Having lost both houses of Congress and the White House in two straight elections, Republicans are going through an identity crisis, its leaders holding town hall meetings to "listen" to the people.
"What should we focus on? Should we drop the social issues? How do we get the young people back?"
Such angst and soul-searching is not the mark of the leader, but the mark of a man suffering from doubt and despair.
Why is the party in trouble? Simple. Dubya got a hold of the keys, got high on neocon hooch, and crashed and rolled the family SUV.
He launched an unnecessary war against a country that had not attacked us. With his utopian No Child Left Behind scheme and his Medicare drug plan, he did his passable imitation of LBJ, and blew a hole in the budget.
Touting globalism, he presided over the loss of one in every four U.S. manufacturing jobs and ran up $5 trillion in trade deficits. He refused to defend the Mexican border against an invasion, then pushed an amnesty for the invaders.
This was no Reaganite. This was the neocons' apprentice.
How does the party reconnect with Middle America? How does it win back the Reagan Democrats who went home disgusted?
Become again the party of Frank Ricci.
And who is Frank Ricci?
He is a fireman in New Haven, Conn., with 11 years in the department, who suffers from dyslexia, but nonetheless has pursued his dream of becoming a lieutenant and a captain.
Six months before the promotion test, Ricci quit his second job. He bought $1,000 worth of the textbooks he was told to study, had a friend read them onto tapes to compensate for his dyslexia, studied every spare hour he got, and sat for the test, to compete for one of eight lieutenant slots open.
Frank made it. Frank Ricci came in sixth.
It was after the results of the test were made known that the problems arose. For, of the officers who had made the cut, all were white, except for one Latino.
Concluding the test results would, if used by the department, have an "adverse impact" on the black community, New Haven tossed out the results and called for new exams to ensure a "fair" outcome.
Thus, because he is a white man whose people came from Italy, Frank Ricci is to be denied a promotion he worked for and won, and be robbed of his American dream by the liberal bigots who run New Haven.
Had Frank Ricci and half of the other top performers been black, all would be on their way to becoming lieutenants and captains.
What is being done to Frank Ricci is exactly what was done to black folks for decades. Great black ballplayers who might have become legends like DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig never got the chance because they were black. Black students were denied admission to prep schools, colleges and military academies because of their color.
Now, what was done to them is being done to white folks. And it is just as wrong as it was then.
In 21st century America, race discrimination endures.
All we have done is switch the color of the victims with the color of the beneficiaries. Today it is white males applying for jobs and promotions as cops, firemen, government workers, who are held back because their color does not comport with the desired "diversity."
What New Haven has done to Frank Ricci is like the U.S. Olympic Committee throwing out all the trial heat results in the 100- and 200-meter races because not a single white runner qualified.
New Haven contends the "disparate impact" of the test hurts the black community, proving discrimination. But does the relative absence of blacks in the National Hockey League prove discrimination?
If the Republican Party wants a future, it will become again the party that stands on the principle that "No discrimination means no discrimination," that stands with the victims of state bigotry, and that stands up to hypocrites like the Jim Crow liberals of New Haven.
Affirmative action began as a mandate to cast a wider net and ensure all had an equal shot. It has become a mighty engine of state injustice that seeks to remedy the consequences of past racial sins and crimes, by committing new ones.
In Michigan, Washington and California, none of them red states, majorities have voted to abolish affirmative action. Only Colorado failed in a dead heat last fall. A Republican drive to write into federal law an end to all race and gender preferences, as well as to all race and gender discrimination, is a cause whose time has come.
Now I gotta agree with gillis, the time to keep recognizing "race" is over. Always answer either Other or African American when asked. Other because the only actual race is Human. African American because all Humans originated in Africa, so if you live in America you are ipso faco African American.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Now I gotta agree with gillis, the time to keep recognizing "race" is over. Always answer either Other or African American when asked. Other because the only actual race is Human. African American because all Humans originated in Africa, so if you live in America you are ipso faco African American.
Nonsense. If you are so devoid of character that you allow your prejudices to become slaves to your sensory input, then that's your problem. Denial of the realities of the sensory input isn't going to fix it.
Now I gotta agree with gillis, the time to keep recognizing "race" is over. Always answer either Other or African American when asked. Other because the only actual race is Human. African American because all Humans originated in Africa, so if you live in America you are ipso faco African American.
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sorry gus i think j2 has a valid point here
i usually refuse to allow the institutions to stereotype me or discriminate against me because of my tan
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affirmative action is racial preference and needs to be eliminated
gus needs to read up about the realities and unreality of race. If we were in fact, rather than in politics and prejudices separated into actual races, interbreeding would be damn near impossible. Case closed, poorly educated el-gus-bo. At this point in America recognizing races just perpetuates racism. Its as stupid as deciding that brown eyed people would perform more poorly as baseball pitchers or quarterbacks, because brown eyes signified less emotional control. Once believed, now known bullshit. How about hair colour? does that have any effect on intelligence? Either one eye or hair colour could have been called racial markers and people divided on that basis instead of skin.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
gus needs to read up about the realities and unreality of race. If we were in fact, rather than in politics and prejudices separated into actual races, interbreeding would be damn near impossible. Case closed, poorly educated el-gus-bo. At this point in America recognizing races just perpetuates racism. Its as stupid as deciding that brown eyed people would perform more poorly as baseball pitchers or quarterbacks, because brown eyes signified less emotional control. Once believed, now known bullshit. How about hair colour? does that have any effect on intelligence? Either one eye or hair colour could have been called racial markers and people divided on that basis instead of skin.
Nowhere in my comments did I mention making any judgements, or taking any actions based on race, moron. You are the typical knee-jerk jerk looking under every rock for a cause to justify yourself with. But if you are standing next to a black man, and see no differences between him, and yourself, you are a numbskull, and the black man will be the first to point that out for you. It's just another one of those reality things that you moonbats are forever shooting your own feet with.
1. gus you remain reading impaired as in another thread not very long ago I said that if all else were equal, a person with a darker skin than mine that person has overcome at least one more obstacle than I have.
Race is not a genetic reality, it is a social construct. As long as we officially recognize race it will not dwindle as the importance of hair and eye colour has dwindled. Hope I've dumbed down the explanation sufficiently for you.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Race is not a genetic reality, it is a social construct.
Really? So a black couple have a baby, and it could just as likely be Chinese?
As long as we officially recognize race it will not dwindle as the importance of hair and eye colour has dwindled. Hope I've dumbed down the explanation sufficiently for you.
And as long as we offically recognize gravity, our feet will undoubtedly thank us for it. Importance is in the eye of the beholder, sport. Some people *still* drop heavy objects on their feet. That *hardly* sanctions the practice as "official". And you've been dumbed down since your first post. No need to exert yourself additionally.
So if two dark haired people have a baby, it could have blond hair. what the hell was your point, sure families look more alike than not, but skills and inborn abilities will vary widely. I understand that many of your people are intelligent and educated. You on the other hand may have grey ear wax. (this is a genetic marker for a "race" you mentioned. For some credit which one and does it always occur with the other genetic markers.
Are red heads a race gus?
Different nationalities were once called races, was that accurate? why or why not? Is it still accurate? why or why not?
My thesis is this: Race is a fraudulent construct, actually useless when it comes to evaluating individuals or groups. As such its only use is in dividing people who should be united in a melting pot society. The sooner we drop skin colour as a marker of inclusion or exclusion in a group the better off we will be.
I was noticing and remarked to my mother (english, catholic background) a billboard that had both the Knights of Columbus and the AAD Temple shriners united in some charitable work or other, that once not that long ago neither group would have worked with the other as each would have thought the other foreign, possessed of weird ideas and possibly apostate or heretic.
Now it makes no difference to either group. They both do the same sort of good works.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." -- Thomas Jefferson
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
I believe that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
My thesis is this: Race is a fraudulent construct, actually useless when it comes to evaluating individuals or groups. As such its only use is in dividing people who should be united in a melting pot society. The sooner we drop skin colour as a marker of inclusion or exclusion in a group the better off we will be.
As long as you brought up grey ear wax, waaayyyy back at the beginning of this thread, I stated that *recognizing* racial differences had absolutely *nothing* to do with justifying "evaluating individuals or groups" on the basis of race. It's simply a matter of cognizant perception, general, and you have shown yourself to be a little light on it. For example, such an awareness will prevent you from ordering enchaladas at a restaurant in Chinatown. Racism is a function of stupidity *not* race! You people deny enough reality already...
