Here's a nice little piece from the Wall Street Journal. Guess what: the Obamis at the Census Bureau don't like the way racial classifications are going with the Hispanic community. You see, according to Amitai Etzioni,
It's cool, isn't it! The New York Times calls George Zimmerman a "white Hispanic" when it fits the narrative. But when a more specific classification is needed to bolster up liberal political hegemony, fuggetaboudit.
Here's a cool idea! Let's add an "honorary white" racial category on the Census form for people that want to be in with the patriarchy and the neo-colonialist set. And for people that just think it would be cool to be white.
The interesting thing is that the government doesn't need racial classifications unless it's planning to do race-based government. In fact the only reason the government needs any data is for purposes of command and control. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott. No kidding!
This command and control thing applies to everything. If the government weren't mucking around with the economy, stimulating and money printing and subsidizing and taxing over 30 percent of the yearly income of the people, it wouldn't need any data. Oh sure, it would need to be the lender of last resort during a financial panic. But you don't need much data for that, because the people that desperately need to borrow money to maintain liquidity will identify themselves to the appropriate authorities.
But when the government gets into some activity it needs data. Principally, of course, it needs data so it can figure out what to do when things go wrong, in accordance with the inevitable unanticipated consequences of government action.
In this spring of 2014, as the VA implodes and the president flubs his speech at West Point, liberals are getting ready to do the Fantine thing and sing:
Only liberals did this to themselves. They have tried to make politics do things it can't do. They have used their power to put government to work on things that government can't do. Because government is force, and force is only good for breaking things and force has to be a last resort.
That's just the liberal stupidity side of things. Then there are things that go beyond stupidity. There is the liberal record on exhuming racism out of its well-deserved grave and making race and class and gender the center of liberal neo-tribal politics.
We cannot know what awaits us at the end of neo-tribal liberal identity politics, although it is encouraging that ordinary Hispanics don't seem to want to be marginalized off in a corner of the liberal plantation and 53% of them call themselves whites.
But we got where we are today because of liberals. As Noemie Emery writes:
[M]ore that two million Hispanics changed their racial classification to "white" in the 2010 census from "some other race" in 2000. Overall, according to official data, 53% of Hispanics classified themselves as white in 2010.Oh no! We can't have that! Millions of Hispanics calling themselves white? What will happen to the Democrats' race politics? What will happen to all those vital majority-minority congressional districts? What will happen to the racial spoils system. So now the liberal racists at the Census Bureau are working overtime -- and no doubt getting substantial bonuses -- figuring out how to corral Hispanics back into nice convenient categories to help liberals play race politics.
It's cool, isn't it! The New York Times calls George Zimmerman a "white Hispanic" when it fits the narrative. But when a more specific classification is needed to bolster up liberal political hegemony, fuggetaboudit.
Here's a cool idea! Let's add an "honorary white" racial category on the Census form for people that want to be in with the patriarchy and the neo-colonialist set. And for people that just think it would be cool to be white.
The interesting thing is that the government doesn't need racial classifications unless it's planning to do race-based government. In fact the only reason the government needs any data is for purposes of command and control. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott. No kidding!
This command and control thing applies to everything. If the government weren't mucking around with the economy, stimulating and money printing and subsidizing and taxing over 30 percent of the yearly income of the people, it wouldn't need any data. Oh sure, it would need to be the lender of last resort during a financial panic. But you don't need much data for that, because the people that desperately need to borrow money to maintain liquidity will identify themselves to the appropriate authorities.
But when the government gets into some activity it needs data. Principally, of course, it needs data so it can figure out what to do when things go wrong, in accordance with the inevitable unanticipated consequences of government action.
In this spring of 2014, as the VA implodes and the president flubs his speech at West Point, liberals are getting ready to do the Fantine thing and sing:
I dreamed a dream in time gone byand so on. Back before Barack Obama liberals certainly had a dream; it was about them and their intelligence and compassion and wisdom. But it's turning into a nightmare and so liberals are getting ready to think of themselves as helpless victims, just like poor Fantine did back in the horrible days before the welfare state.
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Only liberals did this to themselves. They have tried to make politics do things it can't do. They have used their power to put government to work on things that government can't do. Because government is force, and force is only good for breaking things and force has to be a last resort.
That's just the liberal stupidity side of things. Then there are things that go beyond stupidity. There is the liberal record on exhuming racism out of its well-deserved grave and making race and class and gender the center of liberal neo-tribal politics.
We cannot know what awaits us at the end of neo-tribal liberal identity politics, although it is encouraging that ordinary Hispanics don't seem to want to be marginalized off in a corner of the liberal plantation and 53% of them call themselves whites.
But we got where we are today because of liberals. As Noemie Emery writes:
They had a dream. For almost a hundred years now, the famed academic-artistic-and-punditry industrial complex has dreamed of a government run by their kind of people (i.e., nature’s noblemen), whose intelligence, wit, and refined sensibilities would bring us a heaven on earth.Because liberals knew better. Only now the dream is every day turning into a nightmare. Hey Fantine! Let's sing it together:
I dreamed a dream in time gone by...Now the dream is over, pal. Get used to it.
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