RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2022/10/affiramtive-action-democracy-the-supreme-court

On the consequences of racial preferences.

We live, allegedly, in a democracy of sorts. While it is not a plebiscitary democracy, in which every issue is put directly to the people, but rather a representative democracy, it is nonetheless supposed to be a system in which things that the populace wants generally get done, and in which things that the populace doesn’t want done aren’t. It has probably not escaped your notice that this is not a particularly accurate description of our society today.

In fact, one of the most striking things today is the extent to which things that are popular with the political class, but unpopular with the mass of voters, somehow become national priorities nonetheless. By large margins voters in America (and pretty much every other country) are opposed to mass immigration; elites, on the other hand, are very much in favor. Likewise, affirmative action, whether in employment, judicial appointments, or college admissions, is very unpopular, and yet it is the norm today, though sometimes thinly disguised. And, of course, the trans-rights movement, thanks to which female athletes have to compete against biological males, has been very much a top-down phenomenon, not one that arose because the masses demanded it.

Well, the masses are not always right, though I would have thought that the point of our system of government was to ensure, within constitutional limits, that they generally get what they want and are spared things they dislike. As noted, that’s not the case. But why?

In short, the source is what’s known as a principal/agent problem. In a representative democracy, governing isn’t done by the people, who in our system are the principals, but rather by their agents: presidents, members of Congress, judges, and, of course, the vast unelected bureaucracy. But these agents tend to do what they want, rather than what their principals desire.

In the field of corporate finance, this is known as the separation of ownership from control. In a sole proprietorship, the owner also controls the business. In a corporation, not so much. Shareholders own the company, but management effectively controls it. Management is supposed to act entirely and exclusively for shareholders’ benefit, not its own, but in practice managers are often more concerned with their own welfare than with increasing shareholder wealth. In theory, the board of directors, elected by shareholders, ensures that management does what it is supposed to do. In actuality, boards are more likely to be an arm of management than a fierce protector of shareholders. So you get fat salaries and limited consequences for failure, along with freedom for management to subordinate profit to posturing that gains managers social points in their own milieu.

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/10/03/from-affirmative-action-to-andy-warhol-buckle-up-for-a-wild-supreme-court-term/

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, “It’s hard not to have a big year at the Supreme Court.” That is, of course, manifestly true for the highest court in the land.

Some years are bigger than others, however. That certainly was the case in 2021-22, with historic decisions on abortion, gun rights, climate change and other issues.

On Monday, the new term will begin with a lineup that promises another historic series of rulings — and even greater levels of rage directed at the court.

The last term showed that a stable 6-3 majority has taken hold on the  court. Even with the addition this term of Justice Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson, and possible swing votes from Chief Justice John Roberts or others, there are five conservative justices who have brought clarity to long-contested areas characterized by 5-4 divisions. That is likely to continue this term.

Here are just two of the “matinee” cases that could have a huge impact on both precedent and politics:

Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College

This case on the use of race in college admissions will be heard with a similar case in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.

Since declaring affirmative action in admissions to be unconstitutional in 1978 in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the court has never achieved clarity on the constitutional use of race beyond barring any preference “for no reason other than race or ethnic origin.” Then-Justice Lewis Powell declared, “This the Constitution forbids,” but the court has been unable to say with any coherence and consistency what else it forbids in a line of conflicting and vague 5-4 rulings.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/air_force_academy_woes_highlight_collapse_of_military_values_under_diversity_mania.html

Other than a well-fought win over rival Navy, the United States Air Force Academy had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. 

First, came the story that the Academy gave diversity training to cadets encouraging them to stop using such patently offensive words as mom and dad.  This was followed up closely by a story that the Academy was promoting a fellowship that was open to just about everyone, but straight white men need not apply.  Finally, the school that used to be underpinned by its notable lack of tolerance for lying, cheating or stealing was put on two-years probation by the NCAA, complete with a rather long list of punishments, for apparently cheating at recruiting.

What ties these three stories together is the complete breakdown of values at the school, which are reflective of the breakdown in values across the military.

Both my wife and I graduated from USAFA in the 1990s.  At the time, the school’s values were integrity, service, and excellence.  Cadets were encouraged to put their classmates and country ahead of themselves.  Even the smallest lie or anything that could be construed as cheating, to include poorly documented homework, was a one-way ticket home.   

Those values have been turned upside down in the school’s commitment to the military’s new value system of diversity above all.  For the Air Force-Navy game, the Falcons wore their new uniforms honoring the Space Force. Semper Supra, which means always above, was displayed prominently where names are normally shown.  The motto is somewhat ironic since in today’s military, that’s where diversity and inclusion rank in the priority list, always above and eclipsing everything else.  All other values are subservient to it. 

While the element of the diversity training that suggested cadets should refrain from using words like mom and dad got most of the attention, the bigger problem is the overall philosophy that pits people into tribes and places the individual over the group.  We are now suggesting that we should be conscious of color and “value people for their uniqueness.” 

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/03/biden-administrations-manipulated-energy-policy-demonstrates-ignorance-of-history/

Consumed, as they have been, with the work of pushing revisionist woke ideology in the schools, it seems the Left missed the lesson that those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. They’ve learned nothing from the past, not even the recent past. 

Yet here we are, looking at the possibility we could repeat the same mistakes Europe made in the late 90s and early 2000s when they failed to realize the real motivations behind the green energy propaganda they were being spoon fed as truth.  

Back in the early 2000s, Russia did a phenomenal job with a disinformation campaign pushing anti-fracking in Europe. We know this because NATO admitted that this “green energy” advocacy was funded by the very people who stood to gain from the enacted policies: Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary-general of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) announced in 2014 that “I have met with allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-government organizations—environmental organizations working against shale gas—to maintain European dependence on imported Russian [natural] gas.”

The result was many European nations, like Germany, buying environmental propaganda—hook, line, and sinker—and committing to a fool’s errand of net zero and renewables. Since 2000, Germany will have spent several decades and almost $600 billion on what they have termed Energiewende, which is a complete and utter failure on every front.

Now the Germans, and other Europeans, are heavily dependent on Russian fossil fuels that are being used as a weapon against them. With winter quickly approaching, it’s guaranteed they’re not laughing anymore at Trump’s warnings about being dependent on Russian energy. They are, in fact, staring at the horrifying results of being played by Putin when they could have been energy independent if only they had made the right decisions just a few decades ago. But they didn’t and here they are being hit upside the head by the 2×4 of reality.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

Hurricane Ian caused untold damage to Floridians. It destroyed virtually everything in its path after coming ashore in the Fort Meyers area as a Category 4 hurricane. Lives were lost. Homes were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people are still without electricity. The hurricane did not discriminate by race, ethnicity, or gender. Everyone in its path was affected.

Nevertheless, Vice President Kamala Harris proclaimed, in the name of “equity,” that “communities of color” and low-income communities should be given priority in receiving hurricane relief.

“I know we are all thinking about the families in Florida and Puerto Rico with [Hurricane] Fiona and what we need to do to help them in terms of an immediate response and aid,” Vice President Harris said at the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum on September 30th. “We have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity. Understanding not everyone starts out at the same place, and if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities.”

Sadanand Dhume, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, delivered this derisive retort: “If a hurricane hits a state, we should expect the government to help all those affected: black, brown white, purple, green. And there’s no such thing as ‘communities of color.’ Real people don’t talk like this.”

The Biden administration talks just like this. Indeed, Vice President Harris’s referral to “equity” as the guiding policy directing hurricane relief assistance follows President Biden’s Executive Order 13985 that he issued on his first day in office, entitled “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”