Richard Hanania on unpopular affirmative action; John Londregan and others on college administrative bloat; Why McRaney disappointed me; Matt Yglesias on immigration reform;
Arnold's nice guy naivete on display. Re Yglesias, the bipartisan immigration reform legislation was stopped by a massive public outcry that flooded Capitol switchboards. Based on the Reagan era, the public knew that the deal would be a scam; the liberalization measures would be adopted, and nothing would be done on controls.
Re Barkan quote from the madly open borders WSJ, serving the cheap labor demands of business, we saw it beautifully demonstrated in Martha's Vineyard that Democrats no more than others want "yes, send them here." The attack on DeSantis is not shallow political thinking missing a great opportunity to demonstrate their principles, it is that they don't really believe in their principles when it affects themselves.
The simplest explanation on immigrants is that the blue states don't really want them. Not as real people en masse. They want them as a way to virtue signal or as a vote bank, but not as neighbors.
I don't know why this is surprise. This is liberals relationship with blacks in the north forever.
Anyway, polling says that the public favors the busing scheme. In a much more practical skin in the game way, the Texas border counties where Trump wanted to build a wall moved about 20-50 points to the right in the 2020 election. Miami underwent a similar change. Governors in Texas and Florida are being rewarded by voters for these policies, especially by immigrant Hispanics who previously voted democrat. That's the explanation for their actions, not primaries.
The problem with immigration reform is that nobody is allowed to be against legal immigration, even when that's what it's really about. One side would like to expand legal immigration, and when it can't do that simply turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. The other wants to reduce and shift immigration altogether, but has to talk about illegal immigration only to do so.
They don't come to an agreement because they want different things. One side thinks that if it doesn't come to an agreement it can just cheat anyway by default. The other side is calling them out.
---
As to Affirmative Action, I see it as the basis of Wokeness. Every woke tract begins with "blacks are X% of population, but Y% of Z. this requires ACTION." This was Ibram X Kendi's thesis statement.
In addition, it has to expand. Partly because the quantity and quality of protected groups keeps expanding and changing. But also because if a guy like Kendi can has a sweet ass affirmative action schtick, why not me?! I've seen how much those DEI people make, everyone is going to want in on that grab train. It has to keep growing.
Affirmative Action is meanwhile based on a lie. Therefore it requires other lies to justify. Eventually, the lies expand to take over everything, including truth itself, You get doctors marching in George Floyd rallies while preaching locking everyone else in their home because systematic racism is the real plague. The real threat of affirmative action isn't necessarily the inefficiency of having a couple of incompetent blacks around. It's the justification for why they were around.
When O'Connor put a 25 year time limit on her ruling it was legal mush. But I think what she was really doing was announcing how long it would take for the cognitive dissonance on AA to rip itself apart. When I was growing up I think promises like education reform kept people believing that the tension could be resolved by technocracy, not that they were Charles Murray style intractable.
Wokeness is very unpopular and motivating to voters. How do you keep AA without wokeness? I think its pretty much impossible at this point. It's past its expiration date.
It is not just differences in the intensity of feeling about affirmative action, it is where the supporters of affirmative action are located. It is so overwhelmingly supported in academia, and viewed as so central to their mission, that to get rid of it in college admissions would require federal marshals administering the admissions offices. No matter what the Supreme Court says, they just won't comply. It would be like reconstruction in the 1870's and massive resistance in the 1950's.
Matt has a good heart and a good head and makes good sense: "the idea of creating a way for the majority of the undocumented population to pay a fine, pay back taxes, and receive legal status still makes sense to me."
What he should suggest, but doesn't, is to start with:
1.) Build a BIG effective WALL, and keep out illegals.
2) Very restrictive asylum policy - and handled in Mexico so the bad conditions of the asylum seekers don't bother most Americans.
Instead, "pairing [amnesty] this with stepped-up enforcement (probably focused on things like E-Verify rather than the border per se) makes sense."
NO.
Border wall and stopping the illegals first. Rep voters won't allow Republicans to win primaries who fail to oppose illegals and want to stop the illegals first.
Neither of the top two (of 435) comments on Matt's post push GREAT border security FIRST.
We have immigration laws on the books, now. Enforce them. NOW.
Then talk about other laws.
Matt made a point about car thefts (in Florida), but one of his commenters noted that not enforcing laws against car thefts in SF & NYC has meant ... more car thefts.
I think Kling is right about Affirmative Action unfortunately:
“In December 2020, a Professor at University of Chicago department of Geophysics released a YouTube Video where he said the following:
“Let’s support women in science by treating women and their scientific ideas with respect,” he said. “Let’s fight bias in science by working hard to reduce bias, not by introducing it. Let’s treat each applicant for conferences, fellowships, and faculty positions as an individual worthy of dignity and respect. Let’s treat all applicants fairly by judging them only on the basis of their ability and promise as scientists.”
— Dr. Dorian Abbot
He was speaking out against affirmative action and the dangers of eschewing meritocracy — which, whether you agree with him or not, is a perfectly acceptable thing to debate the merits of. Universities exist for these debates to be had! Despite this, a grad student in his department weaponized the Ford listserv, urging them to sign a petition saying he “threatens the safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups within the [Geophysical Sciences] department and represents an aggressive act towards research and teaching communities.” This petition also “enumerates 11 demands, many of which would serve to ostracize and shame Prof. Abbot, while stripping him of departmental titles, courses, and privileges. The signatories further demand that the Department of Geophysical Sciences formally and publicly denounce Prof. Abbot’s views, and change hiring and promotion procedures so as to prioritize DEI.”
I totally agree with Arnold Kling that David McRaney engages in assymetric insight. Massively. I agree it takes something away form the book. That said, it doesn't leave me hanging. What the book describes regarding human thought processes is still profound and still worth investing the time to read this book. For anyone not already familiar with the ideas within this book, it is a valuable addition to understanding both our own and others' viewpoints.
I addressed the intensity of feeling issue in the article. I don't believe liberal voters have a strong attachment to affirmative action, in part because we've all been lied to about it for decades. I see relatively little hysteria about initiatives that have eliminated affirmative action at the state level, and there is a good deal of evidence that if anything intensity of belief goes in the other direction, with liberal positions on race being mainly what divides the left from the general public.
The Londregan article on too many college administrators seems quite reasonable and good, especially for 1993 & earlier.
"we urge that all institutions adopt the [2014] Chicago Principles* of academic freedom, and implement the recommendations of the[1967] Kalven Report to protect the political neutrality of the university."
Very good - but too little, too late.
The real problem is not administrators, but secret discrimination against Republicans.
Some future Republican dominated Congress should end all gov't funding for all colleges that discriminate against hiring Republicans as professors or administrators. Either require at least 20% of: a) registered Republicans for at least 8 years (or since registering to vote), or
b) publicly supporting 2 of the last 3 Republican Presidential candidates, or 4 of the last 6 candidates.
Yes, this is a form of "affirmative action" for Republicans in gov't supported colleges. Justified by the gov't support, especially tax-exempt status of the huge endowments.
In theory, Black female Republicans, like Mia Love or Candace Owens, would become very desirable college hires.
*"the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrongheaded. It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves,"
On immigration: voters have consistently and clearly wanted less immigration, elites feel that voters don't have a moral right to exclude foreigners from immigrating. What doomed "bipartisan immigration reform" is voters saw what was happening, and exerted pressure, and politicians who intended to undermine their own voters chose to back down.
Many commenters here argue for larger levels of immigration. I understand and can respect those arguments. But ultimately shouldn't the American voters get to choose what they want? Most elites say no, American voters shouldn't have the right to choose on issues like immigration.
If a nation has a moral obligation to have an open admissions policy, what about universities? How does a publicly funded university have the moral right to tell prospective students, that they aren't welcome to live on campus and take classes to pursue their dreams, but they are still obligated to pay through taxes?
"I see immigration reform as the victim of affective polarization."
Some of that, too, but more so a victim of the bizarro idea that allowing Immigration is some sort of benefit to the immigrants whose costs are extracted from "Americans" (or maybe form everyone except the "elite" who like having someone else mow the lawn) instead of a process by which we recruit and select people whose presence, work, and entrepreneurship are of great benefit to the rest of us (and of course to them, too).
I agree with the commentators who agree - the response from DC and MA is a simple revelation, as intended by DeSantis, of hypocrisy on the part of those who wish to force the migrants on the border states and also make those same migrants very expensive to care for by multiplying their apparent 'rights.' There is no virtue here and asking them to display it won't make them look any better. The attempt to turn on additional lawfare, the 'they were tricked into taking free plane rides to paradise,' doesn't reveal two sides of moral equivalence.
We can have a reasonable debate on immigration only if localities are able to arrange both the pros and cons to their own local satisfaction.
Arnold's nice guy naivete on display. Re Yglesias, the bipartisan immigration reform legislation was stopped by a massive public outcry that flooded Capitol switchboards. Based on the Reagan era, the public knew that the deal would be a scam; the liberalization measures would be adopted, and nothing would be done on controls.
Re Barkan quote from the madly open borders WSJ, serving the cheap labor demands of business, we saw it beautifully demonstrated in Martha's Vineyard that Democrats no more than others want "yes, send them here." The attack on DeSantis is not shallow political thinking missing a great opportunity to demonstrate their principles, it is that they don't really believe in their principles when it affects themselves.
The simplest explanation on immigrants is that the blue states don't really want them. Not as real people en masse. They want them as a way to virtue signal or as a vote bank, but not as neighbors.
I don't know why this is surprise. This is liberals relationship with blacks in the north forever.
Anyway, polling says that the public favors the busing scheme. In a much more practical skin in the game way, the Texas border counties where Trump wanted to build a wall moved about 20-50 points to the right in the 2020 election. Miami underwent a similar change. Governors in Texas and Florida are being rewarded by voters for these policies, especially by immigrant Hispanics who previously voted democrat. That's the explanation for their actions, not primaries.
The problem with immigration reform is that nobody is allowed to be against legal immigration, even when that's what it's really about. One side would like to expand legal immigration, and when it can't do that simply turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. The other wants to reduce and shift immigration altogether, but has to talk about illegal immigration only to do so.
They don't come to an agreement because they want different things. One side thinks that if it doesn't come to an agreement it can just cheat anyway by default. The other side is calling them out.
---
As to Affirmative Action, I see it as the basis of Wokeness. Every woke tract begins with "blacks are X% of population, but Y% of Z. this requires ACTION." This was Ibram X Kendi's thesis statement.
In addition, it has to expand. Partly because the quantity and quality of protected groups keeps expanding and changing. But also because if a guy like Kendi can has a sweet ass affirmative action schtick, why not me?! I've seen how much those DEI people make, everyone is going to want in on that grab train. It has to keep growing.
Affirmative Action is meanwhile based on a lie. Therefore it requires other lies to justify. Eventually, the lies expand to take over everything, including truth itself, You get doctors marching in George Floyd rallies while preaching locking everyone else in their home because systematic racism is the real plague. The real threat of affirmative action isn't necessarily the inefficiency of having a couple of incompetent blacks around. It's the justification for why they were around.
When O'Connor put a 25 year time limit on her ruling it was legal mush. But I think what she was really doing was announcing how long it would take for the cognitive dissonance on AA to rip itself apart. When I was growing up I think promises like education reform kept people believing that the tension could be resolved by technocracy, not that they were Charles Murray style intractable.
Wokeness is very unpopular and motivating to voters. How do you keep AA without wokeness? I think its pretty much impossible at this point. It's past its expiration date.
It is not just differences in the intensity of feeling about affirmative action, it is where the supporters of affirmative action are located. It is so overwhelmingly supported in academia, and viewed as so central to their mission, that to get rid of it in college admissions would require federal marshals administering the admissions offices. No matter what the Supreme Court says, they just won't comply. It would be like reconstruction in the 1870's and massive resistance in the 1950's.
Matt has a good heart and a good head and makes good sense: "the idea of creating a way for the majority of the undocumented population to pay a fine, pay back taxes, and receive legal status still makes sense to me."
What he should suggest, but doesn't, is to start with:
1.) Build a BIG effective WALL, and keep out illegals.
2) Very restrictive asylum policy - and handled in Mexico so the bad conditions of the asylum seekers don't bother most Americans.
Instead, "pairing [amnesty] this with stepped-up enforcement (probably focused on things like E-Verify rather than the border per se) makes sense."
NO.
Border wall and stopping the illegals first. Rep voters won't allow Republicans to win primaries who fail to oppose illegals and want to stop the illegals first.
Neither of the top two (of 435) comments on Matt's post push GREAT border security FIRST.
We have immigration laws on the books, now. Enforce them. NOW.
Then talk about other laws.
Matt made a point about car thefts (in Florida), but one of his commenters noted that not enforcing laws against car thefts in SF & NYC has meant ... more car thefts.
I think Kling is right about Affirmative Action unfortunately:
“In December 2020, a Professor at University of Chicago department of Geophysics released a YouTube Video where he said the following:
“Let’s support women in science by treating women and their scientific ideas with respect,” he said. “Let’s fight bias in science by working hard to reduce bias, not by introducing it. Let’s treat each applicant for conferences, fellowships, and faculty positions as an individual worthy of dignity and respect. Let’s treat all applicants fairly by judging them only on the basis of their ability and promise as scientists.”
— Dr. Dorian Abbot
He was speaking out against affirmative action and the dangers of eschewing meritocracy — which, whether you agree with him or not, is a perfectly acceptable thing to debate the merits of. Universities exist for these debates to be had! Despite this, a grad student in his department weaponized the Ford listserv, urging them to sign a petition saying he “threatens the safety and belonging of all underrepresented groups within the [Geophysical Sciences] department and represents an aggressive act towards research and teaching communities.” This petition also “enumerates 11 demands, many of which would serve to ostracize and shame Prof. Abbot, while stripping him of departmental titles, courses, and privileges. The signatories further demand that the Department of Geophysical Sciences formally and publicly denounce Prof. Abbot’s views, and change hiring and promotion procedures so as to prioritize DEI.”
I totally agree with Arnold Kling that David McRaney engages in assymetric insight. Massively. I agree it takes something away form the book. That said, it doesn't leave me hanging. What the book describes regarding human thought processes is still profound and still worth investing the time to read this book. For anyone not already familiar with the ideas within this book, it is a valuable addition to understanding both our own and others' viewpoints.
I addressed the intensity of feeling issue in the article. I don't believe liberal voters have a strong attachment to affirmative action, in part because we've all been lied to about it for decades. I see relatively little hysteria about initiatives that have eliminated affirmative action at the state level, and there is a good deal of evidence that if anything intensity of belief goes in the other direction, with liberal positions on race being mainly what divides the left from the general public.
The Londregan article on too many college administrators seems quite reasonable and good, especially for 1993 & earlier.
"we urge that all institutions adopt the [2014] Chicago Principles* of academic freedom, and implement the recommendations of the[1967] Kalven Report to protect the political neutrality of the university."
Very good - but too little, too late.
The real problem is not administrators, but secret discrimination against Republicans.
Some future Republican dominated Congress should end all gov't funding for all colleges that discriminate against hiring Republicans as professors or administrators. Either require at least 20% of: a) registered Republicans for at least 8 years (or since registering to vote), or
b) publicly supporting 2 of the last 3 Republican Presidential candidates, or 4 of the last 6 candidates.
Yes, this is a form of "affirmative action" for Republicans in gov't supported colleges. Justified by the gov't support, especially tax-exempt status of the huge endowments.
In theory, Black female Republicans, like Mia Love or Candace Owens, would become very desirable college hires.
*"the University’s fundamental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrongheaded. It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to make those judgments for themselves,"
On immigration: voters have consistently and clearly wanted less immigration, elites feel that voters don't have a moral right to exclude foreigners from immigrating. What doomed "bipartisan immigration reform" is voters saw what was happening, and exerted pressure, and politicians who intended to undermine their own voters chose to back down.
Many commenters here argue for larger levels of immigration. I understand and can respect those arguments. But ultimately shouldn't the American voters get to choose what they want? Most elites say no, American voters shouldn't have the right to choose on issues like immigration.
If a nation has a moral obligation to have an open admissions policy, what about universities? How does a publicly funded university have the moral right to tell prospective students, that they aren't welcome to live on campus and take classes to pursue their dreams, but they are still obligated to pay through taxes?
"I see immigration reform as the victim of affective polarization."
Some of that, too, but more so a victim of the bizarro idea that allowing Immigration is some sort of benefit to the immigrants whose costs are extracted from "Americans" (or maybe form everyone except the "elite" who like having someone else mow the lawn) instead of a process by which we recruit and select people whose presence, work, and entrepreneurship are of great benefit to the rest of us (and of course to them, too).
I agree with the commentators who agree - the response from DC and MA is a simple revelation, as intended by DeSantis, of hypocrisy on the part of those who wish to force the migrants on the border states and also make those same migrants very expensive to care for by multiplying their apparent 'rights.' There is no virtue here and asking them to display it won't make them look any better. The attempt to turn on additional lawfare, the 'they were tricked into taking free plane rides to paradise,' doesn't reveal two sides of moral equivalence.
We can have a reasonable debate on immigration only if localities are able to arrange both the pros and cons to their own local satisfaction.
"A significant investment in border security and interdiction."
This is Yglesias lying outright.