The Supreme Court has lifted a district court order limiting the enforcement of immigration laws in Southern California, and the news is full of fangirl cheerleading for Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s blistering dissent.
Sotomayor was the first fully-DEI appointment to SCOTUS. And it’s gotten worse since then. Sit back for a moment and contemplate just how destructive that is to anyone who wants to live under “the rule of law”.
It’s worse than that. They want to pack the courts with more of them if they ever take back power. Which they will at some point.
Personally I’m very black pilled. I don’t think there is a way back from this progressive cult mind virus. Think about the logistics of reversing the damage it has done. A huge political mountain that would take a decade or more. And the will to do it would need to remain inexhaustible during that entire time frame.
Exactly. Think of the decades of young people that have been miseducated and uneducated. Deliberately. Not to mention tens of millions of illegals that have entered the country.
Yeah, every appointment that isn’t to a White person, preferably male, is DEI. Like Jackie Robinson. We need to talk about how he squeezed Marv Throneberry out of the Hall of Fame.
Thank you for proving the point that promoting people into a position they are not qualified for is wrong and stupid, regardless of their skin color. As a huge Bulls fan, I would have been quite upset if Jordan had been sidelined by a 5’11” Greek like me simply because we needed more Greek representation in the NBA.
Lol. Nice comment. However, DEI is effectively a Mancur Olsen Distributional Coalition. Such an approach has an absolutely terrible track record in terms of ensuring the least capable person gets the senior level position, because merit is evaluated on the basis of politics rather than ability.
There are smart ways to be more inclusive. For a start, a large part of prior exclusion was the access of the children of the top 10% of the socioeconomic spectrum possessing access to incredibly potent informal distributed networks of the influential and well-placed. Richard Reeves called this group Dream Hoarders in his 2017 book on the subject. Raj Chetty's career spent researching social mobility through an economic approach basically proves the concept.
And this should concern everyone. Because not only are the children of the 10% disproportionately White, they also happen to be almost entirely composed of the same luxury belief class which has been ruining countries across the West, with a whole raft of ideas and policies which are quite frankly insane to ordinary people, or anyone older from a STEM background. No greater symptom can be found of this tendency than in the fact that although the non-Hispanic White population of America in the 25-44 age range is 54.6%, non-Hispanic Whites comprise 76% of the DEI bureaucracy, with African Americans significantly underrepresented compared to their share of the population for the age demo.
Second, use MEI, not DEI. MEI stands for Merit Excellence and Intelligence. In this case intelligence stands for information and data techniques to identify talented individuals who are conventionally overlooked in most advertising and applications processes. It produces greater diversity, especially by social background, but doesn't sacrifice meritocracy. Unlike DEI, for which the initial data analysis showing positive results has proven to be fraudulent (most notably with McKinsey), MEI actually works and improves outcomes in a number of ways.
This isn't surprising. What scant data did show positive results with DEI tended to suggest that the best form of diversity is socioeconomic diversity. Again, this isn't surprising. People from further down the socioeconomic ladder tend to be naturally more socially conservative, and sceptical. It's highly likely that at least a part of MEIs more positive results are because more people in the room at the decision-making level in organisation who are not from the luxury belief class, tends to lead to less groupthink and fewer insanely bad decisions, which are particularly apparent when it comes to creative industries and corporate branding.
I agree that DEI, as implemented, is problematic. Most programs fail on their own terms. What I appreciate about your comment is recognition that we still have a problem where certain groups are overlooked and their potential squandered. There's a lot of people here championing the (often mediocre) White guy on the bubble, but few who seem to care about those who never get an opportunity.
Those informal networks conferred by parents and communities are a huge advantage, and an unfair one. It's the modern equivalent of the exclusive Country Club, or a VIP lounge to which 90% of the American population is not invited.
The key distinction is understanding that exclusion exists for every group in the bottom 90%, particular the bottom 60%, regardless of race- although race does play a role through demographic disparity.
It also depends on the White guy. When Google ran their analysis of promotions and pay they found that the group most heavily discriminated against was younger White and Asian men. Basically, the fact that the founding and entrepreneurial class in Tech was mainly White and Asian due to garage hobbyist inclinations of the middle and upper middle classes meant they were overrepresented at the dawn of a new industry. And any disparity was due to the advantages of class, not ingroup preference in hiring (which is mostly a function of discrimination in customer facing role- I will link you an HBR article at the bottom). Because there were more senior White and Asian men an unofficial quota-based approach this meant White and Asian men were taking a penalty.
It's a good example of why "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
The answer was always about pipeline and class privilege for some. One of the failing of the American system is that it fails to recognise that school discipline has a disproportionately positive impact the further down the socioeconomic ladder one goes.
Here in the UK we were lucky. We had the advantage of the knowledge gained from the Northern Irish Catholic cohort. It meant that when London desperately wanted to improve schools and educational for Black kids, they had a system which they could quietly carbon copy. Discipline makes a huge difference. It's meant that outcomes by race are very close to equal in our national exams at 16. There are schools like Brampton Manor Academy which is located in the second poorest borough in London, with rampant knife crime, which now outperforms Eton.
Unlike Success Academy, it's not an isolated incident, and the discipline approach doesn't have a high burn rate for teachers. Put simply, even modestly disrupted classrooms will lead to two years lost education by the end of K-12.
Then there is phonics. Sure, if your speech contains grammatical errors like 'are Kevin' rather than 'our Kevin', then the vernacular can be a minor advantage, but the worse advantage is removing phonics and finding that 40% of parents are using phonics to teach their kids to read at home!
Here's the thing. On the White guy thing your critics are probably right, but only on a personal level. The 10%ers have retained their privilege. Apparently, they sent all their kids to summer camps to learn DEI as soon as they realised that knowledge of the DEI ideology was going to be important in academia. The entire class became White allies overnight!
But preserving the privilege of the White 10% came at the expense of the other 90%/60% of White kids.
It's why the process should focus on removing discrimination and increasing social mobility, not arbitrary group-based approaches or unofficial quotas.
One of the maddest things I came across was that there could be modest gains by formalising mentoring. Apparently a lot of White guys were quite happy to mentor talented minorities and/or women, but they were justifiably worried that constructive criticism could be taken as discrimination. Formalising the relationship makes it clear that mentoring, not discrimination, was the goal. And it had substantial positive results in terms of promotions.
The problem is that the customer facing industry isn't granular enough in their understanding of the problem. The percentage of Americans who will be deterred from using a commercial outlet because it has minority staff is vanishingly small, but as the percentages rise, problems begin to emerge. People don't like feeling like the minority in their social and commercial interactions. This disparity is caused by a massive overreaction of managers in the hospitality sector. It isn't helped by the fact that affluent white female liberals who are disproportionately managers in the service sector, drastically tend to overestimate levels of racism within their customer base.
I didn't realize you were in the UK. I think there are a number of cultural differences worth noting. Foremost, I think there's less ambivalence about the value of education in the UK.
Sure, we have kids from poor backgrounds in bad schools, although I have to tell you, my son taught in a Success Academy and was miserable. There was buy-in from the parents, from most of the kids, and I think a lot of teachers. But the principal and vice-principal there (I think that's "headmistress" on your side of the pond) were incompetent and soon burned out themselves, because they couldn't manage anything better than rote application of disciplinary rules. This was exceptionally difficult because it was during covid, and students, parents, and teachers (including my son) were still missing long stretches of time flat out sick.
But we have a second category dismissive of education, the MAGAs who are in charge. There's long-held suspicion of book learning here, currently best manifested in the numerous scientific blunders of RFK Jr., whose only understanding of pharmaceuticals comes from heroin addiction. This group (which, economically, spans from the World's Richest Used Car Salesman at the top down to the bottom of the working class) was thrilled to "discover" that you could "defeat" Covid with a laxative. Note that the covid mortality rate was higher here—and yours was bad.
As one final point, I am sorry that the teaching of phonics became politicized. I'm generally sorted on the left, by USA standards, but I am a great believer in phonics. My recollection is that simple phonics rules get you to about 80% of common English words. (History of the language explains why laughter doesn't rhyme with daughter, but no rule can.) Of course, Spanish is ~100% phonetic, but you can't have everything.
I read the Ayres piece. It was interesting. I asked Grok for a critique. It found this: 'a 1990 Consumer Federation of America survey cited by Ayres found that 61% of Black consumers were unaware that car prices were negotiable, compared to 31% of White consumers, potentially reinforcing dealers’ perceptions.'
On an anecdotal level, I've found this in relation to women when it comes to sofa buying. I went sofa buying with my mother and aunt when my mother needed two new matching sofas. Neither imagined that prices in furniture shops were negotiable, and both became uncomfortable as I began to barter and negotiate the price down. They were quite happy with the reduced price though. What annoyed me was the bloody swatches for having the sofas 'recovered' with a terracotta fabric wiped out a lot of the discount I had negotiated.
I do get what you mean, though. I was horrified when I found out in the aftermath of 2008 that unscrupulous firms the finance sector had targeted Black churches for lending which was in no way market competitive. To me that's taking advantage of the high trust of faith communities, and congregations trust in their pastors. It's the sort of thing which poisons faith.
Don't get me wrong. I believe in adding metrics to improve information on creditworthiness. Around 20% of Americans fall into a category of low credit scores, when only around one-third of them are genuine risks. Using expanded metrics can help separate the wheat from the chaff, and increase access to home ownership through better information, and it has incredible potential for data mining new markets. But taking advantage of high faith communities to sell them bad loans- that's just despicable. If anything churches are a marker of a higher degree of creditworthiness, not something to be cynically exploited.
Anyway sales behaviour is a good example of the difference between structural racism and racism. It's not actual racism which causes the problem, but rather the awareness of sales people that Black people are less informed on price negotiations. I was unaware of how extensive the problem was, but it doesn't surprise me- most young men learn how to negotiate from their fathers.
And I know what you're going to say. The negotiation pitches were scripted. It doesn't matter. Most negotiations are actually dictated at the level of subtle gestural and body language queues. It not something you can teach or script- you can only learn it through experience or systems like EDI. Explain. Demonstrate. Get them to Imitate. It's why training for sales and buying includes a lot of roleplaying, although training mostly falls far short of real world experience.
Basically, if you want to get a good price, the person you're negotiating with has to believe that you've planning to go elsewhere in your purchasing search. What you tell them won't matter. They will pick up on whether you're on the edge of being willing to walk out the door and go elsewhere from your body language.
It doesn't help that most of the best sales people tend to work in used cars, at least in the UK, because here the dealerships operate on team bonuses rather than commission, and this is a real turn-off for skilled sales people. I know a little bit about this because of I worked as sales executive for a while selling business-to-business. It didn't suit. I prefer the technical side.
Here's a top tip. If you're in a supermarket and you spot ripped or damaged packaging on a product, ask whether there is a discount available. If the first store person says no, do some more of your shop and go back. Then ask another store person. It sometimes works.
On the value of education I agree with you. However, economies are heterodox animals. That means different people will achieve success using different skills and talents. At best 30% of any school population has the chance to improve their lot in life through education. The Germans have a comprehensive system of technical and vocational education which served them well for decades.
Where most systems go wrong is that the fail to prioritise resources to the bottom and the top. The bottom is important because without basic numeracy and literacy, a large portion of the working age population will be blocked from full labour participation. The top is important because the Tall Poppies will create jobs and opportunities for everyone else, as well as generate the tax revenue to fund ample social safety nets and decent public services.
Justice Sotomayor was worried about falling behind Justice Jackson in the "worst and stupidest jurist ever" competition. The whippersnapper is putting up quite a challenge to the wise old latina!
I should have said this a long time ago, but you Chris Bray, you absolutely excel at peeling away any layers of logically flawed arguments, emotional appeals and intentional obfuscation and revealing the actual situation underneath it, no matter how it’s being squeezed and twisted to fit a narrative or serve a sinister purpose. Every analysis is brilliant, and also brilliantly funny, despite the often depressing reality being exposed.
A college class taught by professor Bray to perform this revealing, denuding analysis would be absolutely priceless, and would do so much to improve the critical thinking skills of the up and coming generation of bewildered and mislead young’uns.
Thank you for this, and ALL your other great writings, past and future! People like you make the apocalypse less
"Lord, we pray that you will bring the Feelings Era in American public life to a hard and immediate close, and restore us to a renewed age of fact and reason."
MD's ban on scary looking rifles was previously upheld in part based on the notion that it made people feel safer. After the law was challenged again post-Bruen, they used other justifications which they definitely didn't fabricate to support a preordained conclusion.
If I was living legally in a country where English wasn't the language spoken, I wouldn't be surprised if I was asked occasionally to prove I was legally there. I'm sure I would be. And what's the big deal as long as you are legal? A country has a right to defend its borders.
Nonsense. Lived and traveled in many non-English speaking countries as have numerous people in my very large extended family. This has never occurred to anyone I know. Anecdotal rebuttal, I admit, but not entirely speculative as is OP.
No one can really explain to me what's so horrible about having to carry around a passport. I carry my passport card everywhere and have for a couple decades at this point
I lived in Brazil for 7 years and Mexico for 3. I had to be very careful to follow the rules and always carry my ID, along with a little bribe cash. Non-English speaking countries don’t tolerate foreigners that break their rules. They’ll stick your ass right in jail. Just saying.
Little known fact: in the Schengen zone it's legally required to carry ID at all times, also for citizens. Many people don't and I never got asked to randomly show it, but it's a theoretical possibility and required if you want to check into a hotel.
The Democrats import millions of illegals wholesale but want us to deport them retail. You can't deport eight million (or whatever the number of millions it is) in a series of evidentiary due process.
I am very highly trained in firearms. No professional racks their gun at the scene. If they did they’d be dead. FYI the bullet is always in the chamber. That’s what a safety is for on a 1911 style gun. Most now use a semi auto which may not have a safety. If they are using a shotgun or AR style rifle the safety is on and the bullet is always already in there. This is how you know it is a dramatization and not reality. Can these people ever tell the truth even in court documents.
Because truth is not a left wing value. To them truth is relative and whatever they decide it will be on a certain day. They just manufacture “their truth “ to fit their narrative. No need to be factual when emotions and feelings are so much more effective at stirring up their base.
I somehow got into watching courtroom videos on Youtube for a few days and, despite my limited viewing, managed to happen upon a few judges that would have ticked the stated boxes and seemed vastly superior in intellect and wisdom to Soto and the non-biologist.
Then again, I suppose promoting the intensely unworthy is a good way to buy their loyalty to your political machine.
The Non-Biologist is a ridiculous creature who isn't qualified to be a judge at all, let alone a Supreme Court justice. Good Lord, how will we ever get her off the bench? It's ludicrous.
What I noticed was Sotomayor citing nothing but ECF Docs in her dissent, which are Electronic Case File documents. She does this frequently.
Kavanaugh cites actual case law (precedent), not a regurgitation of the lower court's arguments (the ECF docs). If the ECFs contained a persuasive legal argument, cite the precedent that makes it so, not the typical "shout louder" tactic of the Left.
In the good ol' days, God made the rules, and how you happened to "feel" about them just didn't really matter. These days, the folks make their own rules, and it's all about how they feel about things, because the anchor to absolute is gone. But not really, because "He who sits in the heaven laughs."
No, silly, like he put a bullet-thingy in the barrel, really LOUDLY, so the dark-skin dude would know he means business! Might even shoot 'im! To scare him! OMG! OMG!....(this is so, so scary.....i',m shakin....it's too scary.... i can't go on.....
Hah, like in the movies where Evey time someone points a gun there's the chambering a round SFX even though the actor's hands are nowhere near the charging handle / slide / pump action. And then they point it in a different direction and get the same SFX even though it should be the sound of brass falling on the floor as they eject the round previously chambered 🙄🙄
The image is Captain Sensible (of the Damned) after he got promoted
Sotomayor was the first fully-DEI appointment to SCOTUS. And it’s gotten worse since then. Sit back for a moment and contemplate just how destructive that is to anyone who wants to live under “the rule of law”.
Imagine an unwise Latina!
impossible!
It’s worse than that. They want to pack the courts with more of them if they ever take back power. Which they will at some point.
Personally I’m very black pilled. I don’t think there is a way back from this progressive cult mind virus. Think about the logistics of reversing the damage it has done. A huge political mountain that would take a decade or more. And the will to do it would need to remain inexhaustible during that entire time frame.
I believe that this is correct. How to live in the midst of chronic idiocy and chaos is no small task, but that is the task at hand.
Exactly. Think of the decades of young people that have been miseducated and uneducated. Deliberately. Not to mention tens of millions of illegals that have entered the country.
Thank God we have a majority of largely sane Supreme Court justices to make the three insane women on the bench largely irrelevant.
Yeah, every appointment that isn’t to a White person, preferably male, is DEI. Like Jackie Robinson. We need to talk about how he squeezed Marv Throneberry out of the Hall of Fame.
Thank you for proving the point that promoting people into a position they are not qualified for is wrong and stupid, regardless of their skin color. As a huge Bulls fan, I would have been quite upset if Jordan had been sidelined by a 5’11” Greek like me simply because we needed more Greek representation in the NBA.
Lol. Nice comment. However, DEI is effectively a Mancur Olsen Distributional Coalition. Such an approach has an absolutely terrible track record in terms of ensuring the least capable person gets the senior level position, because merit is evaluated on the basis of politics rather than ability.
There are smart ways to be more inclusive. For a start, a large part of prior exclusion was the access of the children of the top 10% of the socioeconomic spectrum possessing access to incredibly potent informal distributed networks of the influential and well-placed. Richard Reeves called this group Dream Hoarders in his 2017 book on the subject. Raj Chetty's career spent researching social mobility through an economic approach basically proves the concept.
And this should concern everyone. Because not only are the children of the 10% disproportionately White, they also happen to be almost entirely composed of the same luxury belief class which has been ruining countries across the West, with a whole raft of ideas and policies which are quite frankly insane to ordinary people, or anyone older from a STEM background. No greater symptom can be found of this tendency than in the fact that although the non-Hispanic White population of America in the 25-44 age range is 54.6%, non-Hispanic Whites comprise 76% of the DEI bureaucracy, with African Americans significantly underrepresented compared to their share of the population for the age demo.
Second, use MEI, not DEI. MEI stands for Merit Excellence and Intelligence. In this case intelligence stands for information and data techniques to identify talented individuals who are conventionally overlooked in most advertising and applications processes. It produces greater diversity, especially by social background, but doesn't sacrifice meritocracy. Unlike DEI, for which the initial data analysis showing positive results has proven to be fraudulent (most notably with McKinsey), MEI actually works and improves outcomes in a number of ways.
This isn't surprising. What scant data did show positive results with DEI tended to suggest that the best form of diversity is socioeconomic diversity. Again, this isn't surprising. People from further down the socioeconomic ladder tend to be naturally more socially conservative, and sceptical. It's highly likely that at least a part of MEIs more positive results are because more people in the room at the decision-making level in organisation who are not from the luxury belief class, tends to lead to less groupthink and fewer insanely bad decisions, which are particularly apparent when it comes to creative industries and corporate branding.
I agree that DEI, as implemented, is problematic. Most programs fail on their own terms. What I appreciate about your comment is recognition that we still have a problem where certain groups are overlooked and their potential squandered. There's a lot of people here championing the (often mediocre) White guy on the bubble, but few who seem to care about those who never get an opportunity.
Those informal networks conferred by parents and communities are a huge advantage, and an unfair one. It's the modern equivalent of the exclusive Country Club, or a VIP lounge to which 90% of the American population is not invited.
The key distinction is understanding that exclusion exists for every group in the bottom 90%, particular the bottom 60%, regardless of race- although race does play a role through demographic disparity.
It also depends on the White guy. When Google ran their analysis of promotions and pay they found that the group most heavily discriminated against was younger White and Asian men. Basically, the fact that the founding and entrepreneurial class in Tech was mainly White and Asian due to garage hobbyist inclinations of the middle and upper middle classes meant they were overrepresented at the dawn of a new industry. And any disparity was due to the advantages of class, not ingroup preference in hiring (which is mostly a function of discrimination in customer facing role- I will link you an HBR article at the bottom). Because there were more senior White and Asian men an unofficial quota-based approach this meant White and Asian men were taking a penalty.
It's a good example of why "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
The answer was always about pipeline and class privilege for some. One of the failing of the American system is that it fails to recognise that school discipline has a disproportionately positive impact the further down the socioeconomic ladder one goes.
Here in the UK we were lucky. We had the advantage of the knowledge gained from the Northern Irish Catholic cohort. It meant that when London desperately wanted to improve schools and educational for Black kids, they had a system which they could quietly carbon copy. Discipline makes a huge difference. It's meant that outcomes by race are very close to equal in our national exams at 16. There are schools like Brampton Manor Academy which is located in the second poorest borough in London, with rampant knife crime, which now outperforms Eton.
Unlike Success Academy, it's not an isolated incident, and the discipline approach doesn't have a high burn rate for teachers. Put simply, even modestly disrupted classrooms will lead to two years lost education by the end of K-12.
Then there is phonics. Sure, if your speech contains grammatical errors like 'are Kevin' rather than 'our Kevin', then the vernacular can be a minor advantage, but the worse advantage is removing phonics and finding that 40% of parents are using phonics to teach their kids to read at home!
Here's the thing. On the White guy thing your critics are probably right, but only on a personal level. The 10%ers have retained their privilege. Apparently, they sent all their kids to summer camps to learn DEI as soon as they realised that knowledge of the DEI ideology was going to be important in academia. The entire class became White allies overnight!
But preserving the privilege of the White 10% came at the expense of the other 90%/60% of White kids.
It's why the process should focus on removing discrimination and increasing social mobility, not arbitrary group-based approaches or unofficial quotas.
One of the maddest things I came across was that there could be modest gains by formalising mentoring. Apparently a lot of White guys were quite happy to mentor talented minorities and/or women, but they were justifiably worried that constructive criticism could be taken as discrimination. Formalising the relationship makes it clear that mentoring, not discrimination, was the goal. And it had substantial positive results in terms of promotions.
https://hbr.org/2018/05/does-customer-prejudice-help-drive-the-employment-gap-between-white-and-black-americans
The problem is that the customer facing industry isn't granular enough in their understanding of the problem. The percentage of Americans who will be deterred from using a commercial outlet because it has minority staff is vanishingly small, but as the percentages rise, problems begin to emerge. People don't like feeling like the minority in their social and commercial interactions. This disparity is caused by a massive overreaction of managers in the hospitality sector. It isn't helped by the fact that affluent white female liberals who are disproportionately managers in the service sector, drastically tend to overestimate levels of racism within their customer base.
I didn't realize you were in the UK. I think there are a number of cultural differences worth noting. Foremost, I think there's less ambivalence about the value of education in the UK.
Sure, we have kids from poor backgrounds in bad schools, although I have to tell you, my son taught in a Success Academy and was miserable. There was buy-in from the parents, from most of the kids, and I think a lot of teachers. But the principal and vice-principal there (I think that's "headmistress" on your side of the pond) were incompetent and soon burned out themselves, because they couldn't manage anything better than rote application of disciplinary rules. This was exceptionally difficult because it was during covid, and students, parents, and teachers (including my son) were still missing long stretches of time flat out sick.
But we have a second category dismissive of education, the MAGAs who are in charge. There's long-held suspicion of book learning here, currently best manifested in the numerous scientific blunders of RFK Jr., whose only understanding of pharmaceuticals comes from heroin addiction. This group (which, economically, spans from the World's Richest Used Car Salesman at the top down to the bottom of the working class) was thrilled to "discover" that you could "defeat" Covid with a laxative. Note that the covid mortality rate was higher here—and yours was bad.
For a different perspective on the reality of racial prejudice and economic cost in the USA, you may be interested in the work of Ian Ayres (with whom I am slightly acquainted) on how car dealerships—here cars prices are usually set through bargaining—will accept lower offers from Whites than Blacks. https://ianayres.yale.edu/fair-driving-gender-and-race-discrimination-retail-car-negotiations-104-harvard-law-review-817-1991
As one final point, I am sorry that the teaching of phonics became politicized. I'm generally sorted on the left, by USA standards, but I am a great believer in phonics. My recollection is that simple phonics rules get you to about 80% of common English words. (History of the language explains why laughter doesn't rhyme with daughter, but no rule can.) Of course, Spanish is ~100% phonetic, but you can't have everything.
I read the Ayres piece. It was interesting. I asked Grok for a critique. It found this: 'a 1990 Consumer Federation of America survey cited by Ayres found that 61% of Black consumers were unaware that car prices were negotiable, compared to 31% of White consumers, potentially reinforcing dealers’ perceptions.'
On an anecdotal level, I've found this in relation to women when it comes to sofa buying. I went sofa buying with my mother and aunt when my mother needed two new matching sofas. Neither imagined that prices in furniture shops were negotiable, and both became uncomfortable as I began to barter and negotiate the price down. They were quite happy with the reduced price though. What annoyed me was the bloody swatches for having the sofas 'recovered' with a terracotta fabric wiped out a lot of the discount I had negotiated.
I do get what you mean, though. I was horrified when I found out in the aftermath of 2008 that unscrupulous firms the finance sector had targeted Black churches for lending which was in no way market competitive. To me that's taking advantage of the high trust of faith communities, and congregations trust in their pastors. It's the sort of thing which poisons faith.
Don't get me wrong. I believe in adding metrics to improve information on creditworthiness. Around 20% of Americans fall into a category of low credit scores, when only around one-third of them are genuine risks. Using expanded metrics can help separate the wheat from the chaff, and increase access to home ownership through better information, and it has incredible potential for data mining new markets. But taking advantage of high faith communities to sell them bad loans- that's just despicable. If anything churches are a marker of a higher degree of creditworthiness, not something to be cynically exploited.
Anyway sales behaviour is a good example of the difference between structural racism and racism. It's not actual racism which causes the problem, but rather the awareness of sales people that Black people are less informed on price negotiations. I was unaware of how extensive the problem was, but it doesn't surprise me- most young men learn how to negotiate from their fathers.
And I know what you're going to say. The negotiation pitches were scripted. It doesn't matter. Most negotiations are actually dictated at the level of subtle gestural and body language queues. It not something you can teach or script- you can only learn it through experience or systems like EDI. Explain. Demonstrate. Get them to Imitate. It's why training for sales and buying includes a lot of roleplaying, although training mostly falls far short of real world experience.
Basically, if you want to get a good price, the person you're negotiating with has to believe that you've planning to go elsewhere in your purchasing search. What you tell them won't matter. They will pick up on whether you're on the edge of being willing to walk out the door and go elsewhere from your body language.
It doesn't help that most of the best sales people tend to work in used cars, at least in the UK, because here the dealerships operate on team bonuses rather than commission, and this is a real turn-off for skilled sales people. I know a little bit about this because of I worked as sales executive for a while selling business-to-business. It didn't suit. I prefer the technical side.
Here's a top tip. If you're in a supermarket and you spot ripped or damaged packaging on a product, ask whether there is a discount available. If the first store person says no, do some more of your shop and go back. Then ask another store person. It sometimes works.
On the value of education I agree with you. However, economies are heterodox animals. That means different people will achieve success using different skills and talents. At best 30% of any school population has the chance to improve their lot in life through education. The Germans have a comprehensive system of technical and vocational education which served them well for decades.
Where most systems go wrong is that the fail to prioritise resources to the bottom and the top. The bottom is important because without basic numeracy and literacy, a large portion of the working age population will be blocked from full labour participation. The top is important because the Tall Poppies will create jobs and opportunities for everyone else, as well as generate the tax revenue to fund ample social safety nets and decent public services.
Justice Sotomayor was worried about falling behind Justice Jackson in the "worst and stupidest jurist ever" competition. The whippersnapper is putting up quite a challenge to the wise old latina!
She is definitely making a charge of late.
I should have said this a long time ago, but you Chris Bray, you absolutely excel at peeling away any layers of logically flawed arguments, emotional appeals and intentional obfuscation and revealing the actual situation underneath it, no matter how it’s being squeezed and twisted to fit a narrative or serve a sinister purpose. Every analysis is brilliant, and also brilliantly funny, despite the often depressing reality being exposed.
A college class taught by professor Bray to perform this revealing, denuding analysis would be absolutely priceless, and would do so much to improve the critical thinking skills of the up and coming generation of bewildered and mislead young’uns.
Thank you for this, and ALL your other great writings, past and future! People like you make the apocalypse less
likely, or at least more entertaining.
Professor Bray taught for a couple of years, but he was poor and it sucked.
"Lord, we pray that you will bring the Feelings Era in American public life to a hard and immediate close, and restore us to a renewed age of fact and reason."
Maybe theology wou
...ld work?
In Jesus' holy name we pray. Amen and Amen! 🙏🙏🙏
that should offer great insight into the academic mind and the ideas it favors.
♥️♥️♥️
“Some have likened the detentions to 'kidnapping[s]’”
I’m no lawyer, but is that an actual legal argument? Some unspecified people think this is similar to something illegal?
Right? Some feel that X is like Y!
Aren’t Supreme Court justices supposed to argue by citing other legal cases and using logic? This level of argument is just embarrassing.
Especially these days, when you’re talking genes (and I don’t mean jeans).
It's postmodernist logic:
If A and B share a minimum of one thing in common, they are the same.
It’s a factual part of her entirely logical argument.
MD's ban on scary looking rifles was previously upheld in part based on the notion that it made people feel safer. After the law was challenged again post-Bruen, they used other justifications which they definitely didn't fabricate to support a preordained conclusion.
If I was living legally in a country where English wasn't the language spoken, I wouldn't be surprised if I was asked occasionally to prove I was legally there. I'm sure I would be. And what's the big deal as long as you are legal? A country has a right to defend its borders.
happened to me all the time. i got used to it. and the cops were cool, that american passport was worth its weight in gold
Not if it's the US. We're supposed to roll over and wait to be walked on.
Nonsense. Lived and traveled in many non-English speaking countries as have numerous people in my very large extended family. This has never occurred to anyone I know. Anecdotal rebuttal, I admit, but not entirely speculative as is OP.
Well good for you then
Hahaha!
When I saw “Wise Latina Edition” in the title, I started laughing immediately. Snarky Bray incoming….
No one can really explain to me what's so horrible about having to carry around a passport. I carry my passport card everywhere and have for a couple decades at this point
I lived in Brazil for 7 years and Mexico for 3. I had to be very careful to follow the rules and always carry my ID, along with a little bribe cash. Non-English speaking countries don’t tolerate foreigners that break their rules. They’ll stick your ass right in jail. Just saying.
Yeah rack you rifle in Mexico and see what happens…unless you’re in a cartel.
After you pay your bribe.
Mm-hmmm. You must be a terrorist. 🙄😉😊😋
Little known fact: in the Schengen zone it's legally required to carry ID at all times, also for citizens. Many people don't and I never got asked to randomly show it, but it's a theoretical possibility and required if you want to check into a hotel.
The Democrats import millions of illegals wholesale but want us to deport them retail. You can't deport eight million (or whatever the number of millions it is) in a series of evidentiary due process.
people often ask me for directions in spanish. does this make me a wise latino?
Depends on the answer you give them.
https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=Quiet+man+directions
par ahi, p'alla
I am very highly trained in firearms. No professional racks their gun at the scene. If they did they’d be dead. FYI the bullet is always in the chamber. That’s what a safety is for on a 1911 style gun. Most now use a semi auto which may not have a safety. If they are using a shotgun or AR style rifle the safety is on and the bullet is always already in there. This is how you know it is a dramatization and not reality. Can these people ever tell the truth even in court documents.
They can't even APPEAR to be telling the truth.
Because truth is not a left wing value. To them truth is relative and whatever they decide it will be on a certain day. They just manufacture “their truth “ to fit their narrative. No need to be factual when emotions and feelings are so much more effective at stirring up their base.
A lot of lefties' firearms "knowledge" comes from movies.
I assume that's a rhetorical question.
She's an embarrassment. I mean, REALLY.
Lame, lame, lame. And the other one as well.
I was looking for Ketanji (I'm not a biologist's) opinion.
I somehow got into watching courtroom videos on Youtube for a few days and, despite my limited viewing, managed to happen upon a few judges that would have ticked the stated boxes and seemed vastly superior in intellect and wisdom to Soto and the non-biologist.
Then again, I suppose promoting the intensely unworthy is a good way to buy their loyalty to your political machine.
The Non-Biologist is a ridiculous creature who isn't qualified to be a judge at all, let alone a Supreme Court justice. Good Lord, how will we ever get her off the bench? It's ludicrous.
Sorry bro. After her idiotic vax mandate performance, you're not going to get me to hate her any more.
Reached into the hate sack, and just couldn't find any more!
I know the feeling...
Was it just me that had a parent who told them “they’re just feelings , your job is to learn how to manage them “?
What I noticed was Sotomayor citing nothing but ECF Docs in her dissent, which are Electronic Case File documents. She does this frequently.
Kavanaugh cites actual case law (precedent), not a regurgitation of the lower court's arguments (the ECF docs). If the ECFs contained a persuasive legal argument, cite the precedent that makes it so, not the typical "shout louder" tactic of the Left.
Her “judgements” ought to be rendered in MS Comic Sans, emojis optional.
24 point text. Double spaced. Wide margins. .bmp clip art.
Would some dancing hamsters be too much?
Maybe done in ALL emojis is more her style. I think I can sum up the foundational belief of all her opinions….
🍊🙋♂️👎🏻
In the good ol' days, God made the rules, and how you happened to "feel" about them just didn't really matter. These days, the folks make their own rules, and it's all about how they feel about things, because the anchor to absolute is gone. But not really, because "He who sits in the heaven laughs."
Wait...the guy actually "racked a rifle"...? OMG! (I'm surprised a round wasn't already chambered with his thumb positioned on the safety.)
C'mon man, what do you expect from a "wise Latinx" DEI hire?
I would bet a kidney that he absolutely did not
You would be absolutely correct in that assumption.
Oppressed, sad Latino offers driver's license from prior to Real ID.....Finger gently placed on trigger.
"Racked" as in...put it in a rack?
No, silly, like he put a bullet-thingy in the barrel, really LOUDLY, so the dark-skin dude would know he means business! Might even shoot 'im! To scare him! OMG! OMG!....(this is so, so scary.....i',m shakin....it's too scary.... i can't go on.....
btw, is that a raspberry beret in yur pic?....
Hah, like in the movies where Evey time someone points a gun there's the chambering a round SFX even though the actor's hands are nowhere near the charging handle / slide / pump action. And then they point it in a different direction and get the same SFX even though it should be the sound of brass falling on the floor as they eject the round previously chambered 🙄🙄
The image is Captain Sensible (of the Damned) after he got promoted
Alec Baldwin tried to make it all more realistic, and we know how that turned out!
The best is when they audibly cock the nonexistent hammer of a Glock.
I'm glad to see that not all the old punks have fallen in love with the government in their old age.
As the Screamers put it, "Don't Be a Government Whore."
That was my question, too.
Didn't he have some sort of action movie wisecrack?
"Clean up - aisle 3"?
"Bon voyage, Robespierre"?
Nothing?
"This is my boom stick"?
Why would anyone not carry hot? Besides IDF, that is.