Vouchers are an abysmal idea, and have proven to be failures, as they only exacerbate the differences between schools that deal with all children and those that pre-select only the cream of the crop.

Thomas – right on all points.’

But that ignores that the state has sponsored segregation, and not just in the South. In the 1930s and 40s dozens of major cities tried urban planning which segregated and uprooted minorities.

Read up on Robert Moses.

Social engineering is a fact of life, whether you see its effects, obvious or not. To argue that it be used to ameliorate rather than destroy is just controlling a beast that exists, like it or not.

Acknowledgement is not the same as endorsement.

I agree and I think that the manner in which you Acknowledge it also endorses it. Kind of like “if the girl wasn’t out in that neighborhood she wouldn’t of gotten raped” to “He’s black so he must expect it.” Seems like shifting the blame from the one who deserves it to the one who “caused” it.

Meanwhile, I will make my point clear and unambiguous on this topic.

State sanctioned segregation – bad, unconstitutional.

Unsanctioned, de-facto segregation due to free choice of housing location (not due to discriminatory housing violations) – good, constitutional

Forced busing (or re-allocation of student populations based on race as the primary factor) to alleviate the effects of unconstitutional segregation – good, constitutional.

Forced busing (or re-allocation of student populations based on race as the primary factor) to achieve ethereal goals of ‘racial diversity’ – bad, unconstitutional.

Social engineering to create ‘correct’ racially balanced neighborhoods – really bad, unconstitutional, and likely to lead to riots.

Thomas – right on all points.

I don’t know what you mean by your doing anything to piss me off. If I mentioned you it was tangentially re: the overall issue, and your having commented on the deletions and things about ‘hell’ and so forth.

By my count, this is post 63, yet I’m the only person here who has written of the factors behind busing, which was what the Thomas post is about, other than Stein wanting to goad Rightists.

I DON’T expect or want Thomas to vote based on his race.
I merely acknowledging that it was inevitable that some people would examine that aspect. This is partucarly true in light of the suspicions created during the period of his nomination and scandal ridden confirmation hearings. When a controversial judge makes a controversial ruling, more controversy will predictably follow.

This is what I AM SAYING (don’t change it, please):
The votes have been cast. SCOTUs has ruled. I think the ruling is regrettable. Others applaud it. Regardless, it is time now to think about what this means for our country’s future and how we are going to deal with that future.

I have to disregard the position of reading the Constitution ‘as written” , since it must be acknowledged that there is more than one understanding of what “as written” means. I have to disregard the position of reading the Constitution ‘as written” , since it must be acknowledged that there is more than one understanding of what “as written” means.

My understanding is that Thomas is viewed as following the original meaning theory of the constitution. That the constitution should be viewed and interpreted as what a reasonable persons living at the time would have thought it meant. That sounds doable. Of course this is not the “living document” that many more liberal people embrace and that should be OK. That one has different philosophies to me isn’t so much the problem as that he is being thrashed for being consistent with his philosophy and it would be hard to find someone who new anything about the law who could say originalism wasn’t a valid philosophy. It’s really just “trash the black guy cuz he didn’t vote like we want” and Dom you just keep saying “that’s how it is” and “you have to expect it”. I would go so far as you are validating it even with your faint acknowledgement that it may be “wrong”.

I’m more interested in what is actually happening with the people in this nation. I don’t have a solution, and I can only hope to see thinking emerge that will help us along to one.

I think we have to acknowledge the resistance to desegration efforts, whatever the reasons. It isn’t good to have perpetual cultural wars over the issue.

At the same time, I can’t accept that de-facto segregation is any healthier than de jure segregation. Ideas have been raised that desegration in schools can’t be solved direcly and it has to be approached through housing changes or other means. Since neithborgoods are as segregated as schools, this eems like a fery long term approach. I’m concerned about an increasingly fractured society emerging while we wait for changes to occur on their own.

Others have proposed dealing with segregated schools via aid according to income levels, not race.
That seems pormissing. There is always the problem of the local purse (often emptied for health care for the poor), however, and the reluctance of one sector of society to contribute to the benefit of another.

I’m gloomy on the subject. We don’t seem to be a problem solving nation, anymore.

As for Thomas, I agree that he shouldn’t be expected to vote a certain way because of his race, but I also point out that when it comes to issues related to race, it’s inevitale that his vote would be scrutinzed in those terms. Right or wrong, pleople are acutely aware of both his race and his vote. You can’t expect people, particularly people directly affected by his vote, not to consider all the angles.

I had no idea how much posts like that on here and elsewhere were setting me off, because of course, liberals are not monolithic, any more than conservatives are.

So, thanks.

What did I do to set you off? And you said I was being ambiguous (although I thought my position was pretty clear), but what the heck was all that rambling ‘cyber-doppelganger’ crud about?

Off your meds or something?

BTW – liked the long post about recent change towards comments. It is ridiculous, and I think counter-productive to the site, to expect us to act like the Crane brothers in a mock Oxford Debate and have exchanges like:

‘Dobson – Quite well put old chap. You made some superlative points, and are surely are going to start a veritable donnybrook amongst those that oppose your fervidly expressed logic.

However, in all fairness, I must point out that I could not shake an apprehension whilst reading your tome that, perhaps unintentionally, you had managed through some truly extraordinary feat of effort, to fully and completely implant your cranium into your anal cavity, thereby impeding your ability to compose your thoughts to a fully pussient argument.

Yours truly,

AustinRoth’

Let’s just leave it for now.

Blacks have always been referred to as a group, They are ‘the blacks” It’s a group I.D. used by others and themselves.
That may not be a good thing, but it’s how things are, in the minds of blacks and whites.

I think it is a bad thing and I can honestly say that I personally subdivide. Because I have for so long been a fan of Thomas Sowell and Colin Powell, I recognize that “the blacks” are not ideologically homogeneous. I also think it is insulting and degrading to treat individuals as solely members of a group, especially when we’re talking about ideology and personal beliefs. I think that when we are talking about members of a racial group, an ethnic group or, as I have been talking about on another thread, a religious group.

People used to object when I would characterize “the left” in homogeneous terms. In response, I have tried for several weeks now to avoid all such characterizations and to react to advocates’ particular arguments individually. Why is it possible to treat members of “the left” as individuals but not members of “the blacks”?

The attitude now seems to be to forget the past and its errors and to start fresh.

I would not say that is my position. Rather, I would say that it is important to recognize the errors of the past and not repeat them. That means not treating individuals as mere cogs in a the machinery of racial categorization whenever it can be avoided. Perhaps some instances will persist subconsciously, true, but the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

Discrimination in government actions is intolerable and should be stamped out wherever it exists. Discrimination in the more subtle forms of where people might choose to live or work is much harder to address. Trying to address it with categories and preferences risks exacerbating the problem because it builds resentment even at the same time it suppresses expressions of that resentment by threat of sanctions.

I think that justifying using categories instead of recognizing individuality just because, well, its always been that way is an echo of the same logic that was actually used to justify Jim Crow.

The argument that blacks should not be treated as a group is presented by talking about them as, exactly that, a group; ‘blacks should not all think alike. ‘

Blacks have always been referred to as a group, They are ‘the blacks” It’s a group I.D. used by others and themselves.
That may not be a good thing, but it’s how things are, in the minds of blacks and whites.

What’s more, they’ve been treated as a group through huge chunks of history, in a discriminatory way. The attitude now seems to be to forget the past and its errors and to start fresh. Today you are no longer a group; you are individuals.

Would it were that easy. We can’t start fresh. The past lives on memores. Discrimination still exists as does injustice.

How to transition from the past to the future is a complicated topic. It’s really discheartening to see how narrowly people seem to think about it. Most have one primary principle with which their thinking starts and ends. That’s a bad omen for the futues, as far as I’m concerned. Life is never so simply arranged.

I don’t hink the inclusion of minorities among Bush’s appointements is accidental , by the way. I believe the president was doing a little executive social engineering on his own. Good for him.