Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Words That Replace Thought

Thomas Sowell:
The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the government has a "compelling interest" in promoting diversity -- apparently more compelling than the 14th Amendment's requirement of "equal protection" of the law for everybody.

How does a racially homogeneous country like Japan manage to have high quality education, without the essential ingredient of diversity, for which there is supposedly a "compelling" need?

Conversely, why does India, one of the most diverse nations on Earth, have a record of intergroup intolerance and lethal violence today that is worse than that in the days of our Jim Crow South?
It might possibly be that a decision about what is good in the United States might differ from such a decision made in Japan or India. America is, after all, exceptional.

The title is Sowell's.

10 comments:

anne said...

substance ,..wee hours ..still at something here so no l a my ianPefro tell(if you look in at this from sub. bouf') yet , wondering what you have on the west coast that is like tvo/tvont here ?

anne said...

.. . try ag. - substance , wee hours ..still at something here so no l a my fro tell (if you look in at this from sub. ..bouf' ) yet , wondering what you have on the west coast that is like tvo/tvont here ?

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I recall seeing a much better explanation for the state of our educational system, and it was, "It is this way because the people who rule our country want it that way."
~

Substance McGravitas said...

The Knowledge Network is the TVO here, but TVO has a lot more original content.

For education, yeah, it's getting uglier, but it wasn't actually built to be awful, and was something the US could take pride in for quite a while. It's the death of 1000 cuts. It's not destroyed yet, but it'll get there.

mikey said...

The problem is (mostly) economic and the solution is essentially fiscal. If we took $300 billion dollar a year out of strategic weapons (cut warheads to ~300, mothballed half the SSBNs, retired the strategic bomber force and restructured stockpile maintenance) and redundant foreign bases housing mechanized and armored forces that will never again be needed (note "needed" is not the same as "used") and put those funds into education, particularly higher salaries and better classrooms and modernized equipment, we could turn it around in one generation. But the priorities run the other way...

Substance McGravitas said...

Yes. It's not a crisis of ability, it's a crisis of desire.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

The spirit's not willing despite the flesh being not weak?

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Conversely, why does India, one of the most diverse nations on Earth, have a record of intergroup intolerance and lethal violence today that is worse than that in the days of our Jim Crow South?

WTF? What orifice is he pulling this statement out of?

Hamish Mack said...

Tom Sowell makes a mighty fine argumentation. If you got apples and oranges in a bag then how they gonna be as good as a bag of only apples or only oranges. Yes sirree Bob he makes a good point. Imagine if you bought a bag of oranges in a supermarket and when you got them home they were apples!!
Damned miscegenation!

anne said...

and sh'h taps ..in .. on er the jaz' messenger dru m ,bottom literal up .. /to night ... missed by my self on my tvo/tvont ,member for the last thirty yrs , .. missed - of .. mental heal th matters- the seat of your anxiety - .. was revisiting my minding of.. a visit from my moth ' , with a flying i'm like my daddy nap,