Mga app ng Google
Pangunahing menu

Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"More high comedy at the High Court"

26 Comments -

1 – 26 of 26
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What galls me is that even in Calif. let alone nationally, the majority is opposed to affirmative action, illegal immigration, gay marriage, for the death penalty, three strikes etc but they vote in politicians more liberal than them who govern against their will. Who can explain this? The liberals I know can only sputter when asked.

10/10/12, 10:16 PM

Anonymous eah said...

The transcripts -- the parts I read, anyway (I did not bother to read all of it) -- just show that it's difficult to defend the indefensible.

However, I immediately recall one lawyer who managed it: Johnnie Cochran. It's too bad Johnnie's not around to argue UT's case. Now that would probably be funny.

Other than that prospect, I don't see much that's funny here.

10/10/12, 10:30 PM

Blogger Power Child said...

Hah, Steve you're hilarious.

10/10/12, 10:59 PM

Anonymous International Jew said...

Garre and Verrilli are giving the justices the runaround. Isn't that an example of "contempt of court"?

10/10/12, 11:01 PM

Blogger Dennis Dale said...

So I take it the problem with this ten per cent plan is that it isn't giving the university the best available NAMs.

The middle-class or better-off black and brown kids, the smarter ones, are more often going to middle class schools and lagging behind whites and asians. Meanwhile anyone hardy enough to show up for four years at some urban hell hole is taking, via the ten percent plan, what would have been the middle class kids' through affirmative action.

The school's dilemma is it gets a lower class of its target percentage of color. Those kids are probably failing at higher rates and are not as uplifting as they could be (are they ever?), ultimately threatening to degrade the university's brand and scare off all those tuition-paying white and asian parents and whose progeny might be expected to donate a building or two down the road.

10/11/12, 12:35 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's funny how not only Verrilli but all the liberal commentators are parroting the BS term of holistic assessment. Calling the race-based admissions process at selective schools holistic is about as credible as the insistence of the Soviet Communist Party that the country was democratic.The NAM deficiencies in purely academic measures like the SAT and GPA are so large in selective schools that if race weren't the decisive factor, then the NAMs who get accepted would have to have a preposterously large advantage over whites and Asians in terms of "leadership, activities, awards, work experience, community service, family's economic status" etc. In practice, whites and Asians are likely to be superior to NAMs also in terms of non-academic criteria, and the situation where a white or Asian applicant and a NAM applicant are absolutely the same in every respect other than race almost never occurs.

10/11/12, 1:50 AM

Anonymous dearieme said...

In case I haven't treated this to you before, here is my own rule for tie-breaking at university admissions.

If the two who tie are male, admit the younger; if female, admit the prettier; if one of each, spin a penny.

10/11/12, 1:50 AM

Blogger Alan Stewart said...

The humour of the situation is enhanced by the American habit of referring to and addressing their attorneys general as "General". Top brass among attorneys, people are thinking? Uniquely in the English-speaking world, they do not realize that in the phrase "Attorney General", "General" is an adjective.

10/11/12, 2:27 AM

Blogger Alan Stewart said...

The humourousness of the transcript is enhanced by the American habit of referring to and addressing their attorneys general as "General". Top brass among attorneys, people are thinking? Uniquely in the English-speaking world, they do not realize that in the phrase "Attorney General", "General" is an adjective.

10/11/12, 2:28 AM

Anonymous Cail Corishev said...

My bipolar ex-girlfriend could tell a more convincing lie under questioning than this.

Their argument basically boils down to:

We never look at the box marked "NAM" and use that to decide whether to admit a student. Instead, we look at the overall person and think about how he would contribute. So we take race into consideration as a driver of that, but not as a direct factor itself, so you can't pin us down as having used race.

We can't say when we'll have achieved a critical mass of diversity, because you told us that would be too much like a quota. So it's your own fault that we can't tell you what our goal is.

Therefore, we're just going to keep admitting more and more minorities based on "holistic" nonsense, and you're going to have to come check out the results every few years and tell us when YOU think we've achieved Diversity.

In the meantime, you can't criticize or ban our methods, because we don't have methods. We just have admissions officers admitting people they think will add to the awesomeness of the university.

10/11/12, 3:34 AM

Blogger AMac said...

The liberal justices aren't embarrassed by the credulous and fawning nature of their chatting up of the Solicitor General. That performance shouldn't be dignified by the term "questioning".

It is as if their vetters began by posing this stumper: "Are you deeply and profoundly puzzled by the meaning of the following Dalrymple quote... In order to proceed, answer "Yes!."

For all of the faults of Romney and his policies, that's a reminder of one area in which the country would benefit from a change in leadership.

10/11/12, 4:17 AM

Anonymous Nexin said...

"So my understanding of what the university
here is looking to do, and what universities generally
are looking to do in this circumstance, is not to grant
a preference for privilege, but to make individualized
decisions about applicants who will directly further the
educational mission. For example, they will look for
individuals who will play against racial stereotypes
just by what they bring: "


If this is their goal, Universities have been fucking up mightly at it, and get worse at it every year. Nearly all the NAMs you see at most colleges conform well to pretty much every negative stereotype of their groups in dress, speech and behavior that Jesse Helms would have been frustrated with.

If they're bringing in the Hispanic fencers or African American opera sopranos, they're doing a mighty good job of hiding it at nearly every university.

10/11/12, 4:54 AM

Anonymous Commodore said...

"

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What galls me is that even in Calif. let alone nationally, the majority is opposed to affirmative action, illegal immigration, gay marriage, for the death penalty, three strikes etc but they vote in politicians more liberal than them who govern against their will. Who can explain this? The liberals I know can only sputter when asked."


In many cases the politicians pose as being more to the right, and more in-line with middle America than they actually are at election time. Its why Obama around this time every 4 years talks about apple pies, his white mother and grandparents, and his time in a Christian church.

In other cases, you have a situation where the only two candidates with major funding and therefore a shot at actually winning, are both spouting off liberal ideas, perhaps only to different degrees. Though Obama unabashedly supports mass immigration to the US, even Romney seems to go with the flow and talk about giving away green green cards, etc. In these cases, you have to go with the lesser of two evils.

10/11/12, 4:59 AM

Blogger fondatori said...

Any 18 year old who has 'mastered classical Greek' is certainly a sincere Christian who wants to read the New Testement in its original form so I'd be pretty shocked if our academy were to discriminate in favor of such applicants.

10/11/12, 6:35 AM

Anonymous Marlowe said...

In the meantime, you can't criticize or ban our methods, because we don't have methods.

Kurtz: Did they say why, Willard, why they want to terminate my command?

Willard: I was sent on a classified mission, sir.

Kurtz: It's no longer classified, is it? Did they tell you?

Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.

Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?

Willard: I don't see any method at all, sir.

10/11/12, 8:07 AM

Anonymous candid_observer said...

"JUSTICE SCALIA: Call it a cloud or
something like that."

A thing of sarcasm is a joy forever.

The discussion is truly amazing. The argument seems to be that the college administrators should be fully trusted to employ race as a factor in an utterly ineffable process to achieve an utterly ineffable goal -- and that that should be the precise and correct interpretation of the relevant law.

It's like the earthly counterpart to the Holy Trinity: mere mortals can't understand.

10/11/12, 8:29 AM

Anonymous NOTA said...

Nexin:

That's partly the effect of AA, I think. If the average black student is, say, at the 10th percentile of his class in terms of intelligence and preparation, then you will notice that the black students at your university congregate in the least demanding majors and classes, that they're not as serious students and not as hard workers and not as bright as the average student, because that's what the selection criteria for black and white students has ensured would happen. It's like if you live in a town where some families are so important, their kids always get to start on the high school football teams, you will notice that the kids from the good families are, in general, less capable and hard working players than the other starters.

This effect is independent of the population distribution. If you implemented lower admissions standards for green-eyed red-haired people across the board, then everywhere but at the top schools, you'd notice that all the green eyed redheads were majoring in sociology or education and seldom found their way to the library or to study sessions. You could create stereotypes of how green-eyed redheads were stupid and lazy by implementing such a policy.

10/11/12, 8:56 AM

Anonymous NOTA said...

Anon:

The obvious guess is that there are other incentives for politicians to support those things, even if they're vote losers.

One incentive is almost certainly money--some issues are critical for fundraising. If there are some big donors who care a lot about some issue (say, support for Israel or gay marriage), then politicians have a pretty serious incentive to take that side of the issue. From what I have read, every national-level politician spends a huge amount of his time raising money to run for election/re-election, so this probably matters a great deal. The claim I've heard is that Obama's recent "evolution" on gay marriage was driven by the need to raise money from gay and gay-friendly donors.

Another incentive involves entrenched interests that can fight back. Affirmative action has well-defined beneficiaries who will fight to keep it, as well as thousands of people whose jobs depend on implementing it, whereas the people who lose by it are much more diffuse and don't usually even know for sure that they're losing anything by it. Gay marriage similarly has a well-defined interest group who know who they are and have some cohesion.

Still another incentive involves not making enemies who can make a public fuss--media companies and big visible interest groups and super PACs are all examples. Take a public stand against something most broadcast media are morally opposed to, and you will get hammered by people who buy ink by the barrel and own lots of megaphones.

It would be interesting to try to work out which of these (or other incentives) is having the biggest effects on given issues.

10/11/12, 9:15 AM

Anonymous NOTA said...

Commodore:

Which one is the lesser evil, again? I'm not sure I really care wherher I get poison disguised as food or poison disguised as antidote--the end result is the same.

10/11/12, 9:19 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

So many paleocons, begging the mighty Nine for just a taste of that sweet, sweet, judicial activism, doled out as only uncle Antonin and his gang can.

As in Lochner, Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and dozens more.

10/11/12, 3:03 PM

Blogger Luke Lea said...

"For example, they will look for individuals who will play against racial stereotypes just by what they bring."

Do they ever deliberately admit dumb Jews -- who score at or near the minimum cutoff for SAT-- and who are also from unprivileged backgrounds? Maybe they should.

10/11/12, 8:26 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"An applicant's race is considered only to the extent that the applicant, viewed holistically, will contribute to the broader vision of diversity desired by the university."

You will not automatically get a place just because you're not White as you may be part of the dominant oppressive discourse against the Other and as such will not contribute to the broader vision of diversity. Better a submissive SWPL than an Oreo!

Being black is not enough. You must be Holistically Black.

10/12/12, 8:41 AM

Anonymous ben tillman said...

So I take it the problem with this ten per cent plan is that it isn't giving the university the best available NAMs

You mean "NWAMs". Remember, Whites are a minority in Texas.

10/12/12, 11:46 AM

Anonymous ben tillman said...

The humourousness of the transcript is enhanced by the American habit of referring to and addressing their attorneys general as "General". Top brass among attorneys, people are thinking? Uniquely in the English-speaking world, they do not realize that in the phrase "Attorney General", "General" is an adjective.

There is no such habit.

10/12/12, 11:49 AM

Anonymous Silver said...

Is race a factor? Does race even exist? Perhaps it's not given to mere mortals to ponder such mysteries.

10/12/12, 9:39 PM

Anonymous Anon87 said...

Thanks Steve. As an occasional reader of Supreme Court decisions, your annotated transcript of the testimony was great stuff. I wish the right-leaning members of the media were smart enough to take the time to address topics like this and get it in front of more people. Although that may just lessen people's opinion of The System and give up.

10/17/12, 5:35 PM

Comments are moderated, at whim.
You can use some HTML tags, such as <b>, <i>, <a>

Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author.

You will be asked to sign in after submitting your comment.
OpenID LiveJournal WordPress TypePad AOL