Tag: affirmative action

He Did It

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Donald Trump said he’d end affirmative action and he did.  Below I’ve copied Donald Trump’s executive order for, “ENDING ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION AND RESTORING MERIT-BASED OPPORTUNITY”

This is amazing!  This is what we’ve needed for generations since the nightmare of the Civil Rights legislation was rolled out in the 1960s.

And I expect the blue state judges and other progressives will fight this tooth and nail.  And if Trump wants to secure his legacy in the eyes of his countrymen, he needs to fight back with every bit of power that the office of the presidency provides him.  Because this is exactly the policy that will make this country powerful again.  Companies hiring the smartest candidate.  Police and military authorities requiring applicants for demanding assignments to pass grueling physical tests.  No more 5’ 4,” 90 lb. women pretending to be firefighters who can go into a burning building and haul a 200 lb. man to safety.

No more surgeons or airline pilots selected to their positions based on their skin color or sex (or worse, their sexual deviancy).  No more Navy Seals or Army Rangers who can’t do ten pull ups or carry an eighty-pound pack and a rifle.  And best of all, no more government programs or agencies endlessly telling us that diversity is our strength.  In fact, the executive order requires all of these agencies to strip away all of those buzz words; diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.  All that jibber jabber has to go.  For example, from the text below:

“(ii)   Excise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear, from Federal acquisition, contracting, grants, and financial assistance procedures to streamline those procedures, improve speed and efficiency, lower costs, and comply with civil-rights laws; and

(iii)  Terminate all “diversity,” “equity,” “equitable decision-making,” “equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance,” “advancing equity,” and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate.”

And this order has all sorts of clauses to allow the government to go after corporations that employ affirmative action in their hiring and advancement policies.  Honestly there are goodies in here everywhere I look.  For instance:

“Sec. 4.  Encouraging the Private Sector to End Illegal DEI Discrimination and Preferences.  (a)  The heads of all agencies, with the assistance of the Attorney General, shall take all appropriate action with respect to the operations of their agencies to advance in the private sector the policy of individual initiative, excellence, and hard work identified in section 2 of this order.

………………

(b)  To further inform and advise me so that my Administration may formulate appropriate and effective civil-rights policy, the Attorney General, within 120 days of this order, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.  The report shall contain a proposed strategic enforcement plan identifying:

…………………

(iii)  A plan of specific steps or measures to deter DEI programs or principles (whether specifically denominated “DEI” or otherwise) that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences.  As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars;”

Etc., etc., etc.

And just to make sure the colleges are held accountable:

Sec. 5.  Other Actions.  Within 120 days of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).

 

So, all in all, this is like some kind of dream come true for the Right.  Now will all this become law without a fight?  Hell no.  There will be a knock down, drag out fight for every sentence and phrase.  I expect screaming women to march around the White House for the next ten years on account of some angry identity group whose feelings have been hurt.

Federal judges in every blue jurisdiction will declare this order unconstitutional.  But I predict the Supreme Court will come down on his side.  And that is as it should be.  Trump has taken the initiative and he has justice and sanity on his side.  Let him continue to act in this spirit and he may end up on Mount Rushmore after all.  Well done.

 

For your ease of access I’ve copied the executive action in its entirety below.  I recommend going through the whole thing.  It’s very well written.  I find it very enjoyable just reading it.  It’s a form of therapy.  And even for that Donald Trump deserves my thanks.

 

 

 

Presidential Actions

ENDING ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION AND
RESTORING MERIT-BASED OPPORTUNITY

January 21, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1.  Purpose.  Longstanding Federal civil-rights laws protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  These civil-rights protections serve as a bedrock supporting equality of opportunity for all Americans.  As President, I have a solemn duty to ensure that these laws are enforced for the benefit of all Americans. 

Yet today, roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critical and influential institutions of American society, including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) or “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation.

Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.  Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.

These illegal DEI and DEIA policies also threaten the safety of American men, women, and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society, including all levels of government, and the medical, aviation, and law-enforcement communities.  Yet in case after tragic case, the American people have witnessed first-hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.

The Federal Government is charged with enforcing our civil-rights laws.  The purpose of this order is to ensure that it does so by ending illegal preferences and discrimination.

Sec. 2.  Policy.  It is the policy of the United States to protect the civil rights of all Americans and to promote individual initiative, excellence, and hard work.  I therefore order all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements.  I further order all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.

Sec. 3.  Terminating Illegal Discrimination in the Federal Government.  (a)  The following executive actions are hereby revoked:
(i)    Executive Order 12898 of February 11, 1994 (Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations);
(ii)   Executive Order 13583 of August 18, 2011 (Establishing a Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce);
(iii)  Executive Order 13672 of July 21, 2014 (Further Amendments to Executive Order 11478, Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government, and Executive Order 11246, Equal Employment Opportunity); and
(iv)   The Presidential Memorandum of October 5, 2016 (Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce).
(b)  The Federal contracting process shall be streamlined to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with our civil-rights laws.  Accordingly:
(i)    Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965 (Equal Employment Opportunity), is hereby revoked.  For 90 days from the date of this order, Federal contractors may continue to comply with the regulatory scheme in effect on January 20, 2025.
(ii)   The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs within the Department of Labor shall immediately cease:
(A)  Promoting “diversity”;
(B)  Holding Federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking “affirmative action”; and
(C)  Allowing or encouraging Federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.
(iii)  In accordance with Executive Order 13279 of December 12, 2002 (Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-Based and Community Organizations), the employment, procurement, and contracting practices of Federal contractors and subcontractors shall not consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin in ways that violate the Nation’s civil rights laws.
(iv)   The head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award:
(A)  A term requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government’s payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code; and
(B)  A term requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.
(c)  The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with the assistance of the Attorney General as requested, shall:
(i)    Review and revise, as appropriate, all Government-wide processes, directives, and guidance;
(ii)   Excise references to DEI and DEIA principles, under whatever name they may appear, from Federal acquisition, contracting, grants, and financial assistance procedures to streamline those procedures, improve speed and efficiency, lower costs, and comply with civil-rights laws; and
(iii)  Terminate all “diversity,” “equity,” “equitable decision-making,” “equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance,” “advancing equity,” and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate.

Sec. 4.  Encouraging the Private Sector to End Illegal DEI Discrimination and Preferences.  (a)  The heads of all agencies, with the assistance of the Attorney General, shall take all appropriate action with respect to the operations of their agencies to advance in the private sector the policy of individual initiative, excellence, and hard work identified in section 2 of this order.
(b)  To further inform and advise me so that my Administration may formulate appropriate and effective civil-rights policy, the Attorney General, within 120 days of this order, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.  The report shall contain a proposed strategic enforcement plan identifying:
(i)    Key sectors of concern within each agency’s jurisdiction;
(ii)   The most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern;
(iii)  A plan of specific steps or measures to deter DEI programs or principles (whether specifically denominated “DEI” or otherwise) that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences.  As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars;
(iv)   Other strategies to encourage the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all Federal civil-rights laws;
(v)    Litigation that would be potentially appropriate for Federal lawsuits, intervention, or statements of interest; and
(vi)   Potential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance.

Sec. 5.  Other Actions.  Within 120 days of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).

Sec. 6.  Severability.  If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Sec. 7.  Scope.  (a)  This order does not apply to lawful Federal or private-sector employment and contracting preferences for veterans of the U.S. armed forces or persons protected by the Randolph-Sheppard Act, 20 U.S.C. 107 et seq.
(b)  This order does not prevent State or local governments, Federal contractors, or Federally-funded State and local educational agencies or institutions of higher education from engaging in First Amendment-protected speech.
(c)  This order does not prohibit persons teaching at a Federally funded institution of higher education as part of a larger course of academic instruction from advocating for, endorsing, or promoting the unlawful employment or contracting practices prohibited by this order.

Sec. 8.  General Provisions.  (a)  Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i)   the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii)  the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b)  This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c)  This order is not intended to and does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
 
THE WHITE HOUSE,
 January 21, 2025.

What Do We Keep and What Let Go? – Part 2 – Freedom

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I’ve heard lots of people say that freedom was the Enlightenment Era’s original sin.  By demanding freedom, we opened ourselves up to all the ills of our society.  But I don’t believe this.  All the stuff about equality running us into a ditch because it was the source of feminism and the other isms may be true.  But I contend that any society that allows me the freedoms that are enumerated in the Bill of Rights has given me the basis of a happy life.

My idea about what has to be changed is nothing more complicated than to demand the complete restoration of these freedoms.  We must resist any demands to give up any part of our rights for the sake of some misbegotten crusade to make everyone “more equal.”  People are as equal as they’ll ever be.  Which is, not at all.  Every individual is just that, an individual.  And as long as we provide them with the same freedoms, they’ve got nothing to say about anybody else’s pursuit of happiness.

The beginnings of the restoration of these rights have finally made some headway.  The Supreme Court recently outlawed affirmative action in college admissions.  Well, that’s a good start.  But outlawing it completely in the federal government is what is needed.  It’s the feds that have used quotas to force all kinds of businesses and organizations to hire or admit people on the basis of race or sex or sexual deviancy.  This is the basis for most of the misery that has gripped this country.  Free association is one of the fundamental behaviors of a free people.  Choosing who you want to work with or play with is the way you try to make your life yours.  We’ve all seen what happens when an affirmative action hire turns out to be a disaster.  It builds up animosity and frustration throughout the organization.  And it forces the people around the mismatched employee to work twice as hard to make up for the employee that cannot be cajoled or forced out.

And think of how many fraternal organizations were ruined when they were forced to admit women.  Half of the reason for the organization was to get away from wives to spend a few happy hours with the guys in a mens-only environment.  The same goes for the Boy Scouts.  Admitting girls and then gays was a betrayal of the basis of the organization’s reason for existing.  And for what?  There is already Girl Scouts.  There could be a scout’s organization that let anyone in and that didn’t mention God or chivalry or normalcy.  But the real point was destroying something that didn’t include them.

And since that’s the point why should we feel bad if we manage to stop this shakedown racket.  But you’ll be told that discrimination will be happening.  Well, of course it will be.  Everywhere you look in life there’s discrimination.  How many kids that end up in Harvard and Yale are there because their fathers and grandfathers went there?  And how many of those kids are smarter than the thousands that are rejected?  And how about the kids who are let in just for the color of their skins.  They’re not as smart as the rejects either.  So, discrimination is okay if it’s done for the elites or for their pet projects.  What’s that old saying?  You know who’s in charge by who gets to break the rules.  Well, let’s stop with the games.  They want to have their kids go to Harvard.  Then let’s stop pretending that the people in charge play by the rules they make for us.  And let’s just let people live their lives the way they want.  If the Bushes and the Romneys want to belong to their secret societies and wouldn’t let me in if their lives depended on it, why should I care?  And if my poker game looks like the older version of the kids I grew up with and doesn’t have enough diversity, equity and inclusion why should anyone care?

Let’s face it.  With a country as multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious as America has become the only way, we can avoid going for each-other’s throats is if we give each other some room to breathe.  The happiest and ultimately the most efficient way to let people organize their lives is to let people organize their own lives the way they want.

And that is what most needs to change in this country if we want it to survive.  Drop the affirmative action and drop the policing of employment and membership in organizations and just leave people alone to live their lives the way they want.  That is after all the real reason most people came to this country.  The nineteenth century immigrants from eastern and southern Europe were under no illusions that they’d be hobnobbing with the Astors and the Rockefellers.  They knew they’d be lucky if they got to clean out the chimneys and drain pipes of the Astors and Rockefellers.  What they did hope for was the opportunity to pursue their dreams through hard work and enjoy the community of fellow immigrants who huddled together in the various ghettoes of places like New York City.  And each ethnicity, even each village had its own neighborhood.  Maybe a few city blocks and a church and some store fronts.  And all these neighborhoods were cheek to jowl with each other and many of them didn’t get along very well.  But as long as they had their own clubs and festivals and customs it worked.  All they had to do was obey the law and mind their own business.

And that’s still pretty good advice.

Open and Closed Associations

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I listened to the ZMan’s Friday podcast and the topic was an explanation for why he considers the ideal of the color-blind society of such activists as Chris Rufo to be doomed to failure. And I’ll have to say here that he was very clear about why he saw it as unsatisfactory from his point of view.
In a nutshell, he saw the color-blind basis for a multiracial society to be unacceptable because it would not allow for what he called closed associations. And he defined open and closed associations as differing in their method of exclusion. In an open association basically, anyone was admitted who adhered to the basis for which the association was established. In a closed association, those in charge can exclude anyone for basically any reason or no reason at all.
In the ZMan’s mind a society that adheres to a color-blind basis for race relations would never allow closed associations to exist. Now this conclusion is interesting. His position was that the idea of the color-blind society had been put forward back during the William F. Buckley Jr. era of the conservative movement in the 1960s and 1970s and that trying it again would end in the same failure.
I listened carefully to his arguments and came away with several thoughts on his assumptions and conclusions.
My first thought has to do with how the color-blind premise should be applied to American society. What seems fair to me is that if we have a multi-racial society then the most important case where color-blindness should be applied is by the government. In other words, the government treats us all the same. There should be no mention of race in any government policies. We all follow the same equations for our income tax calculations. We all get the same government benefits based on the same measurements of work history and age. We all get to vote just once in an election. And we all have to obey the same laws and we all get the same sentences for committing the same crimes.
And in terms of public accommodations, we can all use the same grocery stores and get the same rates from the electric company. And once again, if we live in the same town, we all have to conform to the same local laws. So, if the local laws say you can’t smoke pot, then anyone regardless of color will be arrested for doing so. And we can eat at the same restaurants. But that restaurant even though it is a public accommodation, is still a private enterprise. It can demand that patrons dress in a certain way. It can demand that diners behave in a specific manner. And regardless of race if someone can’t follow those rules he can be ejected, possibly with police assistance if the result becomes trespass.
And if there is a professional society like the AMA or the Bar Association or an engineering accreditation program these would also be considered public accommodations. As would schools and colleges. But once again everyone must follow the same rules and be judged by the same objective standards. Here the use of standardized testing goes a long way to reinforce these ideas. And this objectivity will prove that when conditions are as equal as they can be that the human population will produce a bell curve of outcomes. That’s right we’re not all exactly the same and that’s just the nature of populations.
And these above referenced cases and things of the same sort are what would be considered public accommodations.
But I don’t assume that private associations need to be open to the general public. In the 1960s and 1970s much was made about how men’s clubs and associations had to be opened up to participation by women. Under a careful analysis of this history, I believe that the Supreme Court could quite easily decide that private associations could limit their memberships based on sex if the whole basis for the association is based on being male or female.
And likewise, why couldn’t there be a club based on its members being of a particular ethnicity or physical characteristic. After all there are already clubs for tall people and there are organizations for senior citizens. There could be clubs for people with blond hair and blue eyes. Parenthetically the ZMan’s favorite example of minorities is “ginger midgets.” There could be a National Association for the Advancement of Ginger Midgets, (NAAGM). And in what way do any of these associations harm people who are not these things? They don’t and therefore they are not unethical.
Based on what the ZMan said in his podcast he would disagree with my analysis because he would say that no mechanism exists to force the federal government to accept the restoration of free association for private, non-public accommodation associations. And maybe he’s right. But regardless, I think that getting the federal government to have to give up on affirmative action and be forced to adhere to color-blind standards would be an enormous improvement over the nightmarish anti-white polices currently practiced in Washington DC.
If and when these first steps have been initiated more effort can be expended to continue working toward the full restoration of the freedoms we were promised under the Bill of Rights. Saying that because past efforts to reestablish constitutional practices have failed that no progress can be made is incorrect. The recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action in college admissions and on abortion are clear examples that even after many decades, a bad decision can be corrected. I think there is great merit in pushing for a color-blind federal government.
What do you think?

Correcting the Civil Rights Acts

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Chris Rufo has written what I think is an interesting article in the City Journal.  It’s called, “A New Civil Rights Agenda:

The only hope for a diverse nation is a regime of colorblind equality.”

Rufo points to the Civil rights Act of 1964 and some of the later additions to it for our unfortunate situation.  He claims that both Libertarians and the Dissident Right advocate solutions that he feels are unworkable.

“The question is what to do about it. Libertarians have long argued that the Civil Rights Act compromises core freedoms of speech and association to such a degree that only repealing the law can restore them. Another faction argues that the solution to minoritarian identity politics is majoritarian identity politics—that is, if the legal regime has become a racial spoils system, then Americans of European descent must develop “white racial consciousness” and fight for their share.”

Instead, he outlines three steps that he feels would eliminate reverse discrimination:

“First, reformers should outlaw affirmative action and racial preferences of any kind. … The next president should rescind Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order 11246, which established “affirmative action” and marked the initial deviation from the standard of colorblind equality.

…

Second, reformers must eliminate the “disparate impact” provisions in the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and overturn Griggs v. Duke Power Co., both of which have entrenched the doctrine that disparate group outcomes are de facto evidence of racial discrimination.

…

Third, legislators should abolish the DEI bureaucracies in all American institutions, which openly discriminate against disfavored racial groups, impose ideological orthodoxies on American citizens, and restrict freedoms of speech and association. In addition, federal legislators should radically reduce the size of the federal departments of civil rights enforcement.”

I am not a politician or a lawyer but even an uninformed layman can see that those changes will require either control of both houses of Congress and the president or the Supreme Court to get involved in outlawing whole bureaus of the executive branch out of existence.

I’m not saying it can’t be done but I can understand why there might be a high degree of skepticism on the part of dissidents.  Conservatives have been bamboozled by the Republican establishment into hoping for colorblind reform forever and it’s never happened.

But recently we had the Supreme Court strike down affirmative action in college admissions.  If they decide to strike it down entirely then possibly all of the three actions that Rufo outlines might actually be covered under this decision.  With a conservative president and the Supreme Court outlawing reverse discrimination we might see sixty years of injustice eliminated in short order.

Okay, enough happy, happy talk.  Rufo’s thesis is that conservative government would be well within its rights to eliminate almost all of the most obnoxious components of today’s racial reverse discrimination policies.  But what he describes would take a courageous Supreme Court and a conservative president willing to use his authority as head of the executive branch to bring the various agencies to heel.

Let’s just say that I completely understand the Dissident’s Right’s skepticism.  And all this depends on a conservative president.  Will we ever see another one of those?  Stay tuned till November.

SCOTUS Bans Affirmative Action by Colleges. Finally!

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Now let’s ban it throughout American society.

 

Affirmative Action, Once More into the Breach

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The US Supreme Court is currently deliberating on two cases about affirmative action in higher education.  The Harvard University case is called “Students for Fair Admissions v. Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College.”  And the University of North Carolina case is called “Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina.”

The crux of the case is whether it’s constitutional to allow discrimination against someone based on race.  Most colleges boost the chances of black and Hispanic students to gain entry into a college by manipulating their profile in ways that do not reflect their academic achievement.  And by virtue of this boosting, they harm the chances of white and Asian candidates that are competing for these college admissions.

Now this has been looked at before.  Over the last fifty years various Supreme Court cases have admitted that affirmative action is unconstitutional.  But its practice has been justified as a temporary crutch to compensate for past injustices that discriminated against minorities.  However, fifty years is a pretty permanent “temporary.”  Could this be the Supreme Court that finally ends this unjust practice?  From what I’ve read a decision is expected in the next six weeks.  Some leftist think tanks believe that the court is poised to throw out affirmative action.  Well, I hope they’re right but I’m not all that confident.

Let’s review.  John Roberts is a hopeless liberal.  Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have proven unreliable on occasion so it’s a complete crapshoot.  What is certain is that the latest case will answer the question whether there’s any hope at all of this court providing justice on constitutional grounds for such things as freedom of speech, freedom of association and other constitutional rights that have been stolen from us by courts and the administrative state.

I’m pretty excited about this case regardless of its outcome.  Like so much of what has gone on over the last few years, this event will provide clarity about another facet of our world.  Like the fraudulent elections and the Justice Department lawfare against Donald Trump and the January 6th defendants, each of these examples strips away another part of the façade that hides the reality of the American system of government.  There’s a liberating feeling that comes from seeing things as they actually are.  Surprisingly, instead of making someone feel powerless, seeing through these ruses gives one a feeling of power.  You feel much more in control.  These facades are like buoys in the ocean.  You know that there are dangerous rocks below the surface but because there is a marker, you can choose to avoid them.  It’s the fakes that you don’t know about that can do the real harm.

Well, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts; do your worst.  In six weeks, we’ll find out just how awful you really are.  Put in those terms, I’m expecting the worst, so if I’m surprised, I can only be pleasantly surprised.  What has been pleasant was reading about Clarence Thomas’s cross-examination on the benefits of affirmative action.  Being a recipient of affirmative action, he knows exactly what it does and doesn’t do.  And he wasn’t buying any of the “research” that its defenders presented.  I at least know how his vote will be cast, for honesty and justice.

All Men Are Created Unequal. Does That Make America Impossible?

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In the comments section that followed Michael Anton’s recent post about natural rights (“Farewell to Z-Man!

Once More on the Question of Natural Right”), a commentor said,

“Z-man is anonymous because he writes about biological differences, which is a capital offense in our society. Anton is a colorblind civic nationalist, so he doesn’t have to fear having his life destroyed for his views.

I agree that Anton and Z-man would better spend their time fighting the Left, but the schism between those on the Right who believe that there are biological differences among the various peoples of the Earth and those who don’t believe that is fundamental.

That is at the core of the debate between Anton and Z-man. Anton says that natural rights are universal and ever-present. That implies are all peoples are the same at all times. Anton rejects biological differences. Z-man says that the rights put forth by the Founding Fathers were based on their nature. The rights grew out of the particular biology of that people, Anglo-Americans.

For Z-man, culture is downstream from biology. For Anton, biology doesn’t matter at all. That is a fundamental difference.

Anton is a colorblind civic nationalist. He doesn’t believe that culture stems from biology.

His issue with the refugees is that they come from a culture that despises American values. That makes complete sense. However, for Anton, it’s about the culture, not the people. It’s why people like Anton has such a hard time arguing with the Left about immigration.

The Left says we should have open borders or, at least, very large immigration, especially, refugees because we’re all the same so why keep people out. Anton tries to refute this by arguing that we can only let in so many so that they can absorb our culture and truly accept American values. The Left calls him cold-hearted.

Anton has no response other (than) technical arguments because he accepts the Left’s morality: that all people are (literally) created equal so the burden of proof is on him to show why some people shouldn’t be allowed in.

Z-man doesn’t accept the Left’s morality. His argument for why we should reject the Afghani refugees is that they are a different people who will never accept our culture because their biology is different.

And before you start acting like the Left and call Z-man (or me) a racist, just remember that Z-man’s beliefs are pretty much the same as most people around the world, including Israelis and Japanese.

If this was Israel or Japan, their version of Anton would simply say, “No. We will not let in these refugees because they aren’t Jewish or Japanese.”

Anton disagrees with the Israelis and Japanese. He and the Left believe in the Blank Slate, that we are all lumps of clay that can be molded into any form if you just get the culture right.

Ironically, Anton rejects nature’s role in culture.”

Much of what is said here is essentially an accurate description of the difference of positions between the Dissident Right (e.g., the Z-Man) and the Civic Nationalists (e.g., Michael Anton, me).  But there are some subtle differences that I think need to be addressed.  I won’t speak for all Civic Nationalists but I will say for myself that I categorically deny that all human beings are equal in their abilities and have the same temperaments.  In fact, I’ll go as far as saying that human beings are heterogeneous at almost every level.  Even within the same nuclear family there will be remarkable differences of intellect, physique, personality and appearance among siblings.  And between different ethnicities and races the differences will be even larger.  You don’t have to leave the same continent to find the pygmies and the Tutsi.  The first group are hunter gatherers who average less than 4’ 10” in height while the latter are pastoralists that average 6’ but are not uncommonly over 7’ in height.  As far as differences of intelligence and temperament between groups of people there are all kinds of scientific studies and popular descriptions to provide speculation for these differences.

But the basic question isn’t whether these differences exist.  The question is do these differences prevent us from living together in a meritocracy?  In other words, if I’m stupider than my neighbor Bob will that mean we can’t live in the same society without eventually being at each other’s throats?  My belief is we can live together.

The Dissident Right does not believe this.  And as proof they point to the present nightmare we’re living through with “Black Lives Matter,” George Floyd and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion racket being run against white people.

Well, that’s a pretty powerful argument.  Add that to the fifty years of affirmative action and forced integration and you have a pretty bleak picture.

But the Left has been using this equality of outcome scam for decades as a proof that white people are discriminating against blacks.  And for whatever reason we’ve been letting them get away with it.  I no longer think it’s a convincing argument.  America is a multi-ethnic, multi-racial society and there is every combination of races and capacities on display.  And what is clearest is that trying to hire people according to their skin color is a recipe for disaster.  Everyone has probably seen or heard of people who were hired under affirmative action quotas and were completely unqualified for the job.  And what is also extremely clear is that African Americans are not the object of systemic racism.  Currently heterosexual white men are the ones being discriminated against and openly.  It seems clear that demanding the end of affirmative action and other anti-white policies and a return to a meritocratic system is the correct way to put all this racialist nonsense behind us.

To do this it will require places like Florida that have a Republican government to refuse to allow anti-white, affirmative action programs to continue.  And the very color-blind approach that the above commentor seems to disparage is the correct approach.  The United States need to get out of the race business.  In fact, I don’t think we should even list it on birth certificates or other government documents at all.  You might as well list my blood type and what kind of belly button I have too.  Instead, we should be concentrating more on things like SAT scores and which computer languages have been mastered.

Now of course maybe the Z-Man is right and the Republicans are hopelessly unable to fend off accusations of racism and they will always be the losers when the Left plays this racket.  If this is so we’ll see this play out.  But I’d like to believe someone like Ron DeSantis is the future.  He recently rejected the High School Advanced Placement curriculum for African American Studies because it was filled with lies.  This is the way to change things.  Just say no and then make it stick.  It’s not easy.  It’s a slog and a fight.  But if we choose fighters to represent us, we will get results.  If we choose squishes like Jeb! Bush, we get what we have now.

So sure, things are bad but I’m not ready to start the race war.  I think we can have a first world country without a civil war.  But it remains to be seen whether the people who claim to be our leaders are willing to fight to save it.  If they’re not then the Dissident Right will be correct.

Hollywood Blacklists White Men

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Hollywood has codified affirmative action employment rules and is enforcing them.  So if the calculus of their rules requires that the director has to be a black transgender paraplegic then the results of the production should be fascinating.  And the results are already appearing.  Emboldened by the whip hand they’ve been given BIPOC cast and crew members now routinely lodge complaints against white male showrunners and directors knowing that the studio will put pressure on the man to kowtow to the empowered minorities or be fired.

The result of all this is obvious.  It will be all girl Ghostbusters all the time.  Expect humorless screeds from now on.  Every production from romantic comedy to action adventure will be so drowned in racial resentment and feminist screeching that the idea of being entertained will completely disappear from the experience.

I think it’s great,  I can think of no quicker way of impoverishing the industry than to let them put into practice their stupid beliefs about running society.  It’s all too reminiscent of Soviet cinema with its social justice messaging and secret police surveillance.  My only wish is that they dispense with white men all together.  Everyone from the owner of the studios to the assistant wig master should be some combination of non-white, non-male and non-normal.  I think of the great job they’ve done at reducing revenues and driving away their customers.  Eventually the Chinese will start producing movies for the American audiences and I’m sure they’ll be much, much better than the dreck Hollywood has put out in the last decade or so.

Tweaking the Narrative – How Asians Have Become White Supremacists

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The University of Maryland has figured a way to deal with the refusal of Asian American kids to suffer from systemic racism.  They’ve thrown Asians out of the People of Color (POC) club.  It’s been a real embarrassment to race hustlers that Chinese and Indian kids haven’t been held down by the supposed shackles of a white racist education system here and instead have excelled.  So their success has interfered with the affirmative action blueprint that the Left used to divvy up spots in top colleges.  So the University of Maryland has fixed the problem by kicking the Asian kids out of POC and forcing them into the White category where they can be discriminated against and demonized for all it’s worth.

Now that’s progress!  So if you take all the kids whose ancestors were from Europe (the white kids) and lump them together with the Asian kids does that make them the Eurasians?  And then does that mean Eurasian Supremacy is the new devil we all have to fight against?  And what about Madagascar?  It’s close to Africa but it’s in the Indian Ocean does that make them suspect of being hidden Eurasians.  It’s confusing.