Tag Archives: Quote

News

Should the government restrict men’s participation in STEM fields?

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Hans Bader from the Competitive Enterprise Institute is concerned about politics being injected into science.

Excerpt: (links removed)

Quotas limiting the number of male students in science may be imposed by the Education Department in 2013. The White House has promised that “new guidelines will also be issued to grant-receiving universities and colleges” spelling out “Title IX rules in the science, technology, engineering and math fields.” These guidelines will likely echo existing Title IX guidelines that restrict men’s percentage of intercollegiate athletes to their percentage in overall student bodies, thus reducing the overall number of intercollegiate athletes. (Under the three-part Title IX test created by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, where I used to work, colleges are allowed to temporarily comply by increasing the number of female athletes rather than cutting the number of male athletes, but the only viable permanent way to comply with its rule is to restrict men’s participation relative to women’s participation, reducing overall participation.) Thus, as Charlotte Allen notes, the Obama administration’s guidelines are likely to lead to “science quotas” based on gender.

[…]Obama hinted that Title IX quotas would soon come to engineering and techology, saying that “Title IX isn’t just about sports,” but also about “inequality in math and science education” and “a much broader range of fields, including engineering and technology. I’ve said that women will shape the destiny of this country, and I mean it.”

What causes more men to go into the STEM fields than women?

Gender disparities in a major are not the product of sexism, but rather the differing preferences of men and women. The fact that engineering departments are filled mostly with men does not mean they discriminate against women anymore than the fact that English departments are filled mostly with women proves that English departments discriminate against men. The arts and humanities have well over 60 percent female students, yet no one seems to view that gender disparity as a sign of sexism against men. Deep down, the Obama administration knows this, since it is planning to impose its gender-proportionality rules only on the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math), not other fields that have similarly large gender disparities in the opposite direction.

Many women are quite capable of mastering high-level math and science, but simply don’t find working in such a field all that interesting. As Dr. Sommers notes, many “colleges already practice affirmative action for women in science,” rather than discriminating against them. Susan Pinker, a clinical psychologist, chronicled cases of women who “abandoned successful careers in science and engineering to work in fields like architecture, law and education,” because they wanted jobs that involved more interaction with people, “not because they had faced discrimination in science.” Far from being discouraged by society from pursuing a career in math or science, these women had been strongly encouraged to pursue such a  a career: “Once they showed aptitude for math or physical science, there was an assumption that they’d pursue it as a career even if they had other interests or aspirations. And because these women went along with the program and were perceived by parents and teachers as torch bearers, it was so much more difficult for them to come to terms with the fact that the work made them unhappy.”

As Susan Pinker notes, “A mountain of published research stretching back a hundred years shows that women are far more likely than men to be deeply interested in organic subjects—people, plants and animals—than they are to be interested in things and inanimate systems, such as electrical engineering, or computer systems.”

Is this good for our economy? Should we be discouraging the best male students who want to study science and engineering to do their education abroad in Canada or Europe? Should women be steered into careers that may make it harder for them to have families and raise their children?

Videos

Video of Allen West’s keynote speech at CPAC

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Here’s the video for Allen West, who gave the concluding speech.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Here’s an article about Allen West’s 2011 CPAC speech.

Excerpt:

First pillar: Effective and efficient conservative government.

  • He quoted Thomas Jefferson: “Most bad government results from too much government”), which is why next week Congress will cut 100 billion dollars of spending off of the federal budget.
  • Making people more dependent on the government has to end, so hard decisions must be made. “We cannot continue on with the policies of behavior modification through excessive taxation and over burdensome regulation…and that’s why we’re going to be cutting from the EPA.” (wild cheering)
  • If health care is so great, then someone explain to me why over 200 Democrat political groups are going to the President and asking for waivers.” Here was a great quote: “I say this to the President: The good things in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: closing the doughnut hole, making sure that we take care of people with the preexisting conditions, keeping our young kids on our insurance, I can probably fit that in five to ten pages. It’s the other two thousand four hundred ninety pages with eleven new taxes, a hundred fifty nine new government agencies and beauracracies, and sixteen thousand new IRS agents, that the United States of America does not want!” (standing ovation)
  • He mentioned the financial meltdown in 2008 and blamed it (rightfully so) on government interference with the private sector.
  • He talked about reforming the individual tax code, cutting the corporate business tax rate from 35% down to 20%, eliminating capital gains taxes and dividends taxes, capping federal spending at 18-20%, developing a balanced budget amendment, and eliminating “redundant, failed, and duplicitious federal government programs and agencies.”

Second pillar: Peace through vigilance, through resolve, through strength.

  • He mentioned the famous Edmund Burke quote, one of my personal favorites: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
  • He quoted Sun Tzu: “To know your enemy, and to know yourself, and to know the terrain or the environment, in countless battles, you will always be victorious.”
  • And then he made the most important statement of the night: “Peace begins with courageous leaders who are willing to identify and define our enemy, and their objectives, because political correctness has no place in our national security strategy.” (the crowd screamed and another standing ovation ensued)
  • He said he was appalled that the Fort Hood shooting was treated like workplace violence.
  • He said “A new America, a secure America, means that we can ill afford to have a twenty-first century Sir Neville Chamberlain moment.”
  • He said “And yes, yes I do have a problem with granting American Constitutional rights to terrorists while we attempt to and have imprisoned our own warriors for killing terrorists.” (another standing ovation – there were so many during this speech)
  • Here’s another money quote: “The dawn of a new America means this: Secure our borders and enforce our laws. Recognize the emerging threats on the Korean peninsula. Recognize the threats that are coming out of South and Central America. And confront the radical Islamic non-state, non-uniformed belligerents who transit freely across borders, killing and promoting a seventh century ideology that is anathema to the values of America and to Western civilization.”
  • He said that we must never forget that Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East, and vowed that “I shall never let Israel down.”

Third and most important pillar: Never abandon our values.

  • “We must honor our language and realize that it is the most important, most basic and common bond which makes us an American.”
  • He said we shouldn’t allow multiculturalism to “grow on steroids” and make American culture subservient.
  • He said he doesn’t support late term abortion or abortion as birth control because he doesn’t believe that having a baby is punishment (reference to an Obamateurism).
  • He said “We must hold sacred the privilege of the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman.”
  • He said we had to reclaim our “Judeo-Christian faith heritage.” He quoted John Adams: “We have no government armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
  • He said “This is not about a separation of church and state. It is about making sure that we do not separate faith from the individual. You must never forget that the American motto is In God We Trust.” (standing ovation)
  • His next statement almost got a standing ovation from me: “We welcome the beliefs of others in America, but our coexistence must be based on a simple premise: when tolerance becomes a one-way street, it leads to cultural suicide. And American cultural values shall never be subjugated to any other as long as I have air in my lungs.”

His closing thoughts started with a quote from George Washington: “We are either a united people or we are not. If the former, let us in all matters of general concern act as a nation which has national objects to promote and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” He quoted Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” He discussed how he grew up in the Atlanta area and went into the military, and then ran for political office as a public service to all Americans. He said “This is what Abraham Lincoln said. ‘Be sure you put your feet in the right place. Then stand firm.’ So as you depart here today from this great hall, from this great gathering of conservatives, this is the commission that I send you out with: Stand firm, for this is the dawn of a new America. God bless you all, God bless America, steadfast and loyal. Thank you.”

And here’s Herman Cain’s speech:

Cain is probably running in 2012 and West will go in 2016 or 2020.

News

What was the context of Michele Bachmann’s “armed and dangerous” comment?

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Rep. Michele Bachmann
Rep. Michele Bachmann

Recently, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a column blaming conservatives for creating a “climate of hate”.

Excerpt:

The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.

And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.

Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

So what he is saying is that Michele Bachmann wants conservatives to arm themselves and eliminate their opponents violently. This was in the New York Times.

So, let’s take a look at what Michele Bachmann actually said.

Transcript:

Really now in Washington, I’m a foreign correspondent behind enemy lines. And I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.

But you can get all the latest information on this event. This is a must-go-to event with [the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s] Chris Horner. People will learn. It will be fascinating.

We met with Chris Horner last week, 20 members of Congress. It takes a lot to wow members of Congress after a while. This wows them.

And I am going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax: because we need to fight back.

Thomas Jefferson told us, “Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing.” And we the people are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.

And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of changing freedom forever in the United States. And that’s why I want everyone to come out and hear [Chris Horner]. So go to Bachmann.house.gov and you can get all [of] the information.

See, in context, it’s quite clear that by armed, she means armed with material from Chris Horner on energy taxes (e.g. – the cap and trade bill) and by dangerous she means winning arguments using “all the information”.

If you do a search for “armed and dangerous” and “michele bachmann”, you will find that everybody and their mother on the left is taking the quote out of context in order to smear Michele Bachmann. And I hope that will be a lesson to you about dealing with the claims of people on the left. They hear these things on talk radio or MSNBC and they take them uncritically.

John Hinderaker at Powerline explains the problem with taking Michele Bachmann’s “armed and dangerous” quote out of context. (H/T Hyscience)

Excerpt:

Here is a rule of thumb: any time a liberal quotes a fragment of a sentence, or, as in this case, a three-word phrase, a red flag should go up. When liberals quote sentence fragments, they are usually misleading when they aren’t out-and-out fabricated.

My guess is that Krugman has no idea when Michele referred to being “armed and dangerous,” or why, or what the rest of the sentence was. Krugman’s biggest problem isn’t that he is stupid. His biggest problem is that he is lazy. He is incapable of doing even the most rudimentary research, which is why his columns rarely contain many facts, and when they do, his “facts” are often wrong.

As it happens, I–unlike Krugman–know all about Michele’s “armed and dangerous” quote, because she said it in an interview with Brian Ward and me, on our radio show. It was on March 21, 2009. The subject was the Obama administration’s cap and trade proposal. Michele organized a couple of informational meetings in her district with an expert on global warming and cap and trade, and she came on our show to promote those meetings. She wanted her constituents to be armed with information on cap and trade so that they would understand how unnecessary, and how damaging to our economy, the Obama administration’s proposal was. That would make them dangerous to the administration’s left-wing plans.

The interview illustrates quite well the difference between Michele Bachmann and Paul Krugman. Krugman is a vicious hater. He rarely argues any issue on the merits, but prefers to smear those who disagree with him. Bachmann is infinitely better informed than Krugman. All she wants to do is debate her opponents on the facts. Unlike Krugman, she doesn’t hate anyone; her irrepressible good humor is considered a marvel by everyone who knows her.

You can listen to the whole interview at that post on Powerline. I do occasionally listen to the Northern Alliance Radio show.

Is Paul Krugman civil with his opponents?

Of course not!

He writes:

A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy.

This is the first sentence in one of his New York Times columns. I put the link for context, so you can check it out yourself. If I were a leftist journalist, I would have left out the “in effigy” and then spread all over the Internet and on MSNBC. MSNBC edits the news to suit their narrative all the time – it’s not really a news channel at all, it’s just propaganda for the far-left fringe.

Is Paul Krugman seen as reliable?

Not by a bunch of non-conservatives:

Always read the New York Times with a skeptical eye.

You need to watch Fox News and listen to Hugh Hewitt

I really recommend that if any of you who are watching MSNBC and listening to NPR stop that and try an experiment. Switch to watching Special Report on Fox News at 6 PM Eastern every day for an hour. Bret Baier is fair, and you will see him do an amazing thing. The entire second half of the show is a panel discussion with people on the left present, and they get equal time. And if you can watch Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace on Sundays, you get another panel discussion with TWO leftists, usually Juan Williams and Mara Liasson – who work for NPR!!!! (Yes, I know NPR fired Juan) Neither Juan nor Mara are insane – in fact they are quite sensible leftists. Sometimes Bret will have other leftists on, but even they are not too crazy. Do you know why? Because they can’t be crazy when there are conservatives on the panel who get to hold them to account. And the conservatives can’t be crazy, either. That’s how you get the truth – each side corrects the other, and they all get along well – laughing and joking. That’s what Fox News is famous for – fair and balanced. Balanced means you get BOTH sides. Fair means both sides get equal time to talk. It’s a debate every night.

I do not recommend watching the O’Reilly Factor or even Sean Hannity, and especially not Shepherd Smith, who is a radical left wing extremist.