Protesting Paranoiacs

One can only wonder what it would have been like in 2008 and 2012 if disappointed people vis-à-vis Obama’s election had taken to the streets like those disappointed about Trump’s election are doing in a few cities across the country.  What’s happening with these people furnishes a window into what the socialist-oriented think about this country.  

This is different from 2000, when the Supreme Court of Florida attempted to steal the election from George W. Bush.  That was an official, albeit illegal, action by a government, settled quickly by the Supreme Court of the U.S.  What’s happening now is a protest meaning nothing since it’s not an official undertaking by any group.  Hopefully, it will not eventuate in criminal activity but that possibility is real.   

If there had been a protest movement in 2000, the protesters would probably, as now, be largely black, teens and twenty-somethings.  This means disaffected ethnics and public school and university/college students in the main, another way of saying immature and ill-informed, especially in the universities, in most of which the faculties are far-left (progressivists) and prone to indoctrinate young minds with their socialist agendas.   

With the blessings of the current establishment figures in both federal and large-city governments, protesters have understandably been encouraged to make disruption of the freedoms of others as a tool to effect their agendas, the devil take the hindmost.  This was graphically illustrated by Obama’s DOJ (AG Holder) when it went after an innocent policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, a while back to try to wreck his life.  It was illustrated later when the Baltimore mayor indicated that protesters should have their “space” to do their thing such as attacking people and burning other people’s properties and/or destroying their businesses/livelihoods.   

This involves a third- or fourth-world mentality, to wit, that matters are settled in the streets and not at the ballot box.  It has been encouraged by Obama since it involves displacing one dictator with another, i.e., rule by a monarch.  Obama has repeatedly tried to govern by executive order, as a monarch would, disregarding the legislature and the courts despite the mandates of the U.S. Constitution.   

This is the socialistic approach favored by both Obama and Hillary Clinton, elitists who would hand the government over to a small band of oligarchs to work their will, gaining power and immense wealth, all at the expense of the little people.   Theirs is the something for nothing propaganda—the mythic level playing field—on which the government makes every decision, whether personal or institutional.  

The best example: Obamacare. This act was designed to fail at best or through ignorance at worst. Based on payments by insurance companies, which exist to make profits and not necessarily for public benefit, the pattern was to eventuate in single-payer mode, notwithstanding that Medicare couldn't even be managed by government and had to be turned over to insurance companies for its administration.  

MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, paid at least $400,000 for Obamacare-design, apologized before Congress for referencing the public as stupid, the notion being that the great unwashed would never catch-on to actual provisions, and he was right. In fact the democrats, who passed the legislation (no republican in House or Senate voted for it), didn't bother to read it but probably couldn't have understood it anyway.  

This may explain the plight of the protesters, who may actually believe the result of the election can somehow be overturned. This is tin-horn-dictator stuff. In Venezuela, street protests might work (or not) if they become violent enough, as has been seen in Muslim countries like Libya, Egypt, and Syria recently. In fact, Obama joined the protesters in Libya by siccing the U.S. Air Force on Qaddafi.  

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Teacher-Quota System Flawed

The latest gaffe of the Fayette Public School System, already dodging landmines for the last few years, is its insistence that it must do more to entice black and Latino teachers (Herald-Leader 31 October), their ethnicity apparently trumping their ability/experience. Caveat Alert: Notwithstanding the politically incorrect outcry of racism, this is madness.

The considered enticements include reduced apartment-rent, one-year gym-membership, and on-the-spot teaching contract, presumably meaning no vetting needed, just a teaching certificate. Reason: necessity to compete with other systems that offer more inducements, sort of like recruiting basketball players.

One can only wonder how Fayette teachers feel about this, especially those who have made significant sacrifices to satisfy requirements leading to greater proficiency, as well as non-ethnic applicants already deemed acceptable but waiting while the pigment-entitled pass them. Case-in-point: At the same time she became a Supreme Court justice, Justice Sotomayor was overturned by SCOTUS regarding her previous federal court decision favoring “reverse discrimination,” i.e., ruling that blacks bypass four more-qualified whites in fire-department promotions in a Connecticut city.

Ninety percent of Fayette teachers are white while 37.5% of students are black/Hispanic. About 90% of the UK basketball team (at least the ones who play in games) is black while the coach and 75% of the fans are white. So what! Ethnicity means absolutely nothing in either case.

The latest Prichard Report indicated that in order to achieve proper diversity among teachers the state would need to hire 6,882 black, Hispanic and teachers of other nationalities. The average teacher-salary in Kentucky, according to the Ky. Dept. of Education, is $52,618 ($58,385 in Lexington), meaning an additional outlay of some $400 million a year unless the white-teacher population is reduced by 6,882 teachers (5%) so political correctness can be achieved. How much sense does that make?

Supply obviously is a problem. Potential teachers must finish high school and college/university. In 2013, according to U.S. News & World Report (March 2016), 40.3% and 60.7% of black and white students, respectively, graduated college. The numbers graduating high school in 2012, according to the Huffington Post, were 69% and 86%, for blacks and whites, respectively. Hispanics came in at 73%. The pool for ethnic teachers is extremely small on just the basis of formal training.

Preparation is a problem. In order to teach, aspirants must pass a teacher-certification test. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer (April 2002), 36% of teacher-applicants at Kentucky State University (traditionally black enrolment) in Frankfort, passed that test, while the state average was 93% in the other state colleges/universities that year. That's deplorable though one hopes that improvement has been made since then, notwithstanding the constant turmoil at that school since 2002.

The test can be taken over and over until it is passed, and that's scary, as is the fact that until passing the aspirant may work as a substitute-teacher or in an emergency (whatever that would be). Students in the education dept. at KSU then were 60% and 40% black and white, respectively. When 74% of any class flunks its main standard of efficiency, the notion of a quota-system is absolutely off the charts when hiring takes place vis-a-vis preparation in an institution with that record. There's little reason to think much has changed at KSU.

Satisfying quotas, as Sotomayor might agree now (as well as UK coach Calipari), degrades the matter in question, especially the vital one of education. The Fayette system should remember this, no matter what political correctness dictates. Preoccupying itself with the hiring of potentially inferior teachers is unacceptable, just as basketball scholarships for white guys who can't jump.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark