Remote Learning By Ethnic Classification

The New York Times reports that: 

In March, half of Black and Hispanic children, and two-thirds of Asian-American children, were enrolled in remote school, compared with 20 percent of white students, according to the latest federal data.

There are numerous factors behind this.  Among them are: 

• The Black and Hispanic populations are often large in major cities and such cities due to Democrat Party control and high density populations have been more likely to have schools closed or to require greater social distancing.  The increased social distancing necessitates having fewer students in school classrooms.
• Black, Hispanic, and Asian American parents appear to be more fearful of the Covid-19 disease.  They do have higher morbidity rates.
• Black and Hispanic households tend to have lower incomes than white families do.  This encourages their older children to take on jobs to help their families out, since they are out of school anyway.  In other cases, the older children are impressed into babysitting duties for younger children as the parent(s) work.
• Black and Hispanic parents are more likely to have lost jobs or to have down-graded jobs due to business closures and reduced business operating hours during the pandemic.  This has put more pressure on older children to take on jobs to help support their families.
• When older children take on jobs to help support their families, it is harder to get them to graduate from high school.
• Fewer Black and Hispanic children have high-grade computer capabilities at home for remote learning purposes.  Their parents are less likely to be able to help them with computer issues.
• A child on remote learning has greater needs for parental educational support.
• Fewer Black and Hispanic children are in private schools.  A higher percentage are in government-run schools, which are run by a coalition of Democrat Socialist politicians and the socialist teachers unions.  Such government schools are more likely to be shutdown or operating in very reduced modes, thanks to fear of Covid-19.

Most American children have suffered horribly in their educations as a result of an inadequate primarily government-run education system in the first place.  The Covid-19 pandemic and the over-reaction to it has caused massive further harm to our children across the board.  We already had an education system in which our so-called Black and Hispanic children were operating at lower skill levels than our so-called White and Asian children.  The pandemic-induced harm has further exacerbated the differential lag of our Black and Hispanic children.

A substantial portion of the pandemic harm was the result of bad political and bad educational choices.  Fewer bad choices would have been made had the media, academia, and government health organizations encouraged, rather than discouraged, an honest and scientific discussion of Covid-19.  The suppression of that discussion suppressed the formation of non-vaccine weapons against the disease.  It fostered a suspicion among many that the Covid-19 government policies were often based on lies and cared little for their welfare.  Realizing this was the case, many developed unreasonable fears that their children were in much greater danger from Covid-19 than they were being told they were.  Even Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor believed that 100,000 American children had been made seriously ill by the disease.  What can we expect that many Black and Hispanic parents believed about the danger to their children?

Some of the short-comings of our mostly government-run school education system have been bared by the Covid-19 pandemic.  More Americans will address those short-comings by opting for more school choice, with tax money following children into private schools.  There has been an increase in home-schooling and that will remain a more popular option than it had been prior to the pandemic.  We have also been exposed to the naked lust for teacher union power pushing for excessive school closings, mask mandates, and excess distancing requirements.  We have seen how feckless Democrat politicians have been in counteracting the teachers unions excessive power, because those same Democrats are highly dependent upon teacher union support for their election to office.

I will write in the future about government employee unions and why they should be outlawed.  Until they are outlawed, they should at least not be allowed to participate in elections for political offices.

Identity Politics Social Justice Hypocrisy

Senator Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, in front of the Supreme Court spoke to pro-abortion protesters on Wednesday saying

"I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.  You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."

This is over the top in political discourse and his later claims that he only meant that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would pay the price that the Democratic Party would take over the Senate is a bucket blasted with two 12-gauge shotgun loads of 00 buckshot.  This event and Sen. Schumer's ridiculous later claims have been much discussed and I will not discuss it further here.

However, this kerfuffle led to some claims that President Trump was also guilty of threats to judges.  One such claim was based on his saying that Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg should recluse themselves from cases involving the Trump administration because of highly biased remarks they have made about Trump.  Stating judges should recluse themselves hardly sounds like releasing a whirlwind and a threat to make them pay the price of their decisions.

There were also references comparing Trump's statements to Schumer's to presidential candidate Trump's claim that a Mexican heritage judge should recluse himself from judging a case against Trump that involved Trump University.  Trump had implied that the judge, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, an Obama appointee, may have been biased.

Trump should not have said this at the time, at least not unless he had specific solid reason for claiming such bias.  However, Trump was adopting the identity politics of the Democratic Party.  The howls of outrage after the criticism of Schumer from those who hold with identity politics against Trump's assumption that an Obama appointee with a Mexican heritage might be biased against him are based on sheer hypocrisy.

Just think of all the times Democrats have claimed that those who do not think like other members of some identity group the Democrats have assigned them to are traitors to their identity group.  Justice Clarence Thomas is an outrage they claim because he does not think like and make decisions like a proper black man is supposed to.  Over and over they have claimed he is a traitor to his racial group.  The Democrats try very hard to put pressure on those shoved into some identity group of their formulation to all act and think alike.  To a surprising degree, they are often successful in getting this result.  Many blacks comply with this uniformity.  Many, though not quite so many, Latinos comply.  Many women also comply.

In fact, the Democratic Party is primarily based on the women's vote, with the Black, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, and LGBTQ identity group votes added in.  The Democratic Party as a whole also has a bias against that identity group they created for white males.  In fact, that bias against white males has been very evident in Sen. Elizabeth Warren's claim that she has been denied the Democratic Party nomination for the presidency because she is a woman.  Oops, but how can it be that the Democratic Party with its endorsement of group identity politics and a heavy majority of women supporters is biased against a woman presidential candidate?  Nonetheless, many of the media joined Warren in her claims that there was bias against her and in effect rebuking the women of the Democratic Party for not uniting behind her.  Those who did not are traitors.

So let us return to Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was appointed by Obama.  Now Obama certainly believed in identity politics.  Obama absolutely would not appoint a federal judge who would betray his ethnic heritage, at least not one the Democratic Party counts on to hold firm in its belief in the Democratic Party, thereby being true to its identity.  Presidential candidate Trump was to be judged by an Obama identity group appointee in a case even as the Obama administration is spying on his presidential campaign using FBI and CIA assets to do so in collaboration with the Democratic National Committee.  Is it so unreasonable that Trump might think this federal judge might be biased?

As I said earlier, Trump should not have raised the question without more supporting evidence of bias at the time.  But looking back with all we know about the many dirty tricks of the Obama administration in biasing the 2016 election results, in subverting the Department of Justice in doing so, given their strong assertion and dependence upon group identity politics, and in the way Obama appointed judges who have thwarted so many of the actions of the duly elected Trump administration ever since he took office, Trump would have been very justified in saying Judge Curiel might be biased had he then known all we know now.

This goes to show that if you support group identity politics, then there is no way that anyone assigned to a group identity that is supposed to oppose those assigned to other group identities can expect justice in our justice system.  If the judge is in an allied identity group to a defendant, the judge will be biased in favor of him.  If the judge is in an opposing identity group, he will be biased against the defendant.  Female judges will be biased against males, as male judges will be biased against females.  Latino judges will be biased against white males and white male judges will be biased against Latinos.  Black judges will be biased against white males.  Women, Black, and Latino judges will be biased in favor of more government and a living Constitution.  White males will want less government and the Rule of Law.  This is expected as a necessary outcome of a belief in identity politics.

Impartial, objective justice is impossible if you believe in group identities as determiners of the group members viewpoints and beliefs.  Any claim of justice is outrageous hypocrisy.  Perhaps worst of all, there is no possible way to even aim for justice in a system that acknowledges identity groups and their powerful effect upon how reality is seen.

This issue is far more important than Sen. Chuck Schumer's rantings and ravings.  His defense should have drawn our attention to the hell created by group identity politics and culture.  Far from the claim that the Democrats are using group identity politics to achieve more social justice, they are actually making the very concept of a justice system impossible.  The result is a choice between anarchy and totalitarianism.

Skin Color Identifications and the Washington Redskins

A federal judge has ruled that the Washington Redskins cannot be allowed trademark protections for the name Redskins because that name is offensive to some native Americans of ancient stock and apparently to many Socialist Elitists.  This ruling was not impeded by the fact that one of the states of the union, Oklahoma, has a name meaning Home of the Red People, which was given to it by native Americans.

It is somewhat offensive by means of the omission of far more essential and important characteristics whenever anyone is identified by the color of their skin.  Despite this, federal government forms, forms for government contractors, many forms for sub-contractors of government contractors, and many forms of local governments all require that individuals be identified as black, Hispanic, white, Asian, or some other descriptors of groups indicating ethnic ancestry.  The black and the white descriptors are clearly both based on some crude approximation of skin color, just as redskins is.  On these federal forms, Reds are allowed to check a box with the somewhat more dignified identifier of Native American.  Asians are not forced to check a box that says Slanty-Eyed or Yellows.

It is not any of the government's business what my skin color is.  No law and no government action should ever be conditioned on the color of anyone's skin or on their ancestry.  There should be a complete separation of state and skin color.

What is more, I am not white.  I am too healthy to be white and I am not a ghost.  So stop offending me by calling me white.  If you cannot think of any way to describe me but as white, then have the common decency to say nothing at all about me.  That would be a proper admission that you were either not interested in me or you knew nothing about me.  It is your right to know nothing about me and it is your right to be uninterested in me.  I am fine with that.  But do not call me names implying I am an insubstantial ghost.

Now, back to the Washington Redskins.  I am fine with this judge's ruling provided it is based on a general principle that government will not identify any individual by their skin color or some general approximation to it.  Unfortunately, our governments and the Socialist Elitists who mostly control them do not recognize moral and political principles in most cases.  They do not feel compelled to act consistently upon a rational and coherent moral and political code of principles.  This case on the trademark protections of the Washington Redskins name is a case in point.  Until and unless the government treats this issue as a general moral and political matter of principle, I will continue calling the Washington Redskins, the Washington Redskins and Oklahoma, Oklahoma.

Wall Street Journal Says Below Average White Rural Areas Are Becoming More Republican

The Friday Wall Street Journal had a front page story in which it said that the "GOP Tightens Its Grip on White Working Class."  It says that it tracks the House seats held by each party in House districts dominated by white, working-class voters.  In 1993, the Democrats held 36 such districts and the Republicans held 35.  By 2013, this division of such districts had changed drastically, with the Republicans holding 59 white, working-class districts and the Democrats holding only 11.

The article has the usual large number of stories about individuals and what they think and how their voting may have changed or not.  Among the stories it tells are those of people from Aitkin, Minnesota in the 8th Congressional District of Minnesota.  Aitkin is the county seat of rural Aitkin County, with a population of 2,597 people.  It is about 50 miles west southwest of Duluth, Minnesota.  The 8th Congressional District is almost 93% white.  We are told by the Wall Street Journal that the median household income is $49,860, compared to the national median of $53,000.  We are told that only a bit more than 22% of the people in the district have a Bachelor's degree or higher, compared to a national median of 28.5%.  So, we are supposed to conclude that these people are not quite as well-educated as they ought to be and not quite as successful as the average American.  So, maybe this is why they are becoming Republicans in larger numbers.

Let us consider the measure of their economic success given as their income.  Democrats obsess about materialistic measures such as comparative incomes.  But in fact, the people of Aitkin, Minnesota are a bit too sly for the median American.  There is a pretty good reason to believe the Wall Street Journal is underestimating them, both their income and their ability to recognize a perfectly fine way of living.

The median household income of $53,000 mentioned is that earned by households with a mean cost of living index of 100.  The good people of Aitkin, Minnesota have a local cost of living of 92.  Do the math,

$49,860 / 0.92 = $54,196 > $53,000.

So, it may not be the case that everyone in Aitkin, Minnesota is above average, but it is the case that their median income allows them to live a bit better than the median income in America allows the average American household.

So, being such sly folks, they are coming to realize that the Republican Party is better than the Democrat Party.  The story is that Millennials and Hispanics are beginning to learn the same lesson.  Mostly, those who are coming awake are coming to an increasing understanding that being productive is critical and that far too many people are making welfare a way of life.  The people called the white working class are learning this in larger numbers, but young people now a few years separated from the Progressive Elitist indoctrination of years of Progressive Elitist education and unable to find jobs at all or jobs anything like what they thought they would have are beginning to learn this as well.  Some are actually seeing that government actions have prevented any reasonable economic recovery.  More and more Hispanic Americans are at the least disgusted with the failed promises of the Democrats and in some cases are coming to resent others living off of their hard work also.

While some signs of understanding are beginning to show up, there is a long way to go.  A Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll in June found out that 53% of white people said that the government was doing too much to meet the needs of people and more should be left to businesses and individuals.  Only 44% of Hispanics said the same.  Still fewer Black Americans agreed with this.  They were stuck at a mere 32%.  We still live in a largely entitlement society.