Why younger people lean towards Socialism

Why younger people lean towards Socialism

Some said they like the idea in theory but maybe not in practice. Others pointed out that they expect their opinions on socialism to evolve over time, as they gain more life experience and start their careers. But many students said they still viewed socialism positively.

NPR spoke with Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, to find out more about why young people view socialism the way they do. She pointed to two big reasons for the socialism gap between younger and older people: the economy and history.

The Economy

Kawashima-Ginsberg said millennials are less positive than their parents about capitalism. "Older millennials that graduated from college or got into the workforce in the late 2000s really had a hard time believing in American Dreams and capitalism," she said.

That's partly due to the lingering effects of America's last recession. Young people — and not just college graduates — are doing worse than their parents did at their age. Data suggest they earn less, have more student loan debt and aren't able to buy a house as soon. 

Note: Their opinions were developed during a dark period in our economy and the great blame game played out in the media.

As a result, "young people conversely show much less support for capitalism versus the older population," Kawashima-Ginsberg said. Instead, many are enamored with some of the ideals of self-declared socialists like Sanders.

NOTE: Troubled and disillusioned were drawn into a narrative that a larger and more intrusive Federal Government could right the wrongs they were told came from Capitalism gone wild.

"Young people really do support the idea of equality, especially economic equality, at a higher rate," Kawashima-Ginsberg said. "Economic inequality was one of the biggest problems that plagues their society."

History

Kawashima-Ginsberg also pointed out that what people think about socialism is often shaped by history and geopolitics.

"When young people think about socialism, or hear that term, the first thing they think about are Scandinavian countries, like Sweden and Norway, where people seem to be quite happy and people seem to be pretty well-supported," she noted.

But the idea of those Western European nations, with their heavily subsidized health care and college tuition, isn't the same for their parents.

"Older generations thought straight to the Soviet Union, where things were really tough and the idea of socialism wasn't really about raising the bottom," said Kawashima-Ginsberg.

NOTE: Many blame education or the lack of. Some blame parents from passing on their own world views. Regardless "Government" is seemingly replaced by "Country" when it comes to who one relies upon. Self vs. Government and the personal costs that come with it.

Will This Change?

Typically, the more people age and climb the job ladder, they become more conservative and more loyal to that party.

But Kawashima-Ginsberg said she hasn't seen that yet in her research.

"First of all, there's a big diversity within the millennial generation about what they believe in, who they might support, and how they might vote, but also by gender and race," she pointed out.

"For example, young women who are in their late 20s and early 30s aren't really turning more conservative than younger women," Kawashima-Ginsberg said. "Whereas older millennial men are now a little bit more conservative than younger millennial men, showing that the men are in some ways following that trend — becoming a little bit more conservative, maybe more supportive of a Republican platform — young women continue to hold pretty liberal views, and that doesn't seem to be shifting."

Summary

Young people 18 - 24 have grown up in an age where they have become susceptible to ideas that are not congruent with there parents and surely not the Republican form of government our founders created. They have emerged with a world view where Government is at the center and the country (patriotism) is at best an ideal, but less of a reality. Where "rights" are birthed out of want and not reality in accordance with the Constitution.

Citizens must take back local school control

Citizens must take back local school control

The year 2015 witnessed an unprecedented erosion of local control and parental involvement in education, which resulted from the rollout of the increasingly maligned Common Core State Standards. The controversial initiative was driven not by local and state experts, but by two deceptively named trade organizations, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, that purport to advance college and career readiness in education policy.

These math and English Language Arts educational standards, which are now rejected by a majority of Americans, according to recent polling, have drawn the ire from a spectrum so broad that it unites teachers’ unions and the tea party. The standards have been lambasted by educators, administrators and psychologists alike as developmentally inappropriate, given their emphasis on didactic instruction in early childhood education, the excessive screen time that their utilization of e-learning entails, their failure to include a holistic study of classic literature and their infringement upon classroom autonomy through the required teaching of certain content, which is enforced by way of high-stakes standardized testing.

Though it has become evident that the standards themselves are problematic (and that they aren’t “just standards” since standards drive assessments, which shape the development of curricula, thereby subverting local control), their implementation has proven equally troublesome. Notwithstanding claims that the standards’ adoption was state-led, proponents neglect to mention that states were effectively bribed into adopting the standards with Race to the Top (RttT) grant money, and that RttT (of which Ohio is a part) also requires excessive testing, the high stakes evaluation of teachers by student test scores, and the intrusive, longitudinal mining of personally identifiable student data. All facts considered, it is fair to say that government overreach and the influence of crony, private interests have undermined local control of education in recent years.

The outset of 2016 finds the citizens of Ohio in no different state. Common Core is still in place despite the arbitrary shifting of testing consortia, and the recent passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which was touted by its sponsors as a win for local control and which allegedly replaces No Child Left Behind, further diminishes local control through its assault on the ability of students to opt out of standardized assessments, its use of RttT-style, strings-attached block granting, and its expansion of the education secretary’s powers such that he can veto non-rigorous standards, the result of which, according to USDOE’s outgoing assistant communications secretary, Peter Cunningham, is an effective Common Core mandate.

As parents and concerned citizens, the time has come for us to stand against these and other subversions of local control by the crony partnership of government and corporate interests and to reclaim oversight of the education of our children. Let us, the citizens of Cincinnati, lead this charge in the New Year.

Get The Varmints Out of Washington!

Get The Varmints Out of Washington!

An analogy

You've been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons.  Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement.  You want them gone immediately so you hire a guy;  A pro.  You don't care if the guy smells, you need those raccoons gone pronto and he's the guy to do it!  You don't care if the guy swears, you don't care if he's an alcoholic, you don't care how many times he's been married, you don't care if he voted for Obama, you don't care if he has plumber's crack...  you simply want those raccoons gone!  You want your problem fixed!  He's the guy.  He's the best.  Period.

That's why Trump.  Yes he's a bit of an ass, yes he's an egomaniac, but you don't care.  The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republican Party is two-faced, gutless and wimpy.   Illegals are everywhere.  You want it all fixed!   You don't care that Trump is crude, you don't care that he insults people, you don't care that he had been friendly with Hillary, you don't care that he has changed positions, you don't care that he's been married 3 times, you don't care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O'Donnell, you don't care that he doesn't know the name of some Muslin terrorist... this country is weak, bankrupt, our enemies are making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegal's, we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo and Hamid is a special group with special rights to a point where we don't even recognize the country we were born and raised in;  "AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED" and Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want.   

You're sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and sick of illegals.  You just want this thing fixed.  Trump may not be a saint, but doesn't have lobbyist money holding him, he doesn't have political correctness restraining him, all you know is that he has been very successful, a good negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he's also not a politician,  he's not a cowardly politician.  And he says he'll fix it.

You don't care if the guy has bad hair.  

You just want those raccoons gone, out of your house.  Now!

How Economic Disinformation Works: A Modest Case Study

How Economic Disinformation Works: A Modest Case Study

Daily Bell Staff

Fears grow of repeat of 2008 financial crash as investors run for cover... As leaders gathered in Davos, FTSE 100 was gripped by panic selling and entered bear market with Dow Jones also plunging. – UK Guardian

Dominant Social Theme: Fears are growing as the world's economic system trembles on the verge. What to do?

Free-Market Analysis: Let us recall how long ago we were misled and what techniques were used. This Guardian article provides us with a proverbial "teachable moment."

In broadest terms, the article, like others of its type, is written to engage our emotions and excite our fears. Then, toward the end of the article, we are exposed to various solutions and soothing words that seem to indicate that all will be well sooner or later if we just trust the correct authorities. In other words, first the article excites and then it calms.

More:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid more than 450 points, or 2.9% in morning trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid more than 450 points, or 2.9% in morning trading ... Earlier this week, China recorded the slowest rate of economic growth for 25 years.

You see? The drumbeat begins immediately. The statistics lend credence. Then there is this, the crux paragraph:

Fears that the global economy could be heading for a repeat of the 2008 financial crash have sent shockwaves through financial markets – prompting a rush to safe havens by investors. Oil prices fell to a fresh 12-year low on Wednesday and metal prices tumbled in response to warnings that China's slowdown could derail the global recovery at a time when central banks, which came to the rescue in the credit crunch, have only limited firepower.

First we are terrified and then, quietly, an oboe sounds – the first tentative notes of salvation couched in skepticism ... "Central banks, which came to the rescue in the credit crunch, have only limited firepower ..."

Some more:

William White, a former chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bankers club, who now chairs the OECD's review committee warned that central bankers had "used up all their ammunition"... "The situation is worse than it was in 2007.

If central banks cannot help us, what can? Cleverly, the article suggests a sub-meme: the wisdom of the bankers of Davos. First we are reminded that White's pedigree is derived from the awesome power of the BIS and then this:

The BIS was one of the few organizations to warn during 2006 and 2007 about the unstable levels of bank lending that eventually led to the Lehman Brothers crash.

Okay, maybe the BIS did warn, but we can count on our fingers, toes and teeth, the many alternative media blogs and websites that were sounding the alarm about central bank low-rate profligacy throughout the 2000s. Of course, why let inconvenient facts spoil the music.

The head of the Swiss banking giant UBS, Axel Weber, turned the screw by warning that the world was stuck in an era of low growth ... His comments came after the chancellor, George Osborne, warned in a new year speech of a "cocktail of threats" to the UK's prospects from an increasingly uncertain world economy.

Minor chords are now being presented. Important people at the heart of business and finance are sounding the alarm. (Never mind that the alternative media has been doing the same thing far longer.)

Importantly, none of the imminent catastrophes we face are truly explained. We are apparently in the grip of a disaster that has no face or real explanation.

Toward the end of the article (a fairly long one), the themes repeat and expand as the notion of a solution begins to be presented. There is the always-quotable Nouriel Roubini:

[Roubini said] the crash was overplayed: "It is not going to be like 2008-09. There is not the excessive leverage in the financial system that there was last time."

Roubini also contributes to the meme of central banker omnipotence, saying that 2016 is going to be a difficult year and that "central banks [should] respond with extra stimulus."

Now the "finale" ... a triumphant one. We learn from Pierre Moscovici, the European economics commissioner, that "central banks retained some firepower to prevent another crisis" after all.

"I don't feel that the financial crisis is coming back. We don't feel that we are facing the risk of a breakdown in world growth, but there are downsides that we need to address," he said.

Maurice Obstfeld, the chief economist at the IMF, adds to the uplift, saying that central banks should be more relaxed about printing money and keeping rates low. Sure, they may "overshoot" inflation targets but he believes they should be more concerned about deflationary pressures.

It sounds like it will be okay after all. In fact, if you haven't taken the time to learn about alternative (non-mainstream) financial realities, it is easy to come away from an article like this with two main impressions.

First, the world is in a terrible state and second – one way or another – government and banking "experts" will figure out how to combat the multiple, looming catastrophes.

The article succeeds partially by omission because it does not explain fundamental economic truths. We never learn, for instance, that central banking is price-fixing and price-fixing inevitably distorts and then ruins economies.

The article never concerns itself with marginal utility, the idea that the market itself creates prices and that nothing else but the Invisible Hand can do so. It gives us almost no frame of reference (well, there is one brief allusion to overly low interest rates) as to why these market disasters occur over and over again. It maintains that economic growth can be summoned via monetary (Keynesian) debasement.

Somehow, flooding the market with debt-based notes creates prosperity. It's simply not so. One can argue, of course, as to whether such articles are premeditated. We have long since concluded that they probably are.

The antidote is education and access to credible information. Fortunately, there is the Internet, a miraculous device that like binoculars, allows us to look at the "big picture" and then at the details.

We will still need to learn where to look, of course. But one should keep in mind that information that stresses competitive forces is to be preferred over theories that emphasize a concentration of power among a handful of "chosen" controllers. Austrian economics is perhaps the best theoretical construct in this regard.

Internalize this harsh reality: Government won't protect you. Central bankers will only make things worse. Internalize, as well, the idea that the market provides us with results ... always. Human beings cannot control the Invisible Hand that will write as it wills.

Most everything we read in the mainstream media is propaganda. (Of course, one must be careful about the alternative media as well.)

Conclusion: 

Don't be seduced by the mainstream media. Its memes are easy to absorb, which is why they are convenient to swallow. But the problems with the world's economy are getting worse and will not end well. It behooves us to work hard to learn the truth. There is no other way.

HILLARY CLINTON’S RED SCARE

HILLARY CLINTON’S RED SCARE

Is this the Clinton campaign or the John Birch Society?

Hillary Clinton’s campaign network is riot with talk about socialism, seeping in under the door or perhaps in the fluoridated water. You never know where the “conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids” will turn up.

Among those warning of socialist creep is prominent Clinton booster, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who got double coupons for warning of a threat to the very heartland of the nation. “Here in the heartland, we like our politicians in the mainstream, and he is not — he’s a socialist,” Nixon told the NYT.

The sinister socialist to whom Nixon is referring is 74-year-old Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been in Congress since 1991 and for all of his adamancy about being an independent and a, yes, socialist has almost always been a perfectly pliant supporter of the Democratic party.

Democratic leaders getting Sanders’ vote has been something like bums turning up for a hot meal at the Salvation Army: You have to listen to a little sermon, but you’ll get what you came for.

Now remember, Democrats are socialists. Heck, most Republicans are socialists, in the traditional sense that socialism refers to the government taking resources from the private sector and redirecting them. In an academic understanding, it’s all about degree. Some people are socialist enough to want the government to build highways and provide basic regulations for commerce.

What Sanders means is that he would like the government to do much, much more of that. Like, much more.

But during the Cold War and beyond the word came to be associated with the dangerous boys in the Politburo. Being associated with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not exactly good PR. And that after the National Socialists of Germany, well, you’re going to need a re-branding.

Welcome back progressivism!

But despite the relatively short ideological leap between Clinton’s policies and those of Sanders, the scare is on. Joining Nixon in the red scare is Clinton PAC man David Brock.

“He’s a socialist,” Brock told Bloomberg News. “… He’s got a 30 year history of affiliation with a lot of whack-doodle ideas and parties.” Not very kind to say about a guy who has been a loyal Democrat and shared 93 percent of votes in common with Clinton when she was in the Senate.

This ought to prove a couple of things to election observers: Team Clinton is very nervous and utterly willing to do anything to win.

Minimum wage dishonesty and discrimination

Minimum wage dishonesty and discrimination

WALTER E. WILLIAMS

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University

Michael Hiltzik, a columnist and Los Angeles Times reporter, wrote an article titled “Does a minimum wage raise hurt workers? Economists say: We don’t know.” Uncertain was his conclusion from a poll conducted by the Initiative on Global Markets, at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, of 42 nationally ranked economists on the question of whether raising the federal minimum wage to $15 over the next five years would reduce employment opportunities for low-wage workers.

The Senate Budget Committee’s blog says, “Top Economists Are Backing Sen. Bernie Sanders on establishing a $15 an Hour Minimum Wage.” It lists the names of 210 economists who call for increasing the federal minimum wage. The petition starts off, “We, the undersigned professional economists, favor an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as of 2020.” The petition ends with this: “In short, raising the federal minimum to $15 an hour by 2020 will be an effective means of improving living standards for low wage workers and their families and will help stabilize the economy. The costs to other groups in society will be modest and readily absorbed.”

The people who are harmed by an increase in the minimum wage are low-skilled workers. Try this question to economists who argue against the unemployment effect of raising the minimum wage: Is it likely that an employer would find it in his interests to pay a worker $15 an hour when that worker has skills that enable him to produce only $5 worth of value an hour to the employer’s output? Unlike my fellow economists who might argue to the contrary, I would say that most employers would view hiring such a worker as a losing economic proposition, but they might hire him at $5 an hour. Thus, one effect of the minimum wage law is that of discrimination against the employment of low-skilled workers.

In our society, the least skilled people are youths, who lack the skills, maturity and experience of adults. Black youths not only share these handicaps but have attended grossly inferior schools and live in unstable household environments. That means higher minimum wages will have the greatest unemployment effect on youths, particularly black youths.

A minimum wage not only discriminates against low-skilled workers but also is one of the most effective tools in the arsenal of racists. Our nation’s first minimum wage came in the form of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, which sets minimum wages on federally financed or assisted construction projects. During the legislative debates, racist intents were obvious. Rep. John Cochran, D-Mo., said he had “received numerous complaints in recent months about Southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South.” Rep. Miles Allgood, D-Ala., complained: “That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country.” Rep. William Upshaw, D Ga., complained of the “superabundance or large aggregation of Negro labor.”

During South Africa’s apartheid era, the secretary of its avowedly racist Building Workers’ Union, Gert Beetge, said, “There is no job reservation left in the building industry, and in the circumstances, I support the rate for the job (minimum wage) as the second-best way of protecting our white artisans.” The South African Economic and Wage Commission of 1925 reported that “while definite exclusion of the Natives from the more remunerative fields of employment by law has not been urged upon us, the same result would follow a certain use of the powers of the Wage Board under the Wage Act of 1925, or of other wage-fixing legislation. The method would be to fix a minimum rate for an occupation or craft so high that no Native would be likely to be employed.”

It is incompetence or dishonesty for my fellow economists to deny these two effects of minimum wages: discrimination against employment of low-skilled labor and the lowering of the cost of racial discrimination.

There were no executive orders

There were no executive orders

Gregory Korte USA TODAY

The actions contained no executive orders, the best known and most formal exercise of unilateral presidential authority — only a presidential memorandum asking federal agencies to study smart gun technology. He proposed only one new regulation, a Social Security Administration rule that would allow it to share lists of people on disability with the national background check system. And the centerpiece of the initiative was the issuing of a guidance document on which gun sales require a Federal Firearms License — and therefore subject to a criminal background check. That document mostly restates existing case law and breaks no new legal ground.

For all the predictions of executive orders exceeding the president’s authority, Obama’s actions generally colored within the lines.

“There is nothing here that anyone could say in good faith even pushes at the boundaries of executive authority,” said Chelsea Parsons, the vice president of gun policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy group. She sees the actions as part of an incremental approach that Obama or future presidents can build on.

Republicans were underwhelmed. “Ultimately, this executive ‘guidance’ is only a weak gesture — a shell of what the president actually wants,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.

Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin promised “vigilant oversight” but said Obama’s actions were ultimately a “distraction.”

Real Reason for Gun Control

Real Reason for Gun Control

By Daily Bell Staff

Obama wipes away tears as he calls for new gun measures ... The president gets emotional as he remembers Sandy Hook victims and fiercely calls for more rights for those vulnerable to gun violence. – Politico

Dominant Social Theme: Once we get guns out of the hands of the people we can worry about knives ... and fists.

Free-Market Analysis: The story is all over the news. More gun control. This time, Barack Obama is initiating it via executive orders.

Let's examine reasons this argument in the US over gun control is continually evolving amidst a good deal of vitriol and media noise. Then let's suggests some other reasons why this may be taking place.

One of the most controversial measures is Obama's idea that the act of selling even a single gun effectively makes you a gun dealer and subject to federal registration.

We're not quite sure the executive office can promulgate directives for individuals. Surely there are questions about all of it, beginning with the following statement:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Here is Merriam Webster's definition of "infringe."

To wrongly limit or restrict (something, such as another person's rights)

In 2008 the Supreme Court declared that the right to carry a gun was a personal right. (One wonders what took them so long given that literature surrounding the development of the Second Amendment is apparently fairly clear.)

But the Court also said the following: "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited." In other words, the government could impose "reasonable regulation."

A normal person looking at the Second Amendment would probably conclude that it means what is says – that government cannot stop people from buying, selling, owning and using weapons.

But in introducing the caveat "reasonable regulation," the Court probably left the argument as muddy as before.

And Obama, late in his second term, is not one to miss an opportunity. Here's more from the Politico article:

President Barack Obama wept openly Tuesday as he delivered a forceful defense of new executive actions on gun violence, a set of modest proposals to tighten loopholes that likely face quick legal challenges and could be vulnerable to reversal by a Republican White House. The president ran through a list of mass shootings that have happened during his time in office, and teared up as he recalled the schoolchildren gunned down in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

... Obama brushed off criticism that he did not respect the Second Amendment, citing his past as a constitutional law professor. "No matter how many times people try to twist my words around, I taught constitutional law, I know a little bit about this. I get it," he said. "But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment."

How is "reasonable regulation" consistent with "rights shall not be infringed." Regulation ALWAYS infringes on rights. Here is the definition of "regulation" from Merriam Webster:

An official rule or law that says how something should be done.

One finally realizes that "laws" and "regulations" are merely talking points until powerful social facilities mandate them. And in realizing this, one must accept that these facilities are "right" because they are powerful. In other words, though it is somehow fashionable to maintain that Western nation-states are "societies of laws," the question that lingers is "who provides them with power?"

Other questions that are being increasingly raised in the 21st century include those that have to do with the legitimacy of the Constitution itself: Why is it, for instance, that untold hundreds of millions are bound to the legalisms of a 250-year-old piece of parchment?

The larger argument in modern times has become so debased that we no longer discuss whether rights should be restricted in advance of criminal actions. In other words, if one does something wrong, one ought to be punished, presumably, by the innocent parties themselves or by the larger community on which the deed has had an impact.

But gun control, like so many other matters, has devolved into an argument over who MIGHT use a gun in malicious ways. As it is impossible to determine who MIGHT do something in advance of the occurrences, the issue is bound to remain contentious like so many others.

One could argue, and increasingly in this Internet era people are, that Western jurisprudence long ago took a wrong turn. The legal and legislative system would be a good deal simpler and more effective if it restricted itself to actions actually taken.

There are many moral and constitutional arguments that militate against gun grabbing. But the argument, as we have seen, involves power (who has it and who can wield it) as much as it involves logic, or even more so.

One can even argue that those behind the constitutional facilities of the US government are happy to see the argument continually raised and even expanded.

At the end of the Politico article there are some very lucid feedbacks that point out Obama's executive orders are both mild and easily reversible given that they are executive, not legislative ones.

Even the Politico article itself acknowledges that, stating, "Likewise, the actions rolled out on Tuesday are not expected to have a huge impact."

The National Rifle Association and others reacted to Obama's announcement by claiming that he was acting to deflect attention from the administration's lack of success in creating a cogent national plan to defeat "terror" domestically as well as abroad.

In fact, the article informs us that the NRA is running ads nationwide that warn of "a government that would disarm us during the age of terror."

And yet another cogent Politico feedback contains the following insight:

There are over 300 million handguns in the hands of the population already, does he think this will make a difference? All it will do is to explode sales once again, as every time he opens his mouth about guns, millions more are sold and so is ammunition. He has become the greates weapons salesman in the USA. [sic]

The language used in the Second Amendment seems fairly clear (but then again, we're not lawyers). Obviously, there are groups that want gun grabbing to continue and to expand regardless of the language of the US founding document.

Additionally, Obama's announcement seems fairly mild when it comes to gun grabbing. And unless this administration or another is prepared to CONFISCATE guns, the reason to put forward more gun control legislation seems dubious at best. There are plenty of guns around.

One can venture to propose, therefore, that the real reason for US gun control is to keep the proverbial "pot boiling." With so many legitimate issues to deal with and discuss, the national conversation has once more degenerated into a vicious, futile argument over who is going to remove what from whom.

Conclusion: 

Beware, the dysfunction of the US legislative system is getting worse. An even more controversial observation: It often seems as if it is planned that way.

OUR RIGHTS YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

OUR RIGHTS YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

BYRON MCCAULEY @byronmccauley

Eight days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, half of all Americans tuned into an hour long radio broadcast to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.

I’m glad I heeded the advice of a wise friend who encouraged me to listen to it the other day, as we reflected on the 21st century political and social climate. I hope you will do the same.

“We Hold These Truths” was a theatrical production featuring some of the day’s most notable entertainers, including Jimmy Stewart, Orson Welles and Rudy Vallee, and it was broadcast on every major radio network. Writer Norman Corwin won a Peabody Award for the work. He was on a train to California when he heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor and wired President Franklin Roosevelt to ask if the show was still on. Reports said Corwin received a wire the next day: “The President thinks it’s more important now than ever to proceed with the program.”

Imagine that. An ironic confluence of events: America being officially drawn into World War II to fight against world tyranny, and the celebration of amendments to codify personal rights and freedoms. No wonder 63 million people tuned in that day.  Surely Americans, horrified and uncertain about the future needed reassurance that our Democracy remained strong. They needed to hear familiar voices in real time in the roles of representatives making their cases to cement liberty and freedom for future generations in all their diversity. They needed to know that their America stood for liberty and freedom.

Today, on the cusp of 225 years after those first 10 amendments were ratified, it is useful to be reminded of the power of the Bill of Rights, why the amendments exist and whom they protect – even as personal and religious freedoms appear threatened by those running for the nation’s highest office.

There are other, pressing social issues that have some people wondering whether the application of the Bill of Rights is fair in this modern-day world. These issues have become personified in street protests over law enforcement actions against citizens, angst over labor protection and government overreach.

Technology has made the world much smaller today than it was in 1941. Messages can travel fast and loud. And from where I sit, civility has been crowded by anger and obstinacy. Too many of us are too eager to demonize people over race, class and religion.

However, the ideals reflected in the Bill of Rights are among the reasons America remains a beacon on a hill.

More than 225 years ago, without benefit of a crystal ball, a group of men began to forge a document that cements liberty and freedom today. It shall endure.

You can listen to a YouTube version of “We Hold These Truths” at http://bit.ly/1UiFpBm

THE THREE BIG THREATS THE U.S. & THE WORLD MUST FACE

THE THREE BIG THREATS THE U.S. & THE WORLD MUST FACE

JOHN PEPPER

John Pepper is a former CEO and chairman of Procter & Gamble and also served as chairman of the Walt Disney Company.

Ian Kershaw’s magisterial new history of Europe from 1914-1949, To Hell and Back, reminds us that during the 40-year period from 1914 to 1945, Europe came close to self destruction in two world wars and an economic depression that cost over 50 million lives.

Yet, defying centuries of internecine warfare and history, Europe came together in the second half of the 20th century to form organizational constructs (NATO, ECM, etc.) that make the prospect of another war between the European nations inconceivable.Yes, tensions still exist: economically and socially. And will continue to. But the common interests were so clear and the bonds now so strong that war is not conceivable.

Today, in the early years of the 21st century, I believe our civilization faces a question not dissimilar to what was faced in the 20th century: “Will we allow civilization and the world as we know it and want it to be, to self-destruct?”

This may strike the reader as a needlessly draconian question. I do not think it is.

What are the risks to our civilization as we know it? I believe there are three.

One is the threat of fundamentalist driven terrorism seeking to expand its reach across borders and annihilate “non-believers” via a new caliphate.

The second is the threat of nuclear disaster. Let us not allow the half century which separates us from the first hand ravage of the hydrogen bomb to disguise the annihilation to civilization which will result from atomic warfare. To our knowledge, we are the only celestial body with life as we know it. The possibility of our ending it is in our hands.

The first and second threats are related for a doomsday scenario is having a nuclear device in the hands of terrorists.

The third threat, while less immediate is no less real: climate change which would cripple life as we know it on earth.

It is clear that confronting and curtailing these threats will require nations to work together as they have not before. Without trying to identify an exhaustive list, these nations must include the United States, Russia, China, Western Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia and India.

There are those who will object to Russia and China being included, attributing to these nations the intent to expand their geographic reach. The evidence that this is their intent is frail, defies what their leaders assert and what is in their own best interest.

Neither  China or Russia are driven today by a mission which seeks to convert other nations to a given ideology (unlike Germany under the Nazis or ISIS today). Neither have a need for more land. Like the United States and Western Europe, they are threatened by ISIS. Yes, their values, their economic and judicial systems will not be identical to ours. Corruption may exist at higher levels. And they will look for good relations with neighboring countries just as we in the United States always have with countries near our own.

But the commonalities of their interests – preserving peace and safety for their citizens, being treated with respect – will be far greater than the differences.

Just as world leaders following World War II had the wisdom to bring together organizational coalitions to normalize cooperation and the creation of stronger bonds so must the world leaders do that today.

With regard to Russia, we had the opportunity to create an organizational construct which would have bound its interests those of the West post glasnost and perestroika in the early 1990’s.

We missed that opportunity. We have the opportunity again, confronted by the greatest threats we have had since that of Nazi Germany in the 20th century.

Today’s leaders will be judged by how well they seize this opportunity. I believe the future of civilization as we know it depends on it.

Scalia points to how colleges are misleading blacks:The perversion of higher education

Scalia points to how colleges are misleading blacks

By Walter Williams

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ran headlong into the leftist meat grinder by questioning whether college admission of blacks with academic achievement levels significantly lower than the rest of the student body is beneficial to blacks. His question came up during oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, wherein the court will rule whether the use of race in college admission decisions violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection of the laws” to all citizens.

Justice Scalia’s questions generated news headlines such as “Justice Scalia Suggests Blacks Belong at ‘Slower’ Colleges,” “Scalia questions place of some black students in elite colleges” and “Scalia and the misguided ‘mismatch’ theory.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said, “It is deeply disturbing to hear a Supreme Court justice endorse racist ideas from the bench of the nation’s highest court.”

The issue for black parents is not whether their sons and daughters should be admitted to an elite college or one that is lower-ranked. The issue is whether their sons and daughters should be admitted to a college where they would not be admitted if they were white. The question for black parents and black people is: Which better serves our interests, a black student’s being admitted to an elite college and winding up in the bottom of his class or flunking out or a black student’s being admitted to a less prestigious college and performing just as well as his white peers? I would opt for a black student’s doing well and graduating from a less prestigious college. Think of it this way. Suppose you asked, “Williams, would you teach my son how to box?” I say yes, and after your son wins a few amateur matches, I set him up against an elite boxer like Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis.

Your son may have the potential to be a world-class boxer, but he is going to have his career ended before he learns how to bob and weave.

It’s the same with any student – black or white. Pupils are less likely to succeed if they are placed in a fast-paced academic environment where their academic achievement levels do not begin to match those of their peers. Such students would have a greater chance of success in a slower- paced, less competitive environment, one more in tune with their preparation and where they might receive more personal help.

My recommendation to black parents is: Do not enroll your children in a college where their SAT score is 200 or more points below the average of that college. Keep in mind that students are not qualified or unqualified in any absolute sense. The nation has more than 4,800 colleges, meaning there’s a college for most anybody.

There are beneficiaries from admitting black students with little chance of performing at the level of other students. They are college presidents, administrators and campus liberals. Whether blacks graduate or have been steered into useless “Mickey Mouse” courses is irrelevant. Government race overseers are only counting colors. College administrators win kudos for achieving and celebrating “diversity,” not to mention the fact that they can keep government higher-education handouts.

Another group of beneficiaries is composed of black staff and faculty who are hired and create campus fiefdoms with big budgets based on the presence of black students. The number of black students enrolled is the key, not the number who graduate or wind up in useless “Mickey Mouse” courses or in the bottom of their classes. In fact, there is an element of perversity. The greater the number of blacks who are on academic probation or do not graduate the more justified are calls for greater budgets for academic support and student retention programs.

I have been asked: If elite colleges do not create lower admission standards, how are they going to have enough black students? My response is: That’s their problem. Black people cannot afford to have our youngsters turned into failures in order to support the agendas of diversity race hustlers and to lessen the guilt of white liberals.

Black people cannot afford to have our youngsters turned into failures in order to support the agendas of diversity race hustlers and to lessen the guilt of white liberals.