H/T to Lois McMaster Bujold, who “especially liked the fire extinguisher among the accessories included.”
May 18, 2010
April 21, 2010
Is the Tea Party movement racist?
An interesting article at the Wall Street Journal on how a charge of “racism” works, even when there’s no actual racist action involved:
Blogger Conor Friedsdorf notes that there is a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose quality to the Blow approach [. . .]
Or, for that matter, to any nonpolitical institution that aspires to become more inclusive. Imagine Kelly O’Donnell questioning a black man in a largely white company or university or country club or suburb the way she interrogated Darryl Postell. She would come off as clueless and prejudiced — as, come to think of it, she does. (Kudos to NBC for airing this revealing though embarrassing footage.)
The political left claims to love racial diversity, but it bitterly opposes such diversity on the political right. This is an obvious matter of political self-interest: Since 1964, blacks have voted overwhelmingly Democratic. If Republicans were able to attract black votes, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party.
[. . .]
These charges of racism are partly based on circular reasoning. Among Blow’s evidence that the tea-party movement is racist is “a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Wednesday [that] found that only 1 percent of Tea Party supporters are black and only 1 percent are Hispanic.” Other polls have put the black proportion as high as 5% (and, as Tom Maguire notes, Blow misreports his own paper’s Hispanic figure, which is actually 3%). But with blacks constituting some 12% of the population, there’s no question that the tea-party movement is whiter than the nation as a whole.
Yet to posit racism as an explanation is to ignore far more obvious and less invidious causes for the disparity.
H/T to LibertyIdeals for the link.
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April 20, 2010
If this doesn’t anger you, there’s something wrong with you
Kate Kendell looks at how California’s inhumane and paternalistic Sonoma County government “legally” did horrible things to an elderly gay couple:
One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.
Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.
What happened next is even more chilling.
These men had been married (legally or not) for twenty years, yet the bureaucratic solons of Sonoma County deliberately separated them, stole their joint property, and effectively incarcerated them both in different nursing homes.
The surviving partner has launched a legal action, and I hope his case is decided properly — and that the county and its employees are properly punished for their actions:
With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O’Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O’Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.
Update, 22 April: According to Radley Balko, Sonoma County has (finally) responded to the report, claiming that the injuries to Harold Scull were actually a result of domestic abuse:
The county says Scull filed a report to that effect, and that the abuse was documented by hospital workers. But the letter adds that no criminal charges were filed against Greene.
I’m not sure what to make of that. I’m not familiar with California law on the matter, but while a report of domestic abuse may be enough to keep Greene from visiting Scull in the hospital (and for that to be a sensible decision), without criminal charges, I don’t know how it allows the county to forcibly intern Greene in a nursing home and auction off all of his belongings. Then again, if the initial lawsuit neglected to mention the domestic abuse report, it’s possible that it also overstated or misstated the county’s actions with respect to Greene’s property and nursing home stay.
April 12, 2010
What is “the difference between the current system and slavery”?
The Whited Sepulchre looks at a new book by Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Age Of Colorblindness.
We have more prisoners than any other nation — 25% of the world’s total, despite having only 6% of the world’s population. According to the Michelle Alexander interview, if we were to go back to the 1970’s-era incarceration rates, we would have to release 4 out of 5 prisoners currently doing time.
We have so many prisoners that we’re having to privatize the cages that we’re using to lock up black kids. Ordinarily, Big Gubmint likes to run everything, but this particular growth industry is beyond them. Marijuana prohibition creates tens of thousands of jobs, public and private.
[. . .]
When the prisoners are released, many of them have to pay for part of the cost of their incarceration. They often have to pay for their own parole officers, counseling sessions, etc. and after talking to ex-cons for about 10 years, I’m of the opinion that most of these counselors couldn’t counsel a 3-year-old to go the potty.
If they fail to make these payments, they’re either locked up again, or their paychecks are garnished. After all, the private prison system has to be paid, right? [. . .] Now that you have all that info, can you explain the difference between the current system and slavery?
Do you understand why the prison lobby, in its public and private form, fights so hard to preserve the system?
March 31, 2010
What “everybody knows” ain’t necessarily so
Rebecca L. Burch reviews Susan Pinker’s 2008 book The Sexual Paradox:
By page four, Pinker throws out the question of why women may or may not be allowed to be equal to men and posits a different one: why on earth do men get to be the standard? Why should females have the goal of meeting the male standard? This in itself denigrates females. So many books discuss how females are discouraged, disenfranchised, and disenchanted, citing numbers of women leaving traditionally “male” careers. Pinker dares to posit the idea that women don’t have the same preferences as men and therefore, might actually choose different paths, not be forced into them by the patriarchy. Now we’re talking! Let’s throw out the seemingly societal mandates and all that socialization and delve into actual differences, not perceptions or relative status, but the biology of the matter. Pinker “…began to wonder what would happen if all the ‘shoulds’ — the policy and political agendas — were shifted to the side for a moment to examine the science” (p. 5).
And that she does, spending little time on history and the patriarchy, Pinker explains the neurological and endocrinological processes that result in different talents and predispositions (with plenty of overlap) as well as different preferences. Thankfully, she goes beyond just differences in performance, assessment, or feelings regarding these differences. In particular, she examines the role testosterone plays in male risk taking (including those amusing Darwin Awards) and the role oxytocin and empathy play in female career choices. It is important to note that this is not the shallow glossing over seen in other books. Pinker is thorough enough to leave this biopsychologist satisfied, but also understandable enough for nonacademics.
[. . .]
After systematically breaking down each of these misconceptions about gender, gender differences, and the power of society, Pinker sums things up this way, “…forty years of discounting biology have led us to a strange and discomfiting place, one where women are afraid to own up to their desires and men—despite their foibles—are seen as standard issue” (p. 254). This belief of men as standard issue, and the assumption that women want this, only makes the situation harder for women. This may not be what they want, even if they are highly intelligent, capable, and encouraged. And most importantly, they are entitled to their preferences. This “vanilla male” model is also of no use to those disadvantaged males (those with Asperger’s, for example), whose ability examine concepts differently have usually come at a social price. They, also, are entitled to their preferences and should be given the opportunity to explore their skills. Once again, the belief in the SSSM [standard social science model] has set us back. This active disregard of biology and evolution has not improved gender equality. It has done just the just the opposite and even hindered a subset of males in the process.
H/T to Arts & Letters Daily for the link.
March 26, 2010
Confusion over Quebec’s anti-burkha moves
Even in the same newspaper, the conclusions are drawn based on the observer’s preferred worldview, rather than the facts of the case. In the National Post, here’s Barbara Kay’s ringing endorsement for a pro-equality outcome:
Chapeau, le Québec! That means, “Hats off to you, Quebec.”
With the announcement of Bill 94, barring the niqab in publicly funded spaces, Quebec has dared to tread where the other provinces, feet bolted to the floor in politically correct anguish, cannot bring themselves to go.
The new bill will proscribe face cover by anyone employed by the state, or anyone receiving services from the state. That covers all government departments and Crown corporations, and as well hospitals, schools, universities and daycares receiving provincial funding.
I can’t remember a time when Quebecers were more unified on a government initiative.
Also in the National Post, here’s Chris Selley doing his best Inigo Montoya imitation:
I’m not quite sure what Quebec’s new Bill 94 means, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean what Premier Jean Charest and Immigration Minister Yolande James are saying it means.
Here’s Ms. James: “To work in the Quebec public service or to receive the services of the Quebec state, your face has to be uncovered.”
Here’s Mr. Charest: “Two words: Uncovered face. The principle is clear.”
And here’s Bill 94: “The general practice holds that a member of the staff of the administration of government . . . and a person to whom services are being rendered . . . will have their faces uncovered during the rendering of services.”
Huh? General practice? Oh: “When an accommodation involves a change to this practice, it must be refused if motives related to security, communication or identification justify it.”
So there will be accommodations, then? You sure wouldn’t have known it from Wednesday’s news conference.
All that being said, I can’t disagree with the sentiment later in Barbara Kay’s column:
Some of these women may, as in France, have adopted the niqab for ideological purposes (a serious problem in itself), but most niqab-wearing women are virtual prisoners, who have never known, and would be afraid (with reason) to exercise their “freedom of choice.”
For those confused liberals who instinctively hate the niqab but feel guilty about banning it, it will help them if they understand that the burka and niqab are not “worn,” but “borne.” The niqab is not an article of clothing; it is a tent-like piece of cloth supplemental to clothing. Full cover is worn as a reminder to the “bearer” that she is not free, and to remind the observer that the bearer is a possession, something less than a full human being.
Update: The National Post editorial board comes out against the Quebec bill:
Gender equality — a stated goal of Bill 94 — is a noble goal. But the law would go too far, using the state’s power to leverage a campaign of social engineering. As conservatives, we oppose such encroachments on individual liberties. But liberals, too, should understand the stakes at play here: The principle that government has no role in our wardrobes is the same one that excludes it from our bedrooms.
In the short term, the better approach is the one recently embarked upon by several Quebec schools, where administrators have common-sensically resolved the issue of what constitutes “reasonable accommodation” on a case-by-case basis. In the long term, moreover, we are convinced that legislation won’t be necessary at all: Muslim groups themselves increasingly are joining the chorus against the niqab, a welcome development that puts the lie to the notion that Canadian Muslims are uniformly backward in their attitudes toward women.
It would benefit women, Muslims, inter-faith relations and Canadian values alike if this unfortunate practice were extinguished voluntarily by the affected community itself rather than by heavy-handed state edict.
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March 25, 2010
Is this the beginning of the end for “Don’t ask, don’t tell”?
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has announced some changes to the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that makes it a bit less easy to force gay or lesbian service members out of the armed forces:
The Pentagon announced immediate changes on Thursday to make it more difficult for the military to kick out gay service members, an interim step while Congress debates repeal of the existing “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a news conference that the directives included raising the rank of those allowed to begin investigation procedures against suspected violators of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
If you wonder why even a small step like this has been so long in coming, this explains how deeply embedded anti-homosexual attitudes can be:
Well now we know. The reason Western forces failed to prevent the massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 is because of the gays. You see the Dutch lifted a ban on homosexuals in the armed services in 1974 and ever since then the Nancy boys have been so busy watching Sex and the City, baking flans and checking out the backsides of their hetero comrades-in-arms that the whole operation has gone to pot.
This is the theory floated with an ironically straight face by retired Marine General John Sheehan during congressional hearings on abandoning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Bill Clinton’s cowardly split-the-difference policy on gays in the service. The General’s criticism wasn’t limited to the Dutch, mind you; he thinks many European armies have gone “soft” owing to liberal social engineering projects.
General Sheehan may be more representative of attitudes at the higher levels of the armed forces than Secretary Gates. I don’t get it, but this is nothing new. As I wrote back in 2008:
As a recruiting policy, DADT is just plain dumb. As a “retention” policy, DADT is worse: gay and lesbian soldiers are pretty clearly determined to serve — in spite of the widespread anti-gay mentality pervasive in some units — and are being dismissed from the service for being honest. This, at a time when all branches of the US armed forces are struggling to maintain troop levels. It’s a stupid, dishonest policy and should be discarded ASAP.
Oh, and here:
It’s truly mind-boggling that the US military can still justify this stupid policy: being gay isn’t a crime, and is becoming “normal” across the country, yet it still counts as a reason to drum someone out of the military. This, at a time when the armed forces are finding their demands for personnel outstripping the supply.
A gay man or a lesbian woman is no more a threat to the efficient functioning of a military unit than anyone else — all things being equal — and may well be more motivated to succeed because they’ve volunteered to serve in spite of the idiotic “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
This is positive, but it’ll be more positive when it isn’t even news
The pursuit of equal opportunity for all has another minor milestone: the first black police officer to head Toronto’s homicide squad:
Inspector Mark Saunders became the first black head of Toronto’s Homicide Squad this week, replacing the division’s first female leader.
Staff Inspector Kathryn Martin was promoted after just one year as homicide’s top cop; she now heads the professional standards division, charged with integrity on the force and public confidence.
Insp. Saunders, a former homicide detective who most recently worked in professional standards, moved from that division back to homicide this week.
Police Chief Bill Blair has stressed the importance of diversity on the force and also promoting the best people. Since he became chief in 2005 year, he has named two black deputy chiefs, as well as women as heads of the sex crimes and fraud units.
This is a good sign that institutional racism and sexism is becoming less and less a factor (at least within the Toronto police force), although it’ll be a great day when this sort of announcement isn’t even remarkable. That would mean that the best candidate for a job is the one who’s offered the job, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. Humanity being prey to frailties, it might never happen, but it’s still worth working towards.
March 23, 2010
Even parliamentarians have to watch what they say
A British member of parliament was investigated by the police after a complaint from a would-be British equivalent to one of our infamous Human Rights Commissions, for an ill-advised comparison of a burkha to a paper bag:
A race equality council was “outrageous” for complaining to police about criticism of the burka in a political debate, an MP said today.
Tory Philip Hollobone said he faced a police investigation after he dubbed the burka “the religious equivalent of going around with a paper bag over your head with two holes for the eyes”.
Northamptonshire Race Equality Council contacted police after the comment made during a parliamentary debate last month.
[. . .]
“There will be those who agree and those who disagree, and that is fine. What we cannot have in this country are MPs being threatened when they speak out on contentious issues.
“The judgment of the Northamptonshire Race Equality Council is quite wrong in speaking to police as they haven’t tried to engage in any debate.
“I have no criticism of the police — the police have behaved impeccably. But I do have huge criticisms of the Northamptonshire Race Equality Council, which is a taxpayer-funded organisation and should not be spending time trying to prosecute members of parliament. Their behaviour is outrageous.”
The fact that he’s an MP only makes this story more news-worthy, but it does illustrate just how circumscribed freedom of speech has become.
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March 17, 2010
Debunking “No Irish Need Apply”
By way of Kathy Shaidle, a debunking of the notorious “No Irish Need Apply” era of labour:
Irish Catholics in America have a vibrant memory of humiliating job discrimination, which featured omnipresent signs proclaiming “Help Wanted — No Irish Need Apply!” No one has ever seen one of these NINA signs because they were extremely rare or nonexistent. The market for female household workers occasionally specified religion or nationality. Newspaper ads for women sometimes did include NINA, but Irish women nevertheless dominated the market for domestics because they provided a reliable supply of an essential service. Newspaper ads for men with NINA were exceedingly rare. The slogan was commonplace in upper class London by 1820; in 1862 in London there was a song, “No Irish Need Apply,” purportedly by a maid looking for work. The song reached America and was modified to depict a man recently arrived in America who sees a NINA ad and confronts and beats up the culprit. The song was an immediate hit, and is the source of the myth. Evidence from the job market shows no significant discrimination against the Irish — on the contrary, employers eagerly sought them out. Some Americans feared the Irish because of their religion, their use of violence, and their threat to democratic elections. By the Civil War these fears had subsided and there were no efforts to exclude Irish immigrants. The Irish worked in gangs in job sites they could control by force. The NINA slogan told them they had to stick together against the Protestant Enemy, in terms of jobs and politics. The NINA myth justified physical assaults, and persisted because it aided ethnic solidarity. After 1940 the solidarity faded away, yet NINA remained as a powerful memory.
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March 9, 2010
This is why Fark.com has a special “Florida” tag
The headline really does say it all:
Shows with gay characters could lose Florida tax credits
Florida lawmakers are considering a “family friendly” bill that would deny tax credits to films and television shows with gay characters in favor of those promoting traditional values.
The proposal, which has fueled a heated controversy for its discriminatory nature, would increase current tax credits from 2 to 5% of production costs for shows considered “family friendly.”
I’m not in favour of tax credits for TV and movie production in any case, but if your government is going to be providing them, they should at least be available to all legal forms of entertainment. Discrimination in this way is ridiculous — and I’d be astounded if it was actually constitutional.
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February 23, 2010
Statistics can tell a lot . . . but not always truthfully
Brian Lilley looks at a recent report which critiques the federal government’s claim that women earn only 84% of the wages that men earn. The report uses a different set of statistics to show that women only earn 70 cents for every dollar a man earns in Canada:
Were this true it would be a shocking and appalling state of affairs, the type of thing that government regulations must be called upon to rectify. I truly do not know anyone who would advocate that a man earn 42% more than a woman for working the same job, for the same number of hours. Of course this is not the case.
The report, dubbed a reality check by its authors, looks at the government’s claim that women earn 84 cents for every dollar a man makes and they dismiss it. Their reason for doing so? The government does not use the correct data. In the government report, the 84 cents on the dollar claim is arrived at by looking at wages on a dollar per hour basis using Statistics Canada’s July 2008 Labour Force Survey. In July of 2008 women earned an average of $19.14 per hour while men earned an average of $22.80 per hour, thus the 84 cents on the dollar figure.
In any argument over statistics, the chosen measurement is always the one that best supports your argument. This is fair play, when the statistics are comparable. It isn’t when your choice of stat measures something quite different:
The collective report by the labour and activist groups does not use dollar per hour compensation to show that women earn less than men, they use total year compensation. It is easy to understand why the group uses this formula, it will always show that women are being discriminated against while the other formula is showing improvements. A quick look at Stats Canada’s monthly Labour Force Survey shows one reason why men make more money than women; they work more hours. While this may not justify a difference in hourly wages, it would justify a difference in year end compensation. In the report cited by the government, men worked an average of 38.7 hours per week, a full five hours more than women who clocked in for 33.7 hours. For full-time workers, rather than all workers combined, there was still a difference, men working 40.7 hours per week to 38 hours for women. In reviewing several months of these reports over the past two years a consistent pattern emerges, men in full-time jobs work two to three hours more per week than women.
There may still be parts of the economy where male bosses or business owners irrationally discriminate against women (equally, there may be other forms of prejudice in play). Where laws exist to prohibit this, they should be enforced. However, trying to paint the numbers to show discrimination where it does not exist does not help anyone, and it makes it harder to achieve truly equal rights.
Update, 21 October: Ilkka at The Fourth Checkraise mentioned a related story from Finland:
Speaking of the male-female wage gap, I don’t know how I could forget the recent study by the Finnish emeritus researcher (who is thus free to speak his mind) Pauli Sumanen about this very issue. It concluded that Finnish men earn more on average (again, not the median) than Finnish women simply because they work more: if you control for actual hours worked, women get paid more than men so that a woman’s euro is not 80 cents but closer to 104. And if you look at the net salaries after the heavily progressive taxation, and include the fact that women live and receive pensions seven years longer on average (Finnish women pay 45% of total health care costs yet use 59% of health care), these numbers become vastly more dramatic for women.
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August 21, 2009
Am I a sexist for saying I favour this?
By way of The Register. At risk of being labelled as a sexist, I think GoTopless (probably NSFW in most workplaces) is a worthy effort:
Welcome to GoTopless.org! – We are a US organization, claiming that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men.
[. . .]
Why a National GoTopless Protest day? Gotopless.org claims constitutional equality between men and women on being topless in public. Currently, women who dare to be topless in public in the US are repeatedly being arrested, fined, humiliated, criminalized. On SUNDAY AUGUST 23RD, 2009, topless women will rally in great numbers across the USA to protest this gross inequality in the law and will demand that they be granted the fundamental right to be topless where men already enjoy that right according to the 14th amendment of the Constitution (please see our exact legal argument on the right to be topfree for women under “14th amendment” in news section)
It’s legal here in Ontario, although I don’t think I’ve seen anyone taking advantage of the newly established right since the day after it became legal . . .
However, my support for this particular effort in no way means I’m in favour of the Raelian agenda . . . which is, um, spacey in the extreme.
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