Friday, March 15, 2024

Was Social Security Racist?

I ran into a claim today that the original Social Security bill was racist because it excluded agricultural and domestic workers most of whom were black.

A little background investigation led me to understand that this claim was accurate but misleading. It was accurate that agricultural and domestic workers were originally not eligible but NOT because they were specifically excluded but because they were outside of the groups that were included.

The Social Security Act of 1935 was a complicated bill that contained 11 Titles and authorized 7 distinct programs. Only Title II was what we now know as Social Security. It was the only one of the 7 programs that was solely a federal program. The rest were federal and state supported (think today's Medicaid). 

All of the racism claims, even those by well known historians, confuse the racial motives associated with programs other than Title II with Title II. Title II did not exclude blacks, nor did it exclude agricultural and domestic workers, rather it only included those workers regularly employed in commerce and industry. 

This left out a whole slew of occupations in addition to agricultural and domestic workers (which usually drives the racism claim) including the self employed, merchant seamen and members of congress. Of the 20 million workers excluded 15 million were white.

So this is a highly dubious claim based upon manipulating the truth to make it say what you want it to say even though it's bullshit.

Monday, March 11, 2024

So...I'm a lot Poorer

I got my taxes done today and had to fork over $9,642 for the federal government and $1,273 for the state bringing my total tax bills to $35,251 for the feds and $5,326 for the state.

Well, I suppose it could be worse.

Thursday, March 07, 2024

The War in Gaza

Why is it only the Jews that aren't allowed to strike back when they're attacked? 

I'd like to ask those protesting against Israel whether they agree that Hamas needs to be destroyed. If yes then how do they propose that can be done? If no then I'd like to know why not?

It's not a genocide. That's just name-calling which is a well known propaganda technique. It's war and war sucks. That's why you don't start one. Clearly these youngsters have never had the misfortune of engaging in urban warfare. Every death should be laid at the feet of Hamas. They were the ones that crossed the border and murdered 1400 people, raped helpless women and kidnapped 250 others or have they forgotten that? Hamas is the problem that needs to be eradicated. I don't understand why these young people are supporting terrorists, rapists and murderers. 

Were the Allies committing genocide during World War II against the Germans and Japanese? On February 13-15, 1945 over a thousand British and US bombers destroyed the city of Dresden killing an estimated 25,000 civilians. On March 9, 1945 280 US B-29s dropped incendiary bombs on Tokyo killing an estimated 100,000 civilians. Then there was Hiroshima, 70,000 dead and Nagasaki, 40,000 dead. An estimated 125,000 civilians died during the battle of Berlin. Like I said, war sucks. That's why you don't start one.

Monday, March 04, 2024

Great and Small Minds

 A quote originally attributed to Socrates and then paraphrased by Eleanor Roosevelt goes like this:

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

Trump Stays on the Ballot

Unsurprisingly the Supreme Court has decided, in a 9-0 decision, that Trump can't be kept off the ballot based upon the 14th Amendments clause about insurrection barring someone from holding office.

Three states, Colorado, Maine and Illinois, had wanted to keep him off the primary ballot.

I say "unsurprisingly" because Trump hasn't actually been convicted of anything.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

What is Non-Binary?

Non-Binary is a term that literally means "not two choices." There can be one choice or three or more choices but there can't be exactly two.

But I'm confused as to what it means when applied to gender.

I say gender and not sex because sex and gender are different things. From the American Psychological Association: 

"Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women." 

If you don't understand this you're going to always be confused. Also, a lot of people appear to be equating non binary and gender fluid. The latter is as least feasible because gender nonconformity has been a thing for a long time. But I have no idea what Non-Binary means.

Ignoring Intersex, there are only two sexes and therefore by definition only two genders. So what the hell is Non-Binary?

Monday, February 19, 2024

Presidential Rankings

The results of the 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey are in. The top five presidents are:

#1 - Abraham Lincoln at 93.87

#2 - Franklyn Roosevelt at 90.83

#3 - George Washington at 90.32

#4 - Theodore Roosevelt at 78.58

#5 - Thomas Jefferson at 77.53

I'm always surprised that Thomas Jefferson doesn't come in higher. The man got us a great deal on the Louisiana Purchase didn't he?

As for the most recent presidents.

#7 - Barack Obama at 73.8

#12 - Bill Clinton at 66.42

#14 - Joe Biden at 62.66

#32 - George W. Bush at 40.43

#45 - Donald Trump at 10.92

Yup, the Donald came in dead last even falling behind James Buchannan at 16.71 which is quite an accomplishment considering Buchannan sat around playing with his dick while the country deteriorated into civil war.

I'm not sure why Obama is ahead of Eisenhower at #8  and I don't get Biden at #14 either. Is he really better then Woodrow Wilson at #15 and Ronald Reagan at #16?  Jimmy Carter at #22 surprises me as well. Did I miss something during Carter's presidency? 

Anyway, this is this years list from the "experts."

Tuesday, February 06, 2024

Hidden Forms of Discrimination?

Both the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the feminist movement of the 1970s were enormous successes. Less face it, these movements were necessary because if they hadn't occurred then nothing would have changed.

But what both movements discovered was that equal opportunity does not necessarily translate into equal success. This realization led to the development of Critical Race Theory and a lot of feminist whining about "the patriarchy."

Once each movement had addressed the visible forms of discrimination, yet still didn't achieve what they consider parity, they concluded that there must be subtle, invisible forms of discrimination at work. Blacks developed the concept of "Systemic Racism" and feminists came up with "the patriarchy." Republicans, not to be undone, come up with the "deep state." 

Notice that no one thought to look for natural differences to explain the discrepancies. Everyone immediately assumed it was some outside force working against them.

Blacks score about 10-15 points lower on IQ tests than whites. Hispanics are somewhere in between and East Asians and Ashkenazi score about five points higher than whites. No one knows why this is the case and I'm not sure that anyone really understands what IQ measures but we do know that it is a good predictor of life and academic success.

This discrepancy has persisted for decades and probably isn't going away anytime soon. Even if this discrepancy didn't exists, whites have such a huge historical advantage that it's not surprising that blacks aren't achieving parity. There is no need for any hidden discrimination in the form of "Systemic Racism."

So what about women? Women have two problems when competing with men. One is fairly well accepted and the other more controversial. The first is that men are more aggressive. If one chooses a male and a female at random there is about a 60% chance that the male is more aggressive. But at the extremes, the overwhelming majority of the most aggressive individuals are male.

Trust me, no one becomes CEO of a Fortune 500 Company without being very, very aggressive. This also accounts for the so-called "gender pay gap." Men work longer hours and take on more dangerous and higher paying jobs and that's why there's a pay difference.

The second and far more controversial problem is the claim that men and women have slightly differently shaped IQ curves. The curve for women is slightly taller and narrower while the curve for men is slightly wider and flatter. 

In the average the differences are meaningless but at the extremes they become significant. As one psychologist described it the shape of the men's curve, assuming it really is that way, would mean more dumbbells but also more Nobels.

I don't hear feminists whining about men winning most of the Darwin Awards but they do complain about men dominating the CEO positions and Nobel prizes.

So, I lean toward rejecting the existence of hidden forces and suspect it's just the ways things are. This is why I reject the whole concept of DEI. Equity is not a reasonable objective if there are natural differences and variations.