Free Republic

We keep hearing about the need for a conversation about race, specifically a conversation about the misery the black community experiences from being oppressed by the systemic racism of the white people of the United States. The endless conversation hasn’t done much beyond harming race relations, but maybe there is some systemic racism in the United States. Let’s look at three examples of systemic racism that are oppressive to black Americans. The first is affirmative action for black students applying to college. Was there ever a time when it made sense to admit a student to an elite school based...

The Jefferson fiasco underscores how activist school leaders and alumni, from California to Massachusetts, are conspiring to recklessly overhaul school policies, education standards, and curriculum this year.FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. – After a crusade by educational arsonists targeting the nation’s No. 1 high school, America’s meritocracy is about to go up in flames. The Fairfax County School Board is set to vote Thursday night to gut the race-blind, merit-based admissions testing process at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. T.J. is a state-chartered magnet school legislated to serve academically gifted and advanced students. The school board plans to replace...

SynopsisA gathering storm: Incompatible views of the American experience. Inevitable clash, between advocates of dependence on bureaucracy to limit individual achievement & defenders of a social order premised on it; a culture premised on personal responsibility in all human interaction.

SynopsisBy 2015, America & the West had lost their way, embracing a "politically correct" egalitarian Socialist vision of human interchangeability that undermined each nation's heritage of aspiration & achievement, when President Trump stepped up.

When social pressure dictates the definition of achievement, including self-destructive behavior, the culture at large is in trouble Self-destructive behavior is now defined as an achievement Facing down crises has always been a measure of reaching adulthood. How a youth responds to peril, especially when they display courage in challenging circumstances, is the line that is crossed to gauge maturity. Rites of passage vary among cultures but the one aim they usually share is the acquisition of skills needed to provide for and raise a family. Historically, the skills included proficiency with tools used for these purposes such as knives,...

Her whole life is a break Earlier this week, you probably saw a story about Chelsea Clinton receiving a lifetime achievement award. The Hill ran it with some dubious language, and many people missed the fact that it was an award from “Lifetime” the television network. Failing to capitalize the “L” led to a firestorm about privilege, and how a woman who has achieved virtually nothing could be granted and award for her non-existent achievements. Carefull reading spared some of us who are inclined to agree with that sentiment.

[OK, I dont like government running these programs, but how about this idea?] Four Facts for Human Achievement Day By Edward Hudgins July 20 is the anniversary of one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments, the first lunar landing. We should not only give a shout out to the thousands of people who made it possible for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to walk the surface of another world. We should each celebrate this date as Human Achievement Day, to acknowledge all achievements, especially our own. Here are four facts on which you should reflect. Fact one: Achievements are what human life...

A Duke University professor has reportedly been placed on leave after posting racist comments online that included talk of “the blacks” and “the Asians.” Jerry Hough commented on a New York Times editorial titled “How Racism Doomed Baltimore”...The key question,though,according to Hough, “is whether my comments were largely accurate. In writing me, no one has said I was wrong, just racist.”....full comments in the New York Times:This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem,of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The...

California’s Pacific Educational Group (PEG) denounced educational standards that require students to study and work hard in order to graduate as “discrimination against Black students.” PEG co-chair Kenneth K. Knowlton asserted that “Blacks are less likely to respond to fundamental ideas like working hard to achieve success, or being on time for school or work. The notion that such attitudes ought to be instilled in every student is a racist endeavor that seeks to submerge this vital subculture.” “What’s more, the contention that hard work is a key to success is belied by reality,” Knowlton maintained. “A significant segment of...

Although the U. S. spends more than half a trillion dollars on public schools, the Left still believes that raising that amount will somehow make students smarter. “Total expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools in the United States amounted to $638 billion in 2009-10, or about $12,743 per public school student,” according to the National Center for Education Statistics. “There must be a way to get enough dollars, public dollars to raise student achievement,” Carmel Martin, Executive Vice President for Policy at The Center for American Progress (CAP), said at a recent conference at CAP. At that same conference,...

<p>A friend recently sent me a link to an inspiring video about an upbeat young black man who was born without arms. It showed him going to work — unlike the record number of people living on government payments for "disabilities" that are far less serious, if not fictitious.</p>

.................Obama's buddies in Hollywood are loving the fact that he is finally putting an end to the "embarrassing" flag-waving, proud American, Ronald-Reagan American-exceptionalism crap. Along with standards of morality and character,patriotism gives them the heebie-jeebies. Obama's new lowered American standard also includes making it a crime against society to make money--at least if you are a conservative or Republican. Hardcore liberal singer Barbra Streisand can charge a gazillion dollars for a ticket to her concert. Several Democrats are multimillionaires. The Obamas eat only $150-a-pound Kobe beef. Three of Michelle Obama's vacations cost taxpayers one million dollars. And yet Obama and...

Whoever said that Obama hasn’t acomplished anything in his first term? WHAT AN IMPRESSIVE LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS!…             First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner. First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in. First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

Those lucky enough to still be here to look back at history post Barack Obama will recognize the last sight-piggyback funeral dirge of the once noble Space Shuttle as the Obama Regime’s defining moment. Were an artist to paint a picture of a small boy looking at up at his flying kite as the space shuttle passed over Manhattan yesterday, no portrait of the story of America’s deliberate ruin at the hands of a single politician could ever come closer to the truth. [BIG Snip of text] Few will remember that it was on the fullest moon of the year...

Laura Dekker arrived at a dock in St Maarten on January 21, apparently making her the youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe. Dozens of people jumped and cheered as Dekker waved, wept and then walked across the dock accompanied by her mother, father, sister and grandparents, who had greeted her at sea earlier. The 16-year-old arrived in St Maarten, in the Caribbean, after struggling against high seas and heavy winds on a final, 41-day leg from Cape Town, South Africa.

HOW do people acquire high levels of skill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been a topic of intense debate in psychology. ...what seems to separate the great from the merely good is hard work, not intellectual ability...Malcolm Gladwell observes that...snip “Once someone has reached an I.Q. of somewhere around 120,” he writes, “having additional I.Q. points doesn’t seem to translate into any measureable real-world advantage.”snip.. But this isn’t quite the story that science tells. Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields — and not just up to a point....

In 1958, an English sociologist and Labour politician named Michael Young imagined a future in which the British establishment dissolved itself, abolished all forms of hereditary power, and created instead a meritocracy (a word Young invented) based on IQ. In Young's fable, the academically talented working class happily join the elite. But the less talented resent them even more than they did the old dukes and duchesses. By 2034, this resentment leads to the creation of a violent populist revolution, which sweeps the meritocracy away.To some, this story has always seemed like a warning to the United States. In 1972,...

It is news to no one that our educational system sucks. American students are consistently out-performed by students in other countries year after year. Why? Liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, “compassionate” conservatives (i.e., neocons, RINOs, liberal Republicans) , teacher unions, and other leftist groups would like you to believe that it is some combination of bad schools, teachers, and financing. The solution, as they see it, is to engage in a game of Three Card Monty where students are shuffled from schools that are “failing” them, to schools that will allow them to “succeed” –as though success is a magical elixir...

Back to Basics? Deborah Lambert, July 23, 2010 Are computers making kids smarter? According to some recent studies, the answer is no. But how could this be? After all, years of heavily funded research indicated that children of low income families would benefit from improved computer access that would lessen the “digital divide between the haves and have nots.” But now the facts show just the opposite is true, says Marybeth Hicks of National Review Online. A recent study by professors from the University of Chicago and Columbia University shows that access to home computers by low-income students has a...

A chart in last Sunday's New York Post revealed that only 35% of Americans could name even one member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and only 1% could name all nine members. That night Baby Stewie on Fox's The Family Guy admonished viewers who in a mock poll failed to attribute a famous quote to Henry David Thoreau. Though Family Guy is merely a silly, often crude cartoon, Stewie's point about the clueless nature of most Americans, and his view that this speaks to our decline relative to other nations is a popular one, particularly among the political elite. For...