Animal Farm and Positive Discrimination

Actually we blame the Welfare State and Progressives.

 

What does 'credit' mean? What is this credit you say some people want?

 

Who is deserving of what I have earned in my life- is my decision. What I leave will be left to those whom I believe will use it best to carry on what I dedicated myself to do.
I will not leave wealth or assets to someone who will just go through them until they are used up, and do nothing. Point is that I chose to leave value to the deserving- and I decide who that will be, because I am the person who built those things. Not you, not some person that thinks the world owes them a living because they exist. Further- I've taken nothing in life that I didn't earn. Not so much as an unemployment check- I've carried my own weight, got by through major tough times without imposing on anyone else. I don't believe anyone has the right to do that.

There will always be foolish people who are less prudent- just as there will be people who benefit from positive windfalls and those who suffer from negative windfalls. But the fact is that how you respond e is drastically more important than what happens in your life; that makes the difference between in the driver's seat and being a victim. That's your choice- and what you start with is far less important than what you do with what you have- unless you are a do-nothing person who wants to live off society. There are a great many of those in America today- when opportunity and the quality of life is better than ever before, such people continue to whine and blame their condition on what somebody else has got.

If you give a damn about the future of your children and grandchildren, give them a hand-up. The best hand-up is strength, confidence, character, education and wisdom, because those things will serve them in every aspect of life including building wealth. If they grow up watching you demonstrate that example , they will have it, improve it and pay it forward to the next generation- and everybody winds up living in a better world, including the worst of us because of it.

When a people aren't willing to give their kids anything- you wind up with a culture that is forever primitive. Everybody starts from scratch. Nobody ever really has the opportunity to be more... until someone decides to build and advance others to follow and carry on the progress. IF none in your family has ever done that, you have the opportunity to be the first, and change the future for all those to come. Be the hero in your family; the first to send your kids to college, etc. This is human evolution, learning how to advance our species. And just like nature- only the most fit advance. those who won't hunt don't eat, and they change nothing. Nature insures a species will thrive by rewarding those with the best qualities. The best hunters, the best providers, the best parents.

You decide who deserves the hand-up you build, but you do not have the right to take mine and give it away- because you didn't earn it.

 

Well said.

 

One of the questions posed in the OP was "what defines the differences in 'equality'?" To which I answered "the differences in equality are defined by money and intelligence, in that order". While I like "funny" and have enjoyed the comedy of both Seinfeld and Colbert, I don't believe their being funny is a defining factor on where the fall on the equality spectrum. I believe, had these two gentlemen not been intelligent they would not have made money being funny. If they have more rights or privileges than others it is because of their intellect or their money not because they are funny.

 

Clearly it isn't enough if attitudes still military against black people.
And seeing some of them post BLM, they do.

 

So I am wrong and you don't have black and white housing areas anymore.
Well done.

 

My question had been aimed more at the individual angle, having quoted your post which said that you, personally, found intelligence to be preferable to wealth, ending with the image of your sitting contentedly in the home that you & your wife had built with your own hands. This weighing of two attributes, called to my mind the Colbert answer, especially as: 1) it involved one of the two qualities that you, yourself, had been rating and 2) it is clear that Stephen Colbert is also a very intelligent person. Yet, he seems to value his ability to be funny, easily above his intelligence. This had just seemed an interesting anecdote, that seemed relatively related to what you had posted, if not directly applicable, at least not at initial glance, to the thread, at large.

Sorry that it doesn't sound as if you, likewise, found it a particularly worthwhile contribution.

 

I admire comedians who are funny but IMO you have to be intelligent to be really funny. There is a lot of REALLY BAD comedy out there that appels to the least intelligent among us.
And not forgetting that being funny doesn't get you a wide range of jobs, (unless you are Bozo Johnson) but being intelligent opens all sorts of doors.
I suspect being funny is of supreme importance to a successful comedian. Especially when he can't do much else.

 

by choice (self-segregation)

 

People are different we are not all the same. An all Asian basketball team would not win many games. Blacks are not good at math and never will be.

So for me the word is not equal but different. It is nobody's fault.

 

Black people are not good at maths?
Did you know one?

 

No I do not know every single black American and neither to do. I do know they suck at math. I'm sure you will find a way to blame Trump.

https://www.brookings.edu/research/...,below those of whites (534) and Asians (598).


https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/12/11/african-american-students-lagging-far-behind#:~:text=The eighth-grade numbers were even worse, with only,in reading and 13 percent proficient in math.

 

Here are some average IQs for various professions.

https://surprisinglives.net/jobs-by-iq/

Mean black IQ is 85 and only 800,000 blacks have IQs of 115 or higher.

https://pumpkinperson.com/2015/08/01/are-too-many-u-s-blacks-scoring-high-on-iq-tests/

 

I have known many that were not- but that is an issue of education. The pursuit of an education would be more an issue of culture, not relevant to color. Even more with personal motivations.
I imagine you would agree with that.

Unfortunately in today's young adults, the USA puts out some pretty poor numbers in many basic skills such as math and reading.

 

I have no idea why you think I tag innumeracy has anything to do with Trump. It is the responsibility of the governor of the state or the federal government.
IQ is a tricky thing. The questions often have to do with logical sequencing and deduction in both language and maths.
If you don't have a good grounding in them you haven't a hope og getting past option 1 to a question.
That doesn't mean you aren't good at maths...

 

Please outline the precise laws used to prevent people from moving from one location to another. And describe what mechanism is used to apply that force? Guns? Threat of imprisonment?

Last time I checked, America was a democracy. People can live wherever they hell they want.

 

I especially agree with that last statement. On the face of it, affirmative action would directly contradict this statement, which is de jure, systemic discrimination against white people. However, practically speaking, affirmative action does not affect rich white people; it negatively affects middle-class and working-class whites, the people who cannot afford to give million-dollar checks to an institution before their son or daughter applies to their dream school--that is, the school that they can put on their resume, so they can tell others rich people at the white-gloved dinner parties that they, too, went to Harvard and were a gentleman or lady at such-and-such prestigious fraternity. In fact, I bet if you polled all the whites at Harvard their stance on affirmative action, a majority of them would be for it, because it did not affect them. They got theirs. Let other whites--the middle-class and working-class ones--worry about the negative affects of legal discrimination against them.

White politicians, such as George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, don't stop programs like affirmative action because, in effect, it does not affect them and their progeny. Their sons and daughters, if they want, will go to whatever school they want. Plus, they get the social brownie points of "working" to support equity, which affirmative action, its supporters argue, is meant to establish. They don't make the sacrifice. No, other whites do. Looks at the daughters, for example, of Chuck Schumer. One went to Yale and Harvard; the other is a six-figure product manager at Facebook. Both of them, I'm pretty sure, vocalize their support of programs like affirmative action, which affect people like them in skin color--but not people like them in wealth and social clout--and, therefore, they would not advocate discrimination of themselves on the basis of race.

Check out this exchange, which I think boils down perfectly the hypocrisy of white people who are for affirmative action, as long as it affects other whites, not themselves:

 

Sorry, I guess I was looking at it from the standpoint of the OP. Coming at it from the angle of an interesting anecdote I see your point. I might at this point in my life even concede that funny might be a better quality than intelligence or money. I am at a very comfortable point in life. Everything I have I own outright and I have adequate money to live on. To many people's standards I would be considered poor but I feel my intellect has enabled me to live frugally. So as my monetary needs are met and I no longer seem to use my intellect.... maybe I to should choose funny.

 

I think that is a valid point: that the choice of being "funny," was made without giving real consideration to what that would be like, without the intelligence that both men, not surprisingly, probably take for granted.

Since neither elaborated on the reasons for their choice, though, it is impossible to say for sure. My guess would be that, having others respond to them with mirth, is what each finds to be, not just their greatest power but, the supremely exhilarating aspect, of their lives.
(But that's just a guess.)

Similarly, a heroin addict, in their earlier stages, might rate access to that drug, as above all else, in importance.