… of yer damned bidness!
Let’s end America’s toxic preoccupation with racial taxonomy
The late, great John Patrick Hunter was a liberal journalist for The Capital Times. He won national fame for an Independence Day stunt in 1951 when he asked Madisonians to sign his petition. (Only one consented. Hunter’s petition consisted of the Declaration of Independence. It was the era of Joe McCarthy and American disgust for Communist oppression.)
I worked with John later in his career. Although liberal in outlook (and a Unitarian), he was always fair to Republicans, something of a free thinker, and a fierce defender of the First Amendment. He liked to boast that, under “Race” on his driver’s license, was typed “N” for negro. It is instructive that the Wisconsin DOT quit recording race years ago.
Identifies as stupid
The Blaska Policy Werkes, after voluminous research and executive fiat by its director of operations, hereby calls on the Congress of the United States, the State of Wisconsin and every governmental unit within to prohibit, under punishment of law, the collection of data relating to race. Do it in time for the upcoming U.S. Census.
Call it the Rachel Doleazal Law. John Patrick Hunter, born in the hills of West Virginia, was as white as a Confederate colonel.
Wouldn’t you like to know?
What is “race” anyway except a distraction; a divisive distinction signifying nothing that should concern government? The Census Bureau would more productively record height and weight.
The Werkes has long held this position and now finds company in a familiar and an unfamiliar name: Ward Connerly and Mike Gonzalez. Connerly and Gonzalez write:
It’s time Census Bureau stops dividing America. … For four decades our government has been engaged in the unsavory practice of designating official groups, and standing against any reform is a coalition of special-interest liberal organizations that depend on it for funds and prestige.
They cite the familiar Ancestry.com TV commercials. “Today, you can spit into a vial, send it to genomics companies and discover that you are not Irish, as you thought, but instead 60% English.” Perhaps the authors are not “authentically black” or hispanic.
Identity politics is corroding government and domestic comity.
- The Dane County Board of Supervisors mandates, by ordinance, that its every action be viewed through “racial equity lens.”
- The Madison Common Council succumbed to a small pressure group’s claim that the entire law enforcement system is racist.
- The Madison school board is considering evicting educational resource police officers from school hallways solely because a majority of those arrested for criminal activity are black — even though doing so would produce more chaos.
- Wisconsin’s flagship university campus teaches “The Problem of Whiteness.”
“When a disproportionate amount of students of color in Madison school district are struggling, it is imperative to analyze practices through a racial equity lens.” School board member Dean Loumos said that!
In other words, the school district is poised to decide policy based purely on race, not behavior! How is that constitutional?
Identity politics is destroying America
And elected Donald Trump in reaction. The Constitution demands a color-blind, especially after enactment of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Ending the toxic preoccupation with racial taxonomy would put an end to the mischief caused by identity politics. Even former Madison mayor Dave Cieslewicz has soured on the Democrats’ obsession, writing in “The politics of grievance” “that a society that encourages the obsessive identification of grievance is one that probably only deepens its fissures.”
“Racial Equity” does not seek equal treatment for all students. Instead, it demands statistical equivalence in discipline referrals and suspensions for students of every racial group, regardless of those students’ actual conduct. — from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
The Weekly Standard examines what happens when everything is race in a toney suburb of Minneapolis.
For decades, the public schools of Edina, Minnesota, were the gold standard among the state’s school districts. … but virtually overnight, its reputation has changed. Academic rigor is unraveling, high school reading and math test scores are sliding, and students increasingly fear bullying and persecution.
Guilty of white privilege
The shift began in 2013, when Edina school leaders adopted the “All for All” strategic plan—a sweeping initiative that reordered the district’s mission from academic excellence for all students to “racial equity.”
“Equity” in this context does not mean “equality” or “fairness.” It means racial identity politics—an ideology that blames minority students’ academic challenges on institutional racial bias, repudiates Martin Luther King, Jr.’s color-blind ideal, and focuses on uprooting “white privilege.”
… “All teaching and learning experiences” would be viewed through the “lens of racial equity,” and that only “racially conscious” teachers and administrators should be hired. [to] reduce Edina’s racial achievement gap. … The school system’s obsession with “white privilege” now begins in kindergarten.
Results? Four years into the Edina schools’ “equity crusade,” black students’ test scores remain poor.
For further study and brownie points: More Americans are checking “Some Other Race” on government forms. (Related here.)
Blaska’s Bottom Line — The Doleazal Rule would not prevent the University of Wisconsin from squandering resources on race and gender studies (as much as they do promote hate and division, as we wrote here); that is the responsibility of the Board of Regents. But it will stymie government decisions based solely on race rather than real factors like conduct, income, health, employment, education, etc.
The elites are all in on race based identity politics and policy. They can’t stop. They won’t stop. Witness your typical Prog commenter here. They’re addicted to the weaponized race based narrative. They think it grants them status.
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There is only one race, The HUMAN Race! That is the science, deal with it.
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Apparently school board member Dean Loumos needs to brush up on his 5th grade level English. “When a disproportionate amount of students of color …” People–including people of color–come in numbers, not amounts. (Of course, that’s according to standard English, not ebonics.)
My theory is that since most liberals are atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, and self-styled pagans, they’ve got to find a way to fill the great gaping void in the human psyche where religious belief used to reside. That’s why racism, for them, has become Original Sin. They never tire of beating their breasts over their “white privilege” because it allows them to engage in a secular version of Confession. It’s why the Chicken Littles of climate change have become their priesthood and Science their theology–and woe befall any heretic who dares question their doctrine. It’s why they demand public debasement and groveling apology, repeated ad nauseam, like the recitation of the Rosary, for anyone guilty of any of the secular transgressions they have elevated to the status of Sin–with racism, of course, topping the list. And while they sneer at anyone professing Christianity, they happily adopt the techniques of the Inquisition (what else do you call denying someone accused of sexual harassment the opportunity to defend himself before passing judgment?).
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“the Chicken Littles of climate change”.
Quick to call names, really sloooooowwwww with an argument proving your point.
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Man made global warming is an unproved theory. Your side must prove it. Our side understands you lost the rhetorical argument when there was no warming despite increases in CO2 largely thanks to China and India industrialization. Now you have to call it climate change as if the climate had never been changeable.
Spare us the blizzard of links from the fever swamp.
Your warm mongers have lost this one too.
When the educrat industrial complex can meet, angst and dialog about racial equity they don’t have to, you know, teach or maintain discipline learning environments.
When our globalist betters can jet off to Paris, Copenhagen and Kyoto and yap about climate while consuming lots of other peoples money they don’t have to, you know, govern.
See a pattern here?
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When you science geniuses going to tackle that “theory” of gravity?
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“when there was no warming despite increases in CO2”.
Really ? That isn’t what NASA, NOAA, Nat Geo, UW, etc say. Maybe you can provide some credible proof of your statement.
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Huh. Its like liberals are judgemental?
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Oh, puh-leeze. Like you guys aren’t?
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ABob,
The reason my judgement is so good is because I exercise it every day.
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(Eye roll)
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ABob. Eugenics? Marxism? Lysenko? Scientific Socialism?
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Woo-woo…earth to Splat. Study the scientific method and get back to me when global warming is disproven.
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Where in the Scientific Method do you find “disprove idiocy”?
Dammit ABob, you reached for your copy of Scientific Method and cited “Rules for Radicals.”
Freudian slip or habit?
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You do know there is a difference between hard science and political science/sociology/ideology, right? The hard science is on the side of global warming, not hard right truthiness.
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Cull the Deep State
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Science is not on a side. Science is provable not settled.
ABob, polls were statistically proven and you threw them around gleefully. 94% percent you told me that Hillary would be president.
It was, to you, far more settled than global warming.
You don’t know hard science from scientific socialism.
It is all relative to the Left.
All the way down.
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OB,
Thanks for the reminder of how many and how deeply coerced folks the Deep State were by President Trump’s predecessor.
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OB,
You forgot to tell us that 90% of all scientists angling for federal grants agree that global warming is upon us. There numbers increased exponentially, like a hockey stick you might say.
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splat:
Not really germane to your claim, nor factual.
Maybe you could explain that 100% of deniers are angling for campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry?
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Except…. no. I know many non warm mongers and zero lobbyists.
Total fail for Captain Literal.
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Nope, no fail here. And you still haven’t said anything to prove your point. Keep trying..
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Seriously Blaska. How do you explain this article in view of your embarrassing cheerleading for a taxpayer funded school that segregated on the basis of race?
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It did not segregate.
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PragerU has several informative five minute video lectures on climate change, the issues and components at play. At top of page hover cursor over- Watch – and click on- Five Minute Ideas – scroll down and within white box labeled- Topics – type in Environmental Science. Here is the latest one.
https://www.prageru.com/videos/can-climate-models-predict-climate-change
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A digital media site (not a university) created by a conservative radio host? Not very credible, Batman.
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Abob,
Perhaps you should listen to the reports before commenting. Like one of the presenters said; everything he was saying can be verified by anyone willing to do the research. I doubt you are unwilling to do honest research.
And btw; you will likely be pleasantly surprised at how much your world perspective will change once you open your mind.
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I’m not going to waste my time, like I wouldn’t on Trump University. Good rule of thumb: anything that misappropriates “university” in its name, is not.
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Correction-
I meant to say; I doubt you are willing to do honest research.
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Suddenly precision in an organization’s name is critical to Abob. This from a guy who defends Antifa as an actual anti-fascist organization.
Obviously your mind is made up on climate change, as in closed.
At least we all understand how your mind works now.
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My mind is influenced by what the overwhelming majority of experts say (the people who actually study this stuff) and by what public agencies report, not by the right wing propaganda of a radio host. Batman, use your noggin, think critically.
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Nice try, but no.
Your mind is influenced by listening to one side of an extremely complex scientific examination.
Try listening to some of the climate change presentations at PragerU, (none of which are by D. Prager), to see if they sound like right wing propaganda. Check the credentials of those lecturing.
“Use your noggin, think critically.”
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Alright, I watched. Five minutes I’ll never get back. A one-sided presentation, with cheesy graphics, of a complex problem. We both suffer from confirmation bias, Batman, and this did nothing to clear it up. I’ve no idea whether the ancient presenter is considered a crank in his field, and neither do you, but I do know he is part of the outlier 3%.
A glutton for punishment, I also watched The Inconvenient Truth About the Republican Party. A simplistic, one-sided 5 minute history lecture, with cheesy graphics, about GOP support of blacks and women. The blithe dismissal of the two parties essentially switching sides more than 50 years ago, after the Civil Rights Act, was laughable. For those who sat in the back and slept thru high school American history, and have had no interest since.
PragerU: simplistic, one-sided, no context, no acknowledgement of counter arguments. Great for confirming what you already believe. No thanks.
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His only point was that long-term climate models do not work and never have. He explains why. It is his field of expertise.
Guess you disagree. Hardly right wing propaganda.
Check out the video on how the figure of, 97% of scientists agree, was arrived at.
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I meant to say; long-term PREDICTIVE climate models.
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ABob and OB’s semantics are fun.
Outliers. Deniers. Deplorables. Choice. Racists.
Post Marxism 101.
Post Marxism 102 is Kulaks, Wreckers and counter revolutionaries.
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Commies under every rock.
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No. Commissar wannabes.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PragerU
My golden retriever has more academic credibility than this site. Good call, ABob.
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baldy,
At least Abob had the courage to allow an alternative perspective into his awareness by watching the {predictive climate model} video and another off topic one. Besmirching PragerU without identifying any factual errors is meaningless.
Your contribution is unsatisfactory.
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At least I have a contribution. You?
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Well said, Squire! Keep up the good werkes…methinks you have poked the bear, but hopefully the poke went at the right spot to disable him/her/it/whatevs a bit 🙂
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The climate change fanatics never tire of bewailing what warming in the Arctic is doing to the poor cuddly polar bears. What they’d have you believe is that they’re being nudged to the brink of extinction because of habitat loss. What’s actually happening is that many of them are breeding with the local grizzly population, thereby creating a new hybrid species. In other words, they’re doing what animal special have done for millions of years: adapting to changes in their environment. And they’re doing it quite effectively on their own without human intervention. Which leads me to conclude that if and when climate change happens, Nature will accommodate itself quite nicely to those changes. As for humans … I can’t say I’d be overcome with grief at the sight of all those luxury high-rises in Miami and San Francisco disappearing under the waves.
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Climate change is not about cuddly polar bears or sticking it to those rich coastal elites (Democrats!). It’s about more extreme weather worldwide. Rainfall changes, droughts, flooding, bigger hurricanes (Texas? Florida? Puerto Rico? Helloooo…), hotter summers, colder winters, weather patterns all screwed up, you name it. Lots of property damage and much human suffering. Big problems.
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ABob discovers that weather events (oops, mustn’t confuse weather events with climate) never happened before the Trump Presidency.
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Fundamentalists like to point to Biblical passages that foretell the Apocalypse and apply them to contemporary events. One of the signs? What we’d call today “extreme weather events”–earthquakes, floods, droughts, etc. The Chicken Littles of climate change do the same, except their Holy Writ is called Science, which as we all know, is NEVER influenced by the vagaries of politics or social movements. And like Fundamentalists, they sputter with rage when anyone presumes to challenge their belief system.
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“What they’d have you believe is that they’re being nudged to the brink of extinction because of habitat loss”. That is because it is true. If all we have left are hybrids, the true polar bears are extinct. Real science baffles you, no?
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This just in, Tuvalu, a Pacific island cited by Warm Mongers as the first to go under rising oceans. Recent survey show its growing in size.
Obama, in his first inaugural, said that was the moment the oceans would begin to recede so we’ll have to stop saying he failed at everything.
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