No Liberals, Politics is Not the Answer!

Want to know the why of "gun violence" in black Chicago? It couldn't be, could it, that 

According to City of Chicago data, in every year from 1999 to 2009, more than 80 percent of all black women who gave birth were single.

I mean, imagine if poor women were pretty careful to keep the father of their baby around so that 1) they would have the financial support of the father and 2) the children would have a father around to teach them whatever it is that fathers provide.

Yes. Back in the day George Gilder wrote Visible Man about a teenage girl that had a baby and the father, a disabled ex-Marine, worked and supported her. Until she was old enough to apply for welfare and a gubmint apartment. Then she dumped him. I first wrote about this in 2011.

Then there is Ron Unz reviewing his California anti-bilingual education initiative of 25 years ago. Proposition 227 it was: "English for the Children." He was prompted to "do something" about bilingual education because he had read in The Los Angeles Times the following.

A group of poor Latino garment workers in Downtown Los Angeles had become so outraged at the refusal of their local Ninth Street elementary school to teach their children English that they had organized a public boycott.

Here are my takeaways on the issue from Ron's article:

• Republicans had opposed bilingual education for decades, but had done nothing about it.
• Experts said that the older you were, the easier it was to learn English.
• "schools were paid more money for every child who failed to learn English and financially penalized for those who did."
• "The official dogma behind bilingual education held that a young immigrant child required five to seven years to learn English,"

When the campaign got started, the anti-campaign (to keep bilingual education)

was a traditional, well-funded operation led by ace Democratic political consultant Richie Ross and a veteran campaign staff, backed by a field operation of thousands of local activists. It counted the public support of President Clinton, the chairmen of both the state Republican and Democratic parties, all four candidates for governor, every educational organization, every public and private union, and nearly every newspaper.

The anti-campaign tried to provoke a white backlash by portraying the measure as a giveaway to immigrants. And it messaged Latinos -- on Spanish speaking media -- to say "that the problems with bilingual programs had recently been fixed and that Proposition 227 would actually prevent children from learning English in school." 

But the measure passed with 61% of the vote, even though the anti-campaign had significantly reduced Latino support. 

Unz describes his experience talking to the Latino caucus at the California state legislature at the time.

At one point, I began suggesting that many Latinos didn’t like bilingual education, and [Diane Martinez] immediately interrupted and cut me off. “I know that!” she said, “Every election I walk door-to-door in my district, and everyone is always complaining to me about the bilingual programs. They all say that the system is no good, the classes don’t work, and their children aren’t learning any English. But they’re all stupid, ignorant immigrant parents, who don’t know anything about education. I’ve talked with the academic experts, and all the experts agree that the bilingual programs are successful.”

Guess what:

At her insulting characterization of her own Latino immigrant constituents, some of the other members of the Latino Caucus seemed to shrink down into their chairs in embarrassment, but none of them dared to challenge her harangue.

As Unz relates

Although the bilingual advocates were relatively few in number, they were fiercely committed to their programs and intensely focused upon that sole, overriding issue, expressing the sort of fanaticism that persuaded far larger organizations to steer clear of any direct conflict.

And so the Latino organizations in California kept out of the campaign and the Republicans stayed away, afraid that they would be tarred as extremist racist-sexist-homophobes. 

That's really the way that all politics works. Most people just want to live their daily lives and not get into arguments with other people.

But then there are the political activists -- and there is no politics without an enemy. The activists cow ordinary people and ordinary leaders who don't want to rock the boat. 

And so, you get a country bullied and bashed around by extremist political activists.

Like the "trans" issue.

Honestly. I don't know how we neutralize this power of the activist. Especially since all good little girls have been raised to believe that there is no nobler -- or more fashionable -- calling than to become an activist.

But politics divides, it make enemies out of friends and it makes people duck their heads to keep out of trouble.

And, of course it creates a political support system of "academic experts" who get government grants to produce the "science." In other words, they are well paid to support the activists.

And so every political issue reduces to "defeat the enemy, plunder the losers, and reward the supporters."

There's gotta be a better way.