The Liberal Assault on Merit

[saveliberty]

People with college degrees allowing the US real estate market to bubble and burst at our expense and their gain.. What college degree do you get to allow the merit the GOP thinks it contains?

The real estate bubble grew out of Barney Franks(D). We digress, what lowering of standards allowed you to attend college?

The same standards that kept you out of college..the GOP had plenty of time to change what was wrong when they were in power..

Was accepted to all three schools I applied Tennesse, Michigan and Michigan State. '83 Bachelors of Science. Interesting you suggest the GOP could fix a Democrat problem. How about Democrats stop creating them?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

It ties in with the democrat plantation mentality. Any Black person who strays off the government plantation and engages in independent thought is immediately attacked. Likewise American kids are taught social gibberish in place of American history and all they learn is how to put a condom on a banana. They are kept ignorant (and often doped) for a couple of reasons, to make it easier for poorly educated union teachers to work and an ignorant population is easier to control than a well informed one.

Precisely!

All of this, including self-esteem theory, originates with the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory: the expropriation of culture, revolution by another means.

Excerpt:

In any event, what is the Marxist to do when in fact the working class is a culturally heterogeneous component of production whose standard of living has dramatically improved under capitalism?

Well, its constituents must be programmed from early childhood to disregard the discriminations of common logic and eschew the conventions of common morality. But not only that, they must be protected from the economic depredations of false consciousness. Hence, they must be made to think of themselves as the victims of those who own the means of production and all that surplus value.

Toss that fishing pole in the lake and hand 'em a pitchfork.

In other words, make 'em dumb as dirt. Manageable drones. Turn 'em into sexual degenerates bereft of familial affections/allegiances: the Marcusean polymorphous perversity of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Hence, the intellectual and moral mediocrity and uniformity of relativism with a chip on its shoulder. This is cultural Marxism in a nutshell, more commonly known today as political correctness or multiculturalism. As economic Marxism is the deconstruction of the actualities of the factors of production and the expropriation of the means of production, cultural Marxism is the deconstruction of Western culture, of the influences of Christianity especially, and the expropriation of ideas and expression.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/usmb-badlands/364693-richard-strauss-nearly-a-nazi-3.html#post9447468

 

[PoliticalChic]

This is what Liberalism sees as the enemy:

12. "The poor students get into such schools through hard work and sacrifice—both their own and that of their parents.
The students typically attend local tutoring programs, which proliferate in Asian neighborhoods, starting the summer after sixth grade and for several days a week, including weekends, during the school year prior to the test.

The costs are burdensome for poor and working families, but it’s a matter of priorities.


13. .... in an NPR story last year: “Even the lowest-paid immigrants scrape up enough money for tutoring, because those high schools are seen as the ticket to a better life” for their children. Thus, one immigrant family featured in the NPR story had spent $5,000 per year, of the parents’ combined $26,000 income as garment workers, to send their three sons to tutoring.

Their oldest boy, now a student at Stuyvesant, said of his mother, who did not speak English and, like her husband, did not finish high school in China:
“Basically, she just worked every day . . . and saved up the money.”
The Plot Against Merit by Dennis Saffran, City Journal Summer 2014






“Basically, she just worked every day . . . and saved up the money.”

My heart breaks for these people.
These are the recipients for whom every cent of aid is worthwhile.






The obverse.... these are the results of Liberal welfare policy:

"As more folks in a poor neighborhood languish with little or no work, entire local culture begins to change: daily work is no longer the expected social norm. Extended periods of hanging around the neighborhood, neither working nor going to school becoming more and more socially acceptable.

Since productive activity not making any economic sense because of the work disincentives of the welfare plantation, other kinds of activities proliferate: drug and alcohol abuse, crime, recreational sex, illegitimacy, and family breakup are the new social norms, as does the culture of violence."
Peter Ferrara, “America’s Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb,” chapter five.



Liberalism: the great destroyer

 

[saveliberty]

In an over 11 year career in the automobile industry I have had only person honestly ask me if we would give her a car. One person too many.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Those who despise excellence will work to suppress it. Those who seek an end to merit are themselves seeking it.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Those who despise excellence will work to suppress it. Those who seek an end to merit are themselves seeking it.

I think not having to work for a living is excellent, don't you? Of course I earned that privilege,

what's your excuse?

 

[TemplarKormac]

Those who despise excellence will work to suppress it. Those who seek an end to merit are themselves seeking it.

I think not having to work for a living is excellent, don't you? Of course I earned that privilege,

what's your excuse?

Instead of being a mindless drone like you are, I prefer to have a mind. You work mindlessly, I work with my mind. Liberals like you love to be manipulated, you don't think freely. And there are close to 48 million people being paid to sit on their asses as we speak, something you support, and you lecture me? No wonder you liberals think so little of merits. If I recall, that's one of the goals of Communists, to end merit based society.

I don't care much for people who say out loud and exclaim, "I've earned that privilege." If you're earning the privilege to sit on your backside via a welfare check, that privilege came at the expense of someone else. Privilege is what is wrong with this nation. Privileges create welfare states, privileges take hard work and meritorious achievements and throw them to wayside. It discourages competition. To say you've "earned that privilege" is meaningless. You have no idea what privilege is.

 

[NYcarbineer]

For those who believed in authorizing a new class in America, based on skin color, this post will .....what's that Liberal term....oh...."offend."




1. "The Plot Against Merit....Seeking racial balance, liberal advocates want to water down admissions standards at New York’s elite high schools.



2. In 2004, seven-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English... he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents—a cook and a factory worker—and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small Laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side. Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

3. [Ting bought] prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam....prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the Laundromat—an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true. Ting, now a 17-year-old senior starting at NYU in the fall, says of his parents, who never went to college: “They came here for the next generation.”





4. New York’s specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and the equally storied Bronx High School of Science, along with Brooklyn Technical High School and five smaller schools, have produced 14 Nobel Laureates—more than most countries. For more than 70 years, admission to these schools has been based upon a competitive examination of math, verbal, and logical reasoning skills.

5. ...troubled by declining black and Hispanic enrollment at the schools, opponents of the exam have resurfaced. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a civil rights complaint challenging the admissions process. A bill in Albany to eliminate the test requirement has garnered the support...[and] new New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, has called for changing the admissions criteria. The mayor argues that relying solely on the test creates a “rich-get-richer” dynamic that benefits the wealthy, who can afford expensive test preparation.

As Ting’s story illustrates, however, the reality is just the opposite.





6. In 1971, the board of Community School District 3, then a predominantly black and Puerto Rican district on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, charged that Bronx Science was, as characterized by the New York Times, “a privileged educational center for children of the white middle class because ‘culturally’ oriented examinations worked to ‘screen out’ black and Puerto Rican students.” .... the board criticized the exam for being “heavily loaded with ‘intelligence test’ approaches” and proposed that students should instead be admitted solely based on recommendations.

7. ....a 1997 report by the radical Acorn group assailing racial imbalance at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
But strikingly, the Acorn report focused less on the entrance exam and merit selection than on improved preparation of minority students.... Acorn made this focus more explicit: “The question is not whether the entrance exam is unfair. The question is why students who attend public elementary and middle schools for eight or nine years are so unprepared to do well when they take it.”
The Plot Against Merit by Dennis Saffran, City Journal Summer 2014



The question will surely break down along the usual lines: Liberals, equality of numbers is the only consideration.

Normal folks: merit should be rewarded.

Shouldn't you prove that there is no 'merit' to the argument that costly test preparation schemes are giving some students unfair advantage? Beyond one item of anecdotal evidence which as an argument has little or no 'merit'?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Those who despise excellence will work to suppress it. Those who seek an end to merit are themselves seeking it.

I think not having to work for a living is excellent, don't you? Of course I earned that privilege,

what's your excuse?

Instead of being a mindless drone like you are, I prefer to have a mind. You work mindlessly, I work with my mind. Liberals like you love to be manipulated, you don't think freely. And there are close to 48 million people being paid to sit on their asses as we speak, something you support, and you lecture me? No wonder you liberals think so little of merits. If I recall, that's one of the goals of Communists, to end merit based society.

I don't care much for people who say out loud and exclaim, "I've earned that privilege." If you're earning the privilege to sit on your backside via a welfare check, that privilege came at the expense of someone else. Privilege is what is wrong with this nation. Privileges create welfare states, privileges take hard work and meritorious achievements and throw them to wayside. It discourages competition. To say you've "earned that privilege" is meaningless. You have no idea what privilege is.

I'm retired with 2 pensions that took me 40 years to earn.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I think not having to work for a living is excellent, don't you? Of course I earned that privilege,

what's your excuse?

Instead of being a mindless drone like you are, I prefer to have a mind. You work mindlessly, I work with my mind. Liberals like you love to be manipulated, you don't think freely. And there are close to 48 million people being paid to sit on their asses as we speak, something you support, and you lecture me? No wonder you liberals think so little of merits. If I recall, that's one of the goals of Communists, to end merit based society.

I don't care much for people who say out loud and exclaim, "I've earned that privilege." If you're earning the privilege to sit on your backside via a welfare check, that privilege came at the expense of someone else. Privilege is what is wrong with this nation. Privileges create welfare states, privileges take hard work and meritorious achievements and throw them to wayside. It discourages competition. To say you've "earned that privilege" is meaningless. You have no idea what privilege is.

I'm retired with 2 pensions that took me 40 years to earn.

Sure, 2 pensions being paid for by the State of New York no doubt. Spare me. Your attitude is what broke the city of Detroit, New York isn't doing so hot either.

 

[saveliberty]

Shouldn't you prove that there is no 'merit' to the argument that costly test preparation schemes are giving some students unfair advantage? Beyond one item of anecdotal evidence which as an argument has little or no 'merit'?

I guess you should prove everyone needed a test preparation class to gain entrance to the school first. It improves your chances of getting in, not a requirement for entry.

 

[saveliberty]

I normally disagree with NYC, but I see his point. He merits his income based on 40 years of service. He fulfilled his requirements under a plan and now receives what was promised. Seems he agrees with a merit system.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I normally disagree with NYC, but I see his point. He merits his income based on 40 years of service. He fulfilled his requirements under a plan and now receives what was promised. Seems he agrees with a merit system.

Yes, I know. I guess I unintentionally baited her into that response. Someone arguing against merits, then bragging about having benefited from a merit based system is a hypocrite. Just like Micheal Moore saying "I hate capitalism" while benefiting from the very thing he despises.

 

[TemplarKormac]

So, @NYcarbineer , care to answer this charge? You're arguing against merit, but spent 40 years taking advantage of it. Does this not make you a hypocrite in this area?

 

[TemplarKormac]

...guess not.

 

[SmedlyButler]

I have an unsettling feeling of being disconcertingly close to PC's position.(not close enough to give her a hug mind you.)The liberal idea of assisting people up the ladder so they can achieve higher standards is the one I've always believed in, not lowering standards to make them more accessible.

 

[saveliberty]

Just don't step on her cape, she really dislikes that.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I graduated from Stuy. It was a good place to be, at least for me.

I don't support lowering the standards or changing the admission requirements - and neither do any "liberals" I know. Pretending that a few out-of-context quotes represent the views of all liberals is a constant failing of PC's threads.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

For those who believed in authorizing a new class in America, based on skin color, this post will .....what's that Liberal term....oh...."offend."




1. "The Plot Against Merit....Seeking racial balance, liberal advocates want to water down admissions standards at New York’s elite high schools.



2. In 2004, seven-year-old Ting Shi arrived in New York from China, speaking almost no English... he shared a bedroom in a Chinatown apartment with his grandparents—a cook and a factory worker—and a young cousin, while his parents put in 12-hour days at a small Laundromat they had purchased on the Upper East Side. Ting mastered English and eventually set his sights on getting into Stuyvesant High School, the crown jewel of New York City’s eight “specialized high schools.”

3. [Ting bought] prep books for its eighth-grade entrance exam....prepared for the test over the next two years, working through the prep books and taking classes at one of the city’s free tutoring programs. His acceptance into Stuyvesant prompted a day of celebration at the Laundromat—an immigrant family’s dream beginning to come true. Ting, now a 17-year-old senior starting at NYU in the fall, says of his parents, who never went to college: “They came here for the next generation.”





4. New York’s specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant and the equally storied Bronx High School of Science, along with Brooklyn Technical High School and five smaller schools, have produced 14 Nobel Laureates—more than most countries. For more than 70 years, admission to these schools has been based upon a competitive examination of math, verbal, and logical reasoning skills.

5. ...troubled by declining black and Hispanic enrollment at the schools, opponents of the exam have resurfaced. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed a civil rights complaint challenging the admissions process. A bill in Albany to eliminate the test requirement has garnered the support...[and] new New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech, has called for changing the admissions criteria. The mayor argues that relying solely on the test creates a “rich-get-richer” dynamic that benefits the wealthy, who can afford expensive test preparation.

As Ting’s story illustrates, however, the reality is just the opposite.





6. In 1971, the board of Community School District 3, then a predominantly black and Puerto Rican district on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, charged that Bronx Science was, as characterized by the New York Times, “a privileged educational center for children of the white middle class because ‘culturally’ oriented examinations worked to ‘screen out’ black and Puerto Rican students.” .... the board criticized the exam for being “heavily loaded with ‘intelligence test’ approaches” and proposed that students should instead be admitted solely based on recommendations.

7. ....a 1997 report by the radical Acorn group assailing racial imbalance at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.
But strikingly, the Acorn report focused less on the entrance exam and merit selection than on improved preparation of minority students.... Acorn made this focus more explicit: “The question is not whether the entrance exam is unfair. The question is why students who attend public elementary and middle schools for eight or nine years are so unprepared to do well when they take it.”
The Plot Against Merit by Dennis Saffran, City Journal Summer 2014



The question will surely break down along the usual lines: Liberals, equality of numbers is the only consideration.

Normal folks: merit should be rewarded.

I graduated from Brooklyn tech in 96. The school was mostly Asian, but they also had a lot of blacks who went there.

This was in the link:
"Prominent black graduates include political scientist Thomas Sowell (Stuyvesant ’48), former Harvard Medical School dean Alvin Poussaint (Stuyvesant ’52), radical activist Stokely Carmichael (Bronx Science ’60), astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (Bronx Science ’76), and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (Stuyvesant ’69)."

Pretty impressive....except for the last one.

Thelonious Monk went to Stuy, too.

 

[boedicca]

This same attitude has been infecting public education in CA for quite awhile. Example: lots of histrionics about the high ratio of Asian in UC Berkeley Admissions.

The definition of Minority apparently means only low achieving Persons Of Color.