Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[kenberg]

I have a granddaughter in private school here in ruby-red Oklahoma, a state that recently passed an anti-CRT law. I'll try to find out if there is any affect.

 

That said, it seems to me that trying to understand systemic racism is a squishy undertaking - that it is impossible to quantify. There are statistics - black Americans are arrested and convicted and sent to prison at a much greater rate than their percentage of total population would suggest: why that is so is squishy. And from what I know, that question is pretty much the impetus of CRT in legal theory, and it began as a narrow concern within law school academia.

 

Squishy should be a part of the learning experience. How else do you teach critical thinking? I don't think it is what students are taught but how they taught to think for themselves that is of critical importance.

 

Your last sentence is reflects what I am saying.

 

Mt high school was a mixed bag. My biology teacher didn't know any biology and my engineering drawing teacher had a substantial problem with alcohol. But many of my teachers were quite good. I particularly appreciated the many assignments that I was given to write essays. Often the general area was stipulated but beyond that I could choose what interested me and, very important, I was to draw my own conclusions. I wrote on Douglas MacCarthur in the 1952-53 school year when I was a freshman. Before starting I knew he had executed the Inchon landing, I knew of his dismissal by Truman, I knew he was a candidate for president in 52, but I learned a lot more in preparing the essay. his return to the Philippines, for example. I can't recall just what all I ended up thinking but I worked at it and thought whatever I thought. Critically, I was not required to accept any particular conclusion.

 

Here is a tenet that I believe is from CRT: It's not enough support equal opportunity. This could lead to some interesting discussions. My own views, long held, are that we must see to it that opportunity is provided. After that, we stand back, we accept that some people will make bad choices, we should provide second chances if reasonable, but ultimately we accept that not everyone will choose a successful path. The devil is always in the details, but I doubt I will be changing my mind about the general principal and, as is often the case, I believe that a great many people share my view.

 

I am really hoping to see some exams or texts or study sheets that students take in a CRT course. I have no idea of what is actually being taught under that heading, and from what I have seen many people who are arguing either for teaching CRT or against teaching CRT have no better of an idea than I have.

[Winstonm]

Your last sentence is reflects what I am saying.

 

Mt high school was a mixed bag. My biology teacher didn't know any biology and my engineering drawing teacher had a substantial problem with alcohol. But many of my teachers were quite good. I particularly appreciated the many assignments that I was given to write essays. Often the general area was stipulated but beyond that I could choose what interested me and, very important, I was to draw my own conclusions. I wrote on Douglas MacCarthur in the 1952-53 school year when I was a freshman. Before starting I knew he had executed the Inchon landing, I knew of his dismissal by Truman, I knew he was a candidate for president in 52, but I learned a lot more in preparing the essay. his return to the Philippines, for example. I can't recall just what all I ended up thinking but I worked at it and thought whatever I thought. Critically, I was not required to accept any particular conclusion.

 

Here is a tenet that I believe is from CRT: It's not enough support equal opportunity. This could lead to some interesting discussions. My own views, long held, are that we must see to it that opportunity is provided. After that, we stand back, we accept that some people will make bad choices, we should provide second chances if reasonable, but ultimately we accept that not everyone will choose a successful path. The devil is always in the details, but I doubt I will be changing my mind about the general principal and, as is often the case, I believe that a great many people share my view.

 

I am really hoping to see some exams or texts or study sheets that students take in a CRT course. I have no idea of what is actually being taught under that heading, and from what I have seen many people who are arguing either for teaching CRT or against teaching CRT have no better of an idea than I have.

 

From my understanding, what you are asking to see is vapor, a boogey-man created by Republican propaganda in response to the 1619 Project of the New York Times, which, as far as I know, was never officially part of any school's curriculum.

https://en.wikipedia...he_1619_Project

In July 2020, Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas proposed the "Saving American History Act of 2020", prohibiting K-12 schools from using federal funds to teach curriculum related to the 1619 project, and make schools that did ineligible for federal professional-development grants. Cotton added that "The 1619 Project is a racially divisive and revisionist account of history that threatens the integrity of the Union by denying the true principles on which it was founded."^[61] On September 6, 2020, Trump responded on Twitter to a claim that the State of California was adding the 1619 project to the state's public school curriculum. Trump stated that the Department of Education was investigating the matter and, if the aforementioned claim was found true, federal funding would be withheld from Californian public schools.^[62][63][64] On September 17, Trump announced the 1776 Commission to develop a "patriotic" curriculum

I could be wrong, though.

[Gilithin]

Here is a tenet that I believe is from CRT: It's not enough support equal opportunity.

From the wiki entry:

In the field of legal studies, CRT emphasizes that merely making laws colorblind on paper may not be enough to make the application of the laws colorblind; ostensibly colorblind laws can be applied in racially discriminatory ways.

 

Strangely enough, one of the biggest criticisms of CT generally is precisely that it does not provide a suggestion of a clear course regarding practical political policy. Rather it is concerned with identifying how the structures and cultural influences of a society work together to create social problems, with CRT specifically focussed on the social problems surrounding race under the axiomatic assumption that race is a socially constructed entity. Exactly what should be done about any enlightenment that comes from CRT is specifically not part of the academic subject.

[kenberg]

From the wiki entry:

 

 

Strangely enough, one of the biggest criticisms of CT generally is precisely that it does not provide a suggestion of a clear course regarding practical political policy. Rather it is concerned with identifying how the structures and cultural influences of a society work together to create social problems, with CRT specifically focussed on the social problems surrounding race under the axiomatic assumption that race is a socially constructed entity. Exactly what should be done about any enlightenment that comes from CRT is specifically not part of the academic subject.

 

I wonder how the following thought fits in with CRT:

I will benefit if everyone is provided with the opportunity for a good life.

 

Ok,"everyone" needs some qualifications, I am not interested in providing the criminally psychopathic with a good life. But it's a clear enough statement I think. If a young person has the opportunity for a good education then, fairly often, that person will take advantage of that opportunity, become self-supporting, become a contributing member of society, and that result will be good for us all.

This does not require that I develop massive guilt feelings about either myself or about White people in general, it simply requires noting the truth, I believe the obvious truth, that we will all be better off if all others (again deleting psychos from "all") have good opportunities and take advantage of these good opportunities.

This will not solve all problems but it seems to me we could get very large agreement on this and move forward.

Coming back to your point, it has practicality on its side.

 

Anyway, before favoring or not favoring the teaching of CRT in schools, I want to see some texts and exams so I can see what really we are speaking of. I looked at the wik. Quite a bit to read and digest.

[Gilithin]

I wonder how the following thought fits in with CRT:

I will benefit if everyone is provided with the opportunity for a good life.

Ken, you are trying to force a political position onto an academic subject. CRT is not meant to be political. Let it do what it is meant for and leave the political decisions that follow to think tanks and politicians.

[kenberg]

Ken, you are trying to force a political position onto an academic subject. CRT is not meant to be political. Let it do what it is meant for and leave the political decisions that follow to think tanks and politicians.

 

Probably you are right. David Brooks, on PBS Newshour, mentioned a T-shirt slogan he had as a student: "That's fine in practice, but does it work in theory?"

[Winstonm]

Ken, Snopes has a fact check on CRT.

 

Critical race theory doesn’t, for example, argue that anyone is “inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive,” as the Tennessee law states. In fact, critical race theorists generally acknowledge that race itself is socially constructed, and that even though there are no “inherent” attributes based on race, white people are statistically more likely to do better in society than similarly-situated people of color. Critical race theory interrogates why that is the case.

[thepossum]

.

[kenberg]

'll go off on a crazy binge but then come back to reality.

The Wik entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory

has a list of Common Themes of CRT.

The first one is Critique if Liberalism. It says

Critical race theory scholars question foundational liberal concepts such as Enlightenment rationalism, legal equality, and Constitutional neutrality, and challenge the incrementalist approach of traditional civil-rights discourse.^[28] They favor a race-conscious approach to social transformation, critiquing liberal ideas such as affirmative action, color blindness, role modeling, or the merit principle^[43] with an approach that relies more on political organizing, in contrast to liberalism's reliance on rights-based remedies.

 

What would it even mean to teach this to a ninth-grader? in order to understand any criticism of Enlightenment the student needs to learn what this refers to. I was a decent student but I doubt I could have defined the term. Same with Rationalism. Perhaps by age 13 I had heard of "I think, therefore I am". or maybe I hadn't heard of it, but I certainly hadn't thought though any philosophy it entails Somewhere along the way I learned Descartes's rule of signs for algebra class but I had little if any knowledge of his philosophy. So if we are going to explain CBT's skepticism of Enlightenment, Rationalism, and other matters we first need to take a couple of months to explain to the ninth-grader what these concepts are that CRT is skeptical of. After that, we could discuss whether it really is best to discard these concepts and rely instead on political organizing. Mitch McConnel might well agree with CRT that political organizing is far more important than Enlightenment.

 

Ok, back to reality. Surely the advocates of CRT are not suggesting that ninth-graders read Spinoza so that they can understand the CRT objections to what he says. i am left with confusion as to just what is being advocated by those who want to teach CRT but my guess is that what they want to teach would not be all that recognizable as CRT.

 

 

As happens, there was an article by George Will in WaPo this morning. Yes I read conservative columnists. It's not about CRT but it is about some contemporary issues relating to education and it appears to get at my overall views. Will addresses arguments made by Michael Sandel in a book called The Tyranny of Merit. I have not read the book but my guess is that while I would not agree with all of what Will has to say I also would not agree with Sandel. I have long advocated doing our best to provide opportunity for everyone to develop their talents but then choosing on merit. I favor giving help to those who just cannot cope with the demands of the world, but still I believe decisions about jobs, entrance to training programs and such be strongly based on merit. No doubt the right way to learn just what Sandel is saying is to read his book rather than to read Will's description, but I hope Will is discussing Sandel fairly. At any rate, the topic seems to be current and important.

 

As to CRT, I am done with it for the moment. If I ever see some text material or exam material that is directly related to what it means to teach CRT I might come back to it. but right now I think the debate might well be over the teaching of something called CRT that only remotely resembles what CRT actually is.

[y66]

What if American Democracy Fails the Climate Crisis?

 

Ezra Klein and four environmental thinkers discuss the limits of politics in facing down the threat to the planet.

Continues to fail massively?

[Winstonm]

 

If I ever see some text material or exam material that is directly related to what it means to teach CRT I might come back to it. but right now I think the debate might well be over the teaching of something called CRT that only remotely resembles what CRT actually is.

 

This has been the point I have been trying to make (obviously, a poor attempt), that CRT as it is currently being thrown about in the media is a strawman.

[awm]

After reading up on this a bit, it seems clear that:

 

1. Critical Race Theory is a subject that is normally taught in law schools. It tries to answer the question: "If the law does not explicitly discriminate and we reject racist ideas about the inherent inferiority of some ethnic groups, why is it still the case that minorities fare worse on virtually every quality-of-life measure in the US?" Understanding this is important for future lawyers (or judges, or politicians) -- it's important to see how laws which are textually race-neutral can perpetuate discriminatory outcomes (either by making it difficult to break out of the status quo, through selective enforcement, or in other ways).

 

2. There is no curriculum to teach critical race theory in high schools or junior high schools (and never has been). The theory has been around for decades; all that has changed is Republicans looking for a scapegoat / distraction. In fact the efforts to "ban critical race theory" will either accomplish nothing (because it's not taught in public K-12 schools and it isn't what Republicans think it is) or will attempt to ban diversity training in companies and government offices (which will be overturned in court as it violates the Civil Rights act).

 

3. What Republicans are actually trying to push back against is the idea that racism is still a big problem in the US. They'd prefer to believe that racism ended years ago (with the Civil Rights act, or even the Civil War -- actually some of them seem to believe that Black people were better off BEFORE the Civil War) or at least that racism today is restricted to a tiny minority of KKK members and the like. In fact most Republicans believe that reverse racism (against white people) is a much more serious problem in the US today.

 

The reason this discussion is happening now is because of the very visible Black Lives Matter protests due to the now much more visible police murders of Black people. Given the video tape in some of these cases (Derek Chauvin most prominently) it's increasingly difficult to believe that racism in the US is a thing of the past... and a lot of people want to blame Republicans for this problem (probably correctly, but they certainly don't want to accept blame).

[Winstonm]

After reading up on this a bit, it seems clear that:

 

1. Critical Race Theory is a subject that is normally taught in law schools. It tries to answer the question: "If the law does not explicitly discriminate and we reject racist ideas about the inherent inferiority of some ethnic groups, why is it still the case that minorities fare worse on virtually every quality-of-life measure in the US?" Understanding this is important for future lawyers (or judges, or politicians) -- it's important to see how laws which are textually race-neutral can perpetuate discriminatory outcomes (either by making it difficult to break out of the status quo, through selective enforcement, or in other ways).

 

2. There is no curriculum to teach critical race theory in high schools or junior high schools (and never has been). The theory has been around for decades; all that has changed is Republicans looking for a scapegoat / distraction. In fact the efforts to "ban critical race theory" will either accomplish nothing (because it's not taught in public K-12 schools and it isn't what Republicans think it is) or will attempt to ban diversity training in companies and government offices (which will be overturned in court as it violates the Civil Rights act).

 

3. What Republicans are actually trying to push back against is the idea that racism is still a big problem in the US. They'd prefer to believe that racism ended years ago (with the Civil Rights act, or even the Civil War -- actually some of them seem to believe that Black people were better off BEFORE the Civil War) or at least that racism today is restricted to a tiny minority of KKK members and the like. In fact most Republicans believe that reverse racism (against white people) is a much more serious problem in the US today.

 

The reason this discussion is happening now is because of the very visible Black Lives Matter protests due to the now much more visible police murders of Black people. Given the video tape in some of these cases (Derek Chauvin most prominently) it's increasing difficult to believe that racism in the US is a thing of the past... and a lot of people want to blame Republicans for this problem (probably correctly, but they certainly don't want to accept blame).

#3 reminds me of a Tom Lehrer song - I think it was called the MLF lullaby;

‘Once all the Germans were warlike and mean

But that cannot happen again

We taught them a lesson in 1918

And they’ve hardly bothered us since then.’

[Chas_P]

#3 reminds me of a Tom Lehrer song - I think it was called the MLF lullaby;

‘Once all the Germans were warlike and mean

But that cannot happen again

We taught them a lesson in 1918

And they’ve hardly bothered us since then.’

For your gratification.

[y66]

From Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump by Jonathan D. Karl at The Atlantic:

 

On December 1, 2020, shortly after meeting with Barr, Michael Balsamo posted a story on AP that led with:

 

Disputing Donald Trump’s persistent baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.

That afternoon, Barr met with the president to discuss the story.

 

Trump: Did you say that?

 

Barr: Yes

 

Trump: How the f#ck could you do this to me? Why did you say it?

 

Barr: Because it’s true. ... You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges. This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It’s just a joke. That’s why you are where you are.

The part about no self-respecting lawyer going anywhere near it is pretty rich.

[y66]

There seems to be even more shadow-boxing than usual around the infrastructure bill now being debated by Congress. Politicians will always also try to influence such stories in ways that make them look good and others look bad, of course. And, if possible, they’ll use stories about procedure to influence policy outcomes. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it can be confusing. Especially when, as with the infrastructure bill(s), things start out fairly murky.

 

So it looks like there’s been a lot of movement over the past few days. First, President Joe Biden explicitly linked an infrastructure deal that he had negotiated with Republican senators on Thursday to a partisan bill that Democrats are expected to pass as well. Then Republicans bashed the president, claiming that this linkage could blow the deal up. Then Democrats argued that there was nothing new about the two-track process, with one compromise bill and one Democratic bill; to the contrary, they said, they had always been clear that they expected to move the second bill by using the “reconciliation” procedure that would allow it to pass with a simple majority in the Senate. Then the White House put out a statement apparently backing off of Biden’s explicit linkage, after which Republicans went back to supporting the agreement.

 

Well, that’s certainly a story. And it’s not entirely inaccurate. But, like I said, there’s a lot of shadow-boxing here.

 

For one thing, the Republican steps away from the deal and then back toward it may have been exaggerated. Perhaps wildly so. As far as I can tell, none of the five Republican senators who had negotiated the agreement complained publicly about Biden’s comments. On the other hand, those original five were the ones saying the crisis had passed once Biden’s clarification was published.

 

As Congress scholars Josh Huder and Sarah Binder point out, Biden won’t have the option of signing just one bill, because it won’t (and probably can’t) pass that way. In the House, the most liberal Democrats won’t vote for the compromise bill unless there’s also a second piece of legislation that meets their needs. And their votes are probably necessary because it’s unlikely that more than a handful of House Republicans will support the plan. That means that the one-bill option isn’t viable, and therefore House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t put the compromise on the floor without the second bill, which means the Senate needs to pass both.

 

Plus, there are still only five known Republican votes for the compromise bill in the Senate, and they’ll need five more to defeat a filibuster assuming all 50 Democrats are on board. There hasn’t really been much reporting on which Republicans are likely to support the bill, or for that matter whether the most likely success story would be exactly 10 Republicans or, as is sometimes suggested, a larger margin.

 

So don’t worry too much about what Biden will or won’t sign. The real questions remain: Are there 10 Republican votes for the compromise in the Senate? If not, will all 50 Democrats move ahead anyway? And either way, can Democrats reach agreement on the rest of what Biden proposed?

[kenberg]

From Inside William Barr's Breakup With Trump by Jonathan D. Karl at The Atlantic:

On December 1, 2020, shortly after meeting with Barr, Michael Balsamo posted a story on AP that led with:Trump: How the f#ck could you do this to me? Why did you say it? Barr: Because it's true. ... You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges. This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It's just a joke. That's why you are where you are.

 

 

The part about no self-respecting lawyer going anywhere near it is pretty rich.

 

When I read this I thought "This conversation does not seem right". But then I noted the dot dot dots and it became (a bit) more plausible. The "Because it's true." seemed right, but if I were Barr I would then refer to one or two of the fraud claims and explain what the evidence did and didn't show. I would avoid referring to a clown show. In a showdown such as this I would explain my choices as clearly as possible and then leave it at that. Reading the whole thing it appears that Barr did explain, at least a bit, the basis for his actions. but "clown show"?

There were two adults from my childhood, one an uncle, the other the father of a friend, who loved to describe their own tough words and actions in confrontations. I learned to be very skeptical. If the conversation is accurately reported Barr seems to have lost his cool. I am skeptical.

[Winstonm]

When I read this I thought "This conversation does not seem right". But then I noted the dot dot dots and it became (a bit) more plausible. The "Because it's true." seemed right, but if I were Barr I would then refer to one or two of the fraud claims and explain what the evidence did and didn't show. I would avoid referring to a clown show. In a showdown such as this I would explain my choices as clearly as possible and then leave it at that. Reading the whole thing it appears that Barr did explain, at least a bit, the basis for his actions. but "clown show"?

There were two adults from my childhood, one an uncle, the other the father of a friend, who loved to describe their own tough words and actions in confrontations. I learned to be very skeptical. If the conversation is accurately reported Barr seems to have lost his cool. I am skeptical.

Barr is trying to salvage a scrap of his reputation- you are wise to be skeptical

[y66]

Barr is trying to salvage a scrap of his reputation- you are wise to be skeptical

skeptical about what?

[Winstonm]

skeptical about what?

 

Anything that Barr says.

 

But Barr conveniently omits the crucial fact that, for months before his endgame turnabout, he had been relentlessly parroting and amplifying Trump's most dangerous lies about election fraud throughout the runup to the November 2020 election.

My best guess is that Barr got wind of some type of plan that he could not control and decided to bail out.

[cherdano]

From Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump by Jonathan D. Karl at The Atlantic:

 

 

The part about no self-respecting lawyer going anywhere near it is pretty rich.

A self-respecting lawyer will of course do everything his president asks him to - lying about the Mueller report, opening investigations, etc. etc. And of course he would have signed on to a challenge overturning the results of a fair election. But please, only with a disciplined crackerjack team of disciplined and distinguished lawyers. Signing up to a badly proof-read and hastily put together challenge of the election results - now that's a bridge too far for respect lawyer William Barr!

[y66]

Having gone to extraordinary lengths to help Donald Trump corrupt the presidency, William P. Barr is working overtime to launder his post-Trump reputation. But the former attorney general’s latest cleanup exercise may end up showing that the stain of his corruption is even darker than we thought — in a way that soils other Republicans as well.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/28/barr-trump-election-fraud-atlantic/

LOL at "darker than we thought" and "soils other Republicans as well".

[y66]

From Larry Summers' Twitter thread rebutting the WSJ Editorial Board's joke of a case for not increasing IRS funding:

 

3. @WSJEditorial suggests that it is mere conjecture that evasion results in sig losses.

 

This is untrue. The IRS estimates tax gap w/ audit studies. Btwn 2011-2013, owed b/ uncollected taxes totaled $440B+

 

Extrapolating for growth, tax gap $600B this year, $7T in next decade.

5. @WSJEditorial states w/o evidence that high-end noncompliance uncommon bc “costs are too high” for potential tax cheats.

B/ long line of research shows unpaid taxes concentrated at top of distribution.

This is b/c no costs to evasion w/ IRS that lacks resources to police it

 

6. In fact, a few hundred high-income indvls committed the most egregious form of tax evasion: failing to file returns all together, and cost the IRS $10 billion over three years.

 

For years, the IRS was not even able to pursue these cases.

11. Career economists at Treasury estimate more resources for IRS + better information generate $700B in a decade.

 

12. Former Commissioner Rossotti and IRS exec Fred Forman estimate more than 2x as much, $1.6T.

14. No reason to maintain a tax system where ordinary taxpayers are fully compliant, but those (disproportionately $$) who happen to earn income in opaque ways do not. The @WSJEditorial board may side with tax evaders; but Congress and American people, should not.

[kenberg]

skeptical about what?

 

Well, just skeptical.

 

Ok, maybe I will try to explain.

 

 

The reference to "clowns" sounds to me like something where he hopes to be able to say "Boy oh boy, the chips were down and I really stood up for what was right. I'm really a tough guy". That's what I was getting at with my reference to an uncle and a friend's father. Listening to them was always listening to someone who was really really tough. If you believed their account of what happened.

 

I gather there were witnesses to this so maybe it happened as told. Or maybe not. Mostly it sounded like a guy trying to show what a heroic tough stance he took. Guys do this. Not all guys, but we have all known some.

 

A guy who knows who he is would simply say "This is what I did and why I did it" and leave it at that.

[johnu]

Barr is trying to salvage a scrap of his reputation- you are wise to be skeptical

 

Barr is a sh*thole lawyer who should have been practicing law in a sh*thole country. His reputation is set in a pile of methane producing cow manure.