What’s interesting in the news today?
The President’s proposed budget is taking heat from the left.
From TheHill
“Progressive groups and lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are blasting the Obama administration for cuts to Social Security and other programs expected to be unveiled in the president’s budget next week.
One progressive group, Democracy for America, is threatening primary challenges to those Democrats who support the cuts.”
““The Senate just last month went on record in opposition to the president’s approach. In poll after poll, the American people are overwhelmingly against cutting Social Security. And organizations representing a broad spectrum of millions of Americans from the AFL-CIO to the American Legion to AARP to NOW have urged the president not to make this terrible mistake,” Sanders said in a statement.”
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The White House is fighting a subpoena from the Catholic Church on the birth control issue.
From Reuters
“The Obama administration has gone to court to try to block a subpoena from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York seeking White House documents about the government’s requirement of insurance coverage for birth control.
The subpoena requesting documents from President Barack Obama and his senior advisers would be burdensome to fulfill, the administration said in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Citing U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the suit also argues that civil subpoenas of the president’s executive office are inappropriate except in extraordinary circumstances.”
Not surprising. There’s a lot they don’t want seen.
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The new unemployment numbers are out. While the rate lowered, things are actually worse. More fuzzy math and disappeared workers.
From CNSNews
“A record 89,967,000 Americans were not in the labor force in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is an increase of 663,000 from the 89,304,000 Americans who were not in the labor force in February.
Since President Barack Obama was first inaugurated in January 2009, 9,460,000 people have dropped out of the labor force.”
Here’s some nice Tweets to put it in perspective for ya’.
James Pethokoukis@JimPethokoukis
10.98%: What the unemployment rate would be if labor force participation was the same as in January 2009
8.3%: What the unemployment rate would be if labor force participation was the same as in March 2012
Recovery? Anyone?
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Jake Tapper states the obvious.
From TheWashingtonTimes
“Mr. Tapper quoted the president as saying, “It is possible for us to create common sense gun safety measures that respect the traditions of gun ownership in the country, and hunters and sportsman, but also make sure that we don’t have 20 children in a classroom gunned down by a semi-automatic weapon — by a fully automatic weapon in that case.”
Mr. Tapper corrected Mr. Obama, pointing out that the weapons used in the Newtown, Conn., massacre were semi-automatic. He also reminded his audience about an interview on ABC’s “Nightline” just days after the shooting in which Mr. Bloomberg described the weapons used in the attack with characteristics only fully-automatic weapons possess.
“It might help the advocates of gun control if, in their advocacy for stricter measures, they seemed more familiar with what they are trying to ban,” Mr. Tapper said.”
They have no clue. Most don’t even seem to have a basic understanding of what they’re talking about.
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Trayvon Martin’s parents have settled a civil suit with the Homeowners Association.
From FoxNews
“Trayvon Martin’s parents have settled a wrongful death claim for an amount believed to be more than $1 million against a Florida homeowners association where their teen son was killed, Fox News confirms. ”
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This one I find personally insulting, as I’m sure will many other vets. This is what happens when liberals with agendas run the military. The Army claims it was an isolated incident. And where did this govt employee get this info on scary terror groups like us? Why the SPLC of course. Disgusting.
From FoxNews
“A U.S. Army training instructor listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of religious extremism along with Al Qaeda and Hamas during a briefing with an Army Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania, Fox News has learned.
We find this offensive to have Evangelical Christians and the Catholic Church to be listed among known terrorist groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. “It is dishonorable for any U.S. military entity to allow this type of wrongheaded characterization.”
The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism. Topping the list is Evangelical Christianity. Other organizations listed included Catholicism, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam.”
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And lastly this. I linked to something on this before, but then the judge issued a gag and the subject was dropped. Needless to say, prosecutors sought to keep this info from the record. And the public.
From HotAir
“In a revelation that may have Colorado voters rethinking their state’s push on gun control, court documents revealed that the mass shooting in Aurora that killed 12 and injured 70 more could have been prevented by law enforcement. The psychiatrist for suspect, James Holmes, had warned campus police that Holmes was dangerous and homicidal a month before the shooting took place. Lynne Fenton even told the police that Holmes had begun to stalk and threaten her, and yet no action was apparently taken:
Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist at the Denver campus, told police that Holmes had also “threatened and harassed her via email/text messages” in June 2012. He is standing trial for the July 20 shooting rampage that killed 12 and injured 70 during a midnight premiere of the latest Batman movie. …
Soon after the shooting, university police said they had not had any contact with Holmes, a graduate student doing neuroscience research. But a search warrant affidavit released Thursday revealed that an officer had told investigators that Fenton had contacted her to report “his danger to the public due to homicidal statements he had made.””
“The prosecution had tried to keep these records sealed, and it’s not difficult to see why. (They can be viewed at KUSA’s website, where they were posted last night.) The narrative from political and law-enforcement leaders in Colorado has been that this could have been anyone with a gun who just flipped out, and a society without gun control cannot hope to stop it. But Holmes didn’t just flip out shortly before the murder, and police had ample warning of the danger he presented.”
More gun laws wasn’t the solution to this. The police enforcing existing laws may have prevented it. There were plenty of laws broken that would warrant arrest. Yet he wasn’t even interviewed. Amazing.
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Wandering Views 
Interesting article on Christians and persecution:
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/344557
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Also, an interesting WSJ article on Singapore’s wise statesman, Lee Kuan Yew’s view of America, including
What threatens America? ”
“A political culture stuck in the shallows, and a mass-entertainment edifice that is destabilizing, destructive and injurious to the national character.” …
“The ideas of individual supremacy . . . when carried to excess, have not worked,” and the world has taken note: “Those who want a wholesome society where young girls and old ladies can walk in the streets at night, where the young are not preyed upon by drug peddlers, will not follow the American model. . . The top 3 to 5% of a society can handle this free-for-all, this clash [but] if you do this with the whole mass, you will have a mess. . . . To have, day to day, images of violence and raw sex on the picture tube, the whole society exposed to it, it will ruin a whole community.”
Is the United States in systemic decline?
“Absolutely not.” It is the most militarily powerful and economically dynamic nation in the world. America faces debt, deficit and “tremendously difficult economic times” but “for the next two to three decades” it “will remain the sole superpower.”
he article is at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324100904578402970077475626.html?mod=ITP_opinion_0
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Both articles were interesting. I noted that Yew said that if the US follows the ideological direction of Europe we are “done for”.
I am constantly being reminded that the US has (unintentionally) made things much worse for Christians in the Middle East. Our support for democracy and removal of old dictators has led to instability and widespread persecution of Christians from Egypt to Iraq to Syria and beyond.
Putin can argue that it is he who is the defender of Christianity. How ironic!
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/berger/2012/06/13/vladimir-putin-defender-of-the-faith/
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Ricky — a note to yesterday’s discussion. The US federal gov’t spends more money (gross, per capita and as a percentage) then any other nation on health care yet its the only country which does not cover all its citizens and is one of the lowest of the OECD countries in basic health care indicators. Its life expectancy and infant mortality rate are closer to Cuba than Canada, Australia, Japan or the EU. Basic comparative analysis should lead to the conclusion that the US, in health care at least, should follow the lead of the rest of the OECD and implement single payer or public option.
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Interesting articles on Christians in the middle east. Middle Eastern Christians, European Jews, and the Chinese in Indochina occupy similar places in different cultures. Due to their “differences” significant barriers are/were in place against these minorities and thus they were “directed” away from government and professional occupations and towards business and finance. And because of their connections outside of the country they often succeeded in these fields ie banking and trade. They then formed a significant slice of the upper middle class yet kept to themselves.
Democracy was a mixed blessing … it gave them new opportunities but also opened them to populist attacks from demagogic speakers. Thus, Jews were at the forefront of the French and Russian Revolutions yet suffered later once the regimes changed directions (Stalin’s revolution in one country and embrace of Russian nationalism) or were replaced by reactionary regimes (the Orlean/Bourbon dynasties and the Vichy collaborationist regime of WWII). In the middle east, Christians embrace the initial democracy of the newly independent states and their secular Arab nationalism. Thus Copts allied themselves with Nasser and Mubarak, the PLO leadership council had several Christians including Arafat’s wife, and the Baathist parties in Syria and Iraq were also supported by the Christian minority. As the Islamic parties are now fighting against the very real corruption of the once revolutionary secular Arab parties/regimes, the Christians find themselves facing the same populist threats Jews received in late 19the and early 20th century Europe. Although not as strong as an analogy, ethnic Chinese experience a similar history in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. In all three cases, populist parties are invoking religious and cultural claims in order to persecute minorities.
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the unemployment figures are similar here and in Europe and are reflective of a economic reaction to the policy of austerity practiced in Europe. Thus, Social Security cuts are probably the very last thing which should occur.
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HRW, Europe’s fundamental problem is excessive social-welfare spending that has made it necessary for austerity. Sweden and Germany reined back their social-welfare spending and are presently among the leaders in economic growth and employment. Spain, Italy, Cyprus, et al, will need to be fiscally austere in order to recover from their fiscal train wrecks.
The interesting point from Michelle’s link is that Christian minority groups, especially in the Middle East, are suffering far worse contemporary persecution than that of Ancient Rome. The West, having caved to secularism and multiculturalism, lacks the cojones to stand up to the anti Christian bullies. Western Christendom has become a rather week reed.
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HRW, I have never defended America’s current healthcare system. I liked our system until LBJ semi-socialized it in 1965. I actually believe our healthcare system really doesn’t have that much to do with life expectantcy. If you gave Japan Uganda’s healthcare system, the Japanese would still have a higher life expectancy than the US. My point last night was that a single payer system would give us a healthcare system much like our public school system. The rich would pay for their own good private system. The rich would also pay for everyone else’s mediocre public system.
Sails, I would agree that Western Christendom is a weak reed. However, I also believe the US has become a “stupid reed”. By promoting democracy in the Middle East, we have hurt our own interests and that of our ally Israel. We have also placed Middle Eastern Christians in grave danger.
HRW, I appreciate the analogies with European Jews and Asian Chinese. There is one unique element at work in the Middle East. Middle Eastern Muslims hate Israel and the US and associate all Christians with the US. By promoting democracy in places with no history of the rule of law or protection of minority rights, the US has made the Middle East uninhabitable for Christians.
I have come to believe that Russia would do a better job of protecting Middle Eastern Christians than the US. I do not trust Russian intentions, but its government is less stupid than ours and is currently more closely aligned with the church than ours.
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Sails — I’m sure you are aware that the social democratic countries of northwest Europe (Scandinavia, Germany and the Neth.) emerged from the 2008 recession quicker than anyone else and currently have most stable performing economies. The social welfare system is the very reason they did better than the PIIGS and the US.
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Ricky — I think its a little late to put the genie in the bottle and time travel to the 1950s. And I’m quite certain that the health care system like the public school system isn’t nearly as good as nostalgia remembers it. Compare life expectancy/infant mortality and high school grade rates than and now and you get my point.
True, single payer may result in a public-private parallel system similar to education but American public education isn’t nearly as bad as its detractors would like to think. Its an acceptable scenario. I don’t think you really want to end public education. Even from a basic safety perspective: Do you really want the kids I teach free to roam the streets and malls all day and all nigh? Most parents will be too busy working to take over the role of public education.
In continuing your education – health care analogy; the American state land grant university has created some of the best universities in the world comparable to the Ivy League. I have no doubt that with the right funding and mindset, America could do the same in health care.
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I was a little confused by the articles — was the persecution exaggerated in the Age of Martyrs? Surely the church didn’t lie just to promote themselves and their theology.
Today’s persecution appears to be the result of scapegoating, populist rhetoric and backlash. There doesn’t seem to be a systemic approach at this time.
Perhaps Christian groups are exaggerating at this time to increase political support. When Christians are thrown to the lions on state run television then it might be compared to the Roman era. Or was the Christian church lying about the lions?
Isreal does throw a wrench in any attempts of Western Christiandom to intervene or protest treatment of eastern Christians. Perhaps its time to rethink support evangelical support of the Isreali gov’t if its done at the expense of Arab Christians. Its rather interesting to see support for Arab Christians at this time yet very few Americans supported the secular PLO despite its inclusion of Arab Christians in its leadership. Support of Isreal and its policies comes at the expense of Palestinian Christians.
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As someone who deals with many high school students and other young people on a regular basis, I can tell you the US public education system is bad, even worse than it was when I went to school. We sent our son to both public and private schools. His private school spent 50% less per student than his public school and delivered a far superior product. A voucher program would at least simulate the free market.
LBJ and later Democrats ruined our healthcare system. It’s like Russia under communism. Too many people depend (for their living and their healthcare) on this terribly inefficient and wasteful system. The future will be as I predicted earlier.
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Ricky, I don’t view America generally as a stupid reed. Of course any great nation at times make serious errors in foreign and domestic policy. I agree with Lee Kuan Yew that America remains a great nation, far from being in systemic decline.
Russia is a third-rate nation with abysmally corrupt leadership. Chile and Poland are at best second-rate nations. HRW’s Canada is among the better of the second-rate nations. You live in a great nation and state, for all their faults. America is indeed by far the most militarily and economically superior nation in the world. In terms of religion, we are the most Christian nation in the West with a solid core of devout Christians who over time- though not in our time- will manage to defeat the secular forces.
The trouble is that deep down all too many Americans have been influenced by the anti-American and anti-Christian views of the secular left. Don’t give up the American ship.
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I disagree with you. The American high schools are good (not the best but not the worst in the OECD). PISA international test place the US only behind western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia,NZ and Canada. But even more interestingly if you chunk the American high schools by poverty rates and then compare these sections to countries with equivalent poverty rates they match up quite well. It appears child poverty is the culprit behind the US performance. (Scroll past the test ranks to see the poverty rankings)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#2009
Also of note, New England states generally have the best educational ranking thus you might suffer from selection by geography.
Private schools generally cost more than public with exception of religious based schools who generally pay less and have better volunteer support.
LBJ screwed up when he didn’t make the system universal right away. He should’ve gone all in when it was more feasible. This would’ve eliminated waste and inefficiencies in the system before it even started.
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Sails, I agree with you that Poland and Chile will always be small countries. I like them because I see them as a place of refuge for Americans who do not want their children to grow up in Sodom.
I agree that the US retains some economic dynamism despite the best efforts of Democrats. However, we are raising a generation who have a very poor work ethic.
I agree we have a solid core of devout Christians, but it is an aging core. I see the younger generation rejecting Christian morality and the faith. The explosion of homosexuality and its acceptance by young people tells me we are on the verge of a complete moral collapse as described in Romans 1.
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Just occurred to me — an other error was to connect health care coverage to employment. Far better to skip the employer middlemen. Interestingly most ex-communist countries connected health care to the employer not the government.
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HRW, Educational test results are can generally be predicted by looking at the race and ethnicity of the students. Hence, the New England results.
The primary cause of waste in the healthcare system is that for the poor and the elderly healthcare is basically free. There is no price to be paid for unnecessary surgeries, unneeded medicine, etc. People could always find a doc to do the unnecessary surgery if the government was paying the bill. If LBJ had completely socialized the system in 1965, it just would have gone broke earlier.
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Ricky, it is a question of qualitative national greatness, not small or large populations. As Lew Kuan Yew remarks, America remains a very great nation; this, notwithstanding the rabid anti-American Left and the hand-wringing isolationist Right.
As to Christianity, I judge mainly by the influence and quality of such young Christian theologians as George Weigel, David Bentley Hart, and Michael Horton, not by the devout gray-haired folk sitting in the pews. Truth to tell, as GK Chesterton remarked, serious Christianity has never been practiced historically by large numbers of people. Christianity at its core will always remain intensely vital among its serious adherents. The young and older people today caught up in selfish egoism,hedonism, and moralism are merely as chaff in the breeze. The best book on the whole subject is Chesterton’s Everlasting Man..
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Wow, ricky you actually said that. My best kids are immigrant kids, next is middle class whites and at the bottom are the poor from any background. Poverty is more influential than any other category.
Health care is unnecessary??
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hwesseli,
I taught in a much lower economic area than you do. My conclusions about poverty and education are much different than yours. I think the same actions and ways of living result in both poverty and poor education. Poverty and low educational outcomes are results not causes.
When people start thinking of poverty as being under their own control, they will not have to be poor. When people start thinking of education …
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Actually we’re not far apart …. its a vicious circle. People lose control when they are poor and they are poor because they lose control. However, ethnicity and race have nothing to do with either.
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Robert Buckles, at 11:09, well said.
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HRW, Read The Bell Curve.
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HRW, This book is also interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Bell_Curve
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Been there done that and not impressed, ricky
a brief over view of why is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Criticisms
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Here’s my review of “Coming Apart”, a more recent book from the same author.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12031563-coming-apart
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This could be interesting story as it develops
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/03/offshore-data-leak.html?autoplay=true
A massive data leak on off-shore accounts world wide. Politicians, bankers, arms and drug dealers, CEOs, etc all together hiding money from the taxman.
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Both The Bell Curve and Coming Apart are dense books. Reading them is like taking a course in statistics. I have come across a number of liberals who hate the conclusions set forth in both books. I have never seen anyone analyze the data and reach substantially different conclusions.
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Racial differences do not equal racial superiority. Just because a person belongs to a group that is (on the average) bigger, faster, smarter or can jump higher than another group doesn’t mean he is superior. It doesn’t even mean that he (individually) is bigger, faster smarter or can jump higher than an individual of another group. However, to deny there are significant differences between racial groups is a farce. Any high school athlete who has competed in a mixed-race environment knows better.
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hwesseli,
I met and know to many Blacks and Latinos who do not fit the poor means bad education mold to accept that “Plantation.”
One of my grandfathers was a coal miner, the other was a “stickerer.” (Since I am unable to find the definition of stickerer on the internet, here it is. A person who stacks wood at a saw mill to allow it to dry. He puts a stick between each piece of lumber to allow air to get to it so it can dry straight and true.)
Both my parents graduated college, UCLA and UCI. I graduated Long Beach State, as did my wife.
Neither of us grew up rich, just average.
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HRW, Why is it okay to compare school performance by geography but not on race? Down here school performance is definitely based on geography. Sometimes as little as a few miles makes a big difference. Hint: get beyond the city limits, especially a city run by democrats. .
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Ricky — Coming Apart is not that dense. In fact its badly written among other things. Statistically it has issues especially in its use of graphs — distortions a good grade seven student can pick up. Read my review. I read books counter to my own ideas but very few have left me as annoyed as this one for its ineptness and near-blindness to anything but a preordained conclusion.
One of the fundamental errors of Bell Curve is the use of IQ tests especially considering IQ as immutable (unchanging). IQ scores have consistently gone up in the last 100 years in all races, ethnicity, and socioeconomic groups. Its highly unlikely this is from genetics (evolution and natural selection don’t work that fast) and thus the increase must come from elsewhere — public education, improve test taking and coaching, nutrition, improved early education and exposure etc. Thus IQ tests and along with the thing it tests, intelligence, is not racially or genetic determined. From this, no matter what array of stats he can array, the book is fundamentally flawed.
Not sure how you came to the idea that no one has challenged the Bell Curve for more than its conclusions. Whole books have been written including the Bell Curve Debate which is excerpted/summarized in this link
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/bellcurve.shtml
The following Slate article provides a good overview of the criticism in ordinary language
http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/1997/01/the_bell_curve_flattened.single.html
Both discuss my IQ immutability argument in more detail.
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Also, as the mother of a part black child, I’d like to know why blacks test below average. Perhaps if we knew why we could do something abut it, but as long as the very fact that they do is taboo and we have to pretend that it doesn’t happen we’ll never know.
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Robert — my parents didn’t finish grade school. After WWII, they both benefited from the new socialist Dutch gov’ts free education and graduated from agricultural and nursing college. Yes they succeeded in Canada and were better off than their parents (my grandparents were farm laborers without land) but they succeeded from gov’t help and their own desire. When I went to university my friends came from a diverse background — working class to trust funds — some succeeded because of their background and others succeeded in spite of their background. Those in the latter succeeded both because of their attitude and gov’t assistance. More of the latter also failed than those in the former group.
I had a friend with a trust fund who essentially did university twice, went to law school in England, and then needed three tries to finish the law exam. He now runs his father’s practice.
Yes hard work and intelligence is important but so is your dad’s money.
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kbells — if we go by IQ scores and correlate IQ by state, the vast majority of higher IQ states are in the north. Or we could go by electoral results and see that majority of Democratic states have higher IQs (California being a major exemption). Personally I think IQ scores do little more than point out better education, nutrition, and other variable not a genetic propensity as the Bell Curve claims. Some have even claimed you can correlate IQ scores to presence of lead paint and/or cold weather.
As for education achievement and results, data I’ve come across on the US suggests inner city blacks and poor rural whites both have poor scores.
As for why blacks have lower scores, I’m sure you would agree its not because they’re black rather its one of many variables that I’ve listed in prior posts. Noting blacks do poorly is not taboo in fact its almost always stated in the literature. Saying its because they are black is what is taboo (and wrong)
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HRW, if you look closer at those red states you will see the scores drop in the blue areas.
Also if you look at IQ”s by race and by state you will see with a couple of exceptions, (West Virgina and Massachusetts) there is only about a 4 or 5 point difference in all the states.
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The authors of The Bell Curve never argued that IQ was determined solely by genetics. They recognized that environment was a factor.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/10/24/defending-the-bell-curve-pbtbhere-is/
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Below is another article about The Bell Curve and the hysterical liberal response it produced.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/you-have-to-tell-the-truth-the-bell-curve-after-ten-years
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kbells you’re going to have to give me a link. most sites I perused went state by state not by county. SAT scores, post secondary accomplishments etc do roughly correlate by voting patterns, geography etc.
I don’t think IQ scores indicate much … I discussed it mainly because I wanted to see Ricky’s reaction. The Bell Curve is based on IQ scores and ranks Asians then whites and blacks on the bottom. I wonder how he would respond in that OK scored an average of 90 on IQ tests. Are Oklahomans not as smart as New Englanders? Using the Murray method of the Bell Curve, he would have to conclude yes. I would argue not — far too many variables to make a viable conclusion. Interestingly when you evaluate black IQs separately by state, its the same states the do poorly as when you evaluate white IQs separately by state. Again colour is not an issue. The issue has nothing to do with genetics — you would have better success if you correlate by the presence of lead paint and/or cold weather than by race.
Personally, I think academic success has to do with early education experience, parent achievement, elementary experience, etc. Freakonomics once suggested one could predict success by the number of books in a house — sheer correlation but more accurate than race or voting patterns for that matter,..
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HRW, Your argument and those you cited are against a straw man. The authors of The Bell Curve never said IQ was immutable. The Bell Curve proves it is not. The book also established that there is a genetic element in IQ. Why should we be surprised. Going back to my point from earlier today, do you seriously believe there is not a genetic element in a sprinter’s speed?
This is one of the things that are taboo as KBells said. It is taboo to be honest with youth about drugs vs. alcohol. It is taboo to question what factors lead one to engage in homosexual behavior. It is taboo to discuss racial differences, even in athletics.
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Interesting the Vdare link admits most conservatives no longer discuss IQ and race correlations. The author asserts they may be scared but perhaps they realize Murray was wrong and the criticism had some validity.
Yes, environment was cited in the Bell Curve and Coming Apart but Murray’s central premise is there has been a cognitive sort and an meritocratic elite formed via the educational opportunities allowed in the 50s and 60s. (he never investigates why the opportunities existed). Once this cognitive sort occurred, the result is genetic.
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HRW, when people bring up state by state stats they are almost always trying to prove the inferiority of the red states. But when it is pointed out that blue leaning groups are affecting the numbers in those states they are suddenly off limits. Don’t bring up state by state stats if you don’t want to see race by race stats.
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The Bell Curve clearly explains why Oklahomans scored lower than New Englanders. Part of the gap was due to environmental factors including those you noted. Part of the gap was genetic.
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KBells, My son, like yours, is from a mixed heritage. Neither of his parents is from either of the highest scoring groups. I have always believed that the hysterical response to books like The Bell Curve actually increases hostility toward minorities.
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I’m starting to hate my laptop — it wiped out my reply three times.
The world’s best sprinters are mixed race Jamaicans. Their best athletes are directed and motivated to become sprinters over any other sport. In mixed race Dominican Republic, more baseball players per capita are created and very few sprinters. Athletes are encouraged by their sporting culture to choose one sport over an other. In Canada, arguments were frequently made on why blacks couldn’t play hockey. When more blacks began to live in small town Canada, they began to play hockey as good as their white neighbours. Small town Canada encouraged them to become hockey players and not sprinters or baseball players.
Taboos exist due to religion, culture and political ideology and they affect how we discuss race, sex and drugs. I would like to think I’m beyond taboos — other than the need to be polite, I’m pretty much open to any discussion — an openness which leaves me frustrated by some on the left as well as the right both of whom have taboos they won’t admit to .
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HRW, You missed the point of Coming Apart. Coming Apart has nothing to do with genetics. It is a study that notes that until recently religious participation, work ethic, marriage participation and obedience of the law was relatively constant from the lower class to the upper class. In fact, the poor and middle class used to go to church more than the rich. Recently, there has arisen a great divergence between the behavior (in those four areas) of the upper half of the population and the lower half. The strength of the book is pointing out that fact which had gone unreported.
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kbells — if you can point me to the right sites, I would like to see them. My impression is the inner city and rural poverty are the biggest influence on results. Any state with a disproportionate number of either will have low scores. Admittedly, the IQ state maps were created to show intellectual superiority of blue states. That’s a simplistic correlation. In reality, lower IQ scores are more about less preparation, teaching styles, parental care and concern etc. State results even indicate it might have something to do with cold weather. Danial Moniyah once suggested that parents wanting their kids to perform well on standardized tests should move close to Canadian border.
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HRW, I recently went to see a high school basketball game. One team had 12 white players (evenly spread between 5’8″ and 6’5″. The other had 13 black players (evenly spread between 5’7″ and 6’4″). Two white players could dunk. Every black player could dunk.
Every finalist in the 100 meters in the last several Olympics has been black. Some were from Jamaica, some were from the US, some were from Europe and some were from Africa. All were black. Fourteen year old kids can figure this out.
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So OK did poorly partly because of genetics ….. but OK is fairly uniform in terms of genetic material. So they’re scores were uniformly poor??
Ricky — I read Coming Apart. I know unlike the Bell Curve its not about genetics or even IQ tests. Here’s my review as found on http://www.goodreads.com
“So where to begin….I was well aware I would not like this book when I decided to read it but I was still surprised how annoying I would find it.
Murray correctly identifies a problem; the decline of the working class but everything after that identification is simply wrong.
He identifies the rise and benefits of the cognitive class occurring when post-secondary first became widely available in the 60s but then in a later discussion he dismisses a return to the 60s tax structure as a solution. However, its the 60s tax structure which enabled post secondary education to become widely available and if cognition or brain power is to be celebrated cheap post secondary education needs to be widely available.
His statistical picture of the upper class and working class suffers from the absence of the middle class. Furthermore his graphs commit grade seven errors of bias by deliberating choosing y values which will exaggerate the change and difference of information.
He waxes nostalgically for the virtues of the founding fathers; nevermind his only evidence is some travel literature written by Europeans. Its pretty easy to claim hard work or industry when slaves do it for you. Similarly, religiosity in America is probably higher now than in revolutionary America and definitely during the 1890s – 1920s.
Much of what he describes as a decline in virtues (honesty, marriage, religion, industry) more accurately correlates to the decline of the working class not the cause of decline. In fact the economic decline may have cause the decline in virtues ie he has it in reverse. In all of this he fails to seriously discuss the decline of manufacturing and its role or even mention the role of the war on drugs in increasing the incarceration rate.
His entire virtues argument suffers when compared to the success of the European welfare state which he admits has done a good job but he like all conservatives for the last 50 years predicts it will decline soon.
In the conclusion, he rambles somewhat philosophically about the nature and needs of society and individuals. He critizes the Euro welfare state for preventing self-actualization through work (seriously thats the best he could do). He presents different scenario but doesn’t’ say anything of relevance and to be truthful I was too annoyed to take the last 20 pages seriously.
Ricky — I think my review hits upon what I think of his virtues theory
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IQ is not like golf skills or baseball skills. IQ is about raw ability. It is like sprinting speed and jumping ability.
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Oklahoma is not uniform. It has more blacks, more Indians and more Hispanics than New England. It also has fewer Jews, and I suspect fewer Asians than New England. That is the genetic element.
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ricky — my students make the same conclusions based on race. Its not always the correct one.
Perhaps the black players lived in neighbourhoods where basketball ability was valued higher especially with girls, where the ability to dunk increased one’s status and thus created the incentive to invest practice time. Again, just because the top 10 sprinters are black doesn’t mean blacks are better sprinters only that they came from communities where its valued higher — selection bias has a role here. In terms of female sprinters, there’s (white) Europeans among the mixed race women from the US, UK and France. Are white women more competitive against black women than males. No, selection bias, women athletics are more important in Eastern and Northern Europe. (Its for the same reason why Canadian women dominate the winter Olympics — many European countries are sexist when it comes to certain winter sports)
An other Cdn example. Canadians rarely play tennis yet we just made it to the Davis Cup semi-final. Children of Yugoslavian immigrants are responsible — they directed their kids into tennis not hockey. Selection bias again.
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HRW, I understand that you are nostalgic for a time when high marginal tax rates, the GI Bill and other subsidies, and labor unions made strong by the post-war US competitive advantage over all nations helped create an enormous middle class. I share a little of this nostalgia. I agree that for various reasons the middle class has been reduced in size. However, my family and my wife’s family had strong values when they were poor. The economic decline of a part (a big chunk of them went up) of the Middle Class does not explain their moral decline or the moral decline of the poor.
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Final comment as it is bed time: On a light note, as the father of a tan (part white/part brown) basketball player who played with players of all races, I can assure you that no one wanted to dunk more than the white boys. But as the movie said: White Boys Can’t Jump.
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In terms of African Americans per capita OK is between Conn. and Mass,
In terms of Hispanics per capita OK is lower than Mass, Conn. and RI
In terms of Asians, there are more in OK than in Vermont, NH, Maine,and RI. Mass and Conn are only slightly ahead.
Race and genetics has nothing to do with OK’s scores. When comparing white to white OK scored 44th with an average of 99.3; RI and Maine were at 40 and 38th but Mass was at 2nd with 103.4
http://anepigone.blogspot.ca/2006/11/white-iq-estimates-by-state.html
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I can’t resist. Tennis, hockey, golf, baseball tell us nothing. Those are learned skills. The 100 meter dash and one’s vertical jump is all about God-given ability. I have seen a black youth who was 6’3″ and 300 pounds dunk a basketball. That is genetics.
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What about blacks and Hispanics in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine? What about Jews? What about the Indian population of Oklahoma which is huge and is not fully reflected in reports. Virtually all Oklahomans are part Indian. Remember Elizabeth Warren! I enjoyed the discussion.
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So, is the “Finish High School, go to college, get a job, get married, don’t have kids before this, stay married, don’t live on your credit cards and you will do well economically.” just a platitude or is it true? Is it race or IQ dependent or a life-style choice? Does it require well-to-do parents or can anyone do it? Are some people just born to this or is it with in anyone’s reach?
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Bob, If you do those things you will almost certainly not live in poverty.
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HRW
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2006/11/white-iq-estimates-by-state.html
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HRW, there is not really a lot of difference between 99.3 and 103.4. The ranking means hardly nothing. Also, smart people go where the opportunities are. Some of the really smart people bringing up the Massachusetts score could have originally come from Oklahoma.
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KBells, Your chart is interesting and your argument is spot on. The elite educational institutions in Massachusetts attract people from all states
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