NYT: 'Jaw-Dropping' Data on Black Male Student Achievement

I wouldn't call Reagan and Bush geniuses.

 

Buckley was being sarcastic. You obviously think he meant it. Learn to think for yourself.

 

We understand what you're saying, it's just stupid. You're confusing politics and intelligence. Being intelligent doesn't make you a better politician or businessman but it does mean you have a higher capacity for understanding, insight, and problem solving. It's the damn definition of the word. The capacity to lead or be a successful politician depends on a variety of factors including but certainly not limited to intelligence. Having the real world experience of running a successful business doesn't prepare you to manage a national economy. That's why there's such a thing called an economist, a person specifically trained to understand the intricacies and complexities of economics. Typically, all other things being equal, the better educated and more experienced an economist the better they perform. That's why kids with lemonade stands, though they have real world business experience, aren't on the list at the White House for who to call for advice during a recession.

 

Intelligence is a valuable thing, but it is not usually the key to survival. Sheer fecundity ... usually counts. The intelligent gorilla doesn't do as well as the less intelligent but more-fecund rat, which doesn't do as well as the still-less-intelligent but still-more-fecund cockroach, which doesn't do as well as the minimally-intelligent but maximally-fecund bacterium.
— Isaac Asimov


What happens 300 years from now? Do people preserve the life they know now, preserve the traditions they cherish? There is no rule that a civilization HAS to advance beyond what it knows, to match the most intelligent design laid out. If you believe in liberty, you would believe that every culture has a right to live in the way they govern for themselves. Its not the rights of the ones with the robots to tell the tribal people with spears that they MUST change.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way but am calling it what it is. An anti-intellectual rant.

You are just reiterating your position that you don't like intellectuals for a variety of reasons. Other posters have done a good job of explaining what is wrong with your position. I am just pointing out that is your position.

I will point out again that in a thread regarding the lack of academic achievement, people not able to become an intellectual, you are railing against intellectuals.

 

didn't read all the posts but the striking difference is the respect for Bush because he came from a prominent family as opposed to the constant dismisal of obama's achievements

 

Anybody ever watch boondocks? Probably the most conservative black show I've ever seen and probably the realest non pc show out there. It's about education plain and simple. U got a bunch of uneducated single moms raising children. Why is this study shocking to anyone?

 

Yes, young single moms only happen in black commuinties

 

It's also about family. Here's an idea, have both parents constantly in the kid's life. Play with the kid and read to him, do constructive things with so that it learns. When it is I school, surround the kid with constructive extracurricluar activities. Problem solved

 

No they are in all communities but it's a pretty staggering rate particularly in the black community. The correlation is obvious.

 

Just like Sarah Palin understands monetary policy when her statements clearly show she doesn't even know the basics?

How does that help?

Here's the dirty truth, when complex issues like economics are actually studied and the data is crunched, it shows that your position is wrong. Therefore, it's easier to dismiss it as "intellectualism" and unnecessary so you can dig into your uninformed opinion and thus be lazy and remain ignorant.

That's why the country is in decline if you haven't noticed.

 

Except aren't the main characters two kids raised by their granddad with one who aspires to be a thug and the other who aspires to be a Marxist revolutionary?

 

Yeah that's Huey's character but that's not how I define the show. They never actually said it in plain terms, but he's also an atheist. I just really like the fact that the writers of the show don't hold anything back on the black community. It seems like they're calling the faults the way they see it, and I have to respect that. That was more of the 1st season though.

 

I have to respect it because they are going against the grain and blaming black people for their actions.

 

I know about a show called Squidbillies. . . .

Rocket River

 

I want to apologize for the tone my last few posts in this thread. It was not appropriate. Now I will try to exile myself for a week.

I know a few weeks ago I said I was leaving for good and then I reneged and came back. What can I say? I guess I love you guys too much - or something like that.

 

You have repeatedly done the "elites = communism" thing...which is absurd because elites have given the world every system of government, economics, social structure, etc.

That is like saying musicians shouldn't make music because they are the ones who invented death metal or country or something.

 

"But surely those who have supposed the masses to be all powerful, or at least well on their way to triumph, are wrong. In our time, as Chakhofin knew, the influence of autonomous collectivities within political life is in fact diminishing. Furthermore, such influence as they do have is guided; they must now be seen not as publics acting autonomously, but as masses manipulated at focal points into crowds of demonstrators. For as publics become masses, masses sometimes become crowds; and, in crowds, the psychical rape by the mass media is supplemented up-close by the harsh and sudden harangue. Then the people in the crowd disperse again-as atomized and submissive masses."

C. Wright Mills, The Power elite

 

Never got into it, probably good in its own right, I'm guessing u watch?