http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050521/ts_nm/bush_religion_dc
Awesomeness. When I become God Emperor Duke, I will spare these particular Christians.
Awesomeness. When I become God Emperor Duke, I will spare these particular Christians.
Bush gets the shaft at a CHRISTIAN college... har har!
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Groder Mullet
Member
Raoul Duke said:
So not all Christians are Republicans??? TEH SHOCK AND AWE!!!!!!!!!!
Sqrt_minus_one
Member
teepo said:
eh ?
Explain, please.
when the 14th amandment was ratified, christians schools suddenly starting popping in every corner of the country. why? because they knew black folk didn't have the money and wouldn't dare put there child in one of those schools and many today exisit for the same reason believe it or not. sad it is.
Manabanana
Member
Cutie pie?
teepo said:
Actually they emerged to teach scholars to help bring us out of the dark age. You should read my paper comparing the first christian schools and how eventually they bore out Luther, who helped bring down corruption in the church. Christianity, and religion, didn't just start in the 50's.
Laura Bush's PR trip to the Middle East doesn't seem to be going well either, even in our ever friendly Israel.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050522/ap_on_re_mi_ea/laura_bush
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050522/ap_on_re_mi_ea/laura_bush
Phoenix
Member
* Not all Republicans are Christians
* Not all Christians are Republicans
* Not all Republicans agree with Bush
* Not all Christians agree with Bush
* Not every policy pushed by Bush benefits every Republican
* Not every policy pushed by Bush benefits every Christian
* Not every policy that benefits Republicans or Christians is backed by Bush
Life easier if you just come to accept the above.
* Not all Christians are Republicans
* Not all Republicans agree with Bush
* Not all Christians agree with Bush
* Not every policy pushed by Bush benefits every Republican
* Not every policy pushed by Bush benefits every Christian
* Not every policy that benefits Republicans or Christians is backed by Bush
Life easier if you just come to accept the above.
:lol PEACE.Phoenix said:
True...but....
* Most Republicans are Christians
* Most Christians are Republicans
* Most Republicans agree with Bush
* Nearly all Christians agree with Bush
* Nearly every policy pushed by Bush benefits rich Republicans
* Most policies pushed by Bush are influenced by rich Christians
* Most policies that benefit rich Republicans or Christians are backed by Bush
Sirpopopop
Member
WedgeX said:
That's a pathetically low ratio.
Sirpopopop
Member
Boogie said:
Yeah you're right... until you take into account how big these colleges usually are.
"Minorities... hey! What's that!" "Oh! It's just a few kids out of our 400 member student body. Don't worry they're cool - just like Clarence Thomas, and that Indian who ran for governor in Louisiana."
For a liberal arts college, Calvin is huge. Many of them are nothing more than a glorified high school... like the one I went to, where there were just 7 black kids in the school, and 5 of them were on the basketball team.
Sirpopopop said:
You totally dodged the question posed about how 15-25% of a student body being African-American constitutes a "pathetically low ratio" given the demographics of the United States (iirc, blacks comprise roughly 13% of the general population). If you didn't dodge it, you're engaging in specious reasoning re: absolute numbers based on the size of the student body. So if a college has 600 students enrolled and "only" 120 of them are black (i.e., 20%, as per the example given by WedgeX), are they somehow considered "token blacks"? I fail to see your point...
EDIT: So the smaller the student body, the more blacks, proportionately, they have to have enrolled, lest they be tacitly accused of racism or exclusion? That's bogus reasoning imo. 15-25% is 15-25%...sorry. If it's more at certain schools, great. If it's significantly less, then that might be cause for concern; however, the numbers cited are certainly in line with the percentage of blacks in the general population. You're grasping at straws.
Granted, this was just anecdotal data (WedgeX's 15-25% figure, that is), and the trend implied (i.e., adequate representation of blacks at Christian colleges) may or may not hold across all schools. The point to note here is that the basis you've chosen to attack the data on is spurious. If you had pointed to evidence showing less-than-adequate minority representation across such institutions nationally, you'd be on solid footing. Instead, you've chosen to fudge numbers and hold people to arbitrary standards which I doubt you could even begin to put into words for us.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Monk said:
ROO.
FLES.
keeblerdrow
Member
Calling Calvin College or Hope College (both in the West MI area) christian colleges is a joke. I went to Hope, had friends at Calvin. Christian is a descript I'd use only in sarcasm.
Phoenix
Member
GhaleonEB said:It's called "paying attention". Google it.
Google won't save your ass this time - you cannot validate a single one of those claims. Sure Bush deserves to be bashed, but making stereotypical generalizations of Christians and Republicans without evidence just won't go unchallenged.
Let's be honest with ourselves and reality. I like you, you're a good poster and a decent man. Of course not ALL Republicans are going to fit into a neat and easy stereotype. But if you think that this isn't true:Phoenix said:
GhaleonEB said:
Then you're lying to yourself. I for one would go one further and say that Republicans who disagree with Bush Co. but still vote Republican are doing themselves and the world at large a disservice by not registering that displeasure with their vote and voice. But then again I can't wrap my brain around the idea of anyone with full use of their faculties viewing the Republican party platform and giving it the thumbs up. I guess I hate money, god and guns.
Phoenix
Member
Raoul Duke said:
* Most Republicans are Christians - probably true as most Americans identify themselves as Christians. Thus it follows that most Democrats are Christians.
* Most Christians are Republicans - The latest numbers show that both Democrats and Republicans are below 50% for registered voters in the United States with the rest making up third party and independents. There are equivalent percentages (according to the polls) for Democrats and Republicans being Christians - which logically follows since over 82% of the USA considers itself Christian.
* Most Republicans agree with Bush - unprovable. Even if I vote for Kerry, that doesn't mean that I agree with all of his philosophies, I just agree with more of his than I do Bushes.
* Nearly all Christians agree with Bush - Since not nearly all Christians voted for Bush, this is unsubstantiated with actual fact.
* Nearly every policy pushed by Bush benefits rich Republicans - We'd have to go through the policies, but this is true ONLY for the *economic* policies. Not every policy, in fact, not even nearly every policy is an economic or economic related policy. This is debatable until we look up the facts, but nearly every is likely to not stand once we start to delve into the countless social policies.
* Most policies pushed by bush are influenced by rich christians - depends on your definition of 'influence'. Most of America consists of poor white christians and they have a larger influence in their votes than rich christians do.
* Most policies that benefit rich Republicans or Christians are backed by Bush - this one of course is the one more than likely to be true by virtue of 74%-82% (depending on the source) of the population being Christian. You take the largest percentage of the population, and the the richest people in the country yielding MOST OF THE COUNTRY, then sure - those policies are backed by Bush.
Hmm... after googling and looking at what Ghaleon posted, I'm gonna revise it to this(which is supported by CNN exit polling, found here: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html )
A majority of Republicans are Christians. Bush got a majority of their votes.(59% of prostestants and 52% of Catholics) Therefore, most Christians voted for Bush.
Those making 100k/year or more voted for Bush at 58%(Nader got 1%! Go smart rich people.).
I dunno. I mean, no I can't find 100% proof to back up everything I said earlier. At the same time I can't help but think that Bush being in office is the fault of Republicans who happen to be Christian(or vice versa), and that actually saying "I am a Republican" and not feeling shame at that should be impossible for someone who would truly claim to be a Christian(note- I'm a lapsed Buddhist) from my understandings of the religion, which are purely academic in nature. Then again, I don't understand people who willfully buy into the ideas of organized political parties or religion in general.
A majority of Republicans are Christians. Bush got a majority of their votes.(59% of prostestants and 52% of Catholics) Therefore, most Christians voted for Bush.
Those making 100k/year or more voted for Bush at 58%(Nader got 1%! Go smart rich people.).
I dunno. I mean, no I can't find 100% proof to back up everything I said earlier. At the same time I can't help but think that Bush being in office is the fault of Republicans who happen to be Christian(or vice versa), and that actually saying "I am a Republican" and not feeling shame at that should be impossible for someone who would truly claim to be a Christian(note- I'm a lapsed Buddhist) from my understandings of the religion, which are purely academic in nature. Then again, I don't understand people who willfully buy into the ideas of organized political parties or religion in general.
I don't really consider Bush a Republican. His actions in office are suprisingly contrary to most of the tenets that most political critics associate with Republicans in general. Bush is just a chump riding daddy's coattails and enjoying his 8-year field trip as one of the world's most powerful men. I'd almost rather see him resort to his cocaine snorting, beer chugging days of yesteryear, if only so I could scapegoat his perpetual idiocy on not being sober.
Son of Godzilla
Banned
Heh, went to church today and the priest dropped in a quick "Call your local congressman in support of Vague Bill Title Dealing With Who Knows, we have phone numbers in the back" inbetween clapping for people's birthdays. Struck me as odd.
Sirpopopop
Member
Loki said:
The only numbers I've used was saying that Boogie was right that when you compare it to the national standard - 15-25% is fair. Now, 120 out of 600 is a fair number I suppose. Not pathetically low according to the national average, as I admitted before. If we're going by the national average as the only context involved, yeah I was wrong,
Living in a pretty multi-cultural place (New Jersey), I've gotten used to actually meeting people from different locales and lifestyles. Sometimes I forget that in the Midwest (I've lived there for 4 years), you won't find many minorities, and people think that Jewish people have horns on their heads
. Now, that's where the last part of my post comes in. Basically, I'm rephrasing what I wrote so you'll get what I'm saying, since it seems you haven't even tackled that at all (my fault really, I wasn't talking about tokenism). This is also where I answer your post about my arbitrary standards. My standards might be arbitrary, but I would like to see these colleges go above and beyond just meeting national averages or going a little above it. Most of the kids they are getting are rich kids who can't get into an Ivy. Quite a few of them don't have much if any exposure to minorities, and as such don't feel much of an empathy for our concerns. Getting a bunch of rich minority kids with no ties to their mainstream culture (natural since they haven't lived in ethnic hotspots, but rather in white WASPURBIA) doesn't do that. Sure, you've met the national average, but you aren't really doing your students much of a service here since you've still kept them isolated in a bubble. Furthermore, since these colleges are so rich (alumni donations out the wazoo), why not do something above and beyond simply just meeting a national average. Why not do two good deeds instead of just one? Instead of just getting some rich black kids who remind me of IkkenaUnaeze and saying, 'hey! this is our minority", actually go out and get people who are from another type of lifestyle.
What I would like to see is some actual exposure to minorities who are connected to their culture. Deliver a shock to their system when they see that these kids can perform just as well they do in a setting which encourages learning (many of those small campuses are fucking unbelievably gorgeous, and seem like great places to concentrate on an education without many distractions). For example - get more black kids than just slightly going above the national average. Get at least 30% of them (just to throw a number out there - There's something you can seize upon.)
There's my standards. Arbitrary? Yes. Do I feel more people should hold them? Yes.
Is it ever going to happen? No. The second it does, funding will be cut off to those schools pretty fast.
Feel free to crucify me if you want.
Sirpopopop said:
I'm not going to crucify you, as your goals seem laudable enough; it just seems that what you propose would end up as a vain attempt at social engineering. For the record, I did not mean to imply that once a school's student body consisted of representative percentages of minority students that "their job is done." On the contrary, I feel that as many minority students as are qualified should be accepted to any and all institutions-- if that's 30%, then so be it. That's not the issue at all. My main concern was with the seeming urge on the part of some people to read racism/exclusion into every situation, particularly when such charges are not borne out by the numbers, as in this case. I hope you understand...
As regards your plan:
Expecting schools to A) ensure that the composition of their student body not only roughly matches, but far exceeds the respective racial percentages of society at large; and B) ensure that a goodly portion of the minority students accepted were somehow "tied to their mainstream culture," as you say, is quite a tall order, and would require a significant increase in funding and human resources (e.g., more extensive interviewing of minority candidates would have to take place in order to ascertain how closely they were "tied to their culture"). This approach also ignores two thorny issues:
1) The taking of seats from qualified non-minority applicants in the name of a social engineering policy that is of unproven benefit. Ideally, this objection/criticism could be answered by saying that the college would institute the policy on a trial basis at first-- say, for four years-- to see how it pans out. However, this then begs the following question...
2) What empirical bases will be used to determine whether or not such a plan has "worked"? This is the same issue that arises when discussing affirmative action policies; that is, what objective, verifiable conditions can be pointed to in order to prove that said policies are efficacious? "Less racism in society" is all well and good, but how do we quantify that? There's no doubt that it (racism) exists, but I'm of the mind that if we're going to implement broad social reform, we should at least have a good idea of where the goalposts stand. After all, policies that adversely affect certain segments of society (as this would, by denying qualified majority applicants seats at these colleges) cannot be allowed to exist in perpetuity-- the only reasonable basis for allowing them to be implemented is to redress systemic maladies. I can easily grant that such conditions exist; the pertinent questions are, "to what extent", and "how do we know when we've 'arrived'?" The answer to the latter question cannot be "when the majority of blacks feel that there is no more racism in society," because that is a subjective thing. Subjectivism should seldom be used as a basis for policy imo, however well-intentioned.
Objective indices such as educational attainment and per capita income levels among the various races are also troubling to use for the simple fact that there are literally dozens of confounding variables which can also be responsible for the disparities observed on these dimensions. How can we tease out the effects of institutional racism from the effects of other variables? It's not a trivial question by any means. This is why, personally, I feel that more efforts should be made at equalizing the primary educational experience (in terms of funding and the quality of teaching/facilities/educational culture, not necessarily outcomes, since we'd then go back to the notion of confounding variables) among the races as well as addressing the pernicious influences affecting the minority community, particularly in the inner city. Fix the communities, fix the families, and fix the elementary schools and you'll have no need for these stop-gap measures like AA later on. This would be the best course of action, since AA is a divisive issue; unfortunately, we're about 20-25 years late on taking the above actions, but I believe we should get started ASAP instead of continuing to allow our inner cities (and poor rural areas, too, which are breeding grounds for violence, illegitimacy, and ignorance just the same-- this is not strictly a "black" problem, but a societal one) to continue their degeneration.
This is to say nothing of the question of "what is black culture?" Who defines it? Is black culture strictly inner-city culture? Because I know quite a few blacks who would take issue with that, as would I. Needless to say, what you've proposed is fraught with questionable assumptions, and its benefit-- while not in question in terms of its existence-- is not quantifiable; given that such a plan would be of tremendous cost and would create unequal opportunities for others, it would stand to reason that we'd need to be on solid empirical footing before enacting such measures. Just my opinion.
I simply feel that there are better ways to go about achieving the ends we're both seeking.
Phoenix
Member
Boogie said:
Depends. It actually could be low, perhaps even pathetically low depending on the demographics of the area. The demographics of the country don't really work here as the heartland and back country areas of the country is undebatably white. Thus if the college is in an urban area where the demographics are predominantly black - that ratio could be called pathetically low. Similarly it depends on the normal demographics of the university. Xavier University of Louisiana is predominantly black (over 85%) so white people would be a pathetically low portion of the student body despite making up the majority of the country.
So without a clear reference its not possible to argue/debate either side of that equation - especially not with raw percentages. Just wanted to throw that out there since that whole debate is spiralling into craziness.
Sirpopopop
Member
Bah... justification is weak. 
Hit and Run Attacks are always best. (MAF Philosophy)
I'd respond to you Loki, but I'm not one to do minor nitpicking as that's all a response to your post would be.
The inability to establish a proper index to catalog success vis-a-vis social engineering pretty much renders my ideas moot, as you pointed out.
Hit and Run Attacks are always best. (MAF Philosophy) I'd respond to you Loki, but I'm not one to do minor nitpicking as that's all a response to your post would be.
The inability to establish a proper index to catalog success vis-a-vis social engineering pretty much renders my ideas moot, as you pointed out.
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