandatory desegregation” argument.

    I suppose looking from the outside it might appear that way. I’ll share my experience as a Pasadena schools veteran. Up to the 3rd grade, I walked 2 blocks to my neighborhood elementary school. It was peaceful, and I have generally fond memories of that time.

    In 1971, it was decided that Pasadena schools were segregated and mandatory busing would solve the problem. So in 4th grade it was a 6:30 am walk to the bus stop for a trip to a school where I was definitely not welcome. Even though I’m nominally Hispanic, with many coffee colored relatives, I was pigment challenged enough to hear “were going to kick your ass after class, white-boy” at least three or four times a week. One also had to be on the lookout for the roving groups of black boys that seemed to come out of nowhere, looking for a lone white boy to thump.

    Now, I will say that my best friend (Lamont) and worst enemy (Kenny) were both black. Kenny was something special. He used to wear these metal choke chains on his wrists that he stole off the neighborhood dogs. You’d be walking along and he would clothesline you with one of these things, or he’d slide it up over his knuckles and punch you in the back.

    My repeated requests to the teacher to get this kid off my back were met with comments like “try not to provoke him” or “just stay away from him” (I suspect she was afraid to be at that school and just wanted to make her retirement). So finally, after getting slapped in the back of the head while sitting at my desk for the nth time, I snapped. Kenny was talking to the teacher, with a smug look on his face since he knew he wouldn’t get into trouble and I threw the best (and first) right cross my 9 year old self could muster to the side of Kenny’s head.

    We both got sent to detention, but at least Kenny pretty much left me alone for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, there were plenty of others to take up the slack for Kenny that first year, and I would meet many more like him over the years. 5th grade was a real delight when some genius decided that the slow kids might benefit from sharing a classroom with the smarter kids.

    So why do I bore you with this story? Let me ask you – would you put your children in that situation? Would it make you a racist to pull them out and place them in private school?

    Been there, done that, doesn’t work and belongs on the scrap pile.

    TakeFive (8f1d11)

  39. Phil,

    Affirmative action has not personally affected me (for a job, education, etc) and I still feel it is wrong. When someone gets a job over a higher qualified applicant, that is wrong, regardless of why.

    If you are trying to be ‘fair’ then use economics as the background for your ‘affirmative action’ and give more jobs to poorer people. (statistically this would include more minorities also) And then you would have at least a decent case.

    However, to say that one person deserves a job more because of the way history treated his or her ancestors is plain bullsh!&.

    Lord Nazh (d282eb)

  40. “You mean like people who do nothing but lie around all day smoking crack, committing robbery, and complaining about “the man” not winding up with million dollar a year jobs? Is that the kind of “unfair outcome” you’re talking about? Because somehow, it doesn’t really seem all that “unfair” to me…..”

    -McGee

    How about your parents having the money to put your ungrateful ass through school, McGee? Ever think of that?

    Not everyone has the PRIVILEGE to go to college. Some have to drop out to support a family, be it children or parents or both. For you to sit here and tell me that everything you have you earned for yourself is sickening.

    For you to sit here and tell me that the only reason some people don’t advance in the world is that they “lie around all day smoking crack, committing robbery, and complaining about “the man””…

    Maybe you’re right (“Maybe” as in “there’s no fucking way”). Or maybe (as in “probably”) the reason some people live in squalor while others live in paradise is that self-righteous assholes like you convince themselves that they deserve everything they have, and make it a point to lobby their congressman to perpetuate their neo-royalty.
    Zero-sum game, bud. Their loss is your gain, and you have no apparent qualms about grinding their collective face into the dirt.

    Leviticus (3c2c59)

  41. I’m still trying to figure out why everybody wants to fight over having the white kids in their school.

    sharon (dfeb10)

  42. “For you to sit here and tell me that the only reason some people don’t advance in the world is that they “lie around all day smoking crack, committing robbery, and complaining about “the man””…”

    There are people like that, Leviticus. You may not know any but that hardly precludes their existence.

    nk (4d4a9d)

  43. Leviticus: while some people drop out because they have to support family members, it is also true that some people drop out because they’re f***ups.

    Take, for example, my brother. When our mom died, our stepdad — whom I loathe, by the way, but he did the right thing in this case — took the monthly social security payment, stored it away, and accumulated more than 20K in savings which (a) belonged to my brother and (b) was intended to be used to pay for college.

    My brother turned 18 and spent it all on a three-month long party.

    My point is this: some people can’t get ahead because the deck is stacked against them. Other people can’t get ahead because they aren’t willing to bother trying … so how do you design a system that helps the former and not the latter?

    (My brother has learned his lesson, by the way: several years in the army will do that to you. But not everyone does.)

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  44. Who is this person called “socoety” that’s always discriminating aginst our unfortunate brothers?

    moneyrunner (d5b4e1)

  45. Society is the answer to all the problems in the world. Just ask the USSR, Cuba, most of Europe and the Middle East

    /sarc

    Lord Nazh (d282eb)

  46. […] Of my post regarding the cases on forced integration, Scott Lemieux says: not surprisingly he [Patterico] can’t be bothered to make a constitutional argument at all. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » More on Forced Integration (421107)

  47. Phil asks me:

    See Dana, that’s where I think there’s a disconnect. On one hand, you don’t think that the effects of “discrimination” against African Americans requires any response. Sure, it’s unfair, but that’s life. Let them be responsible for themselves.

    But then, when this same “discrimination” is done via affirmative action, suddenly we need to do something about it, and stop this terrible practice of favoring people based on improper classifications.

    No, Phil, you have it totally wrong. I have said that government discrimination is wrong and ought to be illegal; individual discrimination is also wrong, but ought not to be within the power of the government to regulate. If a private college wants to reserve X number of seats for blacks, that’s fine with me.

    More, I do not believe that the plight of blacks today is the result of discrimination by whites. Yes, there is some, in private action, but after two generations of integration and Affirmative Action, the greatest contributing factor to black underachievement is the black inner-city subculture. It doesn’t matter how much we spend on public schools, nor where we bus the kids to, if the culture in which inner city blacks live tells young black males that studying hard and trying to do well in school is “acting white,” and black males simply drop out of school at much higher rates than any other group.

    We can even see the disparity of results, because black females don’t drop out of school at nearly the same rates, and all of a sudden, black females are showing superior earning power.

    Dana (e7aa47)

  48. Levi, I’m sorry, but the way the system is set up, if you are smart enough to go to college (and one thing the Affirmative Action advocates don’t tell you is that a whopping 85% of colleges do not have selective admissions, but admit anyone who applies) and you are from a poor family, the government will pretty much pay your way. It’s only if you work to support your family and make a decent living but nothing so special that you can develop much in the way of savings that the government says sorry when your kids want to go to college, but despite being taxed to send other people’s kids to college, you can pay for your own kid’s college expenses yourself.

    How do I know this? My older daughter is a freshman at Penn State, that’s how, and after years of being taxed to pay for other people’s kids to go to college, the government sure isn’t going to put my kids through!

    But most important was this statement of yours:

    Zero-sum game, bud. Their loss is your gain, and you have no apparent qualms about grinding their collective face into the dirt.

    No, it isn’t a zero-sum game. I benefit when children from poor families go to college, even though I have to pay taxes to help them, because if they become more educated, they’ll become taxpayers, too. But that does not mean we have to discriminate on the basis of race here: anyone with a high school diploma (and in some cases, not even that) can be accepted into college. It might not be quite the college he wants; he might have to go to Morehead State instead of the University of Kentucky, but he can still get into college.

    As for those people who simply ruin their lives with drugs and dropping out, I don’t need to grind their faces into the dirt; they’ve done that for tehmselves. And, quite frankly, our society needs garbagemen and laborers!

    Dana (e7aa47)


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