Over at Internet Commentator, Frank McGahon writes:From the point of view of the rest of society there’s nothing wrong with “poor academic and economic performance” per se [since] the costs of such “poor” performance are borne by the actual “performers.”Though this debate started with Frank, I am not trying to single him out–this sort of […]

The trap one often falls into is to focus on one of those to which the typical response of the [h-bd] convert is to eithera) completely ignore itb) dismiss it as an “outlier” or “an exception to the rule” which rather betrays complete ignorance of Popperian falsification. If you really don’t understand this point, imagine […]

Kevin Drum has a post over at his blog about affirmative action, and many commentators, in an attempt to defend large-scale preferences, have questioned the validity of standardized tests. Most of their criticisms are nonsense. First, Claude Steele’s “stereotype threat” is (almost) pure bunk. From the American Psychological Association: C. M. Steele and J. Aronson […]

From a commencement speech President Bush gave (free reg. req’d): Our greatest failures as a nation have come when we lost sight of our compassionate ideals…Our greatest strength as a nation is that we bravely face our flaws and do our best to make things right. Our greatest successes as a nation have come when […]

Open borders libertarians and neoconservatives often speak of the great benefits of having a large supply of “cheap labor.” The problem with “cheap labor” is that it is not really cheap labor at all, but subsidized labor. For example, in California, education alone costs nearly $7,000 per kid, per year.[1] Given that the typical Hispanic […]

From Abiola: Anyone who advocates a return of the draft, under any conditions short of grave and imminent national peril, is at best a misguided idiot, and at worst a totalitarian thug. Couldn’t agree more. Sending people off to die against their will in the name of egalitarianism is one of the worst ideas I […]

President Bush is now calling those who are skeptical of the idea that democracy will magically crop up in Iraq in the next couple of years racist. (via Steve Sailer): There’s a lot of people in the world who don’t believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be […]

According to Eric Vilain, anyway. You can find his article here (free registration required). I found this quote especially laughable: Sex should be easily definable, but it’s not. Our gender identity — our profound sense of being male or female — is independent from our anatomy. A constitutional amendment authorizing marriages only between men and […]

Though most conservative and libertarian types are strongly against a living wage and are often against any minimum wage at all, as a conservative myself, I see such views as overly simplistic and idealistic. America today is far from an absolute free market system—the government provides services such as education, health care, housing assistance, and […]

Randall Parker of ParaPundit linked to an interesting (and troubling) article called “The Recipient Class.” Troubling is the fact that single mothers (in addition to unskilled immigrants and the elderly[1]) are a growing population and a substantial net drain on the tax system, and their being a net drain goes beyond that they are more […]

All amount to quotas, and ‘race neutral’ means of acheiving diversity may be the worst. Unfortunately, even many ‘conservative’ political leaders, including President Bush and the Supreme Court, support some form of quotas/racial preferences. One way to get X percent (X percent is the desired percentage in each case) of some minority is that an […]

Little disgusts me more than the praising of the “swing voter” or “moderate,” who is not “fair and balanced” (most of the time)*, but rather is ignorant of politics. Worst, because of peoples’ malleability in areas they don’t think about much (politics is often one of them), they are likely to have simply picked up […]

California governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger has come out in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens. Here is the quote, from the Washington Times: The governor-elect said he supported a bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, that would grant temporary working permits to allow illegal immigrants to travel to and from the United States and […]

California is now one step closer to giving legal driver licenses to illegal aliens. In a near-party line vote (one Democrat voted against the bill), the Assembly passed the legislation 44-30, and Gray “Gumbi” Davis promises to sign the bill. This bill is naked pandering to the Latino vote, and (I would think) an encouragement […]

National Review writer Rich Lowry is now actually calling for a reduction in legal immigration: "The real answer is to scale back legal immigration [emphasis mine] and control the nation’s borders, so low-income workers don’t have to compete against new immigrants, especially people who have no right to be here." Lowry also wrote:"Economics 101 says […]

In response to the Supreme Court’s decision essentially upholding quotas (but not the 20-point bonus for "underrepresented" minorities), the University of Michigan is replacing with the 20-point bonus with something I see as even worse: a required essay that students must write on diversity. Students will have the choice between two prompts: "At the University […]