Friday, June 29, 2007

Lefties And Their Strange Thought Processes Regarding Recent Supreme Court Decisions

Leave it to the lefties to think that black is white and up is down.

Recently the Supreme Court has handed down three rulings related to education, or at least to teachers. The first was Davenport v. WEA, which ruled that unions cannot use non-members' compelled dues for political purposes. The second was Morse v. Frederick, the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case which ruled that schools can limit the exercise of free speech of students. The third was the case arising from the Seattle and Louisville school districts, which wanted to assign students to schools by race. The court ruled they could not.

I haven't seen or heard many hues and cries regarding the Morse case, so I'll focus on the other two. First, let's address the cases regarding assigning students to schools on the basis of race.

To hear the Democrat presidential candidates as they pandered to a black audience at Howard University last night, you'd think the Court had ruled that Brown v. Board of Education was overruled and that black students would again be legally required to attend segregated schools. In fact, the recent court ruling in entirely consistent with Brown.

Joanne Jacobs (see blogroll at left) shot down the Democrats' argument back in December when she said,

I thought Brown was about assigning black kids to their all-white neighborhood school instead of sending them across town because of their race. Silly me.


Joanne is exactly correct. Brown was a civil rights victory precisely because it prohibited using race to exclude students from particular schools. In Seattle and Louisville, the districts were preventing students from attending their neighborhood schools if their presence didn't conform to some racial quota system. I don't recall where I read it, but a blog commenter was fairly succinct when he said: Brown prevented school districts from excluding children from certain schools because of the color of their skin; this ruling does exactly the same thing.

But, the left will cry, what about desegregation? Ignoring for a moment that the Seattle schools, at least, were never legally segregated, I turn now to Discriminations (see blogroll at left), which quotes part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

I wonder if any of those advocates have taken a look lately at the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which I just did in writing the post immediately below (on his own site). If they have, they would have found Title IV, Section 401(b), which declares:

”Desegregation” means the assignment of students to public schools and within such schools without regard to their race, color, religion, or national origin, but “desegregation” shall not mean the assignment of students to public schools in order to overcome racial imbalance.
Case closed. Unless, of course, laws don’t mean what they say.

As I'm one who chooses to believe that laws mean what they say, I'd have to agree: case closed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and this recent Court decision, are consistent with Dr. King's dream of not judging people by the color of their skin. Chief Justice Roberts said it best:

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."


Some people just don't get that, but it truly is that simple.

The second case which liberals are twisting beyond recognition is Davenport v. WEA. Just as an example, here's what barking moonbat and presidential candidate John Edwards has to say about it:

"Corporations don't have to ask for shareholders' approval when they hire lobbyists, run ads or make campaign contributions to candidates running for governor. I believe labor unions have at least as great a right to be heard in the political process. Fortunately, Washington state has fixed its law. But if other states were to take advantage of the Court's unwise precedent today, it would silence the political voice of working families."


I hear the comparison with corporations often--one of my union reps at school often says that unions should be allowed to spend my money as they see fit because corporations can spend money as they see fit, as if all or even most corporate money goes to Republicans.

Edwards isn't stupid. He intentionally distorts reality and ignores the obvious. The difference is that corporate shareholders have voluntarily bought into the corporation, and can sell their shares (for a profit) if they don't approve of the way the corporation is being run. Additionally, no one is compelled to support corporations--if I don't like what they're selling, I don't buy from them. There's nothing voluntary about the union's getting my money. That distinction is too huge to be unintentionally ignored.

Writing for the Court, Justice Thomas said:

Regardless of one's views as to the desirability of agency-shop agreements...it is undeniably unusual for a government agency to give a private entity the power, in essence, to tax government employees.


And that is why Edwards' comparison to corporate stockholders is ridiculous beyond belief. And let's not forget, this case was decided 9-0. The WEA couldn't even get Justice Ginsburg to agree with their faulty arguments.

Reading further in the opinion, Thomas made a statement that I hope will one day sound the death knell for compulsory unionism in California and in the nation:

[U]nions have no constitutional entitlement to the fees of nonmember-employees. (emphasis mine--Darren)


In other words, that unions can garnish my wages at all is a statutory entitlement, not a constitutional one. It's good that the Court recognized that, even if Democrats and union officials can't or won't.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

While you have made excellent points over a broad range of details in each of the two cases, I would just like to comment that in regards to the following which you wrote -

"The Civil Rights Act of 1964, and this recent Court decision, are consistent with Dr. King's dream of not judging people by the color of their skin."

...you are absolutely RIGHT!!!

This ruling has buffered the charter school movement from frivolous lawsuits claiming racial preference or bias, as the majority are made up of minorities. Often, charter schools are entirely black or entirely Asian, Latino, or even white - depending on the communities and at-risk populations the charter school serves.

I recently visited a charter school in Chicago which is made up of black males who had previously dropped out of school and are getting a second chance at a high school diploma, operating in an inner city neighborhood. Any ethnicity of males can enroll as well, but for the moment, it is ALL black and these guys are making progress and achieveing academic proficiency through successful strategies.

Even in the days of the Civil Rights movement (in which I grew up, observed, and participated in marching with King at age 16) - we were ultimately more interested in having schools improved within our own all-black neighborhoods, than having to take two buses and a two hour journey to a 'better' school outside of the neighborhood. Somehow, Brown did not achieve that local school improvement, and schools in the hood were never quite up to par. In fact, they got worse.

NCLB is now in the process of changing all of that, i.e., improving the inner city schools ("segregated" or not) - and for that reason, even more so, this newest Supreme Court ruling is so very much welcomed...at least it should be to those of us who are the authentic surivors of the Jim Crow era.

allenm said...

Brown v. Topeka? I've heard the rulings compared to the rolling back of the Emancipation Proclamation. Lefties, seeing their strategy of creating divisions in society by rewarding politically irrelevant distinctions go up in smoke, are naturally up in arms. But what else is there for them but anger and disbelief?

Anonymous said...

I often wonder if Liberals are really liberal, at all. I think they are merely confused. If they took time to think things through, they would see that conservatives are the ones who are truly thinking of 'the common folk', and attempting to give everyone a level field to play on.

While I love diversity and never want to return to an all-black or segregated world (well, it was a 'colored' world during the time I was in it), I also don't believe that minorities are automatically guaranteed academic proficiency by simply sitting in desks next to white kids.

There's something about that long ride back and forth to school that somehow complicates the results.

For example, I was part of the integration of a high school, which was miles away from my segregated neighborhood. Within my first weeks there, I was the first 'colored' girl to make the swim team, but I had to quit within a month because it was too far for me to make my way home after dark (on two public transporation) buses during the hard winter months in Chicago...with WET hair.

Perhaps the main problem was not bussing or ethnicity or racism or any of that, but rather that I was born in a pre-blow-dryer world.

But even in todays world with blow dryers and cell phones, it's still a frightening challenge for a young person to be riding home on a bus that late in the evening, while trying to regularly participate in after-school activities.

Darren said...

Honestly, Lillian, I don't think they're confused. I think they know exactly what they want and exactly what they're doing. They want government to be in control of everything, and they want to be in control of the government. It's truly that simple.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like socialism to me.