LOL

Thanks anyways, pero from what I’ve read at HP, no aparece nosotros tiene mucho a discrepar sobre. Unless you tried to say the Lakers were better than my Spurs. That’d be a big ole NUNCA!

BTW, it was the Time article (not the WaPo) that stated the FBI couldn’t document Nebur’s allegations.

I was out of pocket for a while but wanted to reply to Nebur’s links.

From what I could read from the actual “briefs” Nebur linked to, his(WHR) arguments were usually that the Constitution did not allow for the courts to interpret but a very narrow scope. Most decision making was to be left to the Legislative branch.

As for the other posts, (Chimes, the Nathan Newman article and the “Common Dreams New Center” article, etc. appear to be editorial type essays that were either not documented or based on hearsay/chisme/cousins’ neighbors’ friends’ saw. I didn’t care to see the dress up doll and for some reason, a few links were dead. This seemed like a very obscure choice of “documentation”

so I scanned the web to find a better balance of news articles that addressed the accusations, here is a sample of what I found:

NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4132357

Fox News:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168420,00.html

WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301911.html

Quote: He also held the view that the Warren Court had gone beyond what the framers of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment had intended in guaranteeing “equal protection of the laws” by state governments. Rehnquist felt that, in fact, the amendment was meant to proscribe a narrow range of discriminatory conduct and that only the Supreme Court, not Congress, had the power to say what that conduct would be.

Michael Ariens:

http://www.michaelariens.com/ConLaw/justices/rehnquist.htm

Time:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1101296,00.html

NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/politics/wire-rehnquist.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=9945857dec68c4dc&ex=1127102400&excamp=GGGNwilliamrehnquist

Now I tried to find a varied sample, (no Michael Moore, no Michael Savage). None of the above are pinnacles of Conservatism (that I know of) and all had hosannahs and huffaws but of interest is that a few mention that even “liberal” politicians felt he was an effective, efficient and likable Justice.

Ariens article had a fellow Justice (Douglas) who supported his denial that the memo Nebur refers to did NOT reflect his (WHR) views, but were instead a consolidation (of sorts ) of Justice Jackson, who he clerked for. This was interesting because he was the only one on the court in 1971 who was on the court in 1952.

Regarding the “Common Dreams” accusation, I believe it is the WaPo article that stated that the charge could not be verified by the FBI. There are more articles on the web, but these seemed to convey the general consensus of the 10 or so I read.

Now, where does this leave the debate? I do not know enough about the man. While the above sampling is probably too narrow to form a statistically sufficient outcome as to what his true disposition was (at least to my satisfaction), I think it is sufficient enough to debunk your accusations, Nebur. . Your doc’s appear to be too onesided and therefore do not hold up to reasonable critique,( ie: was he racist or was he following a strict constructionist agenda that believed a majority of things should be decided by the legislative branch, thus holding to these principles regardless of how unpopular it may be, perhaps even to a fault). It also seems reasonable to presume that if any of your allegations were true, there would be documentation of it in the above papers, or at least a more thorough discussion..

Now I couldn’t read the Mapp vs. Ohio and would like to read any links you have to that, it may have something that supports your view. And again, you may have more information to prove your point that I am unaware of, but I only went on what you left me to read. Finally, as I stated earlier, I am not an attorney, legal expert, statistician or anything like that. I am only a student nurse (who has a 10 year old BA in economics) that questions everything.

OK, enough legal caca, back to studying bacterial infections.

I’ve blogged several times on the weak, to non-existent, link between more money for education and results, just click on the ‘education’ link on the bottom right to see them.

But in short, this is what you get with more money for education; a picture is worth a thousand words…

http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/21504edchart.gif

Racism is the lens through which we see the world, and that is important, but ones personal views pale in importance compared to whether they act on those views. Hence my defense of Rehnquist’s judicial rulings, not his personal beliefs, be they racist or not.

As far as vouchers goes, I know you’re gonna write more later, but allow me to respond to what you wrote.

First of all, it says something about your priorities when in your whole response, you never address vouchers primary goal, the poor children trapped in failing schools. With all due respect Nebur, it is the poor children trapped in failing schools that are my primary focus.

If it means the poor getting a better education, I can careless about what happens to any one school. If it means the poor getting a better education, I can careless about what school they get it at, be it a Catholic school, Jewish school, or secular school. If it means the poor getting a better education, I can careless about whose tax dollars paid for it. If it means the poor getting a better education, I can careless how they received that education, be it by ‘CD-rom or DVD’ or from teachers. If it means the poor getting a better education, I can careless about what certification the teacher had, afterall, certifications tell us very little about the quality of the teacher. If it means the poor getting a better education, I can careless about what ’socialization’ they get.

In other words, when I evaluate vouchers, it is the poors, who are disproportionately minorities, education that I care most about. All of the things you responded with are completely secondary, to what I worry about. But here, allow me to respond to them anyway, since it seems you may not fully understand how vouchers work….

You write,

For now, let us just say that i am against the gutting of the public education system.

Before I explain this particular point, I want to stress that vouchers will not destroy our public school system. As the United States Postal Service example I gave above demonstrates, vouchers will make the public school system better, not destroy it.

As far as gutting an individual public school, well there are many different ways one can implement vouchers, and a voucher plan does not necessarily have to ‘gut’ the public school. For example, here in California, there is already ~$11,000/year per student of our tax dollars set aside for the public school of that student. The way vouchers would work is if that student happens to go to a failing school, that school would be put on probation, and only after still not reforming, would vouchers get implemented. They would start off slow, giving the market a chance to meet demand, but eventually every kid in that failing school would be given a voucher that could be used to send that kid to the school of the parents choice. Now heres the thing, not all of the ~$11,000 needs to go to the parent. The state could decide that only $4,000 or $5,000 is necessary, given current market values of private schools. So the remaining $7,000 or so could be used to help the school improve, or it could be used to help other good schools improve. Bottom line, only the schools that are failing are ‘gutted’, but who cares, why would anybody want to put more money into a school that is failing and unreformable anyway?

You also write,

I am not against “choice.” I’m cool with your choice of where to send your kids to school, I just don’t want to pay for that choice.

But here is the rub, you are already paying for it. In other words, vouchers does not require any additional funding, nobodies tax dollars are going to go up. What vouchers does is redirect the already allocated money, that was originally going to go to the public school, and instead, gives it to the parent in the form of a voucher to send the kid to the school of their choosing. So essentially, it is giving parents a choice that they would otherwise have not had before.

You say that you are not against my choice of where to send my own kid, and presumably, you wouldn’t be against other peoples choices of where to send their own kids, but as soon as vouchers empowers the poor, who again are disproportionately minorities, the power to make the same choice, you are against that? And this from someone who presumably is not against tax dollars being used to pay for the poors abortions? Remember Nebur, the only difference between my choice of where to send my kids and the poors choice of where to send their own kids, is that I can financially afford it. So essentially, you are against vouchers giving the poor the very same right every rich person already has? On something as basic as education?

To be honest Nebur, I expected more from you. I expect this from limousine liberals who have never tasted poverty. Of course they are going to want to be patient with the public school system, afterall, their kids are in elite private schools. I expect to hear from them, ‘just give the public school one more chance’, or ‘if only one more billion was spent on education’, or ‘if we only tweaked this one problem’, I expect to hear that from them decade after decade, because it is not their kids that are suffering the consequences. I bet that if it was their kids going to Compton High School, going to these ’socialization institutes’, they would sing a different tune. But to hear it from you, is very bothersome.

Your response reminds me of Casey Lartigue’s experience volunteering with the Washington Scholarship Fund, he writes:

there is one woman who needs a cane to get around. She is rather frail, probably in her 70s. Last year she went to a JAIL in DC to recruit families for the scholarship program. I wasn’t there that day, but heard from someone else there that the many ladies waiting to get into the jail to see their men were eager to sign up. I don’t know the exact story behind it, but one inmate “temporarily” got away from officers to make sure his child was signed up for the voucher program.

He continues with,

It was stressful talking to these parents, hearing their stories, knowing how desperate they are to get their children out of the situations they are in now. I’m on the WSF board, I volunteer, and every time I leave one of those sessions I feel drained. When I hear people denounce the program, I always like to check from where the person is talking. It is never in the room or at any Washington Scholarship Fund events. That’s because the parents would probably rip them up. It is so much easier to denounce when you aren’t involved or have an ideological or political axe to grind.
…
Some of the parents who feel that this is the last chance to get their children into a quality school get really emotional about the program. I was present last year during the publicly funded lottery–a cold process with a lot of lawyers and other witnesses present. Then I was there when some of the parents were notified that they had received scholarships. So many shouts of hallelujah! and praise the lord! were coming through the phone lines. Then there are the sad calls to parents to let them know that they had not received a scholarship. So many are skeptical before, during, and after the process. When they don’t receive a scholarship, it confirms their worst fears. But the ones who win scholarships? Hallelujah!

Education is THE meal ticket out of poverty, it is the only chance the poor have to move up into the ranks of the middle and upper class, without it, you are dooming them to a life of poverty, a life of financial troubles and a circle of poverty that will keep them in poverty generation after generation, these parents know it, and regardless of their current circumstances, they want to do everything in their power to change that for their kids, for the next generation of their children, and they want to give their children what every parent wishes, a better life than they had, and so when somebody proposes something that has a track record of fixing that, they understandably careless about ‘whose tax dollars pay for it’, or ‘what religious school their kids may go to’, or ‘the socialization of their children’, they primarily care about their childs education, and getting them out of these failed public schools, as they should.

When you refer to “salad bowl” do you mean people A may “interact” with people B but they must stay “with their own Kind”? Do the ingredients ever blend (not just in flavor but in substance? What of the “Hybrids”? Just curious.

BTW, I printed some of those links out. Do you know where a link to a better Mapp vs. Ohio is? Do you know of any views counter to the one you hold for comparison? Again, I know nothing on this subject and want to formulate an independant opinion. Thanks

Racism is never a never a side matter. It is the lens through which we wee the world.

As for vouchers, I may write more later. For now, let us just say that i am against the gutting of the public education system.

I am not against “choice.” I’m cool with your choice of where to send your kids to school, I just don’t want to pay for that choice. I am against funneling public moneys into religious or faith-based organizations. I am against children learning by CD-rom or DVD, as so many home-schooled children do in my community. I am against an educational system where uneducated people “teach”. As a son and grandson of extremely educated public school teachers, I find it offensive to give my tax dollars to pay for uncredentialled individuals to “teach,” often times in a church setting.

Oh…. and I am against robbing children of the socialization that public education gives them. We learn how to live in our great salad bowl by interacting with those who are different than us. That is less likely to happen in isolated schools outside of the public school system.

In a time of budget cuts, the public coffers do not need to be diverted to churches.

Be sure to also read the Thomas Sowell posts I linked to, he gives a greater overview of the ‘costs’ associated with brown that many people currently don’t take into account.