From the Star Ledger:
On property taxes, it’s time for a little initiative – and referendum | Mulshine
When you picked up your Star-Ledger on Monday, you no doubt noticed a front-page article by Jonathan Salant headlined “Jersey by the Numbers. ” It detailed how our state ranks nationally in various categories.
And you no doubt noticed that the very first category was property taxes.
We’re No. 1. Our average property-tax bill was 2.38 percent in 2016.
Now look at California. Their average property-tax rate is about a third of ours, a mere 0.81 percent.
Why is their rate so much lower? Because the voters there have the power of initiative and referendum. In 1978 they used that power to put on the ballot a measure called Proposition 13.
Proposition 13 set a 1 percent cap on property taxes. It also included a tax freeze for as long as a homeowner owns a home.
Let us compare that to the rate in West Orange. That’s where the co-framer of the proposition, Howard Jarvis, spoke in 1978 to a group of tax activists hoping to emulate his example.
There was a lot of energy and enthusiasm in the room that night. But it all came to naught. Without the power of initiative-and-referendum, taxpayers had to wait for the Legislature to put such a measure on the ballot.
They’ve been waiting 39 years now, particularly in West Orange.
The property-tax rate there is 3.64 percent. If you have a $500,000 house there, you will pay about $18,000 annually in property taxes. In California you’d pay about $5,000.
Like most Californians, the people of West Orange tend to be liberal Democrats. But imagine how they’d vote if there were a measure on the ballot asking them whether they’d like a $13,000 tax cut. I suspect they’d vote like most Californians did back in 1978.
So why don’t we give the voters a chance to put that and other questions on the ballot?
Enjoying your Trumpcare, pvssies? Lol!
As for this article, of course the author fails to mention that much of California’s local taxes are collected outside the official property tax like special assessments and bonds. And the sneaky way they add extra taxes to utility bills. Then of course there’s California’s high income tax, marginal tax rates, gas tax, corporate taxes, and sales taxes which can rise over 9%.
@BraddJaffy
Dick Cheney:
Putin’s effort “to interfere in major ways with our basic fundamental democratic processes” could be
“considered an act of war”
high property taxes is a myth. nobody wants to leave. right wing nuts like fast eddy has bought at least twice in nj! i can’t find a house and my budget is twice as eddys
what else is there, the south?!
I hear Trump wants to sell our fissile nuclear materials to the Russians in exchange for a donation to his foundation
@businessinsider
ROSENBERG:
The Trump rally’s ‘great unwind’ might just be getting started
@dealbook
Trump vowed a 15% corporate tax rate. Now any deal may have the same 28% rate Obama proposed, says @andrewrsorkin
“Just a few days after being sworn in as president, Donald J. Trump convened a meeting at the White House of some of the nation’s most prominent chief executives to discuss how to improve manufacturing. Mr. Trump was joined by Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Fields of Ford, Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical, Marillyn A. Hewson of Lockheed Martin and Michael Dell of Dell, among others.
Before the meeting formally began, with cameras rolling, Mr. Trump wanted to talk about corporate tax rates — specifically lowering them. During one debate with Hillary Clinton, he had told voters: “Under my plan, I’ll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies, small and big businesses. That’s going to be a job creator like we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan. It’s going to be a beautiful thing to watch.”
He repeated the 15 percent figure over and over again.
However, when Mr. Trump spoke to the C.E.O.s that morning, he shifted the goal post slightly: “We’re trying to get it down to anywhere from 15 to 20 percent.”
Inside the White House, until last Friday, according to people involved in the conversations, the target rate had been bumped up again, to a minimum of 20 percent and very likely a bit more.
And now, given that the repeal of the Affordable Care Act is off the table — and with it the $1 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years that the administration needed to help make its tax plan deficit neutral — there is a good chance that any tax package would include a corporate rate that is even further from Mr. Trump’s initial pledge, perhaps as high as 28 percent.”
i can’t find a house and my budget is twice as eddys
You wish your budget was twice as mine. You can’t even construct whole sentences.
LOL
You wish your budget was twice as mine. You can’t even construct whole sentences.
Home Invasion (clot Edition):
http://nypost.com/2017/03/28/homeowners-son-kills-three-would-be-burglars-with-ar-15/?utm_campaign=applenews&utm_medium=inline&utm_source=applenews
Great Again!
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2017/03/27/ford-invest/99709766/
California’s system disrupts the natural flow of real estate because it creates a strong financial incentive to stay in place and not leave a legacy property tax cap. Not all that different that rent control hopelessly screwing up NYC’s rental markets….
Ottoman says:
March 28, 2017 at 7:59 am
As for this article, of course the author fails to mention that much of California’s local taxes are collected outside the official property tax like special assessments and bonds. And the sneaky way they add extra taxes to utility bills. Then of course there’s California’s high income tax, marginal tax rates, gas tax, corporate taxes, and sales taxes which can rise over 9%.
Ottoman,
You need to go to the masculinity confession booth. Or, do you identify as a transgender snowflake now?
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/27/students-share-their-sins-at-masculinity-confession-booth/
Day care is what caused the snowflake generation. As infants they were thrown in to a structured “safe space”, so that’s all they know. Also, the species of white middle children have become nearly extinct.
As infants they were thrown in to a structured “safe space”, so that’s all they know.
Plausible.
My town somehow finds a way to exceed the 2% property tax cap through exemptions every year.
It will take the democrats to put this on a bill and get it past the senate ….I know of no Democrat who would sponsor such a bill to help taxpayers …
California’s system disrupts the natural flow of real estate because it creates a strong financial incentive to stay in place and not leave a legacy property tax cap.
Owners of California real estate would see this as a benefit as it artificially constrains inventory, pushing pricing up.
I think a good proportion of people here would not be adverse to a single payer model. Shocking, I know.
Likewise, to fix the current system, I think there are many here that would agree to carve healthcare away from states as a states rights issue so that insurers can compete on a national basis – with national sized risk pools. This is not a competition issue, this is a situation where a large number of small players can’t adequately manage the actuarial risk associated if they are geographically constrained. Likewise, many here would be very happy with tort reform and even ways to eliminate a number of pharmaceutical intermediaries (benefit managers, etc).
I would imagine nobody at all here has any issues with funding womens health issues, including funding abortion and contraception directly. Likewise nobody here has any issue with mandating accepting preexisting conditions.
Meanwhile in other news the states credit rating was downgraded again second time in 4 months. And oradell goes to court again next week in their long journey to change the school funding mechanism for the regional middle and high school. They send 350 less students but pay over 8,000 more per student.
I wouldn’t want tax dollars paying for abortion.
Left wingers are starting to show up at Trump rally’s open carrying AR-15’s.
http://gunfreezone.net/index.php/2017/03/27/gun-totin-left-wingers-are-they-getting-the-message/
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medvedev-idUSBRE82P0JI20120326
“This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility,” Obama said, expressing confidence that he would win a second term.
“I will transmit this information to Vladimir,” said Medvedev, Putin’s protégé and long considered number two in Moscow’s power structure.
Left wingers are starting to show up at Trump rally’s open carrying AR-15’s.
This is awesome.
Grim,
If they want to try to do a states thing why don’t they start it with Medicare first. Won’t happen. Senior citizens are smart and know better.
Can you imagine the state’s running Healthcare? Go to PA buy fireworks New Jersey fireworks illegal. PA walk around with handgun New Jersey get arrested for sharpened pencil.
New Jersey need hip replacement sorry you only have coverage for knee replacement you should have bought PA insurance or you could get hip replacement but they don’t cover knee replacement. You should have known what was going to break before you bought your insurance.
Standardize coverage and regulatory across all states and allow insurers to operate across state lines.
Are they carrying the ar15 in their left wing or right wing?
I would also imagine you could operate this, under ACA, effectively under this premise:
We will allow you to operate nationally, if you adopt a set of national healthcare standards.
The benefit being you now operate under a standardized regulatory environment, resulting in efficiencies, lower cost, greater risk pools, and opportunity to address a larger market.
In this environment, I would imagine a provider under ACA could actually operate with a lower overall cost structure than a private market operator.
Grim, you can’t snooker someone that way. You need to overwhelm them with a dizzying array of choices in order to provide them with good customer service (George Carlin).
Hugh 9:29,
Funny, my 2.5 year old was recently removed from daycare as the wife is at home with our 7 mo. old. Did not make financial sense anymore. I consider daycare about as capitalistic as it gets. 30 kids thrown into big room, fighting for precious few toys. Low paid workers who could care less other than major reporting incident. Bigger three year olds grabbing toys from 2 year olds or stealing food, scratching, pushing, biting..my son cracked his front tooth last year which luckily did not turn black. All kinds of bumps and scrapes. I think stay at home Mommy care is more safe space. Little Prince who does not have to share, can do no wrong, has his food cut up into little pieces. Kid is living this life dream now.
Throw in tort reform and mandate that all healthcare providers accept the plans, and you are done.
If you don’t accept it, you lose your license to operate.
Healthcare solved.
Grim – re: Standardize coverage?
No Standardize prices.
You can easily get 10 different prices for the same procedure. It is almost comical if it weren’t so fecke*d up.
What I think is comical is that it’s actually cheaper for me to walk into Walmart, hand them a script, tell them I don’t have insurance, and walk out with a prescription at a lower price than if I had handed over my insurance card.
Bystander – My older son is light years ahead of the stay at home snowflakes. He is in first grade and reading Harry Potter. He can rationally explain the complex valuations of his Pokemon trades. I am going to set him up with a Merrill Edge or Interactive Brokers account and some seed money and sick him on the penny stocks soon.
How about we allow people to buy any drugs they would like to without a RX, with the exception of painkillers? Just eliminate the entirety of the process?
I’m not buying the “daycare = safe spaces = millenial snowflakes”. Sure, daycare helps to train the kiddies in conformity but I think fewer children in a family is a bigger factor. When you are the only kid in the house and all the resources go to you (money, attention, etc.) then of course you are going to think you are the center of the world. Best kid to have over for a playdate? The 8th in a family of 9 – grateful for whatever he/she is given, imaginative, and knows that when the adult voice is raised, the best option is to stand still, stay quiet and blend into the wallpaper. The only child? Demands special meals, demands to be first in everything, always argues back. Generally speaking of course, exceptions do occur, etc.
grim – Unfortunately…
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=F09&year=a
I think a good proportion of people here would not be adverse to a single payer model. Shocking, I know.
Likewise, to fix the current system, I think there are many here that would agree to carve healthcare away from states as a states rights issue so that insurers can compete on a national basis – with national sized risk pools. This is not a competition issue, this is a situation where a large number of small players can’t adequately manage the actuarial risk associated if they are geographically constrained. Likewise, many here would be very happy with tort reform and even ways to eliminate a number of pharmaceutical intermediaries (benefit managers, etc).
I would imagine nobody at all here has any issues with funding womens health issues, including funding abortion and contraception directly. Likewise nobody here has any issue with mandating accepting preexisting conditions.
Not surprising to see BCBS at the top of this.
The unmitigated balls of this woman……such an entitled clown…..
“These individuals were following the law by showing up to do their community service,” local activist and child tutor Anita Quinones told the Star-Telegram.
“In the act of doing the right thing, they were rounded up like cattle,” she said. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
xxxxxxxxxxxx
More than two dozen parolees — suspected of living in the country illegally — were arrested in Texas over the weekend as they reported for work-detail sentences for various crimes, authorities said.
At least 26 people were taken into custody Sunday morning at the request of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to police.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn told local media outlets that his office took part in the roundup after being instructed to do so a little over a week ago.
Officials said the undocumented immigrants were detained at the Cold Springs Road work detail facility. They all have convictions for high-level misdemeanors and low-level felonies.
“This was totally initiated by ICE,” Waybourn told NBC5. “They came to us and said, ‘Listen, we reviewed the list (of names) and we suspect some of them are illegal aliens.’ So we said, ‘Whatever you need to do.’”
Those who were arrested Sunday reportedly were frisked, escorted to a bus and transported to an ICE facility in Dallas — where they were expected to be processed.
ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok confirmed the operation, but refused to give details.
“ICE routinely conducts immigration enforcement operations locally and nationwide which help improve overall public safety by removing criminal aliens from our communities, and ultimately from our country,” he said in a statement.
Authorities in North Texas have voiced their concern over the undocumented immigrants living in the area and vowed to do something about those convicted of crimes.
After taking office in Tarrant County, Waybourn applied to take part in a federal program — training local jailers to screen for illegal immigrants. At least two ICE agents currently work at their jail, the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph reports.
“If someone gets booked into jail Friday night and bonds out on Saturday, ICE never has a chance to screen them,” David McClelland, Waybourn’s chief of staff, told the newspaper. “I don’t believe the people detained were ever screened by ICE when they came into our jail.”
Fort Worth-based immigration attorney Nicolas Chavez told the Associated Press he felt Sunday’s bust could wind up having a “chilling effect” on immigrants — especially if they want to comply with the terms of their jail sentences, but are worried about being busted by the feds.
Local activists also blasted ICE for making the arrests just as the alleged illegals were reporting for work detail.
“These individuals were following the law by showing up to do their community service,” local activist and child tutor Anita Quinones told the Star-Telegram.
“In the act of doing the right thing, they were rounded up like cattle,” she said. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Maria Robles, a bilingual organizer with North Texas group Faith, added: “This type of collaboration is what tears at the relationship and trust between our community and law enforcement … Unfortunately in these types of situations, there is little or nothing that can be done in the moment, but there is plenty of room to empower our community with helping them recognize they too have rights under our Constitution regardless of immigration status.”
With Post wires
Insurers have built an enormous bureaucracy to justify their existence, not to support it. Anyone that has spent time inside a regional blue can tell you this.
@11:41
So, the ones doing “community service” broke the law not once but twice – yet it is the enforcement of the law that, how was it put? Oh yeah… “tears at the relationship and trust between our community and law enforcement.” Right, like breaking the law doesn’t tear at the relationship of trust. Ugh. They are bringing all of the bad from Latin America along with the good (music, food, general hardworking attitude). Required reading – https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Perfect-Latin-American-Idiot/dp/156833236X
YES – I agree with all of Grim’s health care proposals.
Another 2 things I think is necessary:
1) transparency – If medical prices were listed on hospital and doctor websites – this would definitely bring down costs immediately.
2) Medicare should be negotiating pharma drug prices. My understanding is that currently Congress does not allow it.
If you listen to the latest DNC talking points the facts are that the more
illegal aliens undocumented workersmigrants you have in your community, the safer and more prosperous your community becomes.Ding! Ding! Ding! – Sima is the winner. Forget all this BS about lowering “premiums”, its prices that need to be discovered and attacked. In Japan the government caps the prices on medical services. I think you can’t pay more than $800 for an MRI, for example. Everybody should know that for outpatient tests and the like, there is nowhere more expensive than a hospital to have these services rendered, to the tune of about a 400% mark-up. Hospitals are using every price gouge in the book to try to recoup their ER losses. Maybe we need single payer ERs for a start? The other workable solution is the way that China does it. No health insurance whatsoever. Everything is cash on the barrel head. Your Dad needs an $8,000 operation (that’s the scale of things over there) by tomorrow or he will die? Go hit up friends and family right now or he definitely will die. If you want to create a nation of savers, that’s the best way. Of course, here in the US, that is the opposite of what we (the government, not, we the people) want.
1) transparency – If medical prices were listed on hospital and doctor websites – this would definitely bring down costs immediately.
@anamariecox
At some point in the nearish future,
Trump will look directly into a camera and say,
“I never tried to repeal and replace Obamacare.”
@jameshamblin
Who among us hasn’t written something the night before it’s due
despite having 8 years notice
and millions of lives hanging in the balance.
Medicare should be negotiating pharma drug prices. My understanding is that currently
Congress doeslobbyists do not allow it.@ianbremmer
Approval after 60 days (Gallup)
Reagan 60%
Bush Sr 56%
Clinton 53%
Bush Jr 58%
Obama 63%
Trump 37%
In risky bet, N.J. teachers’ union campaigns to oust Senate President Sweeney
Updated: MARCH 27, 2017 — 6:00 AM EDT
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/NJ-teachers-union-is-trying-to-topple-Senate-President-Stephen-Sweeney.html
Insurance is quietly the largest industry on the planet. How does the US government regulate the largest industry on the planet? Answer: Not at all, really. Every state has its own insurance regulators. That’s fine for New York, which has arguable the best State Department of Insurance, but what chance in H E double hockey sticks do the residents of Arkansas or Kentucky have for fair deals from insurance salespeople when only their state insurance departments stand between themselves and a multi-trillion dollar industry?
Grab them by the cunt,
approval after multiple years of posting:
0%
Congrats – in the end NJ’s insured healthcare consumers will pay this settlement.
http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2017/03/family_of_woman_who_died_after_cancer_misdiagnosis.html#incart_river_home
Signet Ring Carcinoma has a very poor prognosis, with a 5 year survival rate of only 30%. Even if this was diagnosed, there is a 70% chance she would have died anyway. It’s terrible, for sure. But why such a steep liability and settlement? There are probably tens of thousands of rare conditions that could easily go undiagnosed.
Baseball play-by-play (combo – clot jj Edition):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRHEwO3nET4
Here is a referral to a financial advisor…..
http://www.hjadvisors.com/
Hugh Jaynus says:
March 28, 2017 at 12:56 pm
Grab them by the cunt,
approval after multiple years of posting:
0%
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/
Lie of the Year: ‘If you like your health care plan, you can keep it’
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116677/presidential-approval-ratings-gallup-historical-statistics-trends.aspx
Gallup Historical Presidential Job Approval Statistics
Low individual measurements
Harry Truman 22%
Dwight Eisenhower 48%
John Kennedy 56%
Lyndon Johnson 35%
Richard Nixon 24%
Gerald Ford 37%
Jimmy Carter 28%
Ronald Reagan 35%
George H.W. Bush 29%
Bill Clinton 37%
George W. Bush 25%
Barack Obama 38%
Cali – $750k property – built in 1981 2600 sq ft big lot …$3500 taxes
WO – $350k property – built in 1953 1600 sq ft Average lot … $11800 taxes
The latest Montclair school budget for just one year is now a whopping 120 million dollars to teach some 6500 kids. If there’s 22 kids per classroom, this comes out to aprox $400,000 per classroom.
$400,000 to teach 22 kids how to read, or learn algebra or history is staggering. I have no doubt that you could hire someone with the resourcefulness of Grim, and that $400,000 per classroom pricetag could be slashed by more than half with equal or better results.
Alex,
It’s the Special Ed budget. Montclair attracts them and then ships them out for like 80K per year.
The latest Montclair school budget for just one year is now a whopping 120 million dollars to teach some 6500 kids. If there’s 22 kids per classroom, this comes out to aprox $400,000 per classroom.
$400,000 to teach 22 kids how to read, or learn algebra or history is staggering. I have no doubt that you could hire someone with the resourcefulness of Grim, and that $400,000 per classroom pricetag could be slashed by more than half with equal or better results.
I’m not taking a position one way or another on your opinion, but you can’t take all the budget money and assume it all goes to the classroom. Transportation eats up a huge amount. Maintenance and capital expenditures eat up a lot as well.
Special ed is the real killer. All the litigation over the years has led to incredible regulations that require more and more staff every year. The special ed department is usually the largest department in the school by far.
If you really want to lower the budget, attack Horizon and Aetna. They probably are siphoning 25 million from your district alone.
I’m glad my daughters attend an exam school that keeps out illegal aliens. OTOH, there are probably lots of schools in Boston where you can be raped by illegal aliens.
I remember being a bus driver at the Nishuane school. In the early 1980’s I had never heard of 4 year old kindergarten. I’m not sure it helped much.
“How about we allow people to buy any drugs they would like to without a RX, with the exception of painkillers? Just eliminate the entirety of the process?”
This is done in many other countries. Many places you can buy most things over the counter in a pharmacy.
Even if Walmart gives you the med for 4.00, the prescription to get it is 125.00.
Hugh,
Spot on. From Bloomberg
“Unlike most countries in the world, the U.S. doesn’t directly regulate medicine prices, and drugmakers have strongly resisted it.”
“Medicare should be negotiating pharma drug prices. My understanding is that currently Congress does lobbyists do not allow it.”
Lobbyists destroying America. What’s new? Look at Costa Rica for a working health care model. 1/3 to 1/4th the cost and higher ranked. Hmmm. America not #1.
guest test post
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You just can’t make this stuff up!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rachel-dolezal-says-she-little-202927239.html
Choc and there is the problem right there. Illegal immigrants have rights under the constitution. And people who are not here but would want to travel here but could be banned also have rights under the constitution. So what is the point if the constitution applies to everyone. Legal illegal not here yet whatever it’s all the same. Just saying.
Yes Gary, Ford Great Again! A superb piece of contract negotiation!
“The total investment announced Tuesday represents an additional $350 million above the investments negotiated as part of the 2015 United Auto Workers contract: Plans for the $200-million data center at Flat Rock are new; the company added $150 million to its budget for Michigan Assembly upgrades. The $150 million for Romeo plant upgrades were previously outlined in the UAW contract. According to the contract, the automaker will invest at least $9 billion in U.S. facilities through 2019.”
Chi,
Nothing to see here! Right?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/03/27/carl_icahn_is_latest_ethics_red_flag_in_trump_white_house.html
Nom – You have admire her (lack of) commitment.
Dolezal also delves into the controversy that thrust her into the spotlight, remembering the moment in 2015 when a reporter first asked her if she was African American.
“I knew the answer I gave could put me in an impossible situation,” she wrote. “I knew any answer I gave could be used to ruin my credibility. If I said yes, I’d be asked to prove it. If I said no, I’d be tried in the same court of public opinion for how I’d been identifying on and off since my college days.”
You just can’t make this stuff up!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/rachel-dolezal-says-she-little-202927239.html
Pretty much sums it up.
http://www.artfido.com/blog/artist-illustrates-the-most-perfect-explanation-of-privilege-weve-ever-seen/
A little Keith for the morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAipxGxixY
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-washington-just-upended-your-dreams-of-early-retirement-2017-03-29
Yome, interesting.
“The fluke of employer-based health insurance
The U.S. is one of the only countries in the world to rely heavily on employer-provided medical insurance for the health of its population, a system borne not out of thoughtful policy discussions, but entirely by accident. This episode of “This American Life” has a fascinating breakdown on how it happened, and you won’t be surprised to know that it was driven by the desire to increase hospital profits, and later to attract workers to companies without having to pay them more.
The employer-based coverage system wouldn’t be so bad if everyone could work who wanted to, and if employers offered fairly similar coverage. But of course we know that some companies offer much more generous (untaxed!) benefits packages than others, and having “employer-sponsored coverage” doesn’t even necessarily mean that the employer pays the bulk of the cost. It mostly means that they get to choose what kind of coverage you’ll have and how much it’s going to cost you, which is a bizarrely unfree-market thing if you think about it, given how the employer-based model is the preferred option for free market proponents. (In a true free market model, we’d all individually have the full range of choices of providers, levels of coverage and premium/copay amounts.)”
“Liberalism used to be about freedom but now is about a kind of warped moral authority that is actually part of the moral superiority movement. This faction of the left is touchingly now known as ‘The Resistance.’ Oh yes, the resistance. What is this resistance? There are posters all over my neighborhood in West Hollywood urging me to resist, resist, resist,” he said.
“But some of us, who did not vote for Trump, and who located exactly who he was decades ago … some of us have been wondering: Resist what, exactly? And who is telling us to resist whatever? The people who voted for the candidate who lost — I’m supposed to listen to them? Is this a joke? … Well I’m certainly resisting the childish meltdowns I’ve been witnessing at dinners and on social media and on late night TV and too many times in my own home.”
http://www.thewrap.com/bret-easton-ellis-streisand-dunham-streep-trump-neuroses/
@StephenKing
Thanks to Republicans,
those advocates of rugged individualism,
Big Brother can now access your browsing history.
Published on Mar 28, 2017
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Obama Administration admits that Trump was spied on and that they tried to hide both the source and how the information was being disseminated to “the hill.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapRNpEjXUo
@ZachHeltzel
Since Trump’s inauguration:
-Milo lost his book deal
-Tomi lost her TV show
-Richard Spencer got punched
-Paul Ryan couldn’t pass healthcare
“What was happening to my boyfriend was also reflective of the epidemic of moral superiority that has engulfed and is now destroying, eating alive, the American left. I cannot count the time my boyfriend has left the house since the election his hair long and tousled, he hasn’t shaved in months, and he’s addicted to three things besides opiates: Russian conspiracies discussed on Reddit, Rachel Maddow detailing Russian conspiracies, and Final Fantasy 15,” Ellis said.
http://www.thewrap.com/bret-easton-ellis-streisand-dunham-streep-trump-neuroses/
You are the boy on the left…most of us were the child on the right.
Project your self loathing white guilt elsewhere.
Fabius Maximus says:
March 29, 2017 at 6:52 am
Pretty much sums it up.
http://www.artfido.com/blog/artist-illustrates-the-most-perfect-explanation-of-privilege-weve-ever-seen/
Fabius,
The girl is one generation behind the boy. Do I need to explain?
8:17 Easton… yeah let’s all act like that fella there is someone you’d want emulate…?
I’m not sure you understand any more than Fabius
Fast Eddie says:
March 29, 2017 at 8:47 am
Fabius,
The girl is one generation behind the boy. Do I need to explain?
That comic strip on privilege is a giant pile of utopian guano. Wouldn’t it be great if we were all exactly equal? It cannot and will not happen. If you want to feel guilty about being born into a more privileged class, then go ahead and waste your time. Or in the example of the comic strip character, go wash dishes and let Ming have your job. She deserves it for sure.
From my perch, the story is very different. Many of my peers are first or second generation children of immigrants who busted their asses and took advantage of every opportunity offered of them. And the culture of working hard rubbed off on their offspring. From biking a paper route, to selling cards and magazines, to landscaping to fast food to retail, to paying for my own college and not having enough money to purchase my first car until I was 25. College was a real eye opener for me. My first two years, I busted my ass so I could afford to be in college and more importantly, live at college to get away from the madness which was home. My two roomates, both on the EOF program, had everything paid for due to their lack of privilege, though one of my roommates had a car and nicer close than anyone else I knew. But unlike Ming, they chose to hang out at the college for a year instead of work to improve their lots in life. The same thing happened my Sophomore year too.
The only difference today, from when my family came in by ship from the Ukraine, is that those who arrive today receive tons of help from the government. Back in the day, this help was not available and the underprivileged had to earn their privilege.
You don’t help anyone by giving anyone something for free. In almost all cases, you hurt them further.
D-FENS,
I’m not sure you understand any more than Fabius
Explain what you mean.
Steam,
A big part of the expansion of benefits to immigrants is business driven. When thousands of Spanish speaking immigrants decided not to learn (or teach their children English) then business came to them and offered translated customer service, TV channels, products etc. I have also witnessed very few colleges looking for smaller student enrollments. They are constantly seeking new debt slaves and throwing some bones to immigrants keeps the gravy flowing to governments and big business.
Collectivists must wipe out individual accountability by saying there is no such thing as free will. To them, life is stacked against them. Nobody made bad choices, nobody’s parents made bad choices. Nobody who is successful did it themselves, of their own effort. Successful people were only born lucky, or in a good place, or with special genes, or were “hardwired” to succeed. Individual choice and effort are an illusion foisted on people to protect their “privilege”. While losers aren’t accountable for their failures, and thus cannot be held to negative moral evaluations, other people can be negatively evaluated, mostly to the extent they work hard, succeed in life, and claim that they deserve the fruits of their labor. Because people only deserve unearned wealth to be taken from others, and never deserve things that they work to achieve, because achievement is an illusion.
Enjoy your cartoon, convince yourself that you are a lover of humanity rather than the envious hater of human success and achievement that you are.
Fab. Let me axe you a question. If reparations were paid to the black community (since that’s where all this privilege krap is coming from) do you believe it will change anything at all?
Steam [09:41];
You don’t help anyone by giving anyone something for free. In almost all cases, you hurt them further.
This is [Instapundit; Prof. Glenn] Reynold’s law: “Subsidizing the markers of status doesn’t produce the character traits that result in that status; it undermines them.”
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/106811/
Expanding:
Watcher stikes again?
http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2017/03/watch_strikes_again_4th_letter_sent_feds_prosecuto.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured
Saw this from yesterday:
“$400,000 to teach 22 kids how to read, or learn algebra or history is staggering”
Not really, if you do the numbers. The school year in most districts is 180 days, so it comes out to slightly more than $100 a day per kid.
How much would a qualified private tutor cost per day? How much would a guy you pick up in the Home Depot parking lot to do odd jobs around your house cost per day?
The new breed of Liberal:
1. Loves talk of future achievement.
2. Hates past and present achievement.
Anon,
In your example, a home is a “marker.”
” Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”
So why do we allow the mortgage deduction? Would that not be subsidizing the marker?
Uhhh…. I don’t think it would cost $2200 per day, even figuring in the cost of a room and some desks.
“$400,000 to teach 22 kids how to read, or learn algebra or history is staggering”
Not really, if you do the numbers. The school year in most districts is 180 days, so it comes out to slightly more than $100 a day per kid.
How much would a qualified private tutor cost per day? How much would a guy you pick up in the Home Depot parking lot to do odd jobs around your house cost per day?How much would a qualified private tutor cost per day? How much would a guy you pick up in the Home Depot parking lot to do odd jobs around your house cost per day?
BTW, a private tutor, private room, private lesson all imply 1 per person.
$2,200 per day times 180 days instruction is $396k. Alex’s number was $400k per year per 22 kid classroom, so it’s close enough.
My cost comparisons were to bring people back down to earth about how much things really cost in NJ. Another one – it’s been about 10 years since I had to pay for childcare, but I think it cost about $200 per week only after school for 4 hours. So that was about $10 an hour, which included transport to the facility from the school, but not home. A 6 hour school day at $100 per day comes out to about $17 and (hopefully) includes an education and transport to and from home. For the extra $7, it’s a deal.
Not only is this a completely B.S., made-up issue, it is fun seeing leftists cannibalize each other:
“The White House tax blueprint could cause a multi-billion-dollar dent to nonprofits’ bottom line, and a Republican House plan could be equally damaging. Neither scheme explicitly targets nonprofits, which account for about 10 percent of U.S. private sector employment. But experts and industry leaders are lobbying against two seemingly innocuous changes: caps on the amount taxpayers can write off, and any increase in the standard deduction.”
Fact is, wealthy donors are already capped; this would lower the cap precipitously but still only hit “big spenders” who don’t simply write multimillion dollar checks but instead use trusts, foundations, donor-advised funds, and other mechanisms to give, all of which would be largely untouched.
As for lower income folks using standard deduction, this is specious because people don’t make contributions to get deductions. They just don’t. If your sole reason for making a contribution is because you can deduct it if you itemize, then you may be charitable but only inadvertently (which, BTW, is actually a basis for denying the deduction!!! Go figure).
“The unmitigated balls of this woman……such an entitled clown…..
These individuals were following the law by showing up to do their community service, local activist and child tutor Anita Quinones told the Star-Telegram.”
So a work detail sentence = community service?
What does 30 to life qualify for? MLK status?
leftwing,
I knew a black activist once, my age and went to a prestigious college just down the road from me in Amherst. We argued civilly as one would expect of a lawyer and adjunct professor. But we never agreed on anything.
I remember he told me once “Nom, we couldn’t agree on the time if we were looking at the same clock.”
This so reminds me of the mindset of the left. Which is why I am actually happy that they are rediscovering the Tenth Amendment, buying guns, and making noise about secession. If they would simply agree to let the states take on more of the issues over which we disagree, and keep our respective “problems” in our own states, we would get along a whole lot better.
It’s a shame what you have to pay for in NJ. Both my daughters began school at and ELC (Early Learning Center, grades K0, K1, K2, 1st grade). An ELC is a Boston public school, though you have to know the ins and outs of registration to get your kid in one. Essentially you have to apply when they are 2 years old to have any chance of your kid attending one when they are 3 years old. School starts at 7:30 AM and ends at 5PM with transportation both ways, all free (including meals). Even when they moved on to their next school (which started at 9:20AM) there is still free “surround care” so there is still free coverage from 7:30 until 5PM.
It was conspicuous to me when Boston went to “free breakfast and lunches for all”. It was right on the heels of the news about those Elizabeth, NJ administrators getting caught for putting their kids in free lunch programs when the kids didn’t actually qualify.
$2,200 per day times 180 days instruction is $396k. Alex’s number was $400k per year per 22 kid classroom, so it’s close enough.
My cost comparisons were to bring people back down to earth about how much things really cost in NJ. Another one – it’s been about 10 years since I had to pay for childcare, but I think it cost about $200 per week only after school for 4 hours. So that was about $10 an hour, which included transport to the facility from the school, but not home. A 6 hour school day at $100 per day comes out to about $17 and (hopefully) includes an education and transport to and from home. For the extra $7, it’s a deal.
Just like Cankles, my grandparents and parents came from Ukraine (via Germany actually – they were slave laborers there). Nothing to their possession but a wooden chest with some clothes and pictures. My paternal grandfather, not learning English until the day he died, was able to buy a 3 family in Newark after being in this country only two years. He sold that eventually and built an all brick 2 family in Somerset County for his retirement. The black workers at Seton Leather company in Newark, where he worked at near minimum wage, nicknamed him DODO because he didn’t speak English. Needless to say, I will remember those remarks the rest of my life.
My maternal grandparents also bought a 3 family in Newark and kept it (unfortunately, in this case) until the late seventies.
Our parents worked hard and long in low-level professional jobs. They pushed us to Rutgers in the 70’s because it was all they could afford, and yet provided a strong education.
Now, I and my brother, both first generation born, have produced out of 5 children, 3 Ivy League graduates, 1 baby Ivy graduate and a commissioned Naval officer.
My brother retired in his early 50s heading a company that he eventually sold to a fortune 500.
I have busted my ass by having a full time professional job , rental income producing properties and owning a retail side business, with yes, real employees. All at the same time.
Now, what is it about privilege that I don’t understand?
Even now, with my daughters attending Boston Latin in 7th and 9th grades, they have an even better free transportation program. They are given a “One Pass” that allows them to use all public transportation for free. So they get back and forth to school on their own and also use the train and subway to meet up with friends on the weekend.
It’s what you do understand and the permanent underclass doesn’t, Xolepa. It’s a pretty simple formula.
1. Married parents who are in the home.
2. Employed.
3. Save money.
4. Emphasis and attention on kid’s education starting from birth.
Now, what is it about privilege that I don’t understand?
Expat,
Tried to do that so much.
#3 interfered with keeping #1.
#3 interfered with spouse’s happiness.
#3 went out the window.
#2 still in place.
#4 holding steady but in jeopardy due to #3 going out the window.
That’s the bottom line! People need to open their eyes and stop complaining about the costs of public education. It’s a bargain people! Also, if you don’t have kids, you are still benefiting from a public education in our society. If you can’t figure out how, I’m not wasting my time explaining it to you when it should be common sense. If they eliminated public education in this country, the quality of life would crash within one generation.
Biggest sign of ignorance………complaining about why you have to pay for public schools when you don’t have kids using them. Complete sign of ignorance.
Against The Grain says:
March 29, 2017 at 10:56 am
Saw this from yesterday:
“$400,000 to teach 22 kids how to read, or learn algebra or history is staggering”
Not really, if you do the numbers. The school year in most districts is 180 days, so it comes out to slightly more than $100 a day per kid.
How much would a qualified private tutor cost per day? How much would a guy you pick up in the Home Depot parking lot to do odd jobs around your house cost per day?
Phoenix – sorry to hear that. I think one of the things that couples overlook is whether they are financially compatible. My wife and I currently share one car for everyday use. We bought it brand new for about $25,000 cash 15 years ago. We probably haven’t even discussed buying another car since about 2011 when we leased a second car for 42 months and realized it was nice, but still an unnecessary extravagance. The lease cost was $222 per month. I guess you can say our financial values mesh well.
Of course, my wife and I lived together for almost 10 years before we got married in 2000, so we pretty much figured out what was what and that it worked fine.
Ex-Pat
Don’t forget
5. Choose your industry wisely. My dad was 1st gen Irish, youngest of 10. 3 of my dad’s 4 brothers left Long Island in mid-60s for better opportunities in private boat industry in FL. It was a bad mistake as 70s sucked. 2 of 3 families ended up with kids in prison and on drugs. Florida is no place to raise kids. We stayed behind in Northeast and though rough childhood, my parents went 6 for 6 in college grads. My dad was in marine industry too but stayed with large conglomerates.
6. Live in an area where you have opportunity better than fry manager
We should kill the Dormant Commerce Clause. Who remembers this gem?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Philadelphia_v._New_Jersey
Expat
Thanks.
It’s really heart-warming to read the stories of all here that have risen from nothing. I truly mean it. My father did the same. He was born here but to hear stories of how poor he was and how hard he worked really makes me feel humble. I miss him and my Mom, too. They both worked so hard.
The #1 way to the middle class is to save and live within ones means.
The #1 way to the upper class is to save enough money so that you earn more money off of the saved money than you do laboring to earn it.
SCF,
That was my plan. Played it a little to tough.
Trajectory was accurate until a failure of the O ring @73 seconds..
I remember your story Phoenix. I know of no one who stayed happily married to a partner that spent more than they brought in. Recipe for failure. Better off with hookers.
My wife grew up in China and was a kid in the 70s. Her mom and dad had to work in the commie factory. She and her elder sister were left alone in the commie apartment to fend for themselves most of the time. They often ran out of their rice ration at the end of each month. Her older brother couldn’t go to college because the PC police of their era, the Red Guards, shut down universities. My wife worked to be top of her class to get into a top school in Beijing. Then she was almost killed for standing up for human rights at Tiananmen. So she found a way to get an academic/working scholarship for an MBA in America, and worked the whole time. Found work, we met and married, and she became a citizen in the 90s. I’ve got my own rags to riches story, less dramatic since it was in the US, but we supported each other throughout to achieve professional success and financial security. Anyway, each of us saw peers throw away their opportunities due to the choices they made. Plenty with better starts and more support than we had. These commies that now teach/police the universities, my wife thinks they sound even worse than the old commies in China. And is shocked that Americans are letting these kinds of scum trash American ideals and destroy their children’s future.
no one…..are you rags?
I am unsure whether this opinion piece is a factual explanation or a rationalization…..either way…repulsive…
OPINION
The ‘Postmodern’ Intellectual Roots of Today’s Campus Mobs
If reality is nothing but a ‘narrative,’ then of course it’s important to control what people say.
By CRISPIN SARTWELL
We are witnessing the second great era of speech repression in academia, the first coming during the “culture wars” of the late 1980s and early ’90s. One force behind the new wave is a theory of truth, or a picture of reality, developed the first time around. This theory, which we might call “linguistic constructivism,” holds that we don’t merely describe or represent the world in language; language creates the world and ourselves. A favorite slogan of our moment, “Words have power,” reflects that view.
Back in the day, “postmodern” intellectual figures such as my teacher Richard Rorty were accused of relativism. In his 1998 book, “Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America,” Rorty wrote that “objectivity is a matter of intersubjective consensus among human beings, not of accurate representation of something nonhuman.” He had many ways of deflecting the charge of relativism. But perhaps it is more notable that his “consensus reality” was to be achieved through telling stories. He held that reality was a matter of widely accepted narratives—in particularly narratives of soc!al progress.
The idea that we construct ourselves and one another and the world by language was remarkably pervasive in the golden period of postmodernism. Figures such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Paul Ricoeur and Nelson Goodman—who disagreed about many things—converged on this. “If I ask about the world,” wrote Goodman, a Harvard philosopher, “you can offer to tell me how it is under one or more frames of reference; but if I insist that you tell me how it is apart from all frames, what can you say? We are confined to ways of describing whatever is described. Our universe, so to speak, consists of these ways rather than of a world.”
That words have such power suggests that we can create a better world by renarrating. But it also implies that we need to get control of what people say and write and hear and read. If words make reality, then they are central to racial oppression, for example. Changing the words we use about race could change consciousness and ameliorate racism. Many feminists and critical race theorists have taken up this kind of linguistic constructionism, and it often seems to young people, including my students, to be a common-sense truth.
That is a remarkable development, for this sort of postmodernism was greeted as radical and bizarre when it arrived. Here is one reason to question it: After the ’60s civil-rights movement, white Americans by and large learned not to use racist language. We became convinced that racism was to a significant extent a matter of using the wrong terms. We edited these terms out of our public discourse and even out of our consciousness. Then we more or less came to believe that we were no longer racists.
But in many ways, the structure of racist oppression persisted or even in some cases intensified, as in mass incarceration. Fixing the language, by formal and informal soc!al sanctions on one another, turned out to be much easier than addressing material conditions of segregation or poverty. A position like Rorty’s, however, permits no criterion of truth outside the language, no appeal to the “material conditions” beyond our descriptions.
For Rorty, truth is nothing but a story we will all come to accept together—a progressive story in which inequalities of race, s5x and s5xuality are being steadily ameliorated. The positions articulated by opponents of this narrative are false by definition, false from the outset, known to be false before they are even examined. It is then well within the values of academia—devoted to the truth—to silence those views.
“It is doubtful whether the current critics of the universities who are called ‘conservative intellectuals’ deserve this description,” Rorty writes. “For intellectuals are supposed to be aware of, and speak to, issues of soc1al justice.” That is, opponents of the leftist consensus in academia do not even count as intellectuals because of the positions they take. By that logic it is defensible to eliminate such people from graduate programs, to deny them tenure, even to shout them down.
Many strands run into today’s academic censoriousness; this one comes from the arena of ideas rather than directly from larger soc1al forces. But it has been a particularly potent ideology in establishing academia as a zone of ideological unanimity.
Mr. Sartwell is an associate professor of philosophy at Dickinson College. His book “Entanglements: a System of Philosophy” is set to appear this month from SUNY Press.
Appeared in the Mar. 25, 2017, print edition.
Bystander – I agree on all points. Interestingly my mother’s only sibling was a stateside stationed Marine during the Korean War, a jet mechanic who always schemed his way out of actually doing any mechanic work. When he left the marines he went to college in Ohio on the GI Bill and got a degree and became a Gym Teacher in NJ for the rest of his life. None of his 5 kids ever graduated college. My Mom, a secretarial school graduate, married my Dad who got his engineering degree going to school at 8 years night while married (after serving in the Navy). Myself and my 4 siblings all graduated college. My uncle and most of his progeny ended up in the trough state of Florida.
Ex-Pat
Don’t forget
5. Choose your industry wisely. My dad was 1st gen Irish, youngest of 10. 3 of my dad’s 4 brothers left Long Island in mid-60s for better opportunities in private boat industry in FL. It was a bad mistake as 70s sucked. 2 of 3 families ended up with kids in prison and on drugs. Florida is no place to raise kids. We stayed behind in Northeast and though rough childhood, my parents went 6 for 6 in college grads. My dad was in marine industry too but stayed with large conglomerates.
6. Live in an area where you have opportunity better than fry manager
Some good posts today.
I would add that it’s much tougher to produce a rags to riches story in today’s economy. Capital is king these days as opposed to labor. Min wage 40 years ago actually had purchasing power to the point where you could save. Today, forget saving on a low salary, just hope you don’t go into debt. (Just remember, the purchasing power of the lower end jobs will return or the economy will crash.) Also, much more difficult to start a business today. You didn’t have so many giant corporations out there operating on small margins.
Internet says otherwise.
Rags to riches exists in spades, it’s just not the same story as your parents told.
I mean, dude comes up with Minecraft, sells it for $2.5 billion dollars.
Yes, but what I meant by my post, it’s not just about working hard and saving your way to the top anymore. It’s become extremely difficult to save compared to the past. Try coming to America today and in two years have a multi family home…,good luck!! So you are not seeing the same percentage of hard workers climbing the ladder anymore. Indeed people are still climbing, but it’s becoming less and less. Majority of risers today are middle class becoming upper class as the middle class fades away. Going to be very difficult to make the jump from poor to rich if our country continues down this path of extreme income inequality; with no middle class, that’s a big jump from poor to rich.
@Reuters
U.S. judge to consider objection to Trump University settlement
By Karen Freifeld | NEW YORK
A U.S. judge will hear arguments on Thursday over whether to grant final approval to a $25 million settlement of fraud lawsuits against President Donald Trump over his Trump University real estate investment seminars, with at least one former student objecting to the deal.
Sherri Simpson of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who paid $19,000 to learn Trump’s investing “secrets,” filed court papers earlier this month arguing the class action settlement should not have contained a provision barring her and other students from opting out and suing Trump on their own.
The objection raises the possibility the litigation could continue to dog Trump’s presidency. During the campaign, Trump vowed to fight the fraud claims but agreed to the settlement soon after the election. Under the deal, Trump admitted no wrongdoing.
that’s why a lazy fat fukc votes a Russia puppet into office. can’t cut it in the brave new world and needs to blame globalization and refugees for a failed life
The Great Pumpkin says:
March 29, 2017 at 6:10 pm
Majority of risers today are middle class becoming upper class as the middle class fades away. Going to be very difficult to make the jump from poor to rich if our country continues down this path of extreme income inequality;
Puzzy, sad but true.
Truth of the matter, immigration is a really good thing for the economy in its ability to fuel growth. Problem is, if you don’t have enough jobs to support this inflow of immigration, you end up with new immigration inflows eating into the standard of living of everyone else to support their livelihood. I don’t think the majority of people are against immigration/globalization because they are racist, more like they are afraid and in full out preservation mode. Watching your quality of life erode right before your eyes will do that. They are caught in quick sand and can’t get out, we would do the same in their position.
Proud to report : I am an immigrant with nothing but one suit case of clothes when I came in 84 with $1,000 in my pocket.. Two kids all College grad with good jobs. I own 2 homes,retired at 50.
Motto: It is not about how much you make,It is about how much is left. SAVE SAVE SAVE!!!
Feels good to think about the past. America is truly the Land of milk and honey for those who seek.
Unless your black apparently.
Russian puppet? How come the left loved Russia when it was a communist dictatorship and now that it is just a plain old dictatorship they are afraid and hate Russia?
Nothing here a strong drink can’t solve.
“The girl is one generation behind the boy. Do I need to explain?”
Please explain, I can always use a good laugh.
D-FENS
“You are the boy on the left…most of us were the child on the right.
Project your self loathing white guilt elsewhere.”
Don’t make assumptions you can’t back up. A few of the older posters know my story, I don’t care to repeat it in today’s environment. Suffice to say you are way off the mark.
Steam,
“The only difference today, from when my family came in by ship from the Ukraine, is that those who arrive today receive tons of help from the government. ”
Ok, elaborate.
Steam
“. If reparations were paid to the black community (since that’s where all this privilege krap is coming from) do you believe it will change anything at all?”
The fact you even ask that, suggests to me that you don’t exactly understand the issue.
Reparations for Slavery is a completely different discussion from “Liberty and Justice for all” which is the more pressing matter. Equality is missing from this country. Take a look at the Left Wing Ar-15 guys from yesterdays discussion. They will take their arms and go defend the minority’s. Now if the brothers show up with the same hardware, and say the same thing the SWAT teams get called.
Here is an interesting piece. Have a read and comment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html
And to add into the ICE showing up at work details. How many are there as they took the plea deal because they could not afford to fight.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/trials_and_error/2017/03/poor_defendants_get_locked_up_because_they_can_t_afford_cash_bail_here_s.html
I get the whole “Bad Hombres”, but this is picking off Low hanging fruit that for the most part, are contributing to society.
How many tunnels are already under Tijuana. The people getting people into the US now have to add a ladder and a few blankets.
Some people need a reality check!
Fab, the whole white privilege is craziness. Lets just call it what it is….it is millions of years of evolution, animals are programmed to protect their own and trust their own. If we are going to talk about white privilege we should also talk about tall privilege, thin privilege, etc. Any minority group is going to face some distrust and stereotyping in any society, our society has improved light years from where we have been and generally have many fewer issues. The “White Privilege” garbage will only make things worse for race relations, “White Guilt” is counterproductive as common folks don’t like this idea and as it is out of their control largely, there is nothing they can do about it. We should focus on understanding and not discriminating not saying we need to make special arrangements for minorities because of “White Privilege”. Our immigrant ancestors were discriminated against, but their response was to assimilate…something that is discouraged and looked down on by the African American community. That is not to say that people abandoned their culture entirely but publicly tried to conform, adopted American names, ate American food, spoke english as best they could. The African American community discourages this conformity, most of the highly successful black people in this country(not including actors, musicians, and athletes) I’ve ever met have conformed, speak proper english, wear professional clothes, etc.