Politics, Government & Public Policy: May 2006 Archives
The tale of Roger Clegg and how his criticism prompted the cancellation of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission meeting is a perfect example of why our government needs a dramatic reduction in size and scope. The hubris of the bureaucrats on this commission is enraging, but hardly unheard of within our federal government in which every official sees his position of public trust as his own personal fiefdom.
Last month, I received an invitation to testify before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about affirmative action and diversity in U.S. companies. The testimony was scheduled for today, and I was asked to share my written statement to the commission beforehand, last Thursday, which I did. Late Friday afternoon I received a phone call from the commission, telling me that because of what I had to say, my invitation had been withdrawn by its chairman, Cari M. Dominguez.I urged the commission to reconsider this decision because it would put the commission in general and the chairman in particular in a bad light. Yesterday I was notified that the entire meeting--not just my panel, but two others--has been "indefinitely postponed."
The problem is that my testimony told the unwelcome truths that (a) American companies, in their "celebration of diversity," frequently discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity and sex, (b) this violates the law, and (c) the EEOC is not doing anything about it. I was told that it would lead to a "mutiny" among the career people at the commission if I was given a "platform" to say such things. It might even turn the proceedings that morning into a "circus," and Ms. Dominguez, I was told, did not want the EEOC "to look like the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights back when Mary Frances Berry headed it."
So the chairman of the EEOC cancelled the meeting rather than allow Mr. Clegg to testify about the Commission's tolerance and encouragement of racial and sexual discrimination. This episode reflects morally disgusting behavior on the part of Cari M. Dominguez, a public servant in a free society, and should be profoundly disturbing to anyone who cares about "government of the people, by the people, for the people".
Here's a very interesting report about a topic I hadn't considered: gang members joining the military to learn urban combat techniques.
The Gangster Disciples are the most worrisome street gang at Fort Lewis because they are the most organized, Barfield said.Barfield said gangs are encouraging their members to join the military to learn urban warfare techniques they can teach when they go back to their neighborhoods.
"Gang members are telling us in the interviews that their gang is putting them in," he said.
Joe Sparks, a retired Chicago Police gang specialist and the Midwest adviser to the International Latino Gang Investigators Association, said he is concerned about the military know-how that gang-affiliated soldiers might bring back to the streets here.
"Even though they are 'bangers, they are still fighting for America, so I have to give them that," Sparks said. "The sound of enemy gunfire is nothing new to them. I'm sure in battle it's a truce -- GDs and P Stones are fighting a common enemy. But when they get home, forget about it."
The story also mentions that gang-affiliated soldiers have been caught stealing military equipment such as body armor to send back home to their gangs.
I previously would have thought that the sort of people who become soldiers and the sort of people who join gangs would be pretty different, and that military training would overwhelm and replace any gang loyalties a soldier might have had in their former life, but apparently not. I can't imagine that gangster soldiers are a huge problem, but it's nice to know that someone is keeping tabs on the situation.
As we inch closer to the 2008 presidential election we're going to be hearing calls, primarily from Democrats, to eliminate the electoral college. Every politician who has ever or will ever claim to be proponent of eliminating the electoral college is merely posturing and is completely unserious. Most recently, from the link above, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh has said the following:
Q: Why do you think we should abolish the Electoral College?A: "I think our president should be chosen by the majority of the American people. That is ordinarily the case. But in 2000, as we all recall, we elected this president with fewer votes than the other candidate got. I just don't think in the modern era that is appropriate."
Of course, in 2004 that same President went on to get more votes than any other presidential candidate had ever received, which completely undermines the Senator's assertion of what is "appropriate". In any event, as I wrote nearly three years ago, the Constitution will never be amended to remove the electoral college. It's simple mathematics.
The amendment process requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress to make the proposal, and this proposal must then be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Since there are currently 50 states in the Union, all it takes is 13 states to bury a proposed amendment.Under the electoral college system, states with low population have a number of electoral votes disproportionate to their size, and their populations clearly have a significant interest in maintaining this power. Wyoming's 3 electoral votes give the state 0.558% of the total 538, even though its population of 498,703 is only 0.173% of the total population of the country (288,368,698). Wyoming's electoral power (and representation in Congress, incidentally) is more than 3 times higher than it's population should warrent under a purely democratic system. As a result of this math, every state that possesses a number of electoral votes below the median would be harmed by the elimination of the electoral college, and so no such amendment could ever pass.
Half of the 50 states have populations below the median, by definition, and it only takes one-quarter of the states to scuttle an amendment. No state legislature will ever take positive action to reduce it's influence on federal policy, and so the electoral college is here to stay.
My brother pointed me to this nifty little endeavor: Congresspedia, the "citizen's encyclopedia on Congress". It's basically a public wiki that anyone can edit with information about the members of Congress.
