Image via Wikipedia

The Supreme Court is set to hear the case of a student rejected from the University of Texas for what she alleges were racial reasons (the student is white). It is entirely likely that the court will restrict or ban race-based affirmative action; Justices Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas dissented in Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 case which reaffirmed it, and Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts have both spoken out against it. An end to affirmative action would certainly mean more white/Asian college students, and less black/Hispanic students. This topic, interestingly enough, is one of the (very) few in which I find myself in agreement with Justice Scalia (of all people). Justice Scalia has promoted the ideals of meritocracy and individualism: people should not be judged based on their race, nor their gender, nor their ethnicity, but as an individual. People should be judged, as Dr. King put it, “based on the content of their character”. To take something which is a stereotype and apply it to all people of a certain group is unfair, both to other people and to the individuals within that group. Although quality of previous education and economic status should be taken into account when conducting admissions, as those directly affect the quality of one’s education, race has no place, as there is no conclusive affect of race on learning. Blaming one group for the woes of another, especially if such stems from ancestral wrongs that were committed by people who are no longer alive, is simply unjust. If Israel were to hunt down and murder all grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people who served as prison camp guards during the Holocaust, the world would instantly cry foul, but when a racial group is discriminated against due to actions committed by people who only survive in the memory of their grandchildren, it leads to a sharply divisive national debate, but no global outcry. Studies show that if admissions were strictly meritocratic, minorities would make up 4% of college students; currently, they are 12%, and if economic affirmative action was used instead, they would make up 10%. From these numbers, 4% of minority students currently are there on their merits, and 6% of them are there on their merits adjusted for conditions. That leaves 2% of current students who are there solely due to their race; they aren’t economically disadvantaged, they aren’t highly intelligent enough to get in; they are there because, and only because, of the color of their skin. In Florida, we have already banned affirmative action (the One Florida program, instituted under Gov. Jeb Bush), and we (Floridians) are better off for it. That a free, constitutional democracy should have those who succeed and those who fail determined by the color of one’s skin, rather than by one’s merit, is revolting and disturbing. Logic (and Chief Justice Roberts) have the clear solution: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Related articles

• Supreme Court to Revisit Affirmative Action (blogs.wsj.com)
• High court to take new look at affirmative action (newsok.com)

Image via Wikipedia

I am watching current developments in the Republican presidential primary with a strange mixture of glee and horror. Glee, because Rick Santorum seems to be polling well, which means a better chance for the politician I support to pull off a good chunk of votes in the general election. Horror, because I just realized that this man (Santorum) is actually serious. Sure, he’s pledging to cut taxes, shrink government, and revive manufacturing; all worthy objectives. But he also says he’ll have an administration with less government and more individual freedoms. This seems to be at direct odds with his (as Mr. Romney might put it) severe conservatism. If Rick Santorum wins the primary, the issues raised won’t be rather he’s too far-right for America. Rather, we’ll see an issue rise that we haven’t see since the Vice Presidential campaign of Tom Eagleton, and an issue which dogged Barry Goldwater, William Jennings Bryan, and Horace Greeley (none of whom won their elections): this man is absolutely insane.

Do we really want a president who will attack a sitting President for having a “phony theology” (which sure does sound like a religious attack; theo does mean god, after all, and logy means study), but no, apparently he was talking about Obama’s “radical” beliefs that a clean earth would do some benefit to mankind; you know, silly little things like reducing the amount of mercury pumped into the atmosphere, increasing fuel efficiency, or attempting to promote energy independence. Santorum, like most GOP candidates, seems to have some kind of issue with global warming. I have a simple belief: the math and science will tell you the truth. As the science says global warming is happening, I think it is happening.

Santorum is also opposed to prenatal testing and contraception, fringe views that are likely to distance independents and disaffected Democrats (like myself), who tend to be more concerned about issues like the economy, defence policy (drone strikes, Guantanamo), energy (more drilling) or Obama’s stance on civil liberties (NDAA, Patriot Act) than about overturning Griswold v. Connecticut. If Santorum continues in this current manner, he could risk alienating states that typically vote Republican but have a less-religious population, states like Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, West Virginia, and swing states like Nevada and New Hampshire. These people don’t want a President who will use the position to advocate their own religion, as a Santorum would undoubtedly do. We can’t have a President who thinks that (according to a 2008 speech given at Ave Maria University) there is “a spiritual war” waged against the nation by “the father of lies, Satan”, or who thinks that “mainline Protestantism” is “a shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.” (Full disclosure: I am an Episcopalian, which could be considered “mainline Protestantism”). A President who thinks that “our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people” might have issues with giving full rights to people he considers to be immoral and irreligious (ie: non-straight/non-Christians). It’s also cruelly ironic that he says that opposition to employers providing contraception would be “imposing his ideology on a group of people expressing their theology, their moral code”, and yet he is running in the party that is so terrified of Islamic “theology” and “moral code(s)” that they would pass constitutional amendments to specifically prohibit Sharī’ah law. And yet this is the man leading the race in Michigan, in Oklahoma, in Ohio, and nationally.

Related articles

• My Take: Why should Santorum decide who’s a real Christian? (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
• Santorum Writes Barack Obama, Millions Of Protestants, Out Of Christianity (buzzfeed.com)
• Return of Rick Santorum, culture warrior? (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Santorum: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Santorum remark on Obama “theology” draws ire (cbsnews.com)
• Rick Santorum Takes On Prenatal Testing, Public Schools, Contraception (huffingtonpost.com)
• Rick Santorum Says Liberals Hate Science [Rick Santorum] (jezebel.com)

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.
2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.
3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can always preview any post or edit it before you share it to the world.