On a roll--NY Times editors choose Geronimo again

It's a challenge to write something you're pretty sure NYT doesn't agree with, but do it well enough that their editors still choose your post out of the hundreds they receive. True, blind justice.

This time, Geronimo posted a continuum of options available to health care supporters. The premise? The conversation has become such a mess that any effort to re-position will have pretty unattractive explanations to offer.

NY Times' editors chose it again!

Here it is, with a link to the relevant page @ NYT website below.

127.

EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)

Geronimo

California

September 3rd, 2009

9:36 am

Pick your point on the continuum:

Strong: We were right all along and still are; we’re making minimal changes; you were too stupid to know what’s good for you; we’ll explain it slower this time.


Not as strong: OK, electorate, we are in a dialog with you. We have changed 10% to show we’re listening. See if you can find it.


Medium: We’re really changing this. Please don’t ask us why we came up with the wrong answer the first time, after working on this for the whole Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 administrations. Let’s just move forward. Interrogation techniques? No, we don’t want to move forward on that one. Why do you ask?


Pretty weak: We’re offering discount cards and calling it health care reform. We finally figured out that we need to get re-elected.


Capitulation: We have all learned that America has to set priorities in this economy. We have had a great dialog with the American people, and we will use what we learned to make substantial changes in health care in the future. Someday.



http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/health/policy/03care.html?sort=oldest&offset=6

NY Times editors like Geronimo

Geronimo, your faithful correspondent, was originally encouraged to create this blog by having comments regularly selected over the course of a year or two by the editors of the NY Times. Talk about a love-hate relationship!

They did it again today, for Geronimo's response to a piece by Charlie Savage, headline: Justice Dept. to Recharge Enforcement of Civil Rights.

Here it is, with the accompanying NYT explanation of what the "EDITORS' SELECTIONS" designation means. That's fine as far as it goes, but the piece was also voted #6 (a/o 10AM) by the Times' readers.

27.

EDITORS' SELECTIONS (what's this?)

Geronimo

California

September 1st, 2009

7:42 am

This will quickly get the discussion back to the difference between equality-of-opportunity and equality-of-outcomes. Most people favor equality of opportunity, yet strongly believe that equality of outcomes is the responsibility of the person / family for whom the doors were open.

Economist Thomas Sowell cites a pair-matched study where high-work-ethic West Indian Africans (Caribbean families who'd emigrated to the US), who looked African-American, fared somewhat better for socio-economic progress over the years than did a white experimental control group chosen for similar incomes, education levels, etc. In other words, the greater work ethic / thrift ethic / education values of the West Indian African-descent people in the study were more than sufficient to allow the West Indian Africans to out-progress a white, native born control group.

This finding contradicts the "racist hypothesis," which rarely gets challenged in any public forum any more. The “America is racist” hypothesis sets forth that, if you are visibly of African descent, it doesn't much matter what you do, how much you learn, how hard you work, what profession you choose. Your race, seen by the racial majority around you, will cause people to put obstacles in your path so that you will never be able to make socioeconomic progress because of this insurmountable racial disadvantage.

Substantial research by Sowell and others refutes that, and not just by this example. President Obama, (need it be said?) is a terrific example of how someone who happens to have an African parent, but has done the things society calls for to get to the higher tiers, can be elected to the highest office in the US.

The departure of the civil rights lawyers cited in the article begs the question--what were their expectations? If they wanted to manipulate the workforce toward a situation in which each and every demanding, education-intensive profession has the same number of each protected class as are present in the underlying population, you'd expect a lot of turnover and frustration. It's an unrealistic model, but an unfortunately common one—“If half the country’s women, why aren’t half the Fortune 500 CEO’s women?” People forget that all but a few of the MEN in the workforce didn’t make it to the top of a Fortune 500 company either. Merit intervened. The average credential for a Fortune 500 CEO a few years ago was: 30 years continuous time in the workforce, since MBA. So, how many women got their MBA’s, with a technical undergrad degree, back in the 1970’s, and never, ever left the workforce since?

Most people want to be the patient of the heart-transplant surgeon who did best in a competitive, meritocratic system. Nobody sensible wants to be the patient of the heart-transplant surgeon who, ever since kindergarten, got the most help from every available affirmative action updraft, all the way through to med school.

People in the US are in favor of equal opportunity, mediated by merit. If the Obama administration gets distracted into efforts to overturn that common-sense principle, and dictate results and outcomes that reduce consideration for merit, they are begging for trouble--from an electorate that likes President Obama immensely.

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