Heather Mac Donald on juvenile violence and absent fathers. (Mac Donald discusses the issue further here. The statistics are extraordinary.)
The official silence about illegitimacy and its relation to youth violence remains as carefully preserved in today’s Chicago as it was during Obama’s organizing time there. A fleeting reference to “parental” responsibility for children is allowed, before the speaker quickly moves on to society’s more important role. […] Press coverage of teen shootings may mention a participant’s mother, but the shooter and victim may as well be the product of a virgin birth, for all the media’s curiosity about where their fathers are. I asked John Paul Jones of Obama’s old Alinskyite outfit, the Developing Communities Project, if anyone ever tries to track down the father of a teen accused of a shooting. The question threw him. “Does anyone ever ask: ‘Where are the fathers?’” he paraphrased me. A brief silence. “That’s a good point.”
Victor Davis Hanson on affirmative action.
The concept was noble, but now antiquated and mostly absurd. It requires the logic of the Old Confederacy to determine racial purity among the intermarried citizenry. Jet-black Punjabis get no preferences. Light-skinned Mexican-Americans of the fourth-generation claim privilege. Poor whites from Tulare don’t rank. The children of black dentists do. I see very little logic here.
And Darleen Click on why the humanities stay so leftist.
Anyone weighing their career options doesn’t just look at their own interests and strengths, they also assess their chances in that particular career based on the people who are already there. If a non-leftist and/or religious student is observing, daily, the clannish, hyper-political intolerance of the people in charge of “educating” him/her, s/he might be hesitant to pursue a career in academia where their success is dependent on people already hostile to them.
As usual, feel free to add your own.
Seen this one, David? More from Julie Bindel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/15/why-men-use-prostitutes
Q,
Yes, thanks. Bindel insists that “men are the problem,” that “all men are potential rapists” and that “all women know that if we have not been raped, we are lucky.” She then does her damndest to find an anonymous sociopath who, she implies, feels the same way. We should sacrifice an ox to the wonder of her mind.
“children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
Is having a father the new “white privilege”?
The problem is it’s easier to win votes with more public spending and more social programs even if that won’t fix family breakdown. Individual responsibility and changing the culture is a lot harder to sell but without it nothing will really improve.
Good find, David. Thank you. I’m currently reading Fabian Tassanos ‘Mediocracy’, and am having more and more fun seeing the beliefs and thoughts of our betters thorough my new mediocratic-aware glasses.
-S
Carbon,
“Is having a father the new ‘white privilege’?”
As Mac Donald points out, “The sky-high illegitimacy rate meant that black boys were growing up in a world in which it was normal to impregnate a girl and then take off. When a boy is raised without any social expectation that he will support his children and marry his children’s mother, he fails to learn the most fundamental lesson of personal responsibility.” And as noted in an earlier article,* the reaction of some “community organisers” was to displace all responsibility away from the individuals concerned, blaming “insensitivity” and “corporate greed,” and complaining about Mac Donald’s use of the term “illegitimate”: “There are no illegitimate births.”
* http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2431941/posts
Simen,
It’s a good read.
“and complaining about Mac Donald’s use of the term “illegitimate”: “There are no illegitimate births.””
Jesus. Talk about priorities.
Well, the widespread reluctance to ask the obvious question about absent fathers – and the perplexed reaction to an outsider raising it – makes me wonder what priorities and motives are at work. After all, people whose livelihoods depend on “tackling” an ongoing social problem have an obvious interest in ensuring that problem remains ongoing. (Their funding doesn’t appear to depend on achieving much, merely being present.) Which may explain the indignation over the word “illegitimate.” If you want a problem to persist, it helps if no-one feels comfortable talking about it realistically.
Brown wins over Coakley in Massachusetts Senate race, 52-46. Democrat supermajority in the Senate is kaput.
I am a happy boy. http://www.goldpanners.com/PannerVision/devices/index.html
According to a dyed-in-wool socialist I work with, it is all Margaret Thatcher’s fault. In fact apparently everything is still Mrs Thatcher’s fault twenty years later — though it escapes the lefties that even after thirteen crushing years of labour’s best efforts, the cold dead hand of socialism has been unable to remove any of the pains she inflicted on us.
“According to a dyed-in-wool socialist I work with, it is all Margaret Thatcher’s fault.”
What is?
Thank you for food for thought and fathers. I’ve linked to it with grateful acknowledgements.
“…people whose livelihoods depend on “tackling” an ongoing social problem have an obvious interest in ensuring that problem remains ongoing…”
A.k.a. the bureaucratic ethos. Ask Sir Humphry. In this case though, it’s not just parking meters and roading, it’s life and death in our communities. The problem with it, as “Carbon” notes above “…is it’s easier to win votes with more public spending and more social programs even if that won’t fix family breakdown…”
The whole problem is compounded and sustained by a compliant and unresponsive news media. Perhaps the internet/blogosphere may prove to be a circuit breaker, as it has in the AGW debate…