[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

Utopian Visionaries Who Won’t Leave People Alone

No - no - no Ain'T going To get away with iT

Pete Buttplug's Butt Plugger Trying to Turn Kids into Faggots

Mark Levin: I'm sick and tired of these attacks

Questioning the Big Bang

James Webb Data Contradicts the Big Bang

Pssst! Don't tell the creationists, but scientists don't have a clue how life began

A fine romance: how humans and chimps just couldn't let go

Early humans had sex with chimps

O’Keefe dons bulletproof vest to extract undercover journalist from NGO camp.

Biblical Contradictions (Alleged)

Catholic Church Praising Lucifer

Raising the Knife

One Of The HARDEST Videos I Had To Make..

Houthi rebels' attack severely damages a Belize-flagged ship in key strait leading to the Red Sea (British Ship)

Chinese Illegal Alien. I'm here for the moneuy

Red Tides Plague Gulf Beaches

Tucker Carlson calls out Nikki Haley, Ben Shapiro, and every other person calling for war:

{Are there 7 Deadly Sins?} I’ve heard people refer to the “7 Deadly Sins,” but I haven’t been able to find that sort of list in Scripture.

Abomination of Desolation | THEORY, BIBLE STUDY

Bible Help

Libertysflame Database Updated

Crush EVERYONE with the Alien Gambit!

Vladimir Putin tells Tucker Carlson US should stop arming Ukraine to end war

Putin hints Moscow and Washington in back-channel talks in revealing Tucker Carlson interview

Trump accuses Fulton County DA Fani Willis of lying in court response to Roman's motion

Mandatory anti-white racism at Disney.

Iceland Volcano Erupts For Third Time In 2 Months, State Of Emergency Declared

Tucker Carlson Interview with Vladamir Putin

How will Ar Mageddon / WW III End?

What on EARTH is going on in Acts 16:11? New Discovery!

2023 Hottest in over 120 Million Years

2024 and beyond in prophecy

Questions

This Speech Just Broke the Internet

This AMAZING Math Formula Will Teach You About God!

The GOSPEL of the ALIENS | Fallen Angels | Giants | Anunnaki

The IMAGE of the BEAST Revealed (REV 13) - WARNING: Not for Everyone

WEF Calls for AI to Replace Voters: ‘Why Do We Need Elections?’

The OCCULT Burger king EXPOSED

PANERA BREAD Antichrist message EXPOSED

The OCCULT Cheesecake Factory EXPOSED

Satanist And Witches Encounter The Cross

History and Beliefs of the Waldensians

Rome’s Persecution of the Bible

Evolutionists, You’ve Been Caught Lying About Fossils

Raw Streets of NYC Migrant Crisis that they don't show on Tv

Meet DarkBERT - AI Model Trained On DARK WEB

[NEW!] Jaw-dropping 666 Discovery Utterly Proves the King James Bible is God's Preserved Word

ALERT!!! THE MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION WILL SOON BE POSTED HERE


Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

United States News
See other United States News Articles

Title: Black Privilege: Students Get SAT Bonus Points for Being Black or Hispanic – Asians Are Penalized
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201 ... hispanic-asians-are-penalized/
Published: Feb 28, 2015
Author: Jim Hoft
Post Date: 2015-02-28 04:55:57 by out damned spot
Keywords: students, black privilege, SAT
Views: 12088
Comments: 80

A report in the LA Times revealed that blacks and Hispanics get bonus SAT points at elite universities based on their race. Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

The LA Times reported, via DownTrend:

Lee’s next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant’s race is worth. She points to the first column.

African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.

She points to the second column.

“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”

The last column draws gasps.

Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.

“Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.

“Zenme keyi,” one mother hisses in Chinese. How can this be possible?

Downtrend also noted that college athletes also receive bonus points during the application process.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: out damned spot (#0)

Meh. They don't actually get bonus SAT points, this was a study to try to quantify how much higher they need to score to be offered admission.

Notice there is no mention of Jewish placement in this study. Surely an oversight.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   5:12:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: TooConservative (#1)

"Notice there is no mention of Jewish placement in this study."

Nor Catholics.

misterwhite  posted on  2015-02-28   7:49:55 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: misterwhite (#2)

Catholic students do well as a group but they don't break the Bell curve the way that Jews or Asians do.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   7:56:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: out damned spot (#0) (Edited)

And these people used to scream for "EQUALITY!".....

patriot wes  posted on  2015-02-28   8:04:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: out damned spot (#0)

Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

It's just because they have 20 points higher IQ than the others, so this is "EQUALITY". LOL.

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

CZ82  posted on  2015-02-28   8:08:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: TooConservative (#1)

"They don't actually get bonus SAT points ..."

Of course not. Not officially. They'd find themselves in court.

But if an admissions officer, pressed to admit minorities, looks at an 1800 SAT from a white student and a 1650 SAT from a black student, they're likely to mentally add the 230 points and admit the black student.

Even if they don't, the fact that they've even studied these differences will lead students to believe that some minorities were admitted because of their race. And the bleeding heart liberals think this actually helps race relations. Just the opposite.

misterwhite  posted on  2015-02-28   8:08:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: patriot wes, Too Conservative (#4)

"And these people used to scream for "EQUALITY!"....."

Well, at some point a college has to draw the line. Otherwise, only Asians (and Jews --hat tip to Too Conservative) would attend, crowding out everyone else including white non-Jews. Right?

Colleges can set the SAT admissions bar low enough to accommodate everyone with two brain cells to rub together, then allocate open slots by race and ethnicity (50% white, 20% black, 15% Hispanic, etc.).

Of course, only the Asians (and Jews) and 25% of the white non-Jews would actually graduate, but I'm sure liberals could come up with another plan to correct that (perhaps adding 30% to every test for minorities).

misterwhite  posted on  2015-02-28   8:24:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: out damned spot (#0)

A report in the LA Times revealed that blacks and Hispanics get bonus SAT points at elite universities based on their race. Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

Sounds about right.

Asians do okay in baseball but the real money in Title IX is football and basketball.

Without the bonus points, most negroes and mexicans could never get in a school let alone make a varsity team.

cranky  posted on  2015-02-28   8:33:22 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: cranky (#8)

Sounds about right.

Asians do okay in baseball but the real money in Title IX is football and basketball.

Without the bonus points, most negroes and mexicans could never get in a school let alone make a varsity team.

Athletics is a different skill set from what is tested on the SAT.

College is to prepare men and women for successful entry into adult life at a level far above the menial labor available to the uneducated, but education takes many forms, and university graduates serve many industries.

Sports in America is an $80 billion industry directly, and through the entertainment and construction aspects (broadcasts, commercialism, stadium construction, sports medicine, sports law, etc, there's another couple of hundred billion of added economic value, and growing.

Sports is a primary nexus of leisure, health and entertainment, and the athletes at the center of it, whatever the field, are the equivalent of Hollywood stars in bringing in interest and keeping people focused on their sport.

When the various pro-sports have their strikes and the leagues have brought in non-pro players to try to keep the season going, the difference between top-tier athletes and the very good second tier is visible… and the fan base drops off considerably.

Sports is a large industry that needs lots of well-trained people in it. Entertainment arts, particularly music, which takes years to master at a professional level, do not rely on the same skill sets as the office job skills for which the traditional SAT tests.

The bulk of people who go to college will graduate to office jobs, and therefore its entirely appropriate that the bulk of college entry be based on office-job related skills: sitting down to read and write and do math. Some variation of that is how the bulk of people make their living, and so the bulk of college admissions is based on that.

But there is no good reason for colleges to be limited exclusively to being finishing schools for office drones. The sports industry nexus is also massive and growing, and it needs trained talent too, at all levels. Within sports, there's always the need for office workers, but athletes respect athletes, and men and women who aspire to leadership in that industry need to be trained athletes at the top of their sports.

The training time it takes to be a top athlete cuts into study time on office-worker skills, and generally those who have a lot of athletic talent have the same desire to use their time expressing it as bookworms who get perfect SAT scores spend expressing theirs. Either type has the ability to rise to a very productive and lucrative role in society, with training.

Also, sports programs in university are the primary source of outside funding. Some industry or interested employer may fund some chair or other in an academic department - and government study money drives a lot of the size of university academic departments, but the sports programs - particularly the flagship mass entertainment sports - are profit centers. Sports are how the general public supports universities, happily, and the money that comes into universities through sports not only pays for the sports programs themselves, and the athletic scholarships, but also generates excess revenue that benefits the university as a whole, and in a capitalistic way. Government grants to academic departments fund the schools, but these are government tax dollars at work, transfer payments, and vaguely socialistic. The profits from sports programs come from the public paying to see things - average people WANT to give money to those things, and do.

So yes, it is true, any college that has a sports program is going to have a system that looks at athletes differently. Many athletes do not have the same SAT scores as the general office-bound college population…and they don't NEED to.

We could adopt a specialization mentality, and have institutions JUST for athletes, that have no sports programs at all, and then institutions for future office drones.

If we did that, the athletics nexus schools would be well funded and more athletes would get educations, but the regular office-drone schools - the standard university model of today, would be poorer for it in many ways. All students at colleges have access to athletic facilities, and most make use of them. Strip that away, and the general health of the office-drone track will suffer. Certainly the finances of the universities will suffer greatly, as sports is usually the main profit center after tuition.

Also, many students who brings great credit and glory to the universities would not go, preferring instead to go to the sports institutions.

This model already exists in much of Europe, and everywhere it does, the athletes benefit from it as there are clearly defined educational and career paths for them.

So yes, the sports could be taken out of the colleges, and the slots filled by high-athletic ability, lower-SAT students could be filled in instead with just more office-drone bound students. The sports could be concentrated at sports institutions. The result would be a considerable improvement in the lives of athletes, and a substantial diminution in the quality of most of the colleges and universities. Even the Ivies would suffer, because they have the same contingent of athletes as the other schools, often in other sports - the Ivies have realized what all schools have: athletes add some academic challenges, because some athletes are not as academically prepared, but athletes are for the most part more disciplined people who tend to do well in life, and they tend to understand teamwork and tend to be loyal their schools, and to work at getting the recruits.

The schools that disgrace themselves are the ones that admit great athletes who need remedial academic work and then don't give them the academic remediation. That's a mistake.

Strip the sports out of the schools, and you'll end up with poorer schools, less after-graduation support for the schools, much greater reliance on public funding, less healthy graduates overall…and you will remove the colleges as the source of the talent that fills up a several hundred-billion dollar niche of the economy.

Athletes, with their lower average SAT scores, generally IMPROVE the schools at which they attend, and the sports programs are net POSITIVES for the institutions that have them. If the colleges want to get out of the business of preparing people for athletic careers, certainly that can happen: there can be specialization, like in France and Russia and Germany, where the sports track breaks out and has its own institutions. This is much better, economically and educationally, for the athletes. But the rest of the drones who attend universities to become office workers do not benefit from the separation.

Harvard and Annapolis don't maintain a full sports program in all areas, and have different rules for athletics admissions out of the goodness of their hearts. And they don't do it out of blindness. They do it because as a whole athletes prove to be more successful people in life than non-athletes with higher SAT scores at age 18. The discipline it took in high school and junior high to be able to be admitted as a college athlete is harder and more demanding than the discipline it takes to get good math and English grades.

With musicians it is similar. Many of them have good grades, but once they go into music programs, the lion's share of their time is spent studying music. They're not being prepared for office jobs either. Exclude fine arts from the universities as well, and you'll end up with universities being nothing but training grounds for office drones, and that can be done with a lot less funding…and will be, because sports and the arts bring IN money. Tuition alone doesn't pay for the quality of colleges, and office drones don't give back to universities for years after they graduate the way that athletes and performers do.

Truth is, athletes and performers may have lower SAT scores, but they tend to form the most noticeable cream of most college's crop. Magic Johnson did more for Michigan State University than the Asian or White kid with the higher SAT score who would have taken his place did. And Magic Johnson's career path has employed a whole lot more people - office drones included - than the office drone Asian who might have taken his place.

There are physiological reasons that lead to a higher concentration of blacks in certain sports, and whites in others. There are sociological reasons why blacks tend to have lower grades. It is true that athletes will tend to have lower SAT scores, black athletes in particular, because of the sociological reasons. It is also true that over time, pound for pound, the admission of the black athlete with the lower score will almost certainly be of greater benefit to the university, and to the general economy, than admitting some other kid with a higher SAT score but without the athlete's discipline.

Of course there are only so many slots on teams, and the NCAA rules limit scholarships and impose standards to prevent colleges from simply exploiting the athletes (some do anyway). The answer to that is to make the colleges step up, not to get the sports out of the schools.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-02-28   9:31:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: out damned spot (#0) (Edited)

People aren't equal... and they've never been equal.

Giving any race points to artificially equal the test taker is like feeding the wild animals. They become dependent on man made actions. Its in every animals nature to always take the easiest path. The animals will stop hunting and the humans will stop learning or striving to be better than the other, whiter, less hairy, human.

Compassion, sympathy and kindness will be our downfall, as a species.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   9:56:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Vicomte13 (#9)

You make a lot of assertions you can't prove to defend your premise.

You're suggesting that Harvard and MIT really need major sports teams to be a success. Yet their results over decades don't hold up to your argument.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   10:04:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: Vicomte13 (#9)

IQ measures ability to solve IQ puzzles. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was designed to pick qualified office drones.

A Pole  posted on  2015-02-28   11:14:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: GrandIsland (#10)

What is your IQ?

A Pole  posted on  2015-02-28   11:14:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: A Pole (#13) (Edited)

What is your IQ?

High enough to score in the top 15 on a civil service test were 450 people took the exam.

Smart enough to score in first place 6 times on a promotional Sergeant exam.

I've never needed free points to achieve. I'm not a sheep.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   11:19:58 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: cranky (#8)

"Without the bonus points, most negroes and mexicans could never get in a school let alone make a varsity team."

There are always ways to get them into school. Graduating them is a whole 'nuther problem.

misterwhite  posted on  2015-02-28   11:31:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: A Pole (#12)

IQ measures ability to solve IQ puzzles. Nothing more, nothing less. It was designed to pick qualified office drones.

"Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.'

I believe IQ measures one's place on the evolutionary ladder. A hard number which quantifies one's superiority over others. An indicator of one's usefulness and status in society.

But, hey. That's simply my opinion. And the opinion of my fellow Mensans.

misterwhite  posted on  2015-02-28   11:40:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: GrandIsland (#14)

High enough to score in the top 15 on a civil service test were [sic] 450 people took the exam.

Sure you did, Einstein, sure you did.

Fred Mertz  posted on  2015-02-28   11:50:58 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: Fred Mertz (#17) (Edited)

Just because you don't believe it, doesn't make it not true. Unless you're the most all knowing person you know?

Are you that self important, Freddy?

lol

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   12:04:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: GrandIsland (#18)

Feddy?

lol

Fred Mertz  posted on  2015-02-28   12:07:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: Fred Mertz (#19)

A typo, Freddy.

You know what that is?

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   12:11:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: GrandIsland, out damned spot (#10)

"Compassion, sympathy and kindness will be our downfall, as a species".

I agree with you 100% GI but, with one slight correction. No disrespect intended.

"(misguided) Compassion, sympathy and kindness will be our downfall, as a species".

CHEERS! On this bitter, cold day. &;-)

("We sing about God because we believe in Him. We are not trying to offend anybody, but the evidence that we have seen of Him in our small little lives trumps your opinion about whether or not He exists". ~ Jeff Foxworthy)

Murron  posted on  2015-02-28   12:17:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: GrandIsland (#14)

120?

A Pole  posted on  2015-02-28   12:17:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: A Pole (#22)

120?

High enough to have never needed liberal help achieving anything in life.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   12:19:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: GrandIsland (#14)

I'm not a sheep

Really? So who you are under your sheepskin?

A Pole  posted on  2015-02-28   12:19:34 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#25. To: GrandIsland (#23)

High enough to have never needed liberal help achieving anything in life.

You mean you live off taxpayers tit?

A Pole  posted on  2015-02-28   12:22:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#26. To: A Pole (#25) (Edited)

You mean you live off taxpayers tit?

Negative. The NYS retirement system is completely separate animal than a tax funded budget.

It's payouts are funded by employee contatbutions and investments. Not socialist at all.

Now, KOOKIFORNIA, is different. They took employee contributions and stole from it by balancing budgets... and now it's a tax drain because that shithole state taxes and spends just like you spew ignorance.... endless

You should research the NYS retirement fund... so you don't sound so uninformed. The fund is so huge, so rich... that Cuck Fuomo has threatened to steal from it. He'll never be allowed.

Other than that, I'm retired.

I like your spin tho. You know our founding fathers intended on some form of government and TAXES to fund it... and when a conservative, like me complains about the SIZE of it, a liberal like you wants to spin the intended amount to be just as bad as the overgrown and out of control amount of government.

Do you suggest that there be no Sheriff's? lol

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   12:39:07 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#27. To: misterwhite (#7)

Do you want to hear a squawk heard around the world?

The way to fix this is to hoist the commies/libs/progs on their own petard. Make it so all students must be accepted regardless of SAT, to any college or university that takes tax breaks, or direct monies from any form of government. Destroy the Ivy league type schools make all admissions equal.

jeremiad  posted on  2015-02-28   12:43:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: out damned spot (#0)

A report in the LA Times revealed that blacks and Hispanics get bonus SAT points at elite universities based on their race. Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

In more breaking news,editors have determined that the sun usually rises in the east!

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-02-28   12:47:24 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#29. To: out damned spot, *Hypocrisy and Hypocrites* (#0)

African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.

She points to the second column.

“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”

The last column draws gasps.

Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.

Anybody else notice how it always seems like the people that work the hardest end up being the luckiest and most successful?

I think it must be some sort of conspiracy!

No juz-tize,no peas!

No juz-tize,no peas!

No juz-tize,no peas!

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-02-28   12:50:52 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#30. To: patriot wes (#4)

And these people used to scream for "EQUALITY!".....

Yeah,but only because they don't understand what the word means.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-02-28   12:51:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#31. To: jeremiad (#27)

Destroy the Ivy league type schools make all admissions equal.

The Ivy League are private colleges, not state universities.

You would likely make the Ivy schools even more powerful than they are now.

Turning the universities into community colleges is probably not the answer you want.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   12:53:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#32. To: A Pole (#12)

IQ measures ability to solve IQ puzzles. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was designed to pick qualified office drones.

You just keep telling yourself that,Bubba.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-02-28   12:54:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#33. To: jeremiad (#27)

"Make it so all students must be accepted regardless of SAT"

Sure. That's easy. But if you're a college and 90% of your freshmen flunk out, where are your sophomores going to come from?

Colleges make their money from students who will go there all four years. So want only those students who are smart enough to survive all four years.

A SAT (ACT) score is the best predictor.

misterwhite  posted on  2015-02-28   13:01:47 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#34. To: TooConservative (#1)

.........this was a study to try to quantify how much higher they need to score to be offered admission.

How do you know? The article didn't state this.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-02-28   13:42:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#35. To: SOSO (#34)

Either you didn't read or didn't understand what the article said.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   13:45:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#36. To: TooConservative (#35)

What about the following don't you undrestand.

"A report in the LA Times revealed that blacks and Hispanics get bonus SAT points at elite universities based on their race. Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

Lee’s next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant’s race is worth. She points to the first column."

It is perfectly clear that the bonus points are de facto awarded and the Princeton study was to determine the magnitude of SAT bonus points per race. In other words it determined the equivalent SAT score a Black, Hispanic and Asian used in the admission decision had race of the applicant not been identified.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-02-28   13:55:55 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#37. To: Fred Mertz (#17)

Sure you did, Einstein, sure you did.

A lot more believable than White as a Mensa member. And NY's civil service exam is not a Mensa test, judging by various comments I've read about it over the years.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   14:01:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#38. To: SOSO (#36)

Like I said, you don't understand the article. It was poorly written IMO.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   14:02:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#39. To: out damned spot (#0)

African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.

“Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”

Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

The new appoach to creating equality. Chop off the heads of anyone showing innate capacity and determination while granting imbeciles Ph. D.s to prance with.

rlk  posted on  2015-02-28   14:13:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#40. To: TooConservative (#38)

Like I said, you don't understand the article.

Au contrare. It is perfectly clear that being black is wirth the stated bonus points on the SAT in the adnmission decision. For example a black with a SAT of 1500 would be on a par with a white with a SAT of 1750 and an ASain of 1800.

I do agree that the article could have been worded better. But what do you expect, it probably was written for a blacks or hispanics.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-02-28   14:14:45 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#41. To: SOSO (#40)

The key difference is that the schools do not actually adjust the SAT scores. The study tries to estimate roughly how much higher they would have to score on SAT for admission.

These schools are too smart to be so blatant as just adjusting SAT scores directly. Too many litigious parents out there.

BTW, legacy students (children of alumni) get a "bonus" of 160 points if you read the LAT article. So a lot of Asians and even a few Hispanics are losing out to alumni families.

Not that any of this discrimination seems to tip Asians into voting Republican, the one way they might actually force this issue with the Dims.

Tooconservative  posted on  2015-02-28   14:20:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#42. To: TooConservative (#41)

The key difference is that the schools do not actually adjust the SAT scores. The study tries to estimate roughly how much higher they would have to score on SAT for admission.

Thank you, that is exactly what I described. LLAD.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-02-28   14:21:25 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#43. To: Murron (#21)

misguided

Good point.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

GrandIsland  posted on  2015-02-28   16:09:39 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#44. To: TooConservative (#11)

You should take a look at Harvard athletics - at Harvard they understand the utility of athletes as well, and athletes do not have to meet exactly the same academic standard for admission as others.

Of course Harvard is the best endowed school in the universe, and doesn't even need to charge tuition. Nevertheless, they have the same sports programs that other universities have.

MIT? Sure.

Apply what I wrote to every other school in America EXCEPT MIT and Cal Poly. People don't go to MIT to become athletes. They don't go there to become lawyers or financiers either.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-02-28   19:24:35 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#45. To: TooConservative, jeremiad, vicomte13, All (#31)

Turning the universities into community colleges is probably not the answer you want.

Says who?

"In recent decades, the notion of basing admissions on “colorblind” meritocratic standards such as standardized academic test scores has hardly been an uncontroversial position, with advocates for a fully “diversified” student body being far more prominent within the academic community. Indeed, one of the main attacks against California’s 1996 Proposition 209 was that its requirement of race-neutrality in admissions would destroy the ethnic diversity of California’s higher education system, and the measure was vigorously opposed by the vast majority of vocal university academics, both within that state and throughout the nation. Most leading progressives have long argued that the students selected by our elite institutions should at least roughly approximate the distribution of America’s national population, requiring that special consideration be given to underrepresented or underprivileged groups of all types."

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-02-28   19:51:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#46. To: sneakypete (#29)

Anybody else notice how it always seems like the people that work the hardest end up being the luckiest and most successful?

I have never observed that to be true.

The people I know who work the hardest are the Hispanic folks who cut the lawns and clean the buildings at night where I work. They have two or three jobs and work like slaves. I do not see them getting much reward.

By contrast, I see people who think they work very hard, but who do not - not relative to the way those service people do - earning in excess of a million a year each.

So no, I've never noticed the phenomenon you've described. I've noticed something altogether different.

Same was true in the Navy. I observed that the people who worked the hardest were the ones that had the shittiest and most menial jobs, and they were paid the least. The officers were paid the most and did not work nearly as hard as many of the enlisted.

It has been my general observation that the people who have the most have overwhelmingly been the sons and daughters, or grandchildren, of people who already had quite a lot. They got good educations, and therefore scored well on standardized tests, went to the right schools, and got high paying jobs. At those jobs, they work like other people in offices do. They don't work as hard as service people. But they get paid a lot more.

So, what I notice is that people who are the highest and the most successful and luckiest tend to have had their luck start with birth, as economic status at birth seems to be, in my experience, the greatest single indicator of economic status throughout life.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-02-28   23:09:22 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#47. To: TooConservative (#31)

Turning the universities into community colleges is probably not the answer you want.

Most universities today are good places to get a prestigeous high school education.

rlk  posted on  2015-02-28   23:34:31 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#48. To: Vicomte13 (#46)

... I notice is that people who are the highest and the most successful and luckiest tend to have had their luck start with birth, as economic status at birth seems to be, in my experience, the greatest single indicator of economic status throughout life.

And your observation shall never change. Good commentary on your post.

Pridie.Nones  posted on  2015-02-28   23:42:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#49. To: Pridie.Nones, Vicomte13 (#48)

... I notice is that people who are the highest and the most successful and luckiest tend to have had their luck start with birth, as economic status at birth seems to be, in my experience, the greatest single indicator of economic status throughout life.

If that were true there would never have been a burgeoning middle class in America. It may be true for the rest of the world and that is one reason why the Great Experiment has been great, i.e. the American Dream was real........up until a couple of decades or so ago. Since the embracing of multi-culturalism, the abandonment of the notion os assimilation and the broad selling of the BS idea that economic rewards is a zero sum game there has been a continuing decline in the economic well-being of the U.S. middle class.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-02-28   23:55:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#50. To: SOSO (#49)

.....up until a couple of decades or so ago.

You have a large error in your way of thinking. The issue that the USA has yet to face is the HUGE responsility it manifested based on the success of WW2. Since 1945, America has dived into deep depression despite all the happy faces out there.

Pridie.Nones  posted on  2015-03-01   0:01:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#51. To: Vicomte13, sneakypete, All (#46)

The people I know who work the hardest are the Hispanic folks who cut the lawns and clean the buildings at night where I work. They have two or three jobs and work like slaves. I do not see them getting much reward.

I guess that you don't know many Asian immigrant families or Jewish, Italian, Irish, even Russian and East Europen immigrant families.

The reason why the Hispanics that you know haven't improved their families lot in life is because they don't value education or demand that their kids get a solid education, in English, i.e. - work hard in school to achieve a solid education upon which they can build a better economic life for themself. It is the same reason why some of the previous immigration groups which on the whole improved their economic lot have not elevated themself on the economic ladder.

By and large sneakypete is absolutely correct, at least up until a few decades ago. Certainly for my generation the realization of the American Dream was very much a reality irrespective from whence one started out in life.

My wife and are living proof of that, as is my daughter, my brother, my brother-in-law - as is many (if not most) of the kids with which my and I grew up.

My father never graduated high schoool, my mother eked out her HS diploma. I was the first in my entire extended family to graduate from college. I parlayed that into two Masters degrees from major universities. Both my father- in-law and mother-in-law were immigrants. My wife was one of the first in her extended family to graduate from college. She parlayed that into a Masters degree. We both worked hard and elevated ourself several steps up the economic ladder from where we were born. And we passed that on to the the next generation of our family. My daughter is a surgeon, the first doctor in either of side of out family. She's moved on up from where she was born as well.

Unfortunately, I do not believe that this will be true for my grandkids no matter how hard they work because what was ture - namely, the people that work the hardest end up being the luckiest and most successful - is significantly less true today.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-01   0:22:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#52. To: Vicomte13 (#46)

I have never observed that to be true.

Then you don't understand what you see.

The people I know who work the hardest are the Hispanic folks who cut the lawns and clean the buildings at night where I work. They have two or three jobs and work like slaves. I do not see them getting much reward.

Give me a freaking break! Are you really so confused that you think manual laborers are the only people that work hard?

More of your Catholic communist class consciousness at work?

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-01   5:32:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#53. To: sneakypete (#52)

Then you don't understand what you see.

Could be.

Or it could be that I see things clearly, as they really are and always have been, and you believe in an illusion that never existed.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-01   6:23:12 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#54. To: sneakypete (#52)

Give me a freaking break! Are you really so confused that you think manual laborers are the only people that work hard?

Manual laborers work much harder than office workers, yes. That is objectively true.

Office workers come in, sit down, read and write, then they go home. They are paid well for this. Their bodies don't hurt at the end of the day unless they abuse them.

Manual laborers are physically tired at the end of the day, often exhausted. They put in many more hours too, in order to earn the basics of living.

So yes, manual laborers do work harder, a lot harder, than office workers. They work longer, and their jobs take more out of them, and they are paid less. That is objective physical reality that has nothing to do with Catholicism.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-01   6:25:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#55. To: Vicomte13 (#53)

Or it could be that I see things clearly, as they really are and always have been, and you believe in an illusion that never existed.

ROFLMAO!

THIS,from a guy that believes in magical spooks?

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-01   6:29:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#56. To: Vicomte13 (#54)

Manual laborers work much harder than office workers, yes.

You must have lived a sheltered life if you believe that manual laborers are the only ones that work hard.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-01   6:32:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#57. To: sneakypete (#56)

You must have lived a sheltered life if you believe that manual laborers are the only ones that work hard

You must be willfully blind if you think that manual labor, in multiple jobs at minimum wage, or picking beans, is not harder work than any office work anywhere.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-01   8:14:26 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#58. To: sneakypete (#55)

ROFLMAO!

THIS,from a guy that believes in magical spooks?

I know they exist because I have seen them and spoken with them.

You believe they do not exist because you haven't.

You will, someday. And then you will realize that your worldview was blind to reality. Until that day, I will have to patiently bear your blind certitudes. You sound like my teenage daughter: so CERTAIN about things of which you are ignorant. She'll learn. You too. Probably the hard way. Such is the human condition.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-01   8:17:57 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#59. To: Vicomte13 (#57)

You must be willfully blind if you think that manual labor, in multiple jobs at minimum wage, or picking beans, is not harder work than any office work anywhere.

I grew up doing manual labor. One of my first jobs was digging septic tank and drain field ditches with a shovel for 50 cents a hour during summer break from school. I was working as a deck hand on a shrimp boat when I was 13.

I lived in two different houses that didn't even have inside toilets by the time I was 12,and we still didn't have hot running water to take baths until I was 17.

I enlisted in the US Army for Airborne Infantry on my 17th birthday.

I have also had white collar office jobs as well as factory jobs and skilled jobs like gunsmith,auto and motorcycle mechanic,body and fender repairman,gunsmith, and machinist.

I even briefly worked as a cryptographer in an air-conditioned office when I first got to VN because I was on physical profile and unable to wear web gear. I hated it so bad I went back to the infantry the same day my profile ended.

Don't try to preach to me about how hard manual labor is,or how poor people are "stuck with being poor for life". Some are due to lack of imagination,some are due to laziness,and some are because they just lack the mental ability to learn anything useful. Many,many others have evolved from their birth station to become middle-class,upper middle-class,and even very wealthy.

Nor do I want to hear any nonsense about the alleged "nobility of de 'po". Save that crap for your cult meetings. I have been around the poor most of my life,and have more than a passing knowledge of the wealthy,and neither is more moral than the other.

Do you have any actual life experience living outside of a cult at all? Do you seriously believe white collar people not connected to some religion don't work hard to become successful?

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-01   11:11:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#60. To: Vicomte13 (#58)

THIS,from a guy that believes in magical spooks?

I know they exist because I have seen them and spoken with them.

There you have it.

Even more telling is you think they spoke to you,also.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-01   11:12:30 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#61. To: sneakypete (#60)

THIS,from a guy that believes in magical spooks? I know they exist because I have seen them and spoken with them.

There you have it.

Even more telling is you think they spoke to you,also.

Indeed. I conversed with them, several times.

So, there you have it. Either I'm telling the truth or lying.

I'm telling the truth, so either angels and demons exist or I am bat-shit crazy.

I'm not crazy. They exist.

As you shall find out yourself in person, at the end of your life if not sooner.

You won't be surprised when you do meet them - you already know inside that they exist, you simply deny it.

When you do meet them, you won't be thinking of me to remember that you owe me an apology for calling me a lunatic. So I'll just forgive you now and forget it and we can move on.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-01   12:23:05 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#62. To: sneakypete (#59)

Don't preach to me about how hard manual labor is.

Nor do I want to hear any nonsense about the alleged "nobility of de 'po".

Do you have any actual life experience living outside of a cult at all?

I don't need to: you already know how hard it is.

I have never made any reference to the "nobility of the poor". You did. Nobility is a birthright. The poor aren't nobility. If they were, they wouldn't be poor.

Yes. I am in my sixth decade of life experience living outside of a cult. I've never been in a cult, and am not planning on joining one.

I have 49 years of lucid memory of life experiences piled on life experiences. During all of that time, I have lived and experienced things just as you have. You did one thing with that time. I did different things with it. But during the time that you and I have shared the world together, we both have the identical amount of life experience. I probably remember mine better, in finer detail, than you remember yours, because I have a gift.

I'm sure that what you meant to be getting at was that you worked so you know all about working. During that time I, too, was living and working and experiencing things.

You and I have many parallel experiences. You grew up poor. I did not grow up economically poor, but in a very unfortunate circumstances otherwise. You were drafted and served in Vietnam. I too went into the military, for many years, and served aboard ship in the Middle East, and in the air over Iraq, Kuwait, Somalia and other places. At some point the time in the military ended for both of us, and you and I both went and joined the working world and have lived from our paychecks ever since. You and I have done different things since 1965 (when my memory tape begins), but your experiences don't count double or triple relative to mine.

You've simply come to a different view regarding the nature of things than I have.

On another thread, you opined to TooConservative that I'm a "Northeastern Catholic, brainwashed from birth". That is why you think I have the views I do.

I am in fact a Midwesterner by birth and breeding, went to school in the South, served on the West coast, worked in Paris, and have been in the Northeast permanently only since 1999. I didn't start attending Church or caring about religion until I saw and spoke with the angels and the demons. That began in July, 2001. So no, I'm not a Northeastern Catholic who has been brainwashed from birth. I'm a Midwestern pagan whose face was grabbed by God and who, therefore, knows that God is, and who has reoriented his view of the entire world based on that reality.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-01   12:42:41 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#63. To: Vicomte13 (#61)

THIS,from a guy that believes in magical spooks? I know they exist because I have seen them and spoken with them.

There you have it.

Even more telling is you think they spoke to you,also.

-------------------------------------

Indeed. I conversed with them, several times.

So, there you have it. Either I'm telling the truth or lying.

I'm telling the truth, so either angels and demons exist or I am bat-shit crazy.

===========================

You ARE bat-shit crazy.

rlk  posted on  2015-03-01   13:00:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#64. To: Vicomte13, sneakypete (#57)

You must have lived a sheltered life if you believe that manual laborers are the only ones that work hard

You must be willfully blind if you think that manual labor, in multiple jobs at minimum wage, or picking beans, is not harder work than any office work anywhere.

As usual vicomte13 continues to talk past the point. I can guarantee you that no manual laborer works harder or longer than my surgeon daughter and most of her peers - and this doesn't include the thousands of hours in medical school in which many rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and years of internship at de facto less than hourly minimum wage.

It is not unusal that she is on her feet in the OR for 4, 6, 8, 10 hours or more at a stretch. And when she's not doing that she has patient follow-up duties, clinical duties, administrative duties all on top of her research projects. How many times do you think she and her peers have accidentially cut themself or other wise been exposed to the blood of a patient during a procedure? Can you possible understand the stress of that on top of the normal pressures of the job has on a person over time?

When a manual laborer's job is done for the day it is done for the day. Laborers do not take work home with them. They do not take continuing professional education courses or training, most by choice but some by certification maintenance requirements.

And I can also guarantee you that few, if any, worked harded than my wife and I at our respective jobs and pursuit of higher educational degrees during the evenings. We sacrificed most of our evenings and even some summers to advance ourself during the first several years of our marraige. We consciously held off on starting a family until we achieved our goals.

Now these are personal decisions and I don't advocate that these are the right decisions for others. But I certainly would have liked the ability to go home after a days week have a few beers, procreate until the cows come home and not give a fig about my children's future, especially if I could pass the bill for doing so onto someone else - like my wife and myself and the rest of the 50% of the schmucks in the U.S. who actually pay Federal income taxes and have to have their kids score a few humdred points more on the SAT test to have an equal shot at admission into an elite university.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-01   13:43:26 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#65. To: Vicomte13 (#61)

Either I'm telling the truth or lying.

WRONG!

You are just mistaken. You are never lying if you are saying what YOU believe to be the truth.

To me there is a big distinction between being mistaken and purposely lying.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-02   0:25:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#66. To: Vicomte13 (#62)

You were drafted and served in Vietnam.

I cleverly beat the draft by enlisting for Airborne Infantry on my 17th birthday. I have never even had a draft card.

I also volunteered to go to VN,and volunteered for recon duty with SOG. I even extended my tour for another 6 months to keep running recon.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-02   0:29:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#67. To: SOSO (#64)

As usual vicomte13 continues to talk past the point. I can guarantee you that no manual laborer works harder or longer than my surgeon daughter and most of her peers - and this doesn't include the thousands of hours in medical school in which many rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and years of internship at de facto less than hourly minimum wage.

Yup,and that is just one of many examples.

Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)

sneakypete  posted on  2015-03-02   0:32:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#68. To: out damned spot (#0)

A report in the LA Times revealed that blacks and Hispanics get bonus SAT points at elite universities based on their race. Asian students however are penalized 50 points due to their race.

Why are they still using SATs? Why even bother going to High School if tests scores can determine entry into college. The SATs are bullshit. Regarding Asian students. I know Asian students from my time in college who could not read or write English well but would pass every standardized test because they studied for the test - throw them a curve ball like an essay and they would flounder.

Pericles  posted on  2015-03-02   0:38:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#69. To: sneakypete (#66)

cleverly beat the draft by enlisting for Airborne Infantry on my 17th birthday. I have never even had a draft card.

I also volunteered to go to VN,and volunteered for recon duty with SOG. I even extended my tour for another 6 months to keep running recon.

You found something you enjoyed doing. It was harder and more dangerous work than any office job, and you were paid a pittance for it.

And your colleagues doing it with you who were unfortunate and had a foot blown off or their brains scrambled, or who had Agent Orange sprayed all over them and who developed problems from that years later, were given very poor treatment by the government they served - much poorer treatment than highly paid people in office jobs.

Harder work, danger, lower pay, and back-of-the hand treatment when problems develop: such is the lot of the soldier, especially of the Vietnam era.

Your philosophy of life and economics seems to be fine with that. Mine isn't.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-02   8:42:56 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#70. To: SOSO (#64)

As usual vicomte13 continues to talk past the point.

It's not possible to discuss anything of substance here. It always turns immediately into ad hominem. I'm tired of it.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-02   10:24:03 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#71. To: Vicomte13, sneakypete (#70)

It always turns immediately into ad hominem.

It is not an ad hominem to comment on your actual action. You did talk past the point made to you. To did so by insisting on your narrow definition of work, even after it was pointed out to you. I have observed that you do this quite often. SOrry but that is a fact not an ad hominem. You may recall that I have asked you on more than one occasion for agreement on the definition of terms used in our discussion. There can be no fruitful dialogue on any issue if the sides are talking past each other usiing different means for the same words.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-02   11:17:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#72. To: SOSO (#71)

It is not an ad hominem to comment on your actual action. You did talk past the point made to you. To did so by insisting on your narrow definition of work, even after it was pointed out to you. I have observed that you do this quite often. SOrry but that is a fact not an ad hominem. You may recall that I have asked you on more than one occasion for agreement on the definition of terms used in our discussion. There can be no fruitful dialogue on any issue if the sides are talking past each other usiing different means for the same words.

I agree with you on the need to define terms for there to be any discussion.

However, what was done in this thread, above, was not that. It was ad hominem. There wasn't an effort to define terms, or to find an agreement. What there was was a bald assertion by one party of what a word meant, and then an ad hominem response to my refusal to accept that definition.

And now it looks as though we're going to go spinning down the usual toilet of bickering over who said what. An actual exchange of ideas is no longer possible, because all of the interlocutors, myself included, are surly, pissed off, and not interested in really engaging with the other person at all.

Therefore, it's time to end this conversation. I'm done with it.

Maybe I'll try again on some other thread. Going back and forth over the definition of ad hominem is a stupid way to spend my afternoon, and I'm not going to bother with it.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-02   17:21:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#73. To: Vicomte13 (#72)

And now it looks as though we're going to go spinning down the usual toilet of bickering over who said what.

Not a chance. I will accept your version of events. However I will note that our past exchanges have be hampered by your lack of willingness to come to agreement on definition of words/terms.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-02   20:04:15 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#74. To: SOSO (#73)

However I will note that our past exchanges have be hampered by your lack of willingness to come to agreement on definition of words/terms.

The definitions of terms are literally everything in most discussions.

We should start anew, clean slate, with a topic of mutual interest and make sure that we work through the terms so that we're on the same page. That could produce fruit.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-03   16:12:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#75. To: Vicomte13 (#74)

We should start anew, clean slate, with a topic of mutual interest and make sure that we work through the terms so that we're on the same page. That could produce fruit.

I would also like to try to come to mutual agreement on the topic of work if you are willing. Can we agree that the term work incorporates more than just manual labor to include things such as study, research, planning, concsulting, business and financial management, marketing, sales, campaigning, creative and business writing, honing/expanding professional skills, providing personal services (including medical services), in short anything that someone gets paid to do or does in the pursuit with the expectation of increasing one's income earning capacity and/or opportunities?

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-03   18:20:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#76. To: SOSO (#75)

I would also like to try to come to mutual agreement on the topic of work if you are willing. Can we agree that the term work incorporates more than just manual labor to include things such as study, research, planning, concsulting, business and financial management, marketing, sales, campaigning, creative and business writing, honing/expanding professional skills, providing personal services (including medical services), in short anything that someone gets paid to do or does in the pursuit with the expectation of increasing one's income earning capacity and/or opportunities?

Let's work on a definition on which we can agree.

I agree that the term "work" does indeed incorporate more than just manual labor, and includes things such as study, research, planning, consulting, business and financial management, marketing, sales, campaigning, business writing and SOME creative writing, SOME honing and expanding of professional skills, the provision of personal services (including medical services). All of those can things constitute work. I put in qualifiers for creative writing and expanding professional skills because people can also do those things as a hobby, because they enjoy it. Example: I write long essays here (such as this one) - this is not work. Some people love tracking the stock market and love reading about financial instruments. This certainly can give them the edge in the financial marketplace and make them a lot of money, but the fact that one's hobby ends up being lucrative does not convert all of that enjoyment one had into "work". Still, with those special-case caveats, I think your list of things that also comprise "work" is a good one.

However, I think that your shorthand summary "...in short, anything that someone gets paid to do or does in the pursuit with the expectation of increasing one's income earning capacity and/or opportunities" gets some of the way to the definition, but doesn't go far enough.

Example: what slaves do is definitely work, but they do not get paid for it, and there was no real prospect of rising at all. Slaves were not working in the hope of being free someday, maybe. They worked to avoid being beaten right then. Likewise, prisoners on chain gangs or in prison factories certainly work, and often have no choice in the matter. and they may or may not get paid a pittance for it.

A core component of what constitutes WORK is that it should be something that one would not normally do were one NOT compensated for it or otherwise forced to do it (either by slavedrivers or by harsh economic realities). Something that most people find pleasant becomes work - and generally far less pleasant - when one must do it for a living. A good example of this is sex. Recreational or procreational sex is not work, but what prostitutes do is work.

Sitting and idly planning out your perfect house and garden is not work, but the architect who sits and listens to your plans, and then draws them up for you benefit: that IS work, whether he gets paid for it does it as a favor.

Housework is unpaid, but washing clothes and cooking meals is definitely work.

How, then, can we close in on a good definition of "work" that will cover all such cases?

I think the best answer is to accept God's definition of it. Now, to be clear, we're Catholics, so we're not subject to the Law of Moses. That said, the Law of Moses WAS inspired by God, and God defined terms for it. So, although we don't have to keep the Saturday Sabbath and abstain from work on that day, what God defined as "work" that Hebrews had to abstain from IS the divine definition of what constitutes work. I don't think that we can get a better definition of the essence of "work", than those things which God forbade on the Sabbath, under penalty of death.

Now, once again, we don't have to obey the Sabbath law - we don't have to abstain from work on Saturday - but God's definition of what "work" IS, is the best definition.

In looking at this definition, we must look at what God said in Scripture, and NOT at all of the additional bells and whistles that Jewish rabbis added over time in an effort to control their societies through God's law.

So, what did God forbid on the Sabbath? He forbade everybody: men, women, children, slaves and domesticated animals, from being made to work. "Work" means, essentially, any labor or activity under direction. For example, women were "forbidden" from COOKING for their families. Saturday's cooking was to be done on Friday and held over. Lighting a fire, cooking and cleaning: these domestic activities certainly make life pleasant for everybody who partakes of the meals or relaxes, but they are WORK for the woman - and God essentially forbade husbands from making their wives do any of that on the Sabbath, under penalty of DEATH. So, the housekeeping tasks that women have always had to do, unpaid, is WORK under God's definition, and they were not only not to be required to do those things on the Sabbath, but were not PERMITTED to do either.

The lack of permission is, similarly important. Because if people are "allowed" to work on the rest day, some ambitious ones WILL work instead of taking the rest, and thereby have one-seventh more produce (such as spun cloth) than those who take the rest. This constitutes a real, unfair economic advantage to those who break the Sabbath over those who obeyed it. God's solution: DEATH to anybody who broke the Sabbath by working. DEATH. Not a fine. DEATH. Working - to get an advantage when everybody else was obeying God and not working - was a heinous crime equivalent to murder: the death penalty was the result. Otherwise, people would break the Sabbath, get an advantage, and move ahead. But God thought that the rest, for everybody, was important enough that he imposed the death penalty on those ambitious people who chose to work instead.

Case in point: gathering wood. Gathering wood is work. Men did it to light fires for cooking, perhaps for a little bit of heat. If you look at weather patterns in the Sinai desert, on winter nights it can get down into the high 50s (I just looked it up), which is chilly, but which can easily be warded off with a wool sweater or blanket. After God had ordained the Sabbath rule, he was displeased that people broke it. He prescribed death for it. He told the Israelites to not even light a fire. (To be clear: they were in the Sinai in their tents when he said this, and the Promised Land of the Jews was Israel, not Norway - this commandment not to light a fire was not a commandment to freeze to death in Norway. It was not a commandment to the world. It was a commandment to Hebrews in the desert. But it does show what God considers WORK.)

The purpose of a fire was cooking or labor. The Sinai desert in spring is not a place where Bedouins require fire heat for survival, ever.

So, a guy went out and gathered firewood on the Sabbath. Why would he do that? In part, to light a fire: "Cook my meal, woman!" No fire is necessary for heat to live in the Sinai. Fire was used to cook - which is work. Fire was used for smithing and for tanning and other labors. Men did not light fire for the sake of fire. So, the gathering of the wood was going out and doing work to accumulate the necessary materials to do more prohibited work. Further, the Israelis were living in a large camp. During the regular six days, they all needed firewood. There is only so much of it, and men needed to range far afield from the camp to get it. That takes time and energy - that can't be spent doing some other activity. And moreover, when they all go out, there is less wood per person, forcing them to go out further. So, a man going out to gather firewood on the Sabbath is working, and by his working doing that on that day, he was buying time for himself to do more gainful activity on the other 6 days, when men who obeyed the law and kept the Sabbath would have had to go and gather the wood. And he was avoiding the mass competition for wood. He had the pickings, out there alone. If the whole camp were looking, he would have to work harder to get the wood, to go farther.

To our way of thinking, the man who took his day off to go and get an advantage on his competitors was smart. He was the one who should win the game. God had him put to death. Because to God, obedience to the commandments, including the commandment to take a day of complete rest, was more important than permitting some single man or men to get ahead of their peers. The "profit" gained by the stolen work was illegitimate profit, and what is more, if allowed to stand it would establish the principle that getting ahead by disregarding God's commandments was alright, that practical realities of profit trumped commandments of holiness, that holiness was "optional", but economic activity was the real key.

God disagrees. He had the woodgatherer put to death.

The man who put his animals to work on the Sabbath, or who forced his slaves to do anything, was also a Sabbath-breaker, subject to being put to death.

Jesus made it clear that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath: to pull an animal out of a ditch, or to heal. However, to heal professionally for money: THAT is work, and prohibited on the Sabbath.

Note also that the Levites and Kohanites were active on the Sabbath, performing the various sacrifices. That was work, but it was permitted specifically by God.

With those details in mind, I think we can see a clearer outline of what "work" is. Animal labor for human masters is work. Housekeeping and cooking is work. Gathering wood and going about the business of provisioning is work. Anything at all that is commercial is work. Medicine is work (free miracle isn't). Religious rites are work - they were specifically exempted from the ban. What slaves have to do is work.

So, here is the definition of "work" that I use, and that I would ask you to consider using as well.

WORK (generally): mental or physical effort to achieve an economic purpose.

WORK (in Physics): the product of force times distance (e.g.: "foot-pounds")

So, for example, if you paint landscapes for pleasure on your time off, that's not "work" if you are not thinking that somebody, someday, might see your painting and pay for it. But it is work if you're preparing to hang it in a gallery for sale.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-05   9:48:43 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#77. To: Vicomte13 (#76)

However, I think that your shorthand summary "...in short, anything that someone gets paid to do or does in the pursuit with the expectation of increasing one's income earning capacity and/or opportunities" gets some of the way to the definition, but doesn't go far enough.

Example: what slaves do is definitely work, but they do not get paid for it, and there was no real prospect of rising at all. Slaves were not working in the hope of being free someday, maybe. They worked to avoid being beaten right then. Likewise, prisoners on chain gangs or in prison factories certainly work, and often have no choice in the matter. and they may or may not get paid a pittance for it.

For the purposes of our discussion let's change the definition to read "...anything voluntary that someone does in exchange for pay (in whatever form agreed upon) or does primarily in pursuit of the expectation of increasing one's income earning capacity and/or opportunities". This will keep the focus on what precipiated our exchanges to begin with, namely your contention that no-one works harder than those engaged in manual labor at more than one job.

This revised definition eliminates slave labor, involuntary servitude, and prison labor from the discussion. This definition also excludes things like housework around one's home, mowing ones lawn, work associate with hobbies, or any activity that is not done primarily for payment or the expectation of improving one's future income. However, if you wish to tweak the definition of pay to include these creature comfort, personal nicities and grooming type benefits derived by such activitis I would not object.

It does however include work that results in payment in the form of acquiring the necessities of life and the provision of creature comforts, such as felling trees to build a house, digging a latrine, chopping wood for fuel, hunting and/or trapping for one's food and clothing, farming and/or ranching for one's food, fetching water for one's survival and necessary conveniences, and the like. Those these may be necessities the choice on how one goes about obtaining them is for most people voluntary (I acknowledge that there may be exceptions in the remote areas of the world where there may not be any viable options other than to do the type of work to survive oneself or as a family effort- but these are clearly exceptions).

Let's leave out the Old Testament from consideration as it really is irrelevant to the discussion. One easy work around for a Jew in your examples of work that is prohibited on the Sabbeth is to pay a non-Jew to do the work for you on that particular day or have a neighbor voluntarily do the work for you. I did exactly the latter when I was a kid. I lived on a street that had a shul right smack in the middle of the block near the sewer cover we usually used as home plate for punch ball and stick ball. Every Friday at dusk the Rabbi would come out and ask one of the Catholic kids playing in the street to turn on the lights of the shul for him and such other prohibited things. We gladly obliged him. He appreciated that and didn't forget us when there were celebrations involving the passing out candy or apples to the children of his flock - he made sure that we goyim got a piece.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-05   12:11:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#78. To: misterwhite (#33) (Edited)

Why should colleges make money? They exist now as quasi-government schools, if not wholly owned subsidiaries of government. They need an "Obama" fix solution like health care. Pre-existing conditions like idiocy, retardation, or inability to communicate just point to the need for translators. Maybe they can even have govt paid tutors to give them a "helping hand" during studies and tests.

Truth be told, how can the education system be worse than how it is now? It is government controlled, Marxist dominated, and completely at odds with liberty. Get them off the govt teat, and let them live or die by their own efforts. As a public institution though, are they not subject to the same strictures as those businesses who MUST serve homosexual weddings, or ban smoking?

jeremiad  posted on  2015-03-05   14:21:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#79. To: SOSO (#77)

The "work around" for the Jew doesn't work at all for the Old Testament. There, NO work was permitted in Israel. Neither paid nor unpaid, neither by Jews nor servants. The modern Jewish "work arounds" are examples of how it isn't really possible to live by the law God gave to an Israel that he himself ruled and thus controlled all of the parameters. We don't have to discuss the Old Testament any further for our purposes, but I did need to clarify that point.

Now, as to our working definition of work, I can't accept a definition that ignores unpaid or involuntary labor, and I will explain why.

Ultimately, when we discuss labor, we are discussing it within the larger context of an economy and how an economy should be ordered. Thanks to the curse of Adam and of Eve, we have to work to live - everybody does. That means that wherever there is slave labor or prison labor, if the products of that labor are allowed into the general economy, they have an absolute price advantage over the comparable things produced by non-slave, non-prison labor. If produced in sufficient quantity, the slave/prison labor commodity for most consumer goods will impose a price ceiling on those goods such that goods produced by non-slave labor will lose market share and eventually be driven from the marketplace.

This is precisely what the "China Price" has done for many products, with the result being massive unemployment in the textiles industry in particular. Now, the only reason that that China price is competitive is the use of slave and prison labor, millions of such people, or the employment of people at non-living wages. Our own people cannot compete with those wages, and the cost of transportation doesn't come close to evening out the overall price advantage.

This leaves us (and the Canadians, Europeans and even Latin Americans) with two choices: allow so-called "free trade" to simply impose the China price for those goods, thereby unemploying and impoverishing vast swathes of the native workforce, or use sovereignty to raise barriers at the border that refuse to allow the price advantage to be exploited by international traders and foreign masters through the use of slaves, prisoners and people paid a pittance (in very cheap countries), without either labor or environmental protections.

The cost of labor in China and Vietnam, two nasty Communist regimes, determines the unemployment level in the United States and Italy IF the Americans and the Italians do not choose to assert their own sovereignty to remove, at the border, the price advantages of using slaves. Obviously to do so is in the interest of the domestic workers who will otherwise be unemployed. Obviously it is to the detriment of the international traders who will profit tremendously from selling goods purchased at the slave-labor price in China and then resold at the Western market price in the USA and England.

It takes a certain absolute amount of money to provide the necessities of life: clean and safe housing, decent food, serviceable clothing, access to hygiene and medical care, on a work schedule that provides the proper amount of sleep and time to tend to the needs of a family. That money to buy those necessities can be obtained in one of two ways: through work, or through gift/transfer payment/charity.

The problem with the latter is that it becomes quite burdensome on everybody else. Already children and the infirm and elderly have to be provided for in this way. The more additional people have to be provided for, the greater and greater burden is placed upon people who still have jobs, who have to provide for themselves and everybody else.

But the problem with doing it all through work is that you need a lot more basic jobs to employ unskilled people or semi-skilled people if they're going to survive through work instead of transfer payments. And those jobs cannot be provided at all when the competition is the China price of slave and prison labor or pittance wages. Either sovereignty is used to protect domestic jobs, dramatically reducing both the need for transfer payments AND the opportunity for those engaged in foreign trade to make a profit, OR the traders are allowed to profit fully and the Western workers are unemployed, shifting the burden over to transfer payments.

That is why I cannot accept a definition of work that limits it to voluntary labor and that eliminates prison labor or involuntary servitude. The very reason for such high unemployment in America is involuntary labor in China and an open US border to China price goods. Free people cannot compete with slaves when it comes to commodity goods pricing, and in any large society it is absolutely impossible, wholly unrealistic, to believe that the whole population can be employed in high-end services. In a country of 310 million people there will always be 50 or 60 million people who do not have the intellectual capacity for high end work, but who DO have the capacity for factory work. Your choice is to have them earn a living making socks and paper and cloth, or to pay them transfer payments out of the treasury so that some traders can exploit the China price of unfree labor.

Worse, by making the China price profitable for the Chinese masters, we empower that system over there to grow and become immensely powerful, even as we inflict economic cancer on our own. Somebody is going to earn that profit, and I think it is better for free Americans of low skills to earn those profits in American factories, to support free American lives, at the cost of reducing the profits and lifestyles of those who would profit from trade, and at the cost of high prices overall of consumer goods, rather than enrich a few traders, Chinese slavemasters and the Communist Party of China while shifting the burden of supporting 60 million Americans from their own labor over to welfare.

This is why I cannot ignore unpaid and prison labor, or pittance labor, or unprotected labor, in the equation: right now it has massive negative affects on tens of millions of laborers in my country. It is one of the most salient features of the labor market.

Indeed, WITHIN the US, the ability to employ illegal, unprotected labor at a far lower price than would be required to pay legal American labor is key reason for the flood of illegal immigration. And that desire to continue to exploit the "Mexican price" is the reason the economic grandees of the Republican and Democrat Parties are so stalwart in refusing the close the Border.

Because the Mexico price places such a burden on American workers and services, many Americans howl about it, and rightly too. It's the same issue. Which is why it has to be addressed.

As far as "voluntary" goes, voluntarism only applies at the margins. When the choice is between starvation or work at a pittance, profit concentrated in masters' hands (as with the Mexico and China price), then how "voluntary" is that work, really? The mining town with company store debt, of old, is a good set-piece example of a subterfuge of voluntarism. One could just as easily say that the Chinese worker is "free" because he COULD quite and refuse to work. And then promptly starve.

Unfree and coerced labor is labor, and work that is taken at desperately low prices in order to eat substandard food and live in substandard conditions, to survive, is not really "voluntary" at all (any more than a slave's labor is "voluntary" because he COULD choose to be whipped instead, or the income tax is "voluntary"), but it most certainly is work, and accordingly, needs to be included in the definition.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-03-06   5:10:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#80. To: Vicomte13 (#79)

Now, as to our working definition of work, I can't accept a definition that ignores unpaid or involuntary labor, and I will explain why.

Then let's forget the whole. I still maintain that you are wrong in your contention that no-one works harder than manual laborers. You may have the last word.

потому что Бог хочет это тот путь

SOSO  posted on  2015-03-06   22:55:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Mail]  [Sign-in]  [Setup]  [Help]  [Register] 

Please report web page problems, questions and comments to webmaster@libertysflame.com