HaroldWilson
2yr ago
It was one of the things leading to "3 strikes" laws (long prison sentences for the 3'rd crime in order to get rid of the very worst criminals).
I wanted to comment on this bit specifically because it's reflective of the conflation that happens everywhere on this subject with criminal justice policy and policing policy. I think under-policing in deprived neighbourhoods actually is a problem, and as you say most black leaders and the black public broadly did and do agree with this. Getting more police on the streets is a good thing. However, this is a completely different area to criminal justice policy. The academic consensus seems to be that, within reason, what really deters crime is not harsh punishments but the high clearance rates - actually catching more criminals. So more police is definitely part of the solution to crime, but once criminals have been caught I think the evidence in favour of meting out very harsh punishments is minimal.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
There are discrepancies, but they're not really 'huge'. The average SAT score for black admits is 703.7, for white students 744.7, which is only 5.5% lower and probably puts the average black admit close to or in the top 5% of scores.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I never said it has to be eternal, but it's incorrect to call it a compromise, if you're already plotting how to abolish it before the ink is even dry on the law that was passed.
I think this argument misstates what a compromise really is. By comprising on an issue, one is not implicitly accepting a middle course as the right thing to do, rather one is simply attempting to secure the maximum feasible progress which very often will not be all of what one wants to happen, and should more change towards one's position become feasible, of course that's going to be pursued.
That's just politics, and the point of my 1820 compromise analogy. Essentially the 1820 compromise was devised to ensure an equal balance of free and slave states, thus ensuring neither faction could control the Senate; but of course once the northern states secured sufficient power to overturn that and admit California as a free state without also creating another slave state, they did so, and the south would have done the same had they had the ability.
I'm pretty sure sex is important to the people having it, and food is important to the people eating it. It should be unimportant to their neighbors, and if their neighbors somehow find it important, then they're creeps. Same applies to countries' politics.
The other key difference though is that where one's culinary and sexual habits only concern one or two individuals and have no real impact on anyone else, and so there is no real cause for a neighbour to interfere. However, in the case of LGBT rights international observers/organisations are not trying to dictate Singaporean's habits but stop one set of Singaporeans dictating the habits of another set of Singaporeans. So the apt analogy is not someone trying to stop a neighbour having sex, but someone trying to stop their neighbour trying to stop another neighbour from having sex, if that's makes sense.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
statements that are fairly close to "all conservatives should die".
Any examples?
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
While affirmative action obviously happens, writing off black entrants as affirmative actions admits is silly. While there may be lower standards, these are still some of the country's most able black students who are a a better quality of applicant than the vast vast majority of students of any race.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I feel that various spook contractors outfits are almost certainly going to use the AI to control discourse by literally moving into 'creating a guy' type of activity in the next years. Any and every place where you'll want to debate anything online that will allow free entry will be swamped by very good bots intended to get people chasing their tails and believing the right things.
I think you wildly overestimate how much either 'spooks' or the politicians who direct them care about niche internet debate fora.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
If that's your argument, that's one of substance not of the right of international institutions to try to promote change abroad.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
It's gross to try and impress your ideology on people far away.
Why? If anything, I would argue that if you don't think your principles in at least some sense apply universally they're not really principles at all. I think my preferred ideology and policies, like almost everyone does, would improve people's lives, and I think people not in one's country have the right to enjoy the benefits I believe would accrue from the enactment of values and policies I believe in.
It's clearly an invasive action by one culture on another
Maybe? But I don't care. Homophobic political cultures are inferior to those which are not and if their political culture gets 'invaded' then hurrah.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
The way she framed it conservatives in Singapore made a deal: "ok, we'll give you decriminalization, but we want to make sure it doesn't go further than that" (to that end they even "fortified" marriage in law). She makes it sound like it's an obstacle to overcome, not a compromise to be honored.
This is just silly; no political compromise has the right to endure eternally simply because at one time it was made; was the admittance of California to the union wrong because it overturned the compromise of 1820? Were Republicans wrong for trying to overturn the 1850 compromise?
Yes, it's like expressing a preference on what kind of food your neighbor eats, or how often they have sex. It's none of your business, and it's creepy to poke your nose into it.
Except one's food or sexual habits are basically unimportant; politics is not. I have nothing wrong with Evangelicals trying to effect a change in attitude in foreign countries; I disagree with the content of their arguments, but I don't question their right to spread their views wherever they might wish to.
There was a literal international conspiracy to get them to stop. It didn't not involve direct force, but these people did not recognize they're putting their nose somewhere it doesn't belong. Also, keep in mind when I brought up experimenting with different setups, I explicitly mentioned marriage, not sodomy laws.
While I'm not some ultra-hawk, on pragmatic grounds, foreign and international groups have every right to put their nose where they like; if something is wrong, it doesn't diminish one's right to intervene to rectify that wrong because it's happening somewhere else.
The countries themselves can make whatever decisions they want.
This verges on being something of a truism; in practice they are sovereign countries and they can do what they like, that doesn't mean they should or that international organisations or individuals shouldn't attempt to prevent other countries enacting a particular policy.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Even if that's true, how do you think current Saudis or whoever got their homophobic or otherwise fundamentalist views, by thinking about the issues really hard? However 'supernaturally convincing' Western efforts might be, they're certainly less so than simply inheriting an unquestioning acceptance of those views.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I guess this comes down to how central you think 'central' implies. Was it the single most important factor? Maybe not. Was it nonetheless important? Yes; the growth of Northern textiles was enabled at least in part by cheap Southern cotton, protected by tariffs.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Overall, the readings in the final quarter of APAAS — the quarter chiefly devoted to ideological controversies rather than to history per se — are extraordinarily one-sided. They promote leftist radicalism, with virtually no readings providing even a classically liberal point of view, much less some form of conservatism. If DeSantis were to approve a course pushing the idea of “color-blind racism,” he would effectively be nullifying his own Stop WOKE Act.
I'm not particularly inclined to accept NR's characterisation of the curriculum, but nevertheless I think there's an important point to be made in that the concept of African-American history or studies probably lends itself away from the more conservative-associated conception of history as mostly high politics, and towards a more left-associated focus on social and economic history, and I think it's sort of inevitable the course will reflect that, which I think is basically fine. If an AP class called something like 'Kingship in Europe', or whatever, was started, you'd inevitably be reading historians like Elton more than historians like E.P. Thompson, which is fine because that's the nature of the course. And by the same token, it's more or less fine that a course on A-A history wouldn't feature many of the Joseph J. Ellises of the world.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
As objects of history, sure I suppose. As subjects? Not so much
There is not really a meaningful difference between these things in historical study, as far as humans go. I mean we basically treat even 'great men' as basically objects of analysis anyway.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
We probably do not have a lot of day laborers who post here, but don't assume there are none, or at least people who are former day laborers or have family members who are. You can make your argument without literally equating people with cows in the field.
Tbf, while that guy is probably not a bricklayer etc., he's also probably not a Congressional Representative or high-flying CEO, so I'd be curious to know if he thinks a 'cow in the field' is a fair description of him, and if not why not.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
That's a shame, but that's more a problem with the American school system than it is a problem with offering an elective class on African-American history.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I think this a narrow and parochial view of American history that almost no contemporary scholars would subscribe to. High politics is, of course, very important, but so is economic history and social history. A student who has a detailed knowledge of the federalist papers and related debates in the early republic, or in later periods congressional debates etc. still has a fundamentally incomplete understanding of American history if that's all they know about.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I feel like we're running fairly close to an unfalsifiable argument, where if there doesn't appear to be any propaganda or bias in MSM that must simply be because the observer is inoculated to it or because it's so subtle.
The comment near the top of this chain said everything they heard would invariably have an angle about a marginalised group; while I can't speak for American radio, this just doesn't seem to be the case in prominent MSM outlets.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
They got fined for not being 'duly impartial', for not presenting alternate points of view. Great, now we're just back to Scott's definition of not quite lying but misleading using the truth. In the opinion of Ofcom, RT did not provide 'an appropriately wide range of significant views must be included and given due weight in each programme or in clearly linked and timely programs' on the Skripal case, where they imply that it's a badly executed British provocation to make Russia look bad.
When you make comparisons between Ofcom's judgement and mistakes of MSM, you've got to remember the strict rules about news reporting on television in the UK, which require no overt partisan lean, in general, and the appropriate airing of all major viewpoints, which of course newspapers and American television media are not subject to. Looking at Ofcom's requirements, it's fairly obvious that RT came up way, way short.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
I don't deny that there are some things definitely important enough that all children should learn about them, in America the constitution and its creation obviously being one of them. However, there isn't a strict heirarchy of importance, even if there are some things clearly worth teaching, and in circumstances with a finite time available for learning what you cover can come down to preference more than anything else.
And yea there are correct answers to these questions.
What are they then, and how do you arrive at them. How does one decide which Presidents, for instance, deserve 'objectively' more coverage than others?
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Yeah but looking at one random 1955 edition of the Current Digest of Soviet Press, which collated the top stories in newspapers such as Pravda the bias is way more obvious and prevalent than you suggest. The top story is on 'The profound treatment of Leninist philosophical heritage', then we have an article on Jazz, but this is used to attack Western racism, then one on 'gross provocation by French police authorities', another praising Soviet foreign policy, one criticising the reception of a Soviet delegation in the US, a discussion of Marx on religion and countless others. Almost the only one without an overt Marxist, anti-Western or pro-Soviet angle is one article on sheep farming. The bias is obvious and everywhere.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Being a day laborer (farmer/factory worker) is no different than being a cow in the field. We don’t study horses in history class
Completely wrong. Social history is one of the biggest disciplines of the field.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
When every single thing on the radio is, "but what about the women," or, "but what about the gays," or, "but what about the negros," or, "but what about the trannys," then yes, I'm going to consider it an axe to grind, and I can't unsee it anymore.
I just don't think this is fair representation of mainstream media. If we take the BBC, as just one example, surely the most mainstream of all mainstream media, and looks at the current headlines that just isn't true.
The current top stories on the UK home page are in order Sunak's fine, the nurse strikes, Zahawi's tax affairs, the new NZ PM, the compensation being set for a patient whose limbs were wrongly amputated, a feel-good puff piece about a man donating to his local pharmacy and Germany's tanks to Ukraine, or lack thereof. If you won't any article with a culture war article, there's only two out of the dozens on the front page, one of which is just a report about the Archbishop of Canterbury's commeaents on the recent gay marriage debate in the C of E, which is completely neutral and probably a worthy topic for coverage, and one about Andrew Tate. In the World section there are no pieces with a culture war angle, expect the Andrew Tate article which reappears here but not very prominently.
But fair enough, that's not American. NYT? The top article is about layoffs in tech, 2nd on military support to Ukraine (tanks), then others on Haiti, NZ, AI, David Crosby and George Santos. The only one of the main page that could be considered to have a culture war angle is the one on March for Life, but I don't think that's unreasonable.
The point of all this is if all you are hearing is about 'marginalised' groups that is probably what you're listening for.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
Ok so tell me what important things have African Americans done?
Well for starters until the Civil War they formed the basis of one half of the country's economic system, and thereafter were a crucial element in industrialisation. And aside from African-Americans as a group, there are countless individuals who are easily worthy of inclusion in any high school history education.
Also we are talking high school history not college level
Well race is one of the most important themes in American history across many centuries; even in high school that seems like a reasonable basis for an elective course; it's not compulsory after all.
HaroldWilson
2yr ago
My point is that I don't see the problem with an elective course that takes a closer look at one of the most important themes in American history. If it's out of place I'd say that's an argument for adding other similar AP classes looking at one aspect of history in more depth, for instance say a class in economic history.
Not really. Blair has a tricky legacy, but that's mostly because of Iraq rather than anything about domestic policy. More broadly, the membership possibly and certainly the wider voter base looks upon New Labour relatively favourably, in large part because they actually won elections. Corbyn was really an aberration; Starmer has started embracing the legacy of New Labour more openly, and why wouldn't he? 1997-2008 was the probably the best set of years the country has enjoyed in the entire post-war period.
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