Some interesting arguments and bad decisions last week. Let's discuss.
● Something that really made me laugh last week was the Democratic freak out that Trump is dropping illegals into sanctuary cities. Apparently, Democrats aren't actually fans of these people... they just want the votes. Imagine that. That's not going to help win Hispanics over, who do seem to be drifting away from the Democrats. In the middle of this came this wonderful quote you have to hear. It comes from a Florida Democrat who was upset that Trump was shipping illegals to them. He said:
● Since I was in high school, the liberals who run the SAT have been tinkering with the test to try to help women and minorities. These groups have always done significantly worse than white males and the assumption is that this is because of vague clouds of sneaky racism that have somehow affected the test. So they keep removing questions on which women and minorities "under perform" and they keep trying to adjust the way the test works to help those groups. Despite decades of rigging the test, the white boys keep winning. So now the SAT is flat out going to adjust test scores to help women and minorities, and they aren't even saying how much they will be doing to make these adjustments. Not only is this completely discrediting on the test because it means you simply can't trust female or minority scores, but it won't work. The more you coddle a group, the less independent the group becomes, and the sharper the competitors become, because they need to be.
● I've been watching the abortion issue with interest. In particular, I've been watching the horrible Hollywood response. For those who don't know, Alabama just passed a law basically banning abortion in all cases. They did this to try to overturn Row v. Wade, but ironically, this case will likely cause the current Supreme Court to affirm Roe. But that's down the road. I'm thinking about the politics of it at the moment.
Politically, I don't think this hurts the GOP. The main thing is that no one outside of Alabama seems to be rushing to adopt this. Even normally strong pro-life GOP types are backing off. Pat Robertson even backed off. So it's hard to tar the GOP with this.
I don't think the Democrats are getting hurt either, though I think Buttguy made a mistake taking a position that even third-trimester abortions should be allowed. His appeal, to the extent there is any, is that he's "normal" but gay, but normal people don't take a hardcore abortion stance that far outside of even the pro-Choice mainstream.
Who I think is getting hurt is Hollywood. These dingbats have decided to fight the Alabama decision by telling stories of the abortions they've had. Uh, what? Talk about a bad idea! For one thing, they have wrongly assumed that people will see this sympathetically. People won't. That assumption relies on people seeing them as normal people trapped by events who had no choice. A necessary evil.
But that conflicts with them selling themselves as special, rich, powerful, influential. It also doesn't help that they are proud of these stories or that their abortion stories aren't "young girl in poverty" but "actress doesn't want career ruined." So rather than coming across as "good girl stuck in unfortunate situation," it comes across as "stupid rich girl bailing out of mistake." It also confirms the view most people have of these women: they're f-d up. These women made the short-sighted, long-shot decision to try to become famous and mistake their fame for wisdom... they used their bodies to take jobs from older actresses, and now whine about the importance of looks... they slept their way into their wealth and now try to rewrite their histories by claiming rape victim status... they complain incessantly of harassment, even as they live a life of privilege and command and even as they get caught doing the same... they tonedeaf-ly scream that their million dollar salaries are unfair to women... and they excuse their friends of all these crimes when caught. Unlikable to say the least.
● Speaking of Buttguy, he wants to drop any reference to Thomas Jefferson from the Democratic Party. He's pandering to the crowd who hate on Jefferson because he owned slaves. Not only is it stupid to abandon a national hero, but it's extra stupid to do so when that hero anchors your organization, especially when that organization is in danger of becoming unhinged. The less connected you are to the public's beliefs, the more you better cling to at least the appearance of tradition or you will become something foreign. The Democrats are headed that way fast.
Thoughts.
● Something that really made me laugh last week was the Democratic freak out that Trump is dropping illegals into sanctuary cities. Apparently, Democrats aren't actually fans of these people... they just want the votes. Imagine that. That's not going to help win Hispanics over, who do seem to be drifting away from the Democrats. In the middle of this came this wonderful quote you have to hear. It comes from a Florida Democrat who was upset that Trump was shipping illegals to them. He said:
“That is so typically Trump. When the facts don’t fit the narrative, you slightly adjust the narrative.”LOL! That's actually how it's supposed to work. When the facts don't fit your argument, you adjust your argument to fit the facts. That's logic. That's truth. Apparently, that's wrong in liberal circles though. No surprise there.
● Since I was in high school, the liberals who run the SAT have been tinkering with the test to try to help women and minorities. These groups have always done significantly worse than white males and the assumption is that this is because of vague clouds of sneaky racism that have somehow affected the test. So they keep removing questions on which women and minorities "under perform" and they keep trying to adjust the way the test works to help those groups. Despite decades of rigging the test, the white boys keep winning. So now the SAT is flat out going to adjust test scores to help women and minorities, and they aren't even saying how much they will be doing to make these adjustments. Not only is this completely discrediting on the test because it means you simply can't trust female or minority scores, but it won't work. The more you coddle a group, the less independent the group becomes, and the sharper the competitors become, because they need to be.
● I've been watching the abortion issue with interest. In particular, I've been watching the horrible Hollywood response. For those who don't know, Alabama just passed a law basically banning abortion in all cases. They did this to try to overturn Row v. Wade, but ironically, this case will likely cause the current Supreme Court to affirm Roe. But that's down the road. I'm thinking about the politics of it at the moment.
Politically, I don't think this hurts the GOP. The main thing is that no one outside of Alabama seems to be rushing to adopt this. Even normally strong pro-life GOP types are backing off. Pat Robertson even backed off. So it's hard to tar the GOP with this.
I don't think the Democrats are getting hurt either, though I think Buttguy made a mistake taking a position that even third-trimester abortions should be allowed. His appeal, to the extent there is any, is that he's "normal" but gay, but normal people don't take a hardcore abortion stance that far outside of even the pro-Choice mainstream.
Who I think is getting hurt is Hollywood. These dingbats have decided to fight the Alabama decision by telling stories of the abortions they've had. Uh, what? Talk about a bad idea! For one thing, they have wrongly assumed that people will see this sympathetically. People won't. That assumption relies on people seeing them as normal people trapped by events who had no choice. A necessary evil.
But that conflicts with them selling themselves as special, rich, powerful, influential. It also doesn't help that they are proud of these stories or that their abortion stories aren't "young girl in poverty" but "actress doesn't want career ruined." So rather than coming across as "good girl stuck in unfortunate situation," it comes across as "stupid rich girl bailing out of mistake." It also confirms the view most people have of these women: they're f-d up. These women made the short-sighted, long-shot decision to try to become famous and mistake their fame for wisdom... they used their bodies to take jobs from older actresses, and now whine about the importance of looks... they slept their way into their wealth and now try to rewrite their histories by claiming rape victim status... they complain incessantly of harassment, even as they live a life of privilege and command and even as they get caught doing the same... they tonedeaf-ly scream that their million dollar salaries are unfair to women... and they excuse their friends of all these crimes when caught. Unlikable to say the least.
● Speaking of Buttguy, he wants to drop any reference to Thomas Jefferson from the Democratic Party. He's pandering to the crowd who hate on Jefferson because he owned slaves. Not only is it stupid to abandon a national hero, but it's extra stupid to do so when that hero anchors your organization, especially when that organization is in danger of becoming unhinged. The less connected you are to the public's beliefs, the more you better cling to at least the appearance of tradition or you will become something foreign. The Democrats are headed that way fast.
Thoughts.
12 comments:
1. I though the Trump threat to ship illegals to sanctuary cities happened a few weeks ago. Its unconstitutional, but Obama pulled more or less the same stunt when he was in office and honestly the Constitution has ceased to be a concern for anyone.
I doubt it will impact Trump's support among anyone one way or the other among any group. It takes a heck of a lot to move poll numbers nowadays.
2. That SAT move is ridiculous, wildly unfair and (like you said) doomed to fail.
3. I don't think the Georgia anti-abortion law means much politically but the wave of abortion related legislative activism it seems to have triggered might. Eventually someone is going to pass a law which jails women for abortions (logically if babies in the womb are treated the same as babies outside it, no one should be able to kill them without legal consequences) and that would move the needle a bit.
I don't think Hollywood will be harmed by its abortion stance. Despite the US being obsessed with celebs and having a celeb for a president, there is little evidence most people's media consumption patterns are driven by politics.
5. Buttigieg isn't going anywhere so what he says isn't important. I'm still expecting some celeb to come out of left field and win the nomination.
6. I think what is going on with Iran is a bit worrying. I don't think either side wants a war (Iran knows it can't win, Trump knows it wouldn't benefit him politically) but we might get one anyway. One of Iran's proxies just needs to get lucky and then it will be on.
I'm not predicting war but I think unlike with North Korea the possibility of war is real.
● A story about the SAT thing came on when my son was in the room. He asked what that means, and not wanting to burden a 9-year-old with the details, I simply told him, "It means you have to study hard and do very good in school."
SAT has been slipping in popularity vs. the ACT. The latter took the lead early this decade. SAT has an image problem of being snooty. Maybe it's well deserved, if their leadership honestly thinks this "solution" is anything other than condescending.
● Robertson has latched onto the same argument that pro-choice opponents to Alabama's law are using, which leads me to believe he hasn't actually familiarized himself with it. I think the AL law is more clever than its opponents realize. The claim is that it lacks an exception for rape and incest, which is true insofar as a word-search is concerned. What the bill does contain is an exemption for emotional/mental conditions if a physician and psychiatrist both determine such a state will cause the mother to harm herself or the unborn child. This is actually broader than a rape/incest exemption, unless one chooses to argue that rape/incest don't cause mental/emotional distress. The ACLU lawyers who claim to find no such exemption should have their fitness to practice law brought into question. Likewise, if Planned Parenthood can't find enough skeevy psychs to sign off, they don't deserve to be in business.
● Whether the abortion debate hurts Hollywood or not, the actors who spout performative outrage don't seem aware that the industry is changing around them in ways that are going to affect their outbursts. The Mouse is taking over more and more and The Mouse likes cheap talent. If you think you're big enough to make demands about which state you will or won't be working in, you're probably too big for The Mouse. Obviously, there are many opportunities besides for an actor, but with more competition in the entertainment marketplace than ever before, it doesn't pay to be inflexible.
Hello Gentlepersons! (I fear using the word "men" these days)
1. I thought that is exactly why all those liberal cities/states declared themselves as a places of "sanctuary" 'cause borders and immigration laws are mean? I know, I know...
2. SAT changes - Actually it's much worse. They are actually going to add "Grievance" points to final scores. And honestly, this will effect Asians by freezing out real merit and create a "poverty tourism" to develop greivance points In the NE there is a very real war education presented as fairness 'cause of white privilege. But in reality it is actually effects Asian students since they are not bundled into the "Minority" on any statistics in education. They have their own "Asian" category and rank highest in testing.
3. Abortion/boycotts - Yeah, I can't wait for the production companies to pull out.
But as an aside, why is no Hollywood starlet/star/mega star doing PSA's on why it's so important to be using plentiful, inexpensive, and 99.99% effective BC methods? They are proud of their abortions, but failed at "prevention".
Hi Bev! I hope all is well.
I love the sanctuary city thing. Not so welcoming after all, are they?
I find the SAT thing both frustrating and despicable. It does no one any service to try to cover up a lack of skill. How does someone improve when all you do is pat them on the head and say, "you're perfect." And how do we ever move beyond race/gender issue when you screw innocent people to help others?
Let's keep in mind too, these are kids we are talking about. There is no such justification as past discrimination here. And you're right about the Asians, they are the ones being abused in the case of education over and over and over.
Anthony, The Constitution is long dead. RIP
I think what it does to Hollywood is only reinforce why people should not listen to them, which makes their involvement in politics even more toxic. Fortunately, they won't shut up. So they've basically become this massive, rich external force that is tearing the Democrats apart from the left flank.
I don't think Buttguy is going anywhere either.
tryanmax, The SAT has been dumbing itself down for decades. It removes questions and question types where women and minorities don't do well. It saw math scores going down, so it allowed students to start using calculators. Scores kept going down so they added 100 points to everyone's score -- and declared that amazingly they have more "perfect" scores than ever. Now this.
Moreover, as the left has attacked it as the symbol of standardized testing, it didn't defend itself, it joined in.
It's hard to stay credible when you do that.
On Alabama, if that's what they've done then they likely will end up the most pro-choice state in the union as getting a fake diagnosis will become a simple matter of box checking. I guess we'll see.
The arguments for and against all of the recent spate of heartbeat bills are all disingenuous. I've done a cursory review of the legislation and they are all pointed at moving the Court away from the trimester scheme of determining prenatal viability and toward a scheme based on fetal vital signs. But all the usual exceptions are reiterated, so the proposed scheme could be just as ignored as the current scheme. If these laws are upheld, the status quo won't change a bit.
I think AL is in the crosshairs because it goes furthest by making Planned Parenthood hire one additional PhD. The GA only seems to be in the crosshairs because a couple of Netflix shows film there. I don't hear anyone talking about how it includes a toothless personhood provision.
We got six inches of snow last night. Ug. Half the trees are bent in half.
It's too late for snow. Send it back.
Also, this proves global warming.
tryanmax, This has been just plain weird. School was cancelled. The roads were a mess in the morning. But by afternoon, it was all gone except for the piles people made digging out. Now it feels like today was Sunday.
To a Nebraskan, that sounds weird, but not so weird.
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