No, No, No!

This is exactly when we don't want to grant a pause for those people to get their breath.

The Left, and its MSM toadies, are in a state or overload. They are rattled, spent. Also, much of the public is tired of listening to them. The last thing we want to do is to give them time to reconstitute their forces.

Just what would change in the next year that would defuse tension?

I note again Dubya's skill at letting his opponents and proponents rant and rage while remaining silent and ignoring them.

anyone who believes that the First Lady is 'lobbying' the President to appoint a woman is out of his tiny mind.

Am I the only one annoyed at the fact that our betters are loudly pushing a factor in the choosing of a Supreme Court Justice that would be illegal even to consider for any private sector job in the nation?

Jon, I think the first lady is counting the days when they can go back to Crawford permanently.

David:

Yes, such factors should be allowed to be taken into account in all walks of life.

All of them except race.

Why not race? Why shouldn't traditionally black fraternities be allowed to stay that way if they want to, for instance.

What a puss. Traditionally black fraternities? Say what's on your mind.

Race is a legitimate consideration. Why shouldn't schools seek out black students if they think diversity would benefit everyone?

For the same reason that schools shouldn't seek out white students if they think segregation would benefit everyone. You know how you feel about the word 'nationalism'? A dose of the same here, please.

Why not? If a private organization prefers to be all white that's their prerogative, no?

What do you mean, private? I thought you'd established that there was no such thing. And, no. There is no longer any such prerogative, and you know this. You're tempted to the double standard so that you can pander, and you want to pander because you don't have enough patience. Impulse control, grasshopper. Always impulse control.

By the way, good riddance to that prerogative.

Because one civil war was enough.

The Civil War didn't have anything to do with private associations or the North wouldn't have fought it.

joe:

No, the single standard--people ought to be allowed to discriminate in private on any basis they choose--sex, race, religion, sexual preference, age, height, weight, hair color, etc. People need to have places to escape to where they feel comfortable and they should be able to decide the nature of those places.

You libertarian, you.

Yes, The Wife went to an all girl school and I was in a fraternity--I can't see what either gain by admitting the opposite sex. Let there be a variety of institutions with varied memberships and folks'll sort themselves out.

That's what your basement is for.

And I agree with you as to all-girl schools, and fraternities, and Italian social clubs and WASP country clubs. I even think, as Peter and I batted around last week, that Red Sox fans should be able to fire Yankee fans. But race hatred is too dangerous to the nation to be allowed as a ground for private discrimination. This should be right up your alley: the use of the police power to engineer the society we want. Whites don't have the right not to feel comfortable around blacks, and vice versa. (I suppose I should make explicit that by race I mean white/black.)

David:

Ever been in a school cafeteria? Blacks will be sitting together with few or no whites. By choice, not due to hatred.

Of course it's due to hatred, and let them be human for Christ's sake. You're still afraid of whoever pounded your head into the pavement back in East Orange, and you're trying to make nice for it now. Won't work.

Why hatred? Why shouldn't birds of a feather choose to flock together?

I'm not arguing in favor of forced integration or affirmative action. I'm arguing against racial discrimination, which I'm perfectly ready to admit is natural. That's why we need the power of the state to neutralize it. As it happens, we've done a pretty remarkable job in the last 50 years.

Race is our Achilles' heel. When the American ship founders, it will do so on the rock of our race history. That's why racial discrimination is different from sex discrimination or religious discrimination or sexual orientation discrimination. Our concern with these fake issues is just another way we try to diminish our serious racial problems.

How has forced integration done anything but foster hatred and resentment? Then gradually drifted right back to segregation.

Geez, there's no lefty trope you don't believe, is there? "Blacks aren't any better off now then they were 50 years ago." "Nothing has changed since the days of Jim Crow."

David, this may the first time I disagree with your point of view. The only way race will become a non-factor is when we leave it alone and stop overcompensating for past errors to prove that we're no longer racist.

Last year there was an interesting episode on the sitcom "Listen Up" which was otherwise as insipid as anything with Jason Alexander must be. Malcolm Jamal-Warner played Alexander's colleague on a TV sports show. In this episode he took Alexander's character to task for trying to be hip and acting the fool around his black friends. It was an honest treatment of something that most of us have seen and that black people must hate more than they hate overt racism. I know I would.

Society can insist on equality under the law and in public intercourse, but people can't be forced to feel comfortable with each other nor can they be forced to become friends.

Like most people, I'm most comfortable with people like myself, but in my case it isn't their race or religion that draws me to them, but whether or not they're political junkies.

David:

Sure, blacks are much better off. The schools are more segregated than they were fifty years ago and things like busing and affirmative action have failed miserably.

Okay, so let's explore this a little. I take it that you are both saying that a business should be allowed fire or not hire someone because he or she is black? Should a restaurant be allowed not to serve blacks? How about a restaurant on the turnpike? Can McDonald's charge blacks more than others?

What about discrimination by the state? Should blacks not be allowed to vote just because they're black?

You really think that allowing these things would be good for the nation? That we'd be better off, more nearly perfect, more just, more tranquil, better able to work together to defend ourselves from the various threats we face and that the general welfare would be increased if only we could discriminate against blacks?

No, the state shouldn't be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race.

And there are reasonable arguments that a public restaurant or other business shouldn't. But someone who wants to rent an apartment in their house probably should.

Yes, I'm saying that discrimination would still be relatively rare and public life more amicable without non-discrimination laws and regulations.

Ceteris paribus, sure. That's why I'm against other types of anti-discrimination legislation. But when it comes to race in America, ceteris ain't paribus.

Yes, but, entirely predictably, having opened the floodgates with race all the others snuck in too. That said, rewriting anti-discrimination laws to apply only to blacks would be a step in the right direction.

Of course it's predictable. The whole point of feminism is to keep white women ahead of blacks. We have no one to blame if we can't say "no" or can't even take the 14th Amendment seriously.

pre-Roe there were more of them than us. Immigration and abortion are rectifying that imbalance.