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News

Berkeley College Republicans hold affirmative action bake sale

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Berkeley College Republicans affirmative action bake sale
Berkeley College Republicans affirmative action bake sale

From the NY Daily News.

Excerpt:

A controversy over cupcakes is heating up at UC Berkeley in California, where campus Republicans are planning to hold an affirmative action bake sale on Tuesday.

At the sale, white men will be charged $2 for a baked good, Asians will pay $1.50, Latinos $1, African-Americans 75 cents and 25 cents for Native Americans, KGO-TV reported.

Women will get a 25 cent discount.

“The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset,” Campus Republican president Shawn Lewis told the TV station. “But it’s really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions.”

The Campus Democrats immediately slammed the sale, which Lewis said is meant to take a stand against an affirmative action-like bill for the University of California system that is awaiting Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature.

On Friday, the student newspaper reported that the student government could vote to defund the Republican group over the bake sale. A hearing is scheduled for Sunday on the fiery issue.

So the response of the left is to censor the people who offend their feelings. But that’s not all.

Look at the emotional language from the opposition in this CNN article.

Excerpt:

ASUC President Vishalli Loomba said many students who attended a community meeting Monday night expressed disgust that the bake sale would take place.

“As a woman of color, when I first saw the event, I was appalled someone would post something like this on the Internet — not only a different pay structure, but also to rank the races,” she said. “It trivializes the struggles that people have been through and their histories.”

Now, for anyone who wants the research on affirmative action, and why it hurts minorities, I recommend two books by my favorite economist Thomas Sowell. (I also have to mention that he’s black, because otherwise the secular leftist commenters will cry racism, which is all they learn to do in four years of college). The first book is “Inside American Education” and the second book is “Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study“, published by Yale University Press. I only recommend the best to my readers. The first book is better for beginners, the second is more academic. Sowell’s conclusion? Affirmative action certainly doesn’t help minorities, and in many cases it actually hurts minorities. You can read a summary of Sowell’s findings here.

So on the one hand, you have the whiny secular left woman expressing real racism and sexism (“woman of color”), whining, blaming, and being disgusted and appalled. And on the other hand, you have Hoover Institute economist Thomas Sowell and the Yale University Press.

How Vanderbilt persecutes Christian groups on campus

But there’s more! I notice that the secular left is becoming increasingly bold about censoring Christians as well. (H/T Wes from Reason to Stand)

Excerpt:

Is Vanderbilt University flirting with the suppression of religion? Yes, according to Carol Swain, a professor at Vanderbilt’s Law School.

Specifically, Swain is referring to four Christian student groups being placed on “provisional status” after a university review found them to be in non-compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

Vanderbilt says the student organizations cannot require that leaders share the group’s beliefs, goals and values. Carried to its full extent, it means an atheist could lead a Christian group, a man a woman’s group, a Jew a Muslim group or vice versa.

If they remain in non-compliance, the student organizations risk being shut down.

So what’s behind this? Flashback to last fall. An openly gay undergrad at Vanderbilt complained he was kicked out of a Christian fraternity. The university wouldn’t identify the fraternity, but campus newspaper the “Hustler” reported it was Beta Upsilon Chi. As a result, the school took a look at the constitutions of some 300 student groups and found about a dozen, including five religious groups to be in non-compliance with Vanderbilt’s nondiscrimination policy. All were placed on provisional status.

Among the groups threatened with shut down is the Christian Legal Society. It ran afoul with this language from its constitution. “Each officer is expected to lead Bible studies, prayer and worship at chapter meetings.” CLS President Justin Gunter told me, “We come together to do things that Christians do together. Pray, and have Bible studies.”

[…]Vanderbilt officials refused to be interviewed, and instead released a statement saying in part “We are committed to making our campus a welcoming environment for all of our students.” In regard to the offending student organizations, officials said they “continue to work with them to achieve compliance.”

Some people who are Christians give money to Vanderbilt, and other universities. But they shouldn’t do that. The only two colleges worth giving money to are Hillsdale College and Grove City College.

News

Herman Cain in FIRST PLACE in new national poll

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Before you read anything, click this link to see how the audience responded to Cain in the last debate. Frank Luntz’s focus group went NUTS over Cain’s answers.

Ok, now here’s the story about new poll from Human Events. (H/T Robert Stacy McCain)

Excerpt:

A new Zogby poll puts Herman Cain at the top of the Republican field, as the top choice of 28% of poll respondents.  (IBOPE Zogby International says the polling sample consists of “all likely voters and of likely Republican primary voters.”)

Rounding out the top three are Rick Perry at 18%, and Mitt Romney at 17%.  Fourth place goes to Ron Paul at 11%.  Paul’s the most solid performer in Zogby’s polling history for the 2012 GOP race – his 11% might as well be chiseled in stone.

Interestingly, this poll was conducted after the Orlando GOP debate, but before Cain won the Florida straw poll.  It’s a huge surge for Cain, who was polling at 12% just two weeks previously, and was floating at a campaign low of 8% two weeks before that.  Aside from that bitter 8% number, Cain has generally done quite well in the Zogby poll, usually good enough for second or third place.

On the other hand, Rick Perry’s numbers in the Zogby poll have cratered, falling 19% in just two weeks.  His debut last month was also his high-water mark thus far, when Zogby had him at 41%.

Michelle Bachmann has also been slipping steadily, chugging in at 4%.  That puts her just below Jon Huntsman, which is the same way she finished the Florida straw poll.  Bachmann was actually the leading candidate in Zogby’s polling from June 21 through July 25… then she plunged to 9% in the next poll and continued sliding down from there.

Romney’s been holding fairly steady in the Zogby poll.  He bounces a few points up and down, but seems to hover in the 15-17% range.

Zogby’s also got President Obama’s approval rating at 42%, with 57% disapproval.  That’s actually a bit better than his September 5 low of 39-61.  His poor approval numbers seem to hold fairly steady, while his disapproval bounces around.

Zogby is considered one of the least reliable polls, but even with plus or minus 8%, it’s still quite amazing. I am totally OK with a Cain as the nominee. I would love to see the businessman defeat Obama in head-to-head debates. Obama is a nobody, who has never done a damned thing in his whole life except repeat what his professors told him to repeat. Obama had a rich grandmother and went to expensive private schools. Cain started from nothing and he accomplished everything on his own steam. He’s a self-made man – everything he has he got on his merits.

Quick biography of Herman Cain:

Cain earned a degree in mathematics from Morehouse College in 1967 and later earned a master’s degree in computer science from Purdue University, while working as a mathematician for the Department of the Navy. He then worked as a business analyst for The Coca-Cola Company. In 1968, he married his wife, Gloria and they have two grown children.

In 1977, Herman Cain joined The Pillsbury Company and within three years, at the age of 34, rose to the position of Vice President of Corporate Systems and Services. Cain, reflecting his father’s drive to seek greater challenges, then set his sights on a corporate presidency.

With this goal ahead of him, Cain resigned his senior position and started on another career path – the restaurant industry. He started from the ground up by making hamburgers at Pillsbury’s Burger King Division. Nine months later, he was managing 400 Burger King units in the Philadelphia region. In 1986, Pillsbury appointed Cain to the presidency of the then financially-troubled Godfather’s Pizza, Inc. In 14 short months, the chain regained profitability. In 1988, he led a buyout of the company from Pillsbury.

Cain was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Restaurant Association in 1998. In 1994/1995, he served as Chairman of the Board of Directors. While leading this association, he developed the organization into a pro-business voice via national debates and speeches concerning health care reform, employment policies, and taxation. Following this experience, he was appointed to serve on the Economic Growth and Tax Reform Commission. He then became a senior advisor to the 1996 Dole/Kemp campaign for the Presidency.

Herman Cain continued the responsibilities of President and Chairman of Godfather’s Pizza, Inc., while beginning a second career delivering national keynote speeches. Using his messages as the foundation, he created his own leadership consulting company, T.H.E. Inc. (The Hermanator Experience). T.H.E. packages his speaking and develops his products, including books, videotapes and audio tapes, CDs of gospel music, and promotes his keynote speeches. He has authored three books to date on topics ranging from leadership to self-empowerment. In 2002, he became an Executive Lecturer for the Gallup Organization.

In 1996, Cain became CEO and President of the National Restaurant Association (NRA). Cain became the only volunteer chairman to become the full-time CEO and President of the Association while still a member of the Board. Cain headed the NRA in this position for two and a half years. In 1999, Cain sought to leverage his restaurant experience with the technology market and he became CEO and President of RetailDNA. Its mission is to provide innovative marketing solutions to the retail sector.

Cain remains President and CEO of T.H.E., Inc. and serves on the Boards of Directors for Aquila, Inc., Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., and Hallmark Cards Incorporated.

Here’s a bit more about Cain’s quantitative background, which I think is much harder to succeed at than anything in the liberal arts (except for analytical philosophy).

Cain was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on December 13, 1945, the son of Lenora (née Davis) and Luther Cain, Jr.His mother was a cleaner and his father was a chauffeur.He was raised in Georgia. He graduated from Morehouse College in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and received a Master of Science degree in computer science from Purdue University in 1971,while he was also working full-time in ballistics for the U.S. Department of the Navy. Cain has authored four books: Leadership is Common Sense (1997), Speak as a Leader (1999), CEO of SELF (October 2001), and They Think You’re Stupid (May 2005). He also authored an article titled “The Intangibles of Implementation” in the technical journal Interfaces (Vol. 9, No. 5, 1979, pp. 144-147), published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

Like Michele, he has excellent academic qualifications, and a better business background than Michele to boot.

The Lonely Conservative also backs Cain, and he writes:

The only reason Cain wasn’t higher in the polls before is that the media didn’t give him the time of day. Now that people are getting to know him, they’re starting to like him. What’s not to like? He’s a successful man who clearly loves life, has good ideas and shares the values most of us hold dear. Oh, and did I mention that he’s not a professional politician?

McCain notes that conservative Dennis Miller has now endorsed Cain for President.

UPDATE: Robb sent me this Yahoo News article about Cain.

Excerpt:

Even though he’s known as the “pizza” candidate for his years as head of Godfather’s Pizza, his background is much broader than that. After he graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in mathematics and a minor in chemistry in 1968, Cain landed a job as a ballistics analyst for the Department of the Navy, where he was responsible for the calculations that ensured battleship rockets hit their targets.

“It’s not an easy thing to do,” he said.

Cain later completed a master’s degree in computer science and entered the business world where he led several companies–most recently Godfather’s–and chaired the National Restaurant Association and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. His résumé–from mathematician and rocket scientist to restaurateur and now politician–isn’t exactly a typical one for a presidential candidate.

[…]After a few caffeine-heavy refills at our corner table, I asked him about President Obama’s new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel–especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it’s about “math” not “class warfare.”

“Can I be blunt? That’s a lie,” Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. “You’re not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you’re not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn’t tell a lie. If it’s not class warfare, it’s highway robbery. He wants us to believe it’s not class warfare, oh okay, it’s not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that’s what he’s doing!”

Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.

“I’m not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff,” he said. “I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I’m listening to all this bullsh*t that he’s talking about, ‘fairness’ and ‘balanced approach’ to get this economy going.”

[…]As the straw poll and his recent fundraising numbers suggest, Cain’s message is resonating with the conservative movement’s influential base of tea-party activists; for these supporters his status as a non-career politician with an extensive background in the private sector is nearly as strong a draw as his ideas and policy proposals.

Read the whole thing, this might be our guy in 2012.

Polemics

Capital punishment and deterrence: what the research shows

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This post has a twin post which talks about the evidence against capital punishment from the Bible.

Why do people support the death penalty? Because research conducted by multiple teams of scholars at multiple universities have shown that capital punishment deters crime.

Excerpt:

“Science does really draw a conclusion. It did. There is no question about it,” said Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado at Denver. “The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”

A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don’t really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them?”

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 that capital punishment has deterrent effects. They all explore the same basic theory — if the cost of something (be it the purchase of an apple or the act of killing someone) becomes too high, people will change their behavior (forego apples or shy from murder).

And specifically:

• Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

• The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

• Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

In case anyone is wondering what sort of crimes are deterred by the death penalty, you can read this graphic description of a recent death-penalty crime.

What sort of crimes are eligible for the death penalty?

Here’s an example of a dealth-penalty eligible crime from the Hartford Courant. (WARNING: graphic!)

Excerpt:

A Superior Court jury today sentenced Steven Hayes to death for the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, Hayley and Michaela, during a seven-hour home invasion, robbery and arson at their Cheshire home in July 2007.

Outside the courthouse after the verdicts, Hawke-Petit’s father, the Rev. Richard Hawke, said “There are some people who do not deserve to live in God’s world.”

Asked what he had in his heart, Dr. William Petit Jr. struggled with his answer. “….Probably many of you have kids,” he said, pausing to choke back tears. “Michaela was an 11-year-old little girl…tortured and killed in her own bedroom, surrounded by her stuffed animals….”

Petit then talked about his daughter Hayley’s bright future and her strength and the children that his wife, Jennifer, helped.

“So, I was really thinking of the tremendous loss” during the verdict, Petit said, adding that he was pleased with it, but “mostly I was sad for the loss we have all suffered.”

Asked if he thought there’d be closure now, Petit said, “There’s never closure. There’s a hole…. with jagged edges…that may smooth out with time, but the hole in your heart and the hole in your soul” remains.

“This isn’t about revenge,” Petit said. “Vengeance belongs to the Lord. This is about justice.”

[…]The jury sentenced Hayes to death on six counts: killing Hawke-Petit and Michaela and Hayley in the course of a single action; killing a child under the age of 16; killing Hawke-Petit in the course of a kidnapping; killing Hayley in the course of a kidnapping; killing Michaela in the course of a kidnapping; and killing Hawke-Petit in the course of a sexual assault.

[…]Hayes, 47, of Winsted, was convicted Oct. 5 of breaking into the Petit home, beating Petit, tying up and torturing the family as Hayes and another man ransacked the home for cash and valuables and tortured the family for seven hours. Testimony during Hayes’ trial showed that at one point in the break-in, Hayes forced Hawke-Petit to go to the bank to withdraw money. During that time, according to testimony, Komisarjevsky sexually assaulted Michaela Petit, 11.

When Hawke-Petit and Hayes returned from the bank, Hayes raped and strangled Hawke-Petit. The house was doused with gasoline and set on fire as the intruders fled, testimony showed. Hayley, 17, and Michaela died of smoke inhalation.

[…]Prosecutors used the words of Hayes’ younger brother Matthew to counter testimony that home-invasion crime was an aberration in Hayes otherwise troubled but basically nonviolent life.

Matthew Hayes portrayed his brother as a conniving, sadistic, violent thief who saw Matthew take countless beatings from his brutal father for Steven Hayes’ misdeeds. At one point, Steven Hayes held a gun to Matthew’s head, according to the statement, which was given to state police after the home invasion.

Examples of Hayes’ sadistic behavior toward his brother included hooking Matthew to the garage door by his belt and raising the door up and down, and holding Matthew’s hand to a red-hot burner. Matthew said his brother’s life of crime was not a result of bad parenting or poor childhood. He said Hayes never learned to take responsibility for his actions.

Sometimes, I think that we have stopped judging others because we do not want to be judged ourselves. We hope that by not judging anyone, that we will somehow escape being judged by anyone – especially by God himself. The opposition to punishing the guilty is, I think, really just a way of expressing our desire to do away with punishment entirely. We would rather have the freedom to sin with impunity than to protect the victims of sinfulness from harm. We want to escape responsibility for anything we do that harms others.

Dennis Prager has a neat expression from Rabbinical literature that describes the problem with people who are anti-death-penalty: “those who are kind to the cruel, will be cruel to the kind”.

I actually consider the death penalty to be an important test of whether a person is a Christian or not, because it shows what they think about the serious of moral crimes, and whether they accept what research says, and what the Bible says, instead of valuing peer approval more than justice. It tells you how seriously a person feels about their own sinfulness. Death penalty supporters don’t view sinners as victims – they view victims as victims, and they believe that evil people need to be punished. It’s hard for me to see how someone can claim to be a Christian and oppose justice.