First, Applebaum correctly notes that the Ivies offer full scholarships. She neglects to note that the Ivies only offer the scholarships to fairly unqualified Blacks and Hispanics. Such as the pitiful Michelle Obama, whose senior thesis amounted to "I'm Black and You're Not!" in a poorly written manifesto against "White America" (that gave her a free ride to Princeton) in the typical angry, entitled, Affirmative Action reaction to the inner knowledge that against the best, they just did not measure up outside desired (non-White) skin color.
In How Diversity Punishes Poor Whites, Professor Russel K. Nieli of Princeton (hopefully this is enough for Applebaum, he's not at "icky" Cal Tech or Carnegie-Mellon) observes how "diversity" does indeed prefer lesser qualified Black and Hispanic students over more qualified (by test scores) White and Asian students.
When college presidents and academic administrators pay their usual obeisance to "diversity" you know they are talking first and foremost about race. More specifically, they are talking about blacks. A diverse college campus is understood as one that has a student body that -- at a minimum -- is 5 to 7 percent black (i.e., equivalent to roughly half the proportion of blacks in the general population). A college or university that is only one, two, or three percent black would not be considered "diverse" by college administrators regardless of how demographically diverse its student body might be in other ways. The blacks in question need not be African Americans -- indeed at many of the most competitive colleges today, including many Ivy League schools, an estimated 40-50 percent of those categorized as black are Afro-Caribbean or African immigrants, or the children of such immigrants.
As a secondary meaning "diversity" can also encompass Hispanics, who together with blacks are often subsumed by college administrators and admissions officers under the single race category "underrepresented minorities." Most colleges and universities seeking "diversity" seek a similar proportion of Hispanics in their student body as blacks (since blacks and Hispanics are about equal in number in the general population), though meeting the black diversity goal usually has a much higher priority than meeting the Hispanic one.
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Most elite universities seem to have little interest in diversifying their student bodies when it comes to the numbers of born-again Christians from the Bible belt, students from Appalachia and other rural and small-town areas, people who have served in the U.S. military, those who have grown up on farms or ranches, Mormons, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, lower-middle-class Catholics, working class "white ethnics," social and political conservatives, wheelchair users, married students, married students with children, or older students first starting out in college after raising children or spending several years in the workforce. Students in these categories are often very rare at the more competitive colleges, especially the Ivy League. While these kinds of people would surely add to the diverse viewpoints and life-experiences represented on college campuses, in practice "diversity" on campus is largely a code word for the presence of a substantial proportion of those in the "underrepresented" racial minority groups.
On an "other things equal basis," where adjustments are made for a variety of background factors, being Hispanic conferred an admissions boost over being white (for those who applied in 1997) equivalent to 130 SAT points (out of 1600), while being black rather than white conferred a 310 SAT point advantage. Asians, however, suffered an admissions penalty compared to whites equivalent to 140 SAT points.
The box students checked off on the racial question on their application was thus shown to have an extraordinary effect on a student's chances of gaining admission to the highly competitive private schools in the NSCE database. To have the same chances of gaining admission as a black student with an SAT score of 1100, an Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have a 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550.
Other studies, including a 2005 analysis of nineteen highly selective public and private universities by William Bowen, Martin Kurzweil, and Eugene Tobin, in their 2003 book, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, found very little if any advantage in the admissions process accorded to whites from economically or educationally disadvantaged families compared to whites from wealthier or better educated homes. Espenshade and Radford cite this study and summarize it as follows: "These researchers find that, for non-minority [i.e., white] applicants with the same SAT scores, there is no perceptible difference in admission chances between applicants from families in the bottom income quartile, applicants who would be the first in their families to attend college, and all other (non-minority) applicants from families at higher levels of socioeconomic status.
[Ed: In other words, poor Whites have little chance at the Ivies and top universities no matter how smart they are, as the top universities want Blacks and Hispanics, who are lesser qualified by test scores, to give limited scholarship money. Poor Asians fare far better, they are not those icky poor Whites.]
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Distressing as many might consider this to be -- since the same institutions that give no special consideration to poor white applicants boast about their commitment to "diversity" and give enormous admissions breaks to blacks, even to those from relatively affluent homes -- Espenshade and Radford in their survey found the actual situation to be much more troubling. At the private institutions in their study whites from lower-class backgrounds incurred a huge admissions disadvantage not only in comparison to lower-class minority students, but compared to whites from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds as well. The lower-class whites proved to be all-around losers. When equally matched for background factors (including SAT scores and high school GPAs), the better-off whites were more than three times as likely to be accepted as the poorest whites (.28 vs. .08 admissions probability). Having money in the family greatly improved a white applicant's admissions chances, lack of money greatly reduced it. The opposite class trend was seen among non-whites, where the poorer the applicant the greater the probability of acceptance when all other factors are taken into account. Class-based affirmative action does exist within the three non-white ethno-racial groupings, but among the whites the groups advanced are those with money.
When lower-class whites are matched with lower-class blacks and other non-whites the degree of the non-white advantage becomes astronomical: lower-class Asian applicants are seven times as likely to be accepted to the competitive private institutions as similarly qualified whites, lower-class Hispanic applicants eight times as likely, and lower-class blacks ten times as likely. These are enormous differences and reflect the fact that lower-class whites were rarely accepted to the private institutions Espenshade and Radford surveyed. Their diversity-enhancement value was obviously rated very low.
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Besides the bias against lower-class whites, the private colleges in the Espenshade/Radford study seem to display what might be called an urban/Blue State bias against rural and Red State occupations and values. This is most clearly shown in a little remarked statistic in the study's treatment of the admissions advantage of participation in various high school extra-curricular activities. In the competitive private schools surveyed participation in many types of extra-curricular activities -- including community service activities, performing arts activities, and "cultural diversity" activities -- conferred a substantial improvement in an applicant's chances of admission. The admissions advantage was usually greatest for those who held leadership positions or who received awards or honors associated with their activities. No surprise here -- every student applying to competitive colleges knows about the importance of extracurriculars.
But what Espenshade and Radford found in regard to what they call "career-oriented activities" was truly shocking even to this hardened veteran of the campus ideological and cultural wars. Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student's chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. "Being an officer or winning awards" for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, "has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions." Excelling in these activities "is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission."
There is much more, read the whole thing, but this is the meat of the argument. Which is entirely true. The Ivy League, and the top near Ivies such as Stanford, University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the like, are not, repeat not meritocratic. They merely take full-freight paying rich White kids, and unqualified non-Whites at a full or near full ride. Poor White kids particularly from rural, Red States in ROTC or 4-H need not apply. Ever.
Indeed, the career of Ivy-League educated non-Whites is pathetic. Michelle Obama made a nice living as a professional Black woman, at a pricey Chicago Law firm, before being hired at $300,000 a year by the University of Chicago to persuade poor Blacks not to use the University of Chicago Hospital system. The post was created when her husband Barack was elected to the Senate and abolished when he left to assume the Presidency. Even with the fairly substantial amounts of money both Obama's earned, they still could not pay off their debts, and ran a high-living lifestyle at the edge of their income, as Michelle Obama complained constantly.
Nor has Obama's time in office proved "brilliant," as the vacationer in Chief he's done what he did as Harvard Law Review President: play a lot of golf, and take a lot of time off.
Obama himself is hardly a rags to riches story. His grandparents lived in a Honolulu high rise, and sent him to an exclusive private prep school, one of the best in the nation. His father was a big shot in the Kenyatta government, until political indiscretions and drinking pushed him out of favor. Obama's mother was a CIA connected Phd, and Obama himself enjoyed patronage from a wealthy, Pakistani family at and after his time at Occidental College. Obama certainly wasn't ordinary, in terms of wealth, and power, and connections his own was certainly larger than John Kerry's for example, before he married Theresa Heinz.
For those doubting the total incompetence of the Ivy League, here is Sheila Jackson Lee, D-TX, graduate of Yale and the University of Virginia noting the lasting peace between North and South Vietnam:
Shades of Hank Johnson worrying about Guam tipping over:
Government, the legal system, entertainment, all are run by an Ivy and Near-Ivy elite that is … STUPID.
As bad as the Government is, filled with low-IQ people such as Johnson, or Lee, or Maxine Waters, or Charlie Rangel, from "safe" non-White massive majority districts, entitled, corrupt, and monumentally stupid, in a way that is aggravating (neither Sarah Palin, or Christine O'Donnell, working class White women, would have thought Guam would tip over or South Vietnam "at peace" with North Vietnam), the other main institutions of society are filled with the same group of entitled, arrogant and stupid "diverse" (non-White) Affirmative Action people, and the trustafarians. For every Barack Obama, there is a Patrick Kennedy, or John Corzine, or a Michael Bloomberg. But the media, or what is laughably known as "journalism" is no better: Exhibit A, Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt. [H.L. Mencken would have laughed him out of town, before media became a "genteel profession" for "respectable" member of what Joel Kotkin calls the Gentry Liberals.] Entertainment is just as bad, from the Harvard Mafia entrenched at the Simpsons, to the same at Saturday Night Live, to TV in general (JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon, and many others hail from Ivies and near Ivies).
And, just how "smart" are the Ivy and near Ivy schools, anyway?
Yale's 2009 Admissions data is here.. Harvards is here. Caltech's is here. Harvey Mudd's is here. Leaving us with the following tables. The first is the 75th Quartile, basically the scores of the top admits on the SAT (grades vary so much by school that A's are not comparable across schools, much less school districts).
| 75th Quartile 2009 Data | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| School | SAT Verbal | SAT Math | SAT Writing |
| Ivies | 790 | 785 | 785 |
| Tech | 770 | 795 | 770 |
| Difference | -20 | 10 | -15 |
For the top admits, the Ivies have better scores in Reading/Verbal, and Writing (negative means Ivies scored higher), but the tech schools do marginally better in Math.
| 25th Quartile 2009 Data | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| School | SAT Verbal | SAT Math | SAT Writing |
| Ivies | 695 | 695 | 695 |
| Tech | 685 | 755 | 671.5 |
| Difference | -10 | 60 | -23.5 |
At the bottom, 25th Quartile, the Ivies again come out on top in Reading and Writing, but the difference in Math is very large, nearly 60 points.
The Ivies, and there is no reason to expect a radical change in the admissions policy nor quality of student since the 1970's when Affirmative Action really hit, are not filled with smart people. They are filled with verbally adept folks who don't know much math. Certainly not against the elite of the elite, the folks at Caltech or Harvey Mudd. And the demands of a modern society do not require a lot of free-flowing BS. All the verbal gymnastics in the world won't get an oil spill plugged. Or Chilean miners rescued. Or an economy restarted. Instead, we have a President so monumentally stupid, he's astounded that there is no such thing as "shovel ready infrastructure projects" that he touted, personally, as being the solution to the jobs crisis with the Stimulus bill. Because any infrastructure project requires about a decade and a half of legal wrangling before work can begin.
Something immediately observable to any ordinary person reading a newspaper, by the way.
The Ivy League and "meritocratic" elites are resented because they've failed. Failed to restart the economy, failed to deal with Muslim terror, failed to deal with Iran's nukes, failed to deal with demographic decline (except celebrating the demise of the ordinary White person majority), failed to deal with the broken nuclear family, failed to deal with a tidal wave of illegal immigration leaving America as Mexico Norte, with all the failure that implies for people stuck here, failed to fix the myriad ways in which their monumentally stupid policies wrecked America, indeed in anything and everything, you can say the elites failed. Failed to keep newspapers going, except the Wall Street Journal. Failed to keep broadcast TV networks going. Failed to keep GM and Chrysler going. Failed to keep Wall Street Investment Banks going. Failed to stop the subprime crisis (Barney Frank and Barack Obama being two of the worst offenders, the former offering the excuse of his "fear of Bush" making him not see the obvious).
Outside of Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, both of whom left festering problems of Islamic terror, to crop up with later Presidents, nearly every President since Eisenhower has been nothing but an abject failure. Amiable dunces, lecturing and preening moralizers, devious compilers of enemies lists, or all three in the case of Obama. Jeff Zucker, Harvard University, ran NBC into the ground. The Sulzberger family has made the NYT a national joke, destroying shareholder value not seen since the AOL-Time-Warner deal.
Ordinary people have given about fifty years to the elites, and have nothing to show for it but a ruined economy, cheap Chinese electronic junk, declining real wages since the 1970's, mass immigration turning them into sudden (and discriminated against) minorities in their own country, and the prospect of even more of the same. Meanwhile, the elites have put up a "No Ordinary Whites Allowed" sign in the means to entry into the elites: the Ivies and near Ivies.
Why did O'Donnell brag she did not go to Yale? The same reason all the media looked down their nose at Sarah Palin for going to Community Colleges and the University of Idaho. Class.
In this country, rich White elites partner with non-White aristocrat Affirmative Action (idiots) to provide a perfect Idiocracy. Not technocracy. If anything America's leadership has gotten stupider. From Obama's insistence that Democratic Party politics take precedence over National Security, and belief he can "order" events and jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan to his liking, to the use of near zero interest rates to "push on a string" the way Japan's two lost decades did, in "stimulating" growth (i.e. making carry trade profits for Wall Street), the idiocy of the elites knows no bounds, and ordinary people know about it.
Indeed, the extraordinary growth of the Teaching Company lectures and other places offering college style lectures, to ordinary people interested in learning, and reading for themselves, is astonishing. As idiocratic as the elites have become, to the point of worrying about Guam tipping over or citing the peace between North and South Vietnam, ordinary people have become the repository of more knowledge than ever. Famously pointing out the obvious forgery that Dan Rather swore was genuine in the infamous "Air National Guard Memos" alleging special treatment for George W. Bush during Vietnam. Who knew that the Texas Air National Guard had typewriters producing memos straight from the default setting of Microsoft Word, complete with superscript "th"s for dates and such? Ordinary men and women in their pajamas, certainly, but not elite journalist Dan Rather.
And this is why Applebaum, really, has it in for ordinary people. They are a threat. Anyone and everyone can do what she can do, better. It took me a few hours to write this post, and do the research, and format the tables, out of Excel. Modern computer technology gives me the same tools as Applebaum, and I am not alone. Anyone can do what I do. It is not that hard. Applebaum, meanwhile, is failing. Failing to check her assumptions. Failing to research the profound failure of the elites. Failing to note how at the bottom, the "elites" are far less skilled in math, than those from the true elites, the schools like Harvey Mudd or Caltech.
People from Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Brown, Princeton, and all the rest have wrecked America. It will be up to those from Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Toledo, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Texas A&M, and schools like them to rescue America.
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37 comments:
Columbia University has a top engineering school: http://www.engineering.columbia.edu/
Also, Columbia is in the "top 15 percent of colleges, universities and trade schools which are doing the most to embrace America’s veterans as students": http://www.gs.columbia.edu/news-admission?article=columbia-university-named-military-friendly-school-gi-jobs-2010-08-16
People don't grasp productive activity and have no appreciation of where things come from, whether food or widgets. That goes for average guys and so called elites if they're removed from the productive economy as American have been for some time now. That's why they'll pay $30,000+ for a kitchen renovations that should cost a few thousand. That's ingorance and lack of skill not necessarily stupidity.
The problem is the narrowness of education and experience. Obama et al can't comprehend obstacles (mostly of their ilk's creation) to "shovel ready projects" because they've never done anything other than go to school. But what can you expect a club of lawyers to make except for laws.
Not sure how Clinton was a success in your book. Though I suppose not getting in the way of smarter, productive people deserves some credit.
When I lived in Dallas, I worked with a number of Aggies. I can't begin to describe how impressed I was with their capabilities.
Had my son not been low-functioning autistic, I would have most certainly encouraged him to go there.
And this is why Applebaum, really, has it in for ordinary people. They are a threat.
That's because Applebaum is a Jew and "ordinary people" is code for White peasants who might easily be turned into anti semitic mobs at any minute.
There is a history behind those fears. Paranoid Jews like Anne Applebaum can always be understood through the lens of Jewish ethnocentric fears and status seeking.
They want to replace the goyim/WASPs (at Harvard and elsewhere) but they fear the "backlash."
Her irrational support for Roman Polanski is an ugly example of that mentality.
Bravo Whiskey. One of your finest efforts.
As for Willard and his comments on Jews, indeed a good amount of Jewish liberalism might be driven by fears of white, anti-semitic mobs. If true, the irony is that Liberalism is busily importing Hispanics and Muslims that are deeply anti-Semitic, while also funneling endless money to the black community, also deeply anti-Semitic.
Why the Jewish Left can't grasp that White Christians are their natural allies is beyond me.
Clinton was a partial success because after 1994, he got out of the way of the Bond Market, and did not pile on regulations that seized up the economy. He had a "near death" political experience that allowed him to buy a major clue: he would not be re-elected if he screwed up the economy.
His downside was kicked down the road, like a can, for Bush: Jihad and various bubbles. Which Bush kicked down the road for Obama. Who has kicked down the road for whoever comes after that.
I'd love Clinton's economy back again (though much of it was bubble-based not real). I'd take Bush's 5.5% unemployment too.
Willard: the most Jewish of Jews, the Orthodox, are all Republicans. Even middle class Jewish guys (I knew a bunch, liked them all) are Howard Stern, Adam Sandler types. Not conservative but not liberal either. No one does Upper Class SWPL folk better than Upper Class Jews, because no one is Whiter than White than Jews. From Howard Stern and Sandler, to Ben Stein, to Chelsea Handler.
The Jewish Left finds repulsive (much like a hot woman worshiped by a nerd) that American Evangelical Conservatives identify with Jews because they feel themselves "New Jews." Which was there from the beginning (with the Puritans and their New Jerusalem) and in the language of Washington and Lincoln and Jackson. If you are an Evangelical like Sarah Palin, and consider yourself a "New Israelite" religiously and culturally, you naturally identify with as part of continuity with God's Covenant, the "old Jews."
It's mostly because of the Nazis, I think. After WWII, the level of pure hatred of "white Christians" among Jews shot up and has remained very high. Explaining that the Nazis weren't particularly Christian doesn't really get anywhere with most Jews, really.
I think this was a good article. The funny thing is that she sees the revolt coming, yet misunderstands it. Yes, in part it is about material jealousy and so on, but that's a relatively small part. A much larger part has to do with the cultural t do condescension -- the "what right do you have to tell me what to do just because you went to Harvard?!?, when you, like me, come from po-white-trash in Podunk, too?". That's the real issue, and the liberal "meritocrats" are out to lunch about it.
The meritocracy doesn't understand that they actually have far LESS standing in the eyes of the masses than does the landed gentry in terms of prescribing social norms. The reason is that difference in social class *matters*. For most of history, having the bred social elite class determine mores worked, in most cultures, because that class was the ruling class and, in many situations, ruled with respect (while in others ruled with brutality, it's true). And in all cases, was the "pace setter" class that people looked up to, socially.
That simply doesn't apply when the person who is trying to be the social pace-setter is the same snot-nosed jackass who sat next to you in podunk elementary, or is the child of someone who did and so on. The meritocrats, in other words, have no *standing* to rule the masses, in social terms. They *think* they do, because of their big educations ... but they don't. The "little people" resent being told what to do, socially, by people whom they do not view as being of a higher social class, but rather see as nerdy strivers who are otherwise from the same stuff as they are. To put it bluntly: people don't look up to meritocratic technocrats.
And this, friends, is the big blind spot that the liberal left has: in its endless focus on Marxist/materialist "economic class interest", it overlooks the more important, and, in a country having the economic mobility that the US still to some degree has, separate identifier of "social class". There isn't any longer a "landed gentry" social class in the US like there was with respect to people like FDR or Wilson and so on. Instead, we have meritocrats at the top who most people think have no right at all to dictate social mores to everyone else. The masses resent the hell out of that, and refuse to grant the social legitimacy to these strivers just because they have degrees and money. That is the jet fuel that fires the populist right -- it's a populism not based on economic class, but based on social class, and the resentment of that social class at its meritocratic strivers getting educations and turning on it, telling it what to do, and lecturing it. People generally won't stand for that unless it is done in a very populist way itself, as Bill Clinton, at times, did. Obama, by contrast, basically presents as someone who thinks his education entitles him to lecture the middle class that he himself comes from as to how to live their lives. Many, many people respond to that kind of harangue with a heart "Fuck You!", and for good reason. These people are NOT social elites, they are not bred in the ways of the social elites in terms of responsibility to the broader society and so on for setting social norms. They are simply successful strivers -- and, yes, in part they are resented for their success, but the larger issue is their lack of social standing to do the kind of social haranguing and lecturing that they tend to do.
This blind spot may be what causes the left to dig its grave, politically. They simply do not *understand* the real source of rightist populism (instead labeling it as being based on fear, which it isn't ... it's based on resentment at some Ivy-League jackass telling them what to do, as if he is better than they are -- because he *isn't*, he just has a degree. The left really doesn't "grok" this, probably because they seem to think that people *should* listen to them simply because of their paper -- and in that, their main flaw -- the terrible hubris of the leftist intellectual elite -- is revealed in the plain of day for all to see.
"The Ivies, and there is no reason to expect a radical change in the admissions policy nor quality of student since the 1970's when Affirmative Action really hit, are not filled with smart people. They are filled with verbally adept folks who don't know much math. Certainly not against the elite of the elite, the folks at Caltech or Harvey Mudd. And the demands of a modern society do not require a lot of free-flowing BS. All the verbal gymnastics in the world won't get an oil spill plugged. Or Chilean miners rescued. Or an economy restarted."
Hear, hear! This also ties into the absolute failure of assuming female friendly education will make us competitive. Women have no quantitative ability to speak of and pushing them into the workforce when we least need them is a disaster.
Novaseeker, good points about the social class, except I would argue that applies more to the UK than the US, where "flatness" of class has been a feature well since Jackson. Even or especially men like GWB, or FDR, tried to hide their social class with various good old boy veneers.
Meanwhile the appeal of a self-made businessman like Perot (before he imploded, he led both candidates), or Arnold before he RINO-ed it up, is large.
Because of success. I agree people heartily resent being told how to live their lives in detail (though you see a lot of that on Daytime TV and certain segments of that female audience eat it up). But much of the fury directed at the elites speaks to their failure.
The arguments of the Left elite was that GWB and Conservatives screwed everything up, let us fix it. We went to Harvard (unlike that dumb Texan ... who also went to Harvard). They did even worse. People would love to have 5.5% unemployment now.
When Obama says, "gee I didn't know there was no such thing as a shovel ready project" it is an admission of failure. His problems would go away if unemployment hit Bush levels, and he'd cruise to re-election if wages increased, along with job security, with late Clinton era unemployment.
This fury is driven mostly be the abject failure of the technocratic elite to deliver any tangible results. For all their "smarts" they've proven remarkably unable to produce much results.
Let me add, this failure hits:
Entertainment, where Ivy League driven writer/producer/director/executives put out utter crap no one wants to see, on TV and in movies.
The News Media, which is aimed at the Oprah audience only, it seems.
Wall Street, which could run a ponzi scheme without bringing the Housing Bubble to a crash that destroyed everything (Clinton's Dot-Com bubble bursting did not do so much damage).
Politics -- they said "let us fix it" and make everything worse.
Social class now I think is mostly a gauzy nostalgia for certain brands, evoking a bygone 1920-1960 era. On the other end you get enduring "Caddyshack" and other type movies pushing the self-made man against the hereditary elite buffoon. Dangerfield was a clown, but a good natured one and smarter than his antagonist, because he was self-made.
Upper class now tends to have a distinction of sleazy, kinky, weird. Ala Wedding Crashers.
But again, I think it mostly the failure that galls, not so much the telling people how to live their lives, though that surely adds to the anger.
If America had Germany's economic expansion and unemployment, Dems would be looking at a decent shot of holding most of their seats.
I went to Mudd back in the mid-1980s. At that time, Caltech definitely had affirmative action... for women. I knew many guys at Mudd who were denied admission to Caltech, but had superior grades and test scores to women who were granted admission to Caltech but chose to go to Mudd (who knows why). No doubt the problem is even worse now, as they've aggressively tried to boost female attendance at both Mudd and Caltech since then.
spot on, Whiskey.
Both the post, and your replies to Nova.
Fact is, people want leaders who are competent and can lead. Self-made men are admired provided they are successful and competent - Napoleon had lots of admirers in America in the 19th century not because he founded a new aristocracy but because he got to his position on merit and genius where the Kings and Dukes and all failed.
I don't mind taking orders from a man -or even woman in some cases - more competent than me, esp. if they are civil and fair in their expectations. I suspect most people are the same way. We don't need a Royal Family here -one of the reasons that the Kennedys had so many admirers was that besides the romance, at least one of them- Robert- was considered a great President based on charisma and what he did get accomplished while he was alive. Had the Kennedys merely consisted a few corrupt state Senators it would be different.
Clarence
Whiskey said...
Willard: the most Jewish of Jews, the Orthodox, are all Republicans.
Right, because they hate queers and love Israel. Just like so many "Christian" Republicans.
Even middle class Jewish guys (I knew a bunch, liked them all) are Howard Stern, Adam Sandler types.
Stern and Sandler are super rich not middle class and Stern supported Obama. But why mention those two when they are out number 100 to 1 at least by liberal left Jews in the entertainment industry.
Not conservative but not liberal either. No one does Upper Class SWPL folk better than Upper Class Jews, because no one is Whiter than White than Jews.
That's a stupid thing to say. Plenty of Jews see themselves as JEWS and see "White people" as the "Other", a dangerous majority who they fear and ethnically compete against.
From Howard Stern and Sandler, to Ben Stein, to Chelsea Handler.
Again, as with your psychotic prejudice against women, you find a few examples to reinforce your bias and ignore the majority of evidence that clearly contradicts your views.
The Jewish Left finds repulsive (much like a hot woman worshiped by a nerd) that American Evangelical Conservatives identify with Jews because they feel themselves "New Jews."
The Jewish left and right are basically racist in a judeocentric sense and don't like any people racially "Other" claiming their superior identity.
That's an ethnocentric/racist bias that plenty of Jews have regardless of party politics.
Anonymous said...
Why the Jewish Left can't grasp that White Christians are their natural allies is beyond me.
It's "beyond you" because you aren't seeking an answer.
You are confused. The Jewish left liberals are looking for allies AGAINST White Christians. That's the whole point. And guess who they think their allies are?
You can learn more by extensively reading Kevin MacDonald's work
Whiskey,
I don't think Hank Johnson meant it literally about Guam tipping over and capsizing. He and that admiral fellow looked like they were suppressing a smirk.
The other lady, Sheila Jackson Lee, well, who knows? She seems more than a little ignorant and she never struck me as a brainiac. Officious and supercilious, though.
As for Anne Rosenbaum, isn't she married to Radek Sikorski, former foreign minister for Poland? I would thought since her husband has ties to AEI that they are both neoconservative or what passes for mainstream conservatism circa 1999. Strange bedfellows, indeed.
Sorry, I meant Anne Applebaum.
Clinton’s true legacy is GATT/WTO. By signing the agreement he put the US in pole position for the global race to the bottom and made pissants are equals. Successive bubbles and easy credit masked the damage. That’s what most adversely affected the working and middle class whites, among others, that you write about. The legacy matters. Give credit where it’s due.
In the CT gubernatorial race the Democrat is accusing the Republican (a wealthy business man) of closing a textile mill in Georgia, laying off all the workers. The media actually got it right in pointing out the mill closed after the candidate’s involvement, but they didn’t make the connection with WTO policies opening up textile competition from developing countries.
For what it’s worth, I’m sure the worst of Obama’s presidency won’t be felt until he’s out of office. And the same basic trajectory probably would have occurred under McCain or Hillary, just as Obama only differs from Bush in degree. It’s an agenda at work from one administration to the next. That’s how we can know we live under tyranny.
Another thing, it’s pretty easy to find a congressman speaking utter stupidity. Have you heard Pelosi lately? With few exceptions they have mediocre intellects.
Agreed. Good response to Novaseeker. Good comment on his part as well. I'd add that the technocratic elite are going with a dependency model where their existence and necessity aren't fundamentally questioned.
Even many right minded people, not directly on any sort of dole, don't go far enough questioning the status quo. Why not abolish the Dept of Education? The few who suggest it are mocked. Yet a results based analysis would show outcomes have gotten worse since its creation. "What about the children" they say even as the children lose ground.
Too much is asumed sacred. Too many, especially women, want mommy and daddy or some authority in charge. They fawn over these people.
No one presents bureaucracy as a problem and so we're ruled by bureaucratic strivers. Actual self-made men are busy creating to the extent the bureaucratic strivers don't obstruct.
And excuse grammatical errors in previous post.
Willard, as usual your hatred for Jews leads to a weak mind unable to grasp the obvious. Jews are among the most "White" groups of Caucasians, leading them to SWPL status seeking (including glorifying Blacks and using them as status props, particularly with Jews active in Civil Rights movements and supporting Blacks now, the latter generally filled with McDonald level anti-semitism), or Republican conservatism, including dislike of Gays and support for Israel (see Paladino with the Orthodox rabbis).
Jews mostly don't see themselves as Jews. Which is why they out-marry so much that there won't be any in a few generations. Jews who saw themselves as only Jews would not have created: Old Patriotic Hollywood, from Yankee Doodle Dandy to A Wonderful Life, Captain America, Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, etc. Jews who saw themselves only as Jews would not have supported Obama about 70% (since Obama is very hostile to Israel and is essentially a Muslim).
Jews are among the forefront of SWPL, and cultural conservatism. Jews among all groups have proven unusually susceptible to status-chasing and empty moral posturing (see Amy Biehl and her parents, who paid for her Black SA murders to go to school). Because SWPL status chasing forms the core of their identity.
Which is another weakness of the elite. Moral status chasing is a particular disease among them. This is because their economic position is not much at risk, or they don't see it as such save challenges from ordinary people.
The "elites" are her to say.
Blacks like them, women like them, People of Coor like them.
Whiskey--
Many thanks for pointing out the the Orthodox (who will ultimately be the only Jews left due to our more secular types decision to forgo breeding) conservatism.
I particularly enjoy your blog because you have stedfastly refused to get caught up in the creeping anti-semitism I see among some of the more popular similarly focused blogs. I won't mention any names, but I think you know who they are.
Whiskey said...
Willard, as usual your hatred for Jews leads to a weak mind unable to grasp the obvious. Jews are among the most "White" groups of Caucasians, leading them to SWPL status seeking (including glorifying Blacks and using them as status props.
Funny you should say that, Whiskey, as I've never seen anyone glorify blacks more than you do. You never pass up a chance to eulogize their supposed sexual prowess and athletic superiority.
Jews would not have supported Obama about 70% (since Obama is very hostile to Israel and is essentially a Muslim).
It's closer to 80%, actually. And last I checked, military aid was still flowing into the Holy Land. Financial aid to Israel has not been touched. Obama is a moron, but I doubt he's an anti-semite as you seem to be suggesting, what with hiring a Jewish guy to run his campaign, hiring the son of a militant Zionist as his chief of staff, sending yet another Jew to the supreme court etc.
I never get tired of watching that Hank Johnson clip. What a moron.
Passing Through -- You'll have to add Steve Sailer into that bin too. As he points out, no White guy has been in the finals of the Olympic 100 Meter Dash since 1980. No person of non-West African descent in fact has been a finalist since that boycotted Olympics.
Does that make Usain Bolt a Nietchezian Superman? Nope. It just makes him very, very fast. Small but significant differences in group populations median ability in athletics, or IQ, or tendency to alcoholism, make for large differences in the right hand of the bell curve. This means no Whites present at Olympic Sprint events (dominated by West African descent men) and also no West African (or African men) in the Nobel Prizes for Chemistry, Physics, Medicine etc. who are exclusively European and East Asian. Jews disproportionately represented there as well. Or few alcoholic Italians but many Irishmen and Scandinavians.
Differences among groups and races does not make for superiority. Which is the 'master fruit' the Orange or the Apple?
HBD is good, as it allows a diverse human genome to spread around keep genetic insurance against some huge change: mutated viruses, changes in food supply, or many other things no one can anticipate.
Jews voted SWPL more than Jewishness, since Obama (born, raised a Muslim, able to recite the call to prayer, believed by Muslims to be a Muslim) is determined to allow Iran to get nukes and wipe out Israel. Obama would if he could cease all aid to Israel and senior Aides (Susan Power, etc.) have spoken about invading Israel to install Hamas as sole ruler of the land. The guy went to Wright's church of Hate Whitey and Jews for twenty years.
And Jews still voted for Obama in the same numbers as single women, about 70-29%. Why? Because SWPL over-rides Jewishness.
Whiskey your anxiety about any criticism of Jews is interesting in the light of claims by some that you are actually Jewish. Based on your ignorance of Jewish identity and behavior my guess is you are not Jewish.
Combined with your White nerdy fear of women your ridiculous views on Jewish identity probably stem from a frustrated Christian upbringing.
Clearly what you said about Jews was nonsense. And your anti-semitism baiting is the kind of debate stifling ploy typical of liberals who accuse people of racism for criticising blacks.
Most Jews see themselves as Jews, a people with an ancient identity that was formed in relation to a dangerous and threatening "Other". In America that "Other" is Whitey also known as Wasps or White Christians.
Obviously your absurd attempt to replace 3000+ years of Jewish identity with 40 some years of SWPL motivation is a sign of deep evasion and denial.
Jews who saw themselves only as Jews would not have supported Obama about 70% (since Obama is very hostile to Israel and is essentially a Muslim).
Jews supported Obama because he is a classic White liberal, Ivy league Democrat. They were well aware that all of his early funding in Chicago came from prominent Jews and clearly Axelrod is Jewish.
Plus, the opposing presence of Uber-shiksa Sarah Palin sent a cold shiver down the spine of most Jews. Gun toting rural Christians will send most Jews into a panic.
Obama is clearly not hostile to Israel and like most America Jews he opposes the Jewish extremism favored by the White America Evangelical right wing.
And contrary to your paranoid claim that Obama is essentially muslim, he is pretty clearly a secular, non religious liberal who adopts a church going style for purely political reasons.
He obviously is in no way a muslim.
SWPLism is in many ways completely contrary to Jewish culture and behavior in America. At it's core SWPLism is a form of White racial self hate and racial masochism dressed up in fashionable clothing.
Most Jews who adopt any of these tendencies do so to contribute to the racial subversion of their ethnic enemy - White (Christian) America.
It can be understood best by referring to something Steve Sailer said -(paraphrase) "Wasps are hostile to other Wasps for being too ethnocentric, Jews are hostile to other Jews for not being ethnocentric enough".
Obviously your absurd attempt to replace 3000+ years of Jewish identity with 40 some years of SWPL motivation is a sign of deep evasion and denial.
Willard, I don't think you understand SWPL in the least if you really think it's effected by your "3000+ years of Jewish identity."
Is SWPL stronger than ethnic identity? It is incomparably stronger among the well to do. It's not even a contest.
I know you frown on examples from Hollywood, but they are telling. Watch Larry David in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as he flits around town in his Prius, and tell me what are the key influences in his life. He is typical. That's why the show is funny. Because so many of us know people exactly like him.
SWPL influences WASPS and Ashkenazi almost equally. But In terms of suicidal out group altruism I have to put the WASPS first.
There are two competing memes.
One is altruism towards the in group. The other meme is altruism towards the out group.
In evolution, only in group altruism was rewarded. You would think that in group altruism is hard wired in to us, all of us.
I think we should treat out group altruism as a disease, a virus. It reduces genetic fitness.
Example would be a white billionaire donating billions to Africa. Some how a status heirarchy has been created in the USA that awards status to those people that help out groups that they are not genetically related to.
The competitive out group altruism leads young Ashkenazi to some careers that are not financially rewarding. Huge numbers of Ashkenazi apply for teach for America and similar things. This sometimes goes to extremes, as in the case of Gerald Levin sending his son to tutor violent ghetto youth. Gerald Levin engaged in typical Ashkenazi behavior. Is there any doubt that a non Ashkenazi jew would not sacrifice his son in this way?
It is clear to all of us that very few Northeast Asians have out group competitive altruism. If you visited every Northeast Asian billionaire, you would find IQs in the same range as the IQ of the wasp billionaires and Ashkenazi billionaires, but very different behaviour.
My observation is that on a scale from most out group altruistic to least you would have
WASP billionaires as most out group altruistic,
then ashkenazi billionaires
then at the very bottom Northeast Asian billionaires.
Again, I think that Amy Biehl's parents (WASPS) were the most extreme. Not only did they send their daughter to be killed by NAMS but they then socialized with the NAM killers of their daughter and lobbied hard for their daughter's killers to not be punished.
There are other examples of WASP out group altruism but I'd like to hear if there are any that extreme.
Rank the Ashkenazi second. Gerald Levin's son was sent to help violent NAMs. This is very common among Ashkenazi, with Ashkenazi taking low paying jobs in the "helping" professions"
Again, I put the Northeast Asians at the other end of the spectrum. Has anyone ever heard of a wealthy Northeast Asian following the sort of suicidal altruistic path that WASPS and Ashkenazi follow?
"U.S. colleges with few Jews building facilities to draw more"
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/11/2741222/small-rural-colleges-cater-to-growing-jewish-populations
Rank the Ashkenazi second. Gerald Levin's son was sent to help violent NAMs. This is very common among Ashkenazi, with Ashkenazi taking low paying jobs in the "helping" professions"
Again, I put the Northeast Asians at the other end of the spectrum. Has anyone ever heard of a wealthy Northeast Asian following the sort of suicidal altruistic path that WASPS and Ashkenazi follow?
To be precise, we're dealing with kin altruism and reciprocal altruism here. The "suicidal altruism" referred to above is kin altruism with "kin" being universalized. WASPs certainly have engaged in this universalized kin, or "suicidal" altruism. Ashkenazi altruism in the main certainly hasn't been a suicidal, universalized kin altruism. If anything it has been reciprocal altruism with Ashkenazis deriving benefits as a group through their shepherding of NAMs for the past several decades.
The more accurate formulation is the following:
1. WASPs have engaged in universalized kin altruism. In other words, they have helped NAMs with no benefit in return to WASPs.
2. Ashkenazis have engaged in reciprocal altruism. They have helped NAMs during a period in which Ashkenazis have ascended to dominance in the elite. Helping the NAMs through participation in the Civil Rights movement, Leftism, identity politics, media, culture, etc. very likely was instrumental in propelling Ashkenazis to their dominant position. In other words they have received concrete benefits in return for their altruism.
3. Northeast Asians in general have not engaged in much altruism towards NAMs. Communist China has engaged in reciprocal altruism with countries in places like Africa in the past, and more recently with things such as the following:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11560193
Though South Korea sends the most Christian missionaries abroad in the world after the US, and typical of Christian missionaries they help and aid poor NAMs in their missions in places like Africa, the Mideast, etc. This would be an example of universalized kin altruism. It has been literally suicidal in some cases with South Korean missionaries being killed in the Mideast and Central Asia.
ref: "lasting peace between North and South Vietnam"
Jesus, that's simply astonishing! When did that fine Yale graduate deliver this breathtaking display of not having a friggin' clue?
Should have "declared victory and left, ehhh. What victory? We lost that war big time, and while Ho Chi Ming Ville sure looks a lot like Bangkok, 3.5 decades after the famous rooftop evacuation of our Saigon embassy, there are still zero basic political freedoms --freedom of religion, free speech, free press, right to public redress of grievances. Nah... who needs that crap?
This blog contains a serious factual error. The Verbal SAT does not test ability to spout “free-flowing BS.” It tests ability to understand complex ideas and arguments; to analyze, synthesize, and manipulate information; and to distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information. In other words, it tests intelligence. In fact, the Verbal SAT is more “g-loaded” than standard IQ tests; and more g-loaded than the Math SAT. (As I point out in Section B of Appendix III of my book The Affirmative Action Hoax, preparation does little to raise SAT scores, but it raises Math scores more than Verbal scores.) On a simple-minded analysis, the content of most intelligence tests (e.g., Raven’s Progressive Matrices) would seem to be considerably more trivial and irrelevant than the content of the Verbal SAT. But we know as an empirical fact that scores on these tests are highly predictive of individual success; and the average score of a group of people is highly predictive of the success of that group. (Moreover, scores on these tests correlate closely with brain size.)
The blogger has made a related mistake. It seems commonsensical that scientists and engineers are the most productive members of a society. However, although they are necessary, they are far from sufficient. The Soviet Union had four times more scientists and engineers than the United States. (The Soviet Union had nearly no lawyers or accountants and no advertising, insurance, or stock and bond markets. Intelligent people became scientists or engineers.) Yet, the Soviet Union was so technologically backward that in 1990, the economic planners, who had to make literally hundreds of thousands of calculations, did not have pocket calculators, they had to use abacuses.
Are ordinary people more competent than graduates of elite colleges at making political decisions? Maybe. But of the fifty-five delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention, sixteen were graduates of Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. The three men who spoke the most often at the Convention were a Princeton graduate (James Madison), a Columbia graduate (Gouverneur Morris, who had both a B.A. and an M.A.), and a member of the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania (James Wilson). The Federalist Papers were written by a Princeton graduate and two Columbia graduates. This was at a time when most doctors and lawyers were not even high school graduates.
Moreover, the founding fathers of the United States were the same type of people who attend elite colleges today. No one could doubt that if Benjamin Franklin (the president of the American Philosophical Society), John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, etc took the SAT, their Verbal scores would have been extremely high. Some of them might also have had high Math scores, but that is irrelevant.
Whiskey, another advertisement for you:
http://www.youtube.com/user/djhero?v=tjbII5xqG8s
It really doesn't get more obvious than this.
The Biehls are Jewish.
"In this country, rich White elites partner with non-White aristocrat Affirmative Action (idiots) to provide a perfect Idiocracy."
exactly, and when the "women-as-minority" element is added to Nieli's analysis, you end up with the Perfect Shitstorm
duh, gee, i just cant understand WHY the "economy" is not going well, or why "boys are underperforming" ... perhaps another couple of decades of Task Force Studies will illuminate us, because the dozens already concluded just cant figger it out....
what meritocracy existed in amerika has been dead for at least four decades, and the only solution is to pass more "laws" and
build more prisons and ramp up the national scapegoating of non-elite white males
"Obama's mother was a CIA connected Phd, and Obama himself enjoyed patronage from a wealthy, Pakistani family at and after his time at Occidental College"
ah yes, Asset Anne Dunham
both Michelle and Obie were groomed for their current roles, and your focus on Ivy League institutions tells the tale -- these two are Total Tools of the East Coast Cryptocratic establishment that -- appearences notwithstanding -- has NEVER for a second relinquished utter control of the US and, largely, the western world
bonesmen once, bonesmen always, the Society first and after that, running a distant last, God
these (un)Great Society mass-alterations occurred ONLY after JFK's hit, which catapulted LBJ and his psychotic Lady Bird into the executive, and the CRA '64 immediately followed, originally envisioned as a boost to re-establish fatherhood in black urban areas . . . but was soon redirected to create permanent classes of "oppressed minorities" -- most horrendously including ALL females, no matter how privileged or wealthy, as a collective "protected class"
the same old-money east coast elite families still run the show -- idjits like michelle and obie are merely window-dressing to "prove" to dumbed-down amerika how much "progress" is being made
chicago is the New Babylon, but most of the real power -- money, personal connections, Medea kontrol, etc. -- is still in the atlantic seaboard spookocracy, allied with interests in brittania
despite a life of unearned and unmerited entitlement and privilege, michelle robinson HATED the US right up until the day hubby was appointed president and she installed herself as the self-defined "mom in chief" with granny and Oprah at her side
now michelle thinks things are a LITTLE better but oh, there is still SO MUCH MORE to be done before the terrible spectre of sexism and racism are eradicated from the US, free at last, free at last, thank rockefeller we are free at last
those who were never oppressed a day in their lives are the true new oppressors
despicable
hope they finish that new tower soon! :O)
ray
There's no doubt, the dude is absolutely right.
The author turned what could have been a thought-provoking subject into a rant of personal prejudice (was it necessary for "Whiskey" to label Michelle Obama as an angry black woman to make a point?). First, the United States of America had historically one of the most brutal, repressive, and discriminatory forms of government against Blacks. Have we forgotten the legacy of slavery, "Whites" and "Colored" signs at drinking fountains, black troops fighting separately in ill-equipped battalions, and school segregation? Do you still wonder why after years of institutionalized racism Blacks are still alienated from mainstream America and do not performed en pair with "Whites" who have not experienced this type of racism? Have you also forgotten just how a few decades ago the people you now lumped as "Whites" were considered 'non-white' and looked down upon by other Whites? When poor Irish, Italian, Jews, and many other Eastern and Southern European immigrants arrived en massse they were viewed in pretty much the same way as non-white, poor Mexican immigrants are perceived now. Of these former immigrant groups, only the Jews rose to the top within a generation or two. So, to state that "poor whites",as you put it, are being punished in favor of non-white minorities is simply inaccurate. Historically, few Irish chose higher education and most preferred to join the police force or fire departments. Few Italians did too. A lot, I'm not saying all, of blue-collar Americans are just not into education. Period. American society as a whole has never been known for being intellectual. Just look at the cult of athletes and celebrities. The main problem, as I see it, is the degradation of our public school system. Many white students, and others who are a product of public schools, are simply not motivated to rise to the top of their class and are not even interested in learning their own language well enough to speak or write properly. Personally, I don't think Ebonics and Spanglish should be celebrated, but nor should the use of phrases like "should of", "ain't", "would've went", and other misuse of language I often hear from Whites of all backgrounds. Many Whites I've met made the choice not to pursue college, but work after High School, so they can buy recreational drugs (most Meth addicts are White), and "toys" such as RVs, dirt bikes, etc. So, let's stop blaming Blacks and minorities for the "plight" poor Whites face. In my opinion it's a matter of individual choice and responsibility. While I'm not too keen on the idea of giving anyone a "free ride," I think it would be better if an effort were made to to bring black students up to speed with their counterparts. The whole society, not just the black community, would benefit by having a more qualified workforce. Affirmative Action is certainly flawed and should be replaced by an educational system that ensures disadvantaged students who want to learn have access to the resources (teachers, equipment, environment) that will ensure true competence in the fields of their choosing. However, I would caution anyone not to use Affirmative Action to obviate past injustices and pretend everyone started on equal footing.
On Sarah Palin - Do you remember her dumb comment "I can see Russia from my house?" Oh yes, so much more profound and intelligent than the black people you're trying to ridicule on the YouTube clips. Also, if Palin is so much more qualified than Obama and other Blacks from the Ivies, how come her vocabulary appears so limited? Gee, she should be 'teachin' them blacks and other mediocre minorities' a more advanced lexicon. Instead, she educates us with exquisite words such as 'Refudiate,' 'misunderestimate,' and 'wee-wee'd up.
Let me ask you also, how come Mrs. Palin did not choose to get a degree in Engineering or the Life Sciences? Wait, those darn Blacks and Mexicans must have stolen her spot at MIT! Pleeease, Mrs. Palin went to a community college because of her own limitations. Nothing wrong with that. Hilary Clinton came from a family as white and as middle class as you can get and no Black, Mexican, Asian or extraterrestrial alien prevented her from attending and graduating from Wellesley and Yale Law School, with honors I might add. The same can be said about her dirt poor, country-boy, Arkansan white husband. He too made it to Georgetown and Yale way before he became 'elite.' How did Affirmative Action hurt their chances of being accepted into Ivy schools, I wonder? My ancestry is South American, Filipino and White (so I'm part Latino and Asian) and I went to so-called elite schools myself where I had white classmates from rural towns, one of which even came from an inbred family. I'm not lying. No one stole their spots and I don't recall anyone discriminating them for being poor either. We all got along and helped each other with our papers regardless of race or class. So, no, you have not convinced me that these hordes of undeserving Blacks and Latinos are leaving poor whites without an education. In fact, you've failed miserably to support your point, and only people who make excuses for their own lack of success can find comfort in blaming others. As a young professional female, I've experienced this type of resentment from lackluster people with poor-me mentalities. At my company, some older, white men resent I'm in management when they waste away in lower level positions. Never mind I have a Masters degree in a technical field (which they don't), speak and write better than they do, work overtime and on weekends, which they refuse to, and I take on the more difficult projects that no one wants. Was I "stealing" their spots in school when they never even bother to apply? Enough with the excuses!
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