The more effective slogan, for the campaign centered around things invented in Chicago, might’ve been “Straight Outta Chicago.” Too bad Chrysler already used “Imported From Detroit”; not sure if Detroit is happy with the campaign.
I'll bite: "Do you see a difference between someone spray-painting a smiley face on a synagogue and someone spray-painting a swastika?" Of course, but the difference, the argument goes, is the content of the criminal's speech. The sentencing enhancement for hate-motivated crimes is punishing the expressive aspect of their crime, just the thing the government may not do under the First Amendment. The latter is certainly more menacing and threatening, but you could surely say the same about a legal Nazi march in front of the same synagogue.
At the same time, the statute does not generally enhance a sentence for the threatening character of the vandalism. There is likewise a difference between spray-painting a smiley face on a police station and spray-painting a smiley face next to the words "Kill a Cop Save a Life."
I'm aware of no law that would punish the latter more severely.
I suggest looking up RAV v. St. Paul, the 1992 Supreme Court case that struck down the following law: "Whoever places on public or private property, a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
This was held unconstitutional because it violates the general rule that "the First Amendment prevents the government from proscribing speech, or even expressive conduct, because of disapproval of the ideas expressed." In other words, it was impermissible viewpoint discrimination. I can well see the same argument applying to hate crime sentencing enhancements.
The idea sort of feels right, but I fear that it would actually increase the politicization of the court appointment process because they would become part of every election cycle. The direct political tie would increase the short term ideological and political pressure on the President and Presidential candidates that would be exploited to ill effect.
I’m wondering what your thoughts are on Whoopi’s 2–week suspension as “punishment” for her stated misinformed perspective about the holocaust not being about race. Instead of punishing people for their mistakes, I think we should be applauding them for their ownership of them and the learning from them that they embrace. We seem to be such a punitive society at our core rather than a learning, growth oriented one.
I agree. Her apology should have been enough. Especially since she was on a talk show that is supposed to be exchanging views and influencing thinking. I also saw the punishment as posturing by the network, with no useful intent.
I agree with you that the right's fussing about Biden's black woman litmus test is hypocritical and overblown. Trump just said that he was looking to appoint a woman for his last pick. I mean, that just happened. Ronald Reagan ran on the promise to nominate a woman, which he did. Race was clearly Thomas's leading qualification, and the women Biden is considering are all more qualified according to traditional criteria. And, yes, the modern requirements of youth and ideological predictability automatically exclude most of the very best legal minds from the nation's top legal job.
Still, I've become more skeptical over the years of the "look like America" argument, for the following reasons:
There are only nine. It's literally impossible to have them come anywhere close to accurately reflecting major racial, ethnic, and religious identity groups. Having just one black justice and one more Hispanic would actually do a better job of that anyway. (The Court is already 11% black. The country is 14% black. It's 18% Hispanic.) We keep hearing that it's well past time to appoint a black woman. You could the same thing but insert "Asian woman" or "gay man" or whatever group has never been represented (that we know of).
If you were to say that Thomas doesn't count, that sort of proves the next point: racial, ethnic, and religious identity is a very crude proxy for anything important and easily embarrassed when the token doesn't play by the rules. Imagine a hypothetical diverse court appointed entirely by Republicans. In other words, it would consist of a gay Thomas, a trans Thomas, an Indian Thomas, an Asian Thomas, a black Thomas (oops, already done), and so on. They would be a bit difficult to find, like the real Thomas, but the GOP could surely manage it. It's a big country awash in lawyers, and no identity group is anywhere close to ideologically monolithic. You would despise the Republican rainbow court. Your much vaunted diversity would, at a stroke, become utterly meaningless. Would you think that all those people bring a valuable perspective to the court by virtue of their identities? I wouldn't.
Anyway, if diversity of lived experience or viewpoint is what you crave, then you would select for that, and the Supreme Court would not consist entirely of elite lawyers. I'd go so far as to say that the Supreme Court is about as unrepresentative of the general population as any body in our system of government could possibly be. These are not ordinary folks. I don't think we want them to be. For starters, they're of a relatively intellectual bent. That leaves out the vast majority of Americans.
If you were to say that you want justices to consider the viewpoints of minorities when making decisions, that seems like a scandalous minimization of minorities' brains (they don't think as one!) and others' imaginations. Moreover, I'm not prepared to just chuck the idea that, actually, Supreme Court justices should endeavor to do the opposite and seek to mentally exclude or set aside their own personal experiences and backgrounds when making decisions. I certainly hope that the high number of Catholics on the Court are capable of setting aside their religious convictions. I don't want their backgrounds influencing *them*. The liberal argument seems to suggest that we seek a balance of biases. No, what we seek is objectivity.
Diversity has one clear value: as a symbol. It sends the message to our citizens and the world that ours is a diverse nation and that people of various minority groups can and do attain positions of great power and authority. Beyond that, I'm not sure we're talking about a lot of value added. Identity is overemphasized in this context, I think, as it is everywhere else these days.
“It’s beyond high time for a Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Biden’s only mistake here has been to declare forthrightly that he’s acting to right that historical wrong instead of simply doing it." --Zorn
If President Biden’s stated intention for appointment to the Supreme Court were exclusively male Anglo-Americans, he’d likely be publicly flayed under a presumption of racism and sexism; but the African American is afforded no such derision in the appointment. This is clearly a non-partisan double-standard that some people may find deeply offensive, especially when meritorious advancement is concerned. Where is the moral/ethical, lawful justification/rational for this?
eric, re diversity and related issues [e.g., JRB's commitment to name a black female SCOTUS justice], i commend to your reading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. tho we might classify his political philosophy as 'libertarian' in modern parlance, he was a big fan of diversity. i agree with you - JRB shd have just done it, made the choice [of a highly qualified black woman jurist], skip the outspoken commitment in advance of the choice. yes, there's no shortage of hypocrisy among his critics. unfortunately, this move is typical JRB: open mouth, insert foot. and it's blatantly political. i know, i know - nominating SCOTUS justices has been political for who-knows-how-long. but, perhaps before The Former Guy, it was less blatant.
agree & disagree - Bush Sr., as you rightly stated, was a total hypocrite in stating CT was the most qualified candidate available - a misrepresentation of historical proportions. had he said 'i'm going to replace marshall with a black guy, cuz this is now the black guy's seat on SCOTUS; and thomas is the best black conservative guy i can find for the job', which is what he did, i could credit him with honesty. so i guess i see Bush Sr's choice of Thomas as more hypocrisy than brazenness - perhaps a difference w/o distinction. at least JRB is honest, if clumsy, about what he's doing here.
I am fine with the choice of candidates. I just object to the 'long overdue' and 'long past time' comments. He could have said, 'the time is right, and we have highly qualified candidates'. The 'long overdue' point begs the question of when and who made the past errors. It presumes that black female candidates were intentionally overlooked. When presumed to be Trump or Bush, then there would be sage nods. But was it Obama (Sotomayor, Kagan, Garland) or Clinton (Breyer, Ginsberg)?
I like the idea of promoting Chicago's impact on the rest of the country, as in the book "The Third Coast" by Thomas Dyja. I don't like the negative connotation of the word "Not" in the slogan, as in you don't need to go there. Something like "Chicago Here and There" might be better, where in another city you show them what was influenced by Chicago "here", and then explain how to best experience it "there" (Chicago).
I don't think the poll results on affirmative action are difficult to reconcile, because I interpret them somewhat differently. I think most Americans favor equal opportunity and also are in favor of assistance that creates a level playing field. I think that they also believe that substantial progress has been made over the last 60 years, which reduces the need for specific racial preferences. A tool designed to address needs 60 years ago is not the same tool needed today. The Harvard/NC case also highlights one minority group (Blacks) getting preference over another minority group (Asians). I believe that most people really do want a color-blind society and believe that we are much closer to it. This is, of course, anathema to the equity/antiracist views.
The Asian students that are suing claim that the admission system uses an evaluation of personality traits that is designed to exclude Asian students. Harvard said that the process is designed to produce a diverse class and said that without the discrimination (which they admit) that the Asian students would displace up to half of the Black and Hispanic students accepted (a tacit admission that they are capping Asian admission). Harvard said the current process produces a 24.6% Asian, 13.9% Black, 11.8% Hispanic and remaining 49.7% other. Harvard says they are conforming to the decision from 1978 (44 years ago). I am guessing that there are three issues - is the target diversity goal a quota system, designed to cap total Asian admissions? Is the diversity goal a valid educational requirement? and If diversity is a valid requirement, then is the method of discrimination acceptable (are racial categories the same as diversity)? I would also expect that the claimants would also argue that Asian is a meaningless catchall term, and that it does not recognize the significant differences in South Asian cultures (like India and Pakistan) vs the East Asian cultures (like China, Japan, and Korea). I would expect Harvard to say they already admit more Asians than are in the general population and do not want to be further unbalanced, but that they also do not have admission quotas. In summary, can diversity of social, educational, and economic background be achieved with race blind objective admission standards?
I like Whoopi Goldberg and I take her at her word. She certainly didn't deserve any sort of punishment. But her statement is perfectly in line with the current anti-racist view that only whites can be racist and that their racism is exclusively directed against Blacks (primarily) and other People of Color. They view Jewish Americans as part of the white power structure that imposes racist policies to sustain their advantage.
The only good thing about the Melissa Ortega tragedy is that it demonstrates that murderous gang members can be quickly arrested when the community assists the police.
Sports fans frequently develop abbreviated versions of a multi-syllabic team names. For example, "Pats" for "Patriots" or "Bucs" for "Bucaneers." I'm wondering if Washington football fans will start referring to their newly named team as "the Commies." The Commodes?
“It’s beyond high time for a Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Biden’s only mistake here has been to declare forthrightly that he’s acting to right that historical wrong instead of simply doing it." --Zorn
We forget that Biden bowed to pressure from Rep. Jim Clyburn to pledge he would nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Ct. during the South Carolina Primary race, which catapulted him to the Democratic nomination. He's merely fulfilling a campaign promise.
The new Chicago slogan lands right up in the pantheon of lousy State slogans. Nebraska: not for everyone. Wander Indiana. (Actually that makes more sense than Chicago not in Chicago.)
No idea why this would make anyone want to visit Chicago. Glad we didn’t pay anything for this steaming pile….
How do we punish “hate crimes”? By sentencing those who commit such to the stiffest penalty the underlying statute allows. A judge might show lenience (leniency?) to the painter of the smiley face and give that offender supervision & community service; the swastika painter goes to prison. Hate might be offensive, but in a free society, it’s NOT a crime. Vandalism is a crime.
The more effective slogan, for the campaign centered around things invented in Chicago, might’ve been “Straight Outta Chicago.” Too bad Chrysler already used “Imported From Detroit”; not sure if Detroit is happy with the campaign.
Much better. The current slogan is clunky at best.
I'll bite: "Do you see a difference between someone spray-painting a smiley face on a synagogue and someone spray-painting a swastika?" Of course, but the difference, the argument goes, is the content of the criminal's speech. The sentencing enhancement for hate-motivated crimes is punishing the expressive aspect of their crime, just the thing the government may not do under the First Amendment. The latter is certainly more menacing and threatening, but you could surely say the same about a legal Nazi march in front of the same synagogue.
At the same time, the statute does not generally enhance a sentence for the threatening character of the vandalism. There is likewise a difference between spray-painting a smiley face on a police station and spray-painting a smiley face next to the words "Kill a Cop Save a Life."
I'm aware of no law that would punish the latter more severely.
I suggest looking up RAV v. St. Paul, the 1992 Supreme Court case that struck down the following law: "Whoever places on public or private property, a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
This was held unconstitutional because it violates the general rule that "the First Amendment prevents the government from proscribing speech, or even expressive conduct, because of disapproval of the ideas expressed." In other words, it was impermissible viewpoint discrimination. I can well see the same argument applying to hate crime sentencing enhancements.
“Consider this a renewal of my call for 18-year terms for U.S. Supreme Court justices. Stagger the terms so that one expires every two years.”
I’m in complete agreement, should have happened a century ago or longer.
In total agreement!
The idea sort of feels right, but I fear that it would actually increase the politicization of the court appointment process because they would become part of every election cycle. The direct political tie would increase the short term ideological and political pressure on the President and Presidential candidates that would be exploited to ill effect.
Initially perhaps but I wonder about the long term.
I’m wondering what your thoughts are on Whoopi’s 2–week suspension as “punishment” for her stated misinformed perspective about the holocaust not being about race. Instead of punishing people for their mistakes, I think we should be applauding them for their ownership of them and the learning from them that they embrace. We seem to be such a punitive society at our core rather than a learning, growth oriented one.
I agree. Her apology should have been enough. Especially since she was on a talk show that is supposed to be exchanging views and influencing thinking. I also saw the punishment as posturing by the network, with no useful intent.
I agree with you that the right's fussing about Biden's black woman litmus test is hypocritical and overblown. Trump just said that he was looking to appoint a woman for his last pick. I mean, that just happened. Ronald Reagan ran on the promise to nominate a woman, which he did. Race was clearly Thomas's leading qualification, and the women Biden is considering are all more qualified according to traditional criteria. And, yes, the modern requirements of youth and ideological predictability automatically exclude most of the very best legal minds from the nation's top legal job.
Still, I've become more skeptical over the years of the "look like America" argument, for the following reasons:
There are only nine. It's literally impossible to have them come anywhere close to accurately reflecting major racial, ethnic, and religious identity groups. Having just one black justice and one more Hispanic would actually do a better job of that anyway. (The Court is already 11% black. The country is 14% black. It's 18% Hispanic.) We keep hearing that it's well past time to appoint a black woman. You could the same thing but insert "Asian woman" or "gay man" or whatever group has never been represented (that we know of).
If you were to say that Thomas doesn't count, that sort of proves the next point: racial, ethnic, and religious identity is a very crude proxy for anything important and easily embarrassed when the token doesn't play by the rules. Imagine a hypothetical diverse court appointed entirely by Republicans. In other words, it would consist of a gay Thomas, a trans Thomas, an Indian Thomas, an Asian Thomas, a black Thomas (oops, already done), and so on. They would be a bit difficult to find, like the real Thomas, but the GOP could surely manage it. It's a big country awash in lawyers, and no identity group is anywhere close to ideologically monolithic. You would despise the Republican rainbow court. Your much vaunted diversity would, at a stroke, become utterly meaningless. Would you think that all those people bring a valuable perspective to the court by virtue of their identities? I wouldn't.
Anyway, if diversity of lived experience or viewpoint is what you crave, then you would select for that, and the Supreme Court would not consist entirely of elite lawyers. I'd go so far as to say that the Supreme Court is about as unrepresentative of the general population as any body in our system of government could possibly be. These are not ordinary folks. I don't think we want them to be. For starters, they're of a relatively intellectual bent. That leaves out the vast majority of Americans.
If you were to say that you want justices to consider the viewpoints of minorities when making decisions, that seems like a scandalous minimization of minorities' brains (they don't think as one!) and others' imaginations. Moreover, I'm not prepared to just chuck the idea that, actually, Supreme Court justices should endeavor to do the opposite and seek to mentally exclude or set aside their own personal experiences and backgrounds when making decisions. I certainly hope that the high number of Catholics on the Court are capable of setting aside their religious convictions. I don't want their backgrounds influencing *them*. The liberal argument seems to suggest that we seek a balance of biases. No, what we seek is objectivity.
Diversity has one clear value: as a symbol. It sends the message to our citizens and the world that ours is a diverse nation and that people of various minority groups can and do attain positions of great power and authority. Beyond that, I'm not sure we're talking about a lot of value added. Identity is overemphasized in this context, I think, as it is everywhere else these days.
Another justification for gun play:
https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/540eefff-f7e7-43e7-939b-1f25790bb1df_1.4edef6c9d4d327764f33117ee0187a67.jpeg
“It’s beyond high time for a Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Biden’s only mistake here has been to declare forthrightly that he’s acting to right that historical wrong instead of simply doing it." --Zorn
If President Biden’s stated intention for appointment to the Supreme Court were exclusively male Anglo-Americans, he’d likely be publicly flayed under a presumption of racism and sexism; but the African American is afforded no such derision in the appointment. This is clearly a non-partisan double-standard that some people may find deeply offensive, especially when meritorious advancement is concerned. Where is the moral/ethical, lawful justification/rational for this?
eric, re diversity and related issues [e.g., JRB's commitment to name a black female SCOTUS justice], i commend to your reading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill. tho we might classify his political philosophy as 'libertarian' in modern parlance, he was a big fan of diversity. i agree with you - JRB shd have just done it, made the choice [of a highly qualified black woman jurist], skip the outspoken commitment in advance of the choice. yes, there's no shortage of hypocrisy among his critics. unfortunately, this move is typical JRB: open mouth, insert foot. and it's blatantly political. i know, i know - nominating SCOTUS justices has been political for who-knows-how-long. but, perhaps before The Former Guy, it was less blatant.
You don't get much more blatant or brazen than the Clarence Thomas appointment.
agree & disagree - Bush Sr., as you rightly stated, was a total hypocrite in stating CT was the most qualified candidate available - a misrepresentation of historical proportions. had he said 'i'm going to replace marshall with a black guy, cuz this is now the black guy's seat on SCOTUS; and thomas is the best black conservative guy i can find for the job', which is what he did, i could credit him with honesty. so i guess i see Bush Sr's choice of Thomas as more hypocrisy than brazenness - perhaps a difference w/o distinction. at least JRB is honest, if clumsy, about what he's doing here.
I am fine with the choice of candidates. I just object to the 'long overdue' and 'long past time' comments. He could have said, 'the time is right, and we have highly qualified candidates'. The 'long overdue' point begs the question of when and who made the past errors. It presumes that black female candidates were intentionally overlooked. When presumed to be Trump or Bush, then there would be sage nods. But was it Obama (Sotomayor, Kagan, Garland) or Clinton (Breyer, Ginsberg)?
I like the idea of promoting Chicago's impact on the rest of the country, as in the book "The Third Coast" by Thomas Dyja. I don't like the negative connotation of the word "Not" in the slogan, as in you don't need to go there. Something like "Chicago Here and There" might be better, where in another city you show them what was influenced by Chicago "here", and then explain how to best experience it "there" (Chicago).
I don't think the poll results on affirmative action are difficult to reconcile, because I interpret them somewhat differently. I think most Americans favor equal opportunity and also are in favor of assistance that creates a level playing field. I think that they also believe that substantial progress has been made over the last 60 years, which reduces the need for specific racial preferences. A tool designed to address needs 60 years ago is not the same tool needed today. The Harvard/NC case also highlights one minority group (Blacks) getting preference over another minority group (Asians). I believe that most people really do want a color-blind society and believe that we are much closer to it. This is, of course, anathema to the equity/antiracist views.
The Asian students that are suing claim that the admission system uses an evaluation of personality traits that is designed to exclude Asian students. Harvard said that the process is designed to produce a diverse class and said that without the discrimination (which they admit) that the Asian students would displace up to half of the Black and Hispanic students accepted (a tacit admission that they are capping Asian admission). Harvard said the current process produces a 24.6% Asian, 13.9% Black, 11.8% Hispanic and remaining 49.7% other. Harvard says they are conforming to the decision from 1978 (44 years ago). I am guessing that there are three issues - is the target diversity goal a quota system, designed to cap total Asian admissions? Is the diversity goal a valid educational requirement? and If diversity is a valid requirement, then is the method of discrimination acceptable (are racial categories the same as diversity)? I would also expect that the claimants would also argue that Asian is a meaningless catchall term, and that it does not recognize the significant differences in South Asian cultures (like India and Pakistan) vs the East Asian cultures (like China, Japan, and Korea). I would expect Harvard to say they already admit more Asians than are in the general population and do not want to be further unbalanced, but that they also do not have admission quotas. In summary, can diversity of social, educational, and economic background be achieved with race blind objective admission standards?
I like Whoopi Goldberg and I take her at her word. She certainly didn't deserve any sort of punishment. But her statement is perfectly in line with the current anti-racist view that only whites can be racist and that their racism is exclusively directed against Blacks (primarily) and other People of Color. They view Jewish Americans as part of the white power structure that imposes racist policies to sustain their advantage.
The only good thing about the Melissa Ortega tragedy is that it demonstrates that murderous gang members can be quickly arrested when the community assists the police.
Sports fans frequently develop abbreviated versions of a multi-syllabic team names. For example, "Pats" for "Patriots" or "Bucs" for "Bucaneers." I'm wondering if Washington football fans will start referring to their newly named team as "the Commies." The Commodes?
“It’s beyond high time for a Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Biden’s only mistake here has been to declare forthrightly that he’s acting to right that historical wrong instead of simply doing it." --Zorn
We forget that Biden bowed to pressure from Rep. Jim Clyburn to pledge he would nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Ct. during the South Carolina Primary race, which catapulted him to the Democratic nomination. He's merely fulfilling a campaign promise.
The new Chicago slogan lands right up in the pantheon of lousy State slogans. Nebraska: not for everyone. Wander Indiana. (Actually that makes more sense than Chicago not in Chicago.)
No idea why this would make anyone want to visit Chicago. Glad we didn’t pay anything for this steaming pile….
How do we punish “hate crimes”? By sentencing those who commit such to the stiffest penalty the underlying statute allows. A judge might show lenience (leniency?) to the painter of the smiley face and give that offender supervision & community service; the swastika painter goes to prison. Hate might be offensive, but in a free society, it’s NOT a crime. Vandalism is a crime.