Wednesday, March 29, 2017


Blacks, whites, genes and disease

An amusing dance around the point below.  It is the whole of an article just out in JAMA, a leading medical journal.  It says things that the Left do not want to hear.  But it says those things in verbose academic language that hides the point. So let me translate into plain English:

* The poor get more illness and die younger
* Blacks get more illness than whites and die younger
* Part of that difference is traceable to genetic differences between blacks and whites.
* But environmental differences -- such as education -- explain more than genetic differences do
* Researchers often ignore genetics for ideological reasons
* You don't fully understand what is going on in an illness unless you know about any genetic factors that may be at work.
* Genetics research should pay more attention to blacks

Most of those things I have been saying for years -- with one exception:

They find that environmental factor have greater effect than genetics.  But they do that by making one huge and false assumption. They assume that education is an environmetal factor.  It is not.  Educational success is hugely correlated with IQ, which is about two thirds genetic. High IQ people stay in the educational system for longer because they are better at it, whereas low IQ people (many of whom are blacks) just can't do it at all.  So if we treated education as a genetic factor, environmental differences would fade way as causes of disease.  As Hans Eysenck once said to me in a casual comment:  "It's ALL genetic".  That's not wholly true but it comes close

So the recommendation of the study -- that we work on improving environmental factors that affect disease -- is unlikely to achieve much.  They are aiming their gun towards where the rabbit is not. If it were an actual rabbit, it would probably say:  "What's up Doc?"

Some problems are unfixable but knowing which problems they are  can help us to avoid wasting resources on them. The black/white gap probably has no medical solution



Genomics, Health Disparities, and Missed Opportunities for the Nation’s Research Agenda

The completion of the Human Genome Project occurred at a time of increasing public attention to health disparities. In 2004, Sankar and colleagues1 suggested that this coincidental timing resulted in an inappropriate emphasis on the contribution of genomics to health disparities, conflating racial patterns of disease with genetic ancestry, and distracting attention from the large and compelling body of scientific evidence pointing to social determinants of health disparities.2 For example, genomic research has emphasized discovery of genetic contributors to diabetes risk, but the recent increase in the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, which disproportionately affects minority populations, cannot be attributed to genetic changes and rather reflects social forces affecting diet, food access, and patterns in physical activity. The introduction of new genomic health technologies could also exacerbate disparities in access to high-quality health care, if specific genomic testing improved health and was only available to those who were affluent. Nonetheless, the claim persists that genomic research can reduce health disparities—if only participation by minority populations in genomic research could be increased.3

The source of this claim is an idiosyncratic usage of the term health disparities that may result in missed opportunities for the nation’s health research agenda. Health disparities are generally understood to refer to systematic differences in health effects resulting from social disadvantage, but the term is often used in genomics to refer to differing health outcomes associated with population genetic variation. This usage arguably stems from the US focus on the association of health disparities with race/ethnicity (vs socioeconomic status), together with a growing body of knowledge about population genetic variation. Compounding the problem is a tendency in the United States to conflate health disparities and health care disparities, perhaps based on the erroneous assumption that improved health care will resolve health disparities.4 The misunderstanding about the causes of health disparities leads to confusion about fruitful lines of research and potential remedies.

A causal association between social position and health is well established.5 This association has been documented in both developed and developing countries and dates back to the earliest records, despite substantial change over time in the principal causes of disease. A broad array of health conditions across the lifespan follows a social gradient, wherein better health and longer lifespans track with increases in social advantage. This pattern holds whether measured by proxies of social class, such as education, income, and occupation, or by race/ethnicity.5 In the United States, health disparities are significant and widening and have attracted considerable attention among policy makers and the general public. Yet this large body of knowledge is absent from genomics discourse, which remains largely focused on biological causes and biomedical interventions.4

Health care plays a crucial role in decreasing morbidity and mortality once disease processes are under way, but accounts for only a minor portion of population health status. A study comparing the major determinants of health estimated that only 10% to 15% of premature mortality could be prevented by improved or more medical care.6 The limits of health care were demonstrated in a statistical experiment, comparing deaths potentially averted if people were to have a college education vs those potentially averted by advances in health care technology and an 8-fold difference was found favoring education.7 Moreover, the kind of health care that makes the largest difference to population health is access to universal high-quality primary care, distinct from the specialty or high-technology care to which genomics is most likely to contribute.

Genetic susceptibility influences which individuals within a particular group experience a particular disorder. Genetics can help to explain why some African American, Native American, or Latino individuals develop diabetes, heart disease, or other common conditions whereas others living in similar environments do not, just as genetics contributes to individual variation in populations not experiencing health disparities. Research to clarify the genetic contributors to disease etiology has many potential benefits. It may help to elucidate disease mechanisms and could inform genetic tests and drug development. Inclusion of diverse populations in genetic studies will enable identification of a fuller range of genetic variation contributing to various health outcomes, potentially leading to improved genetic tests that are applicable to all populations. Well-designed gene-environment studies across multiple populations may also help to delineate important environmental modifiers of disease. All of these considerations point to the potential health value of genetic research. However, these efforts will not provide strategies for addressing the more substantial contributors to health that are rooted in social, material, and environmental conditions.

Given population genetic variation, it is to be expected that genetic effects will sometimes augment, and at other times run counter to, the effects of social disadvantage. For example, African Americans with chronic kidney disease on average progress more rapidly to end-stage renal disease than European Americans with chronic kidney disease. Two variants in the APOL1 gene, seen in people of sub-Saharan African descent, contribute to this disease progression.8 Nevertheless, a comparison of African Americans with and without APOL1 risk genotypes with European Americans demonstrated that the APOL1-associated risk, although significant, accounted for only about 10% of excess incidence of albuminuria (a marker of risk for end-stage renal disease) among African Americans; a disparity remains between African Americans with low-risk genotypes and European Americans.8 In this case, the higher risk of albuminuria appears to be due to a combination of social and genetic determinants. Conversely, the incidence of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in African American children is less than half that of European American children, due in part to a difference in the prevalence of 2 risk variants. Yet survival from this malignancy is lower in African American children. This survival disparity is eliminated in a clinical setting characterized by high-quality care, aggressive case management, and financial support that eliminates out-of-pocket costs.9 In this case, the genetic determinants lead to lower disease risk, but social determinants lead to worse outcomes for those African American children who develop the disease. These examples support the value of understanding the health implications of population genetic variation—but also illustrate that social determinants consistently reduce health outcomes in disadvantaged populations, independent of genetic risk.

Characterizing health disparities as a challenge for genomics, rather than as a challenge for health and social sciences more generally, generates several problems. It justifies studies that focus on genetic causes of complex diseases with the goal of developing medical interventions, rather than studies that assess genomics within the context of social and environmental contributors to disease. Genomics research could make a positive contribution to the elucidation of causal mechanisms of health disparities and development of potential remedies, but that dividend is likely only if such contributions are integrated into, rather than emphasized over, broader social models of disease and interdisciplinary research methods. Viewing health disparities as addressable by medical care also focuses translational science on health care innovation rather than on community-based health promotion and intersectoral policy approaches. In so doing, attention and resources are diverted away from approaches that are more likely to reduce health disparities, such as efforts to increase education levels, reduce income inequality, promote community-based dietary and exercise initiatives, and ensure universal access to primary care.

Importantly, an approach primarily based on the development of innovative health care also threatens to sideline genomic research that might offer more substantive benefit for populations experiencing health disparities. An emerging body of preliminary data related to epigenetics, the microbiome, and genetic modifiers of response to the environment points to a range of opportunities for genomic tools to elucidate the causal pathways of health disparities. Promising findings on epigenetic changes related to childhood adversity, for example, point to ways in which genomics could contribute to a better understanding of how social disadvantage is embodied and expressed. Research efforts of this kind might ultimately help policy makers to weigh priorities when allocating resources to address social determinants of health.

Health disparities are complex and multifactorial. Reducing health gaps in the United States will require researchers and clinicians from many disciplines who share a common understanding of key terms and the role of social determinants of health to work in close collaboration with affected communities. Resolving a fundamental misunderstanding about the relationship between genomics and health disparities may create new opportunities for research collaborations, allowing large research investments in genomics to be leveraged for promising population health research. Failure to do so has the potential to deepen mistrust of scientific research and health care among those populations most burdened by health disparities.

SOURCE




London attack: Why no amount of political correctness will save the world from Islamist terrorism

The attack near the British Parliament, we have been told, was carried out by a Birmingham-based Briton called Khalid Masood whose birth name was Adrian Elms before he converted to Islam. The 52-year-old was a history-sheeter who had previously dallied with terrorists, without throwing his hat into the ring, and was briefly a subject of interest for British spy agency MI5.

Reuters quoted London police as saying that Masood "had a range of previous convictions for assaults, including GBH (grievous bodily harm), possession of offensive weapons and public order offences" but there was "no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack."

Till this Wednesday.

The Islamic State connection

A petty criminal without any known linkages with religious fundamentalism, Masood fits right into the profile of individuals targeted or recruited by Islamic State which has since claimed responsibility for the attack. The New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, who covers Islamic State/Al-Qaeda operations and has done extensive research in areas of global terrorism, recently wrote in an article how a "secretive branch" of Islamic State built a global terrorist empire by tapping into the local criminal network. Harry Safro, an Islamic State defector from Germany, told her that "new converts to Islam" with no established ties to radical groups are extensively targeted either online or through sleeper cells.

The bond between Islamic State and so-called 'lone wolf' attackers (who may have never travelled abroad and have either been self-radicalized or via an operative) is a trade-off. Islamic State finds it easier to transfer petty criminal "skills" to jihadism and for the crook, the act of terror offers a path to glory and perhaps even redemption.

A study on the link between petty crime and jihadism by authors Rajan Basra, Peter R. Neumann and Claudia Brunner (referred to by Callimachi in a tweet) finds evidence for this 'redemption narrative'. According to the study, "jihadism offered redemption for crime while satisfying the same personal needs and desires that led them to become involved in it, making the ‘jump’ from criminality to terrorism smaller than is commonly perceived."

At this stage it is not very clear whether Masood had been in any contact with an operative or had pledged allegiance to Islamic State but the telltale signs indicate that he perhaps got self-radicalised, becoming what the media describes him — 'the lone wolf'.

'Lone wolf', a semantic jugglery and study in self-delusion

There is already a mountain of literature, reports, studies and articles on why the term 'lone wolf' is misleading when it comes to Islamist terrorism. In an article for The Guardian Jason Burke has written why "talk of lone wolves misunderstands how Islamic militancy works"; research analyst Bridget Moreng has written in Foreign Affairsjournal on how Islamic State inspires, recruits and trains 'lone wolves' and Callimachi has cited the example of an aborted terrorist attack in Hyderabad to explain this in her article: 'How ISIS Guides World’s Terror Plots From Afar'.

Media has already started calling the London terrorist incident a 'lone-wolf' attack even though London Metropolitan Police have acknowledged its links with "Islamist terrorism" and have since arrested several people after raids in Birmingham and in other parts of Britain.

The term 'lone wolf' is a semantic jugglery and a study in self-delusion. It is an attempt to disconnect any instance of terrorism from larger ideological moorings and transfer the onus of the moral failing from society to the individual, as if he was "acting on his own".

Jason Burke, writing for The Guardian, says that this "implies that the responsibility for an individual’s violent extremism lies solely with the individual themselves or with some other individual or group, all of which could be eliminated. The truth is that terrorism is not something you do by yourself. Like any activism, it is highly social, only its consequences are exceptional… People become interested in ideas, ideologies and activities, even immoral ones, because other people are interested in them."

Reuters, quoting a US government source, has already informed us that though some of Masood's associates were suspected to have keen interest in travelling and joining jihadi groups overseas, he "himself never did so." But the signs are interesting.

The Kent-born Briton became a religious convert and according to Sky News, he was a "very religious, well-spoken man. You couldn't go to his home in Birmingham on Friday because he would be at prayer."

It's Birmingham again

This brings us to the curious case of the West Midlands city of Birmingham and its close links with Islamist terrorism. According to NBC News, cops have arrested two women in their twenties and four men in their mid to late twenties from separate addresses in Birmingham. Another person, a 58-year-old man, was arrested on Thursday morning at another address in Birmingham, according to the report.

This would then point us to the inference that Birmingham had some sort of influence on Masood in his transformation from a petty criminal to a jihadist. The city has a troubled connection with Islamist terrorism and Reuters tells us, quoting a study by Henry Jackson Society (a British think-tank), that 39 of 269 people convicted in Britain of offences related to terrorism between 1998 and 2015 came from the city. British newspaper The Independent further parses the figures, pointing out that one in 10 of all those linked to Islamist terrorism in Britain and abroad came from just five council wards in the city — Springfield, Sparkbrook, Hodge Hill, Washwood Heath and Bordesley Green. A fifth of Birmingham's population are Muslims (2,34,000) and Masood's vehicle was rented from the Birmingham branch of a car rental firm.

In an article titled: 'Why has Birmingham become such a breeding ground for British-born terror?', The Independent's Kim Sengupta writes that most of the terrorists (linked to 7/7 London bombings, 9/11 attacks) "have family links to Kashmir. Many young men went to Pakistan to train to fight against Indian forces in Kashmir… Some joined Al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Indoctrination took place in mosques which had been taken over by radical clerics and, it is claimed, a number of schools. Birmingham is in the centre of the so-called 'Trojan Horse' plot in which, it is alleged, an organised group of Islamists seek to infiltrate and take over state education establishments."

Why "inclusiveness" alone can't prevent terrorism

This clearly points to a huge problem of assimilation of culture and belies liberalism's core argument that multiculturism is the only antidote for Islamist terrorism. London's top counter-terrorist officer Mark Rowley recently said that if 13 plots of terrorism have been busted in the UK since 2013, when Lee Rigby was murdered,   then it stands to reason that despite its all-pervasive political correctness and fierce inclusiveness, there exists deeply dissenting areas of defiance against England's multicultural ethos.

From London Mayor Sadiq Khan, France President Francois Hollande to former US president Barack Obama, political leaders have harped on the grievance narrative of Islam whenever there have been Islamist terrorist attacks. Wide range of excuses — from poverty to victim-hood to alienation — have been offered to contextualise terrorism and the world at large has been constantly reminded that the moral failing of a terrorist attack lies with the people who have been victimised, not the poisonous ideology that lies behind it.

A little scratching of the surface exposes the truth. In an erudite article, Praveen Swami ofThe Indian Express explores the reasons behind Britain's brushes with Islamist terrorism and finds that the "idea that the English terrorist is a product of the well-documented economic and educational backwardness of its Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities isn’t true in all cases." He gives examples of a student from King's College, or members of Britain's affluent middle class or even the wealthy among 800 of its nationals who are actively engaged in terror or another 600 who have been reportedly prevented from doing so.

Swami argues that the problem lies with Britain's identity politics: when Britain "outsourced its engagement with ethnic minorities to a new contractor-class" and in time, this strategy backfired as it created pockets of profound resentment against the "secular-democratic order."

Swami writes: "Instead of a rich cultural landscape, official multiculturalism created a homogenised Muslim identity. Thus, Choudhry defended her attempt to kill Timms by pointing to his support of the Iraq war — a land she had never visited. 'We must stand up for each other,' she said. 'We must fight them,' said Adebolajo — 'I apologise that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same'. "

The solution

This then, right here, is the biggest problem with the argument that 'political correctness and more stress on multicultural inclusiveness will be enough to tackle terrorism'. France tried and failed. Britain, too, seems to be failing. The failure lies in the fact that we are barking up the wrong tree. Instead of throwing money or trying to figure newer and newer methods of contextualising and justifying terror and floating a multiplicity of grievance narratives, the world must encourage Muslims to have an honest self-engagement on terrorism.

Hussain Haqqani, member of US-based think tank Hudson Institute and a former Pakistan envoy to US, puts his finger on the pulse in his column for The Telegraph, UK.

"The violence over 'Islam’s honour' is a function of the collective Muslim narrative of grievance. Decline, weakness, impotence, and helplessness are phrases most frequently repeated in the speeches and writings of today’s Muslim leaders. The view is shared by Islamists – who consider Islam a political ideology – and other Muslims who don’t. The terrorists are just the most extreme element among the Islamists."

Let the liberal media and politicians urge Muslims to tackle the problem on their own while, as senior journalist R Jagannathan says, empower the reformist voices from within the community, only then may we rid the world of this scourge.

SOURCE






Stand up for our right to criticise Islam

Since the Enlightenment we’ve been free to poke fun at religion and a blasphemy offence has no place in a modern society

‘It is wrong to describe this as Islamic terrorism. It is Islamist terrorism. It is a perversion of a great faith.” This is what the prime minister said last week in parliament. While I completely accept that the sins of extremists should never be visited on the vast majority of moderate believers, I am increasingly uneasy about how we handle the connection between religion and extremism. The ideology to which Khalid Masood was converted in prison may indeed be a perversion of Islam, but it is a version of it. We should not shy away from saying so.

After Nice, Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation wrote that saying such terrorism has nothing to do with Islam (as some do) is as dangerous as stating that it has everything to do with Islam. The terrorists in London, Paris, Brussels, Nice, Munich, Berlin, Würzburg, Ansbach, Orlando, San Bernardino, Sydney, Bali, New York, Bombay and many other places have been white, black and brown, rich, poor and middle class, male and female, gay and straight, immigrant and native, young and (now) older. The one thing they have in common is that they had been radicalised by religious preachers claiming to interpret the Koran.

Moreover, while a few sick individuals find within Islam justification for murder and terror, a far larger number find justification for misogyny and intolerance. We must be allowed to say this without being thought to criticise Muslims as people.

Islamist terrorism has become more frequent, but criticism of the faith of Islam, and of religion in general, seems to be becoming less acceptable, as if it were equivalent to racism or blasphemy. The charge of Islamophobia is too quickly levelled. Friday’s press release from Malia Bouattia, president of the National Union of Students, is a case in point. It failed to mention by name the murdered policeman Keith Palmer, and highlighted how Muslims “will be especially fearful of racism”. Race and religion are very different things.

I admire many religious people. I am prepared to accept that being religious can make some individuals better people, though, as a humanist, I also think it is possible and actually preferable to be moral without having faith. I am even open to the possibility that the best defence against extremism is a gentler version of religion rather than none at all — though I need to be convinced. But I think that, rather than there being good religion and bad religion, there is a spectrum of religious belief from virtuous, individualist morality at one end to collectivist, politicised violent terror at the other.

At one end are people who are inspired by faith to think only of how to help those in need. At the other are people who kill policemen and tourists, throw homosexuals off buildings, punish apostasy with death, carry out female genital mutilation and throw acid in the face of women who have stood up against the male code (there were 431 acid attacks in Britain last year).

In between, though, are positions that also contain dangers, albeit more subtle ones. There are people who would not commit violence themselves, but think women should be the chattels of men, wearing of veils is mandatory and that Sharia should reign. Then there are people (and here I include those in other Abrahamic faiths) who think homosexuality is sinful, contraception is wrong, evolution could not have happened and slaughtering animals by cutting their throats is more moral than stunning them. I do not condemn such beliefs as evil, but nor do I respect them.

On LBC radio last week the journalist James O’Brien said of those, like Masood, who have made the journey from faith to extremism: “Don’t we have to start mocking the early stages of that journey? People who believe that chopping off a child’s foreskin is going to make it easier for them to get into heaven. People who believe that eating fish on Fridays is somehow going to please their god.”

In 1979, some Christians took offence at Monty Python’s Life of Brian, a witty if mordant satire on the phenomenon of cults (and Romans). The Christians were angry but the Pythons did not go into hiding.Two years ago, in the wake of the murder of his fellow satirists at Charlie Hebdo, the late Australian cartoonist Bill Leak went further than simply saying “Je suis Charlie” and drew cartoons of the Prophet. As a result he was forced to sell his house and move to a secret location. That does not feel like progress to me.

In 2004, after the media was filled with discussion of how the Boxing Day tsunami was an “act of God”, I said to a friend, in all seriousness: the tsunami was not an act of God, but 9/11 was. I was consciously echoing Voltaire’s mockery of the argument that the destruction of Lisbon in an earthquake must be a punishment for the sins of its inhabitants. Would I dare say the same today about the events of last week, or would I pause now to consider how it would get me into trouble?

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali wrote at the weekend of the “creeping Islamisation of communities” and called for an Islamic reformation to respect freedom of religion, abjure legal punishment for blasphemy or apostasy and agree that women should be free and equal in law. Yet, despite two decades of partly religion-inspired violence, those who call for an Islamic reformation, such as Mr Nawaz, or the ex-Muslim campaigners Sarah Haider, Taslima Nasreen and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, are increasingly vilified by many on the left.

Three days before the Westminster attack, the BBC’s Asian Network quite rightly apologised for asking “what is the right punishment for blasphemy?” shortly after an outspoken atheist had been hacked to death in Coimbatore, India, for expressing his views. There have been 48 murders of atheists in Bangladesh in recent years. Yet it is now more acceptable to attack “militant atheists” than militant theists. Blasphemy is back.

We can and must make an offer to the fundamentalist Muslims: abandon your political ambitions and become a religion as this has come to be understood elsewhere in an increasingly diverse and tolerant world — a private moral code, a way of life, a philosophy — and you will find the rest of us to be friends. But threaten the hard-won political, intellectual and physical freedoms now accorded to every man and woman, yes even and especially women, in our essentially secular society and you will be resisted and, pray god, defeated.

SOURCE





Political correctness has become the new truth

Rex Jory

THE Australia I love is disappearing. It’s been hijacked by faceless people who worship at the altar of political correctness and personal offence.

These messengers of the new morality paint themselves as victims. They believe they are entitled to compensation or apology if they are offended. They seek reward or retribution for the slightest inconvenience.

These self-proclaimed victims use social media with such devastating effect they have wrested control of the nation’s political, social and moral agenda. They tear down people who dare express a contrary view. They humiliate and intimidate anyone who challenges their beliefs. Megaphone politics.

They know best. Their view of Australia in 2017 must prevail. My way or the highway. Never mind that it is not the view of the majority of people.

These purveyors of the new morality are reminiscent of the racially-based Ku Klux Klan in the US. They plant a burning cross in the front yard of someone they accuse of breaching their often warped moral code while dressed anonymously in white robes and pointed hats.

They have crushed free speech and free expression by destroying community debate. People are now too frightened to say what they believe.

Political correctness twists and manipulates truth. It has become the new truth, the selective truth. Yet truth is no longer a defence. Just because someone expresses an opinion based on fact, they are not immune from being attacked and discredited on social media.

If someone dares criticise or even raise political, religious or racial issues which are contrary to the beliefs of the anonymous purists, the reaction and retribution can be swift and brutal. Often it resembles hate-speak.

Look at poor old Coopers, the beer makers. They were lampooned for being associated with a private discussion between two Liberal members of Parliament about same-sex marriage. The attack on social media was vicious. Then IBM copped it because one executive is in a Christian group.

Now they’ve turned on proposed changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act which currently threatens freedom of speech.

The Kokoda Track in Papua-New Guinea has become a target, with words like mateship being quietly erased from the lexicon. Mateship has been replaced by friendship. Never mind the Diggers and their families — let alone the wider community — who are offended.

In the new social agenda, mateship has become hateship. It has transferred power from the individual and a structured system of authority to a faceless, intangible force fuelled by moral indignation.

We are no longer allowed to be involved in civilised debate or think for ourselves. If the trend continues, then as a nation we are no longer civilised.

The Australian character has been stripped and reconstructed in the image of political correctness. The Australian larrikin has become an endangered species. Whatever happened to Australia’s “have a go” spirit? What happened to our irreverent sense of humour? What happened to common sense and the brave “she’ll be right” credo which helped build this country?

The Australian community has fragmented. We are no longer a single, coherent society. People are judged on what they are, what they believe and not what they have achieved or contributed.

For too many people, the first reaction is to lay blame and seek compensation through intimidation or litigation. Whatever cloak they wear — race, colour, gender, occupation, age, religion, physical appearance — they claim the moral high ground.

I don’t begrudge people holding strong beliefs. That’s their right in a democracy. I agree with some of them. But I resent being bullied into accepting those views under duress — or remaining silent.

Those promoting victimhood and personal offence as the path forward have used social media to promote their agenda by fear and suppression.

It’s time those who have taken the alternative path of meek silence spoke out and exposed the politics of victimhood as a false god.

If not the face and character of Australia, the Australia I love, will be lost. At the moment the people with the loudest megaphone are winning.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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1 comment:

C. S. P. Schofield said...

Regarding education and illness;

I would argue that, while genetics may play a role in how well poor brown people could use a halfway decent educational system, the system that has been foisted on them by the Progressive establishment is so rank that a good deal of improvement to it could take place before genetics became a real factor.

In short; the very, very brightest and luckiest poor black students may wrest an education from the awful inner city schools, but for the rest, whatever use they might be able to make of a real education is kept from them by criminally stupid education policy.

(The brightest and luckiest are then betrayed by the college entrance affirmative-action farce, which pushes them into tougher schools than they could get into on merit, setting them up for failure.)

We do not owe Black Americans reparations for slavery; we bled the country horrifically to end that. We DO owe them some kind of reparations for the cess-pits we have allowed the Progressives to pass of as a Public Education System. Vouchers and privately funded scholarships are the way to pay that debt.

And have the added bonus of causing Progressive migraines.