WOO HOO!!!!!
On June 29, 2023 in STUDENTS FOR FAIR ADMISSIONS, INC. v. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE the United States Supreme Court reset the game. The United States has changed. Affirmative Action has suffered a death blow. The country will never be the same.
It will be better.
Yes, I’m well aware the Court didn’t strike Affirmative Action down completely and there is much left to fight. But the monster’s legs have been cut out from beneath it. The fight is won; it is just a matter of time now.
Race just ceased to be either a cudgel or an excuse. Instead of finger pointing and allowing useless policies to replace solutions, we have the chance to create real solutions. Mostly without government getting in the way.
Government pretty much stinks at solving social problems. It’s only tool is a hammer when we need glue. Laws are punitive – you do the time if you do the crime. If you aren’t smart enough to not be breaking the law in the first place law won’t stop you. But since the vast majority of folks are more than smart enough to not play that game, laws work pretty well as a way of making sure we’re all on the same page.
We even get to change the things if we decide they aren’t good laws any longer.
Which is a slow, annoying process but that slow annoying part is the important part. Getting millions of Americans on the same page makes herding cats look like a kiddie sport. THIS is what Free Speech is really all about. Being able to honestly talk to each other means being able to tell people stuff they don’t want to hear and at a high volume. The high volume thing is often counterproductive but once in a while it helps to be the loudest in the room.
No one said ‘public discourse’ was a nice, neat process.
BUT it’s the sausage making that makes great sausage. Fussing and fighting and feuding and slamming doors – little wonder most outsiders find American politics bewildering – give way to reasoning and talking, thinking and wondering, more fussing and finally, we hammer out something everyone can live with. Sometimes we even solve the problem.
You don’t need cops on every street corner to keep folks obeying laws they pretty much agree with and have had a say in creating. No, we seldom get perfect agreement but we don’t actually need it. Most of the things we decide aren’t core, critical values – those we already agree on. It’s okay if our solutions are good enough for now – we can always fix them later.
Having government force solutions only disrupts the process, creates resentment and ensures that the solution will eventually fail. This can happen when Congress and state legislatures come up with stupid laws but it more often happens when the courts try to tell us what the law should be instead of what it is. Personally, I think we could have avoided the Civil War if the Supreme Court had had a spine and I know we would have skipped the whole idiotic Jim Crow thing. We waste decades when the courts try to legislate from the bench.
The job of the courts, including the Supreme Court, is to tell us what the law says and how it’s to be applied. If Congress thinks the Court got it wrong, they can amend the laws to make their intentions clear. THAT’S how this is supposed to work.
The courts aren’t great at this and it’s one of those things we need to work on. First step is changing the Supreme Court so that it at least does its dang job. Yeah, it still needs work but progress has been made.
Yes, three of the nine are Trump appointees with six conservatives in total. But make no mistake, the Court is a very political animal – despite the Founding Fathers best efforts – so the really interesting geeky part is that the Court just handed down some very impressive decisions that fly counter to the current administration.
Remember when the Democrats were taking over the whole country? Yeah, it looks like the Court doesn’t believe that either. That the circumspect, usually spineless Supreme Court skewered several Democrat sacred cows during the lead up to the primaries for the 2024 elections speaks volumes about how much power the Democrats have lost.
I didn’t expect to see this much progress until a Republican was back in the White House. The Dems are in deep, deep, trouble.
But beyond the impending and much awaited collapse of the Democrat Party, this decision strikes at the heart of the elitism in the US. Affirmative Action is supposed to benefit minorities but it is not used that way. It benefits elites. It provides a smokescreen so that Harvard can admit 20% of its students on ‘legacy’ – Daddy went to Harvard – rather than merit and not get its pants sued off. After all, it admits 5% based on race.
But that 5% is either legacy themselves, the best and brightest or, most often, under qualified for Harvard. Most don’t graduate. They would have been top of their class elsewhere but were used and discarded by Ivy League schools to cover for their much more lucrative legacy admissions.
Daddy also made a big donation, doncha know.
Without the cover of Affirmative Action, non-merit admissions become fair game for lawsuits. The Ivy League will have to start admitting those with the merit or they will get their pants sued off. Declining standards will destroy the Ivy League – the top notch education they offer is their only selling point – so they either adjust to blue collar kids of all races gracing their halls or they die. Watching them wriggle coming to grips with this should be fun.
But the best part is without Affirmative Action blacks get to compete fairly. Before you start whining about the past, understand that there is only one way forward. Reward excellence and that’s what you’ll get. Black kids aren’t stupid and never were. Black parents don’t want to send their kids to failing schools and never did. Get this baggage out of their way and let them get on with it!
Sure, sounds easier than it will ever be. Here churches need to step up – a lot of black folks got sold short in education and those who are ready to fix that will need help. The internet will be incredibly useful here but sometimes you need a human being to sit down and explain the silly thing. A little one on one time with a determined student will do what Affirmative Action never could – it will help folks grow the wings they were meant to have.
But what about the inner cities? What about them? Kids that can sell the world’s worst product – drugs – can sell anything. Teach them the basics of business and get out of the way. Those kids aren’t stupid – they will figure it out and will get help when they realize they need it. Quit selling them short.
But the failures! Sigh, quit being an idiot. There are no human failures – just human failings. Humans are resilient. They can dust themselves off and get back on that ornery old horse or they can outsmart the danged thing. If need be, buy a new horse. Falling off is just learning the hard way.
The only way to fail is to give up.
Sure, there are folks we need to help. We like having a safety net for the hardest times, but we don’t need a safety net when you are only a foot off the floor on a balance beam. Figure out which ones to load into the ambulance and which ones to let get back on that stupid balance beam. Life isn’t one size fits all. We help those that can’t help themselves and get out of the way of everyone else.
Sure, easier said than done. But we’re the best equipped nation on Earth. We will fuss, fight, feud and slam a bunch of doors, then reason and talk, wonder and think. We’ll figure it out, mess up and fix it. Politics is a slow annoying process – but it works.
At the end, we’ll not only have preserved the liberty our forefathers bled and died for but we’ll all be freer and more able to chase down that happiness. All of us, whatever color we came in.
Happy Birthday, America!
