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News
Adoptive family seeks award for bomb dog that went to war
News Published: Wed, June 19, 2013
Ruby and Wade Ridpath with their combat veteran dog, Carlos, who served five years as an explosive-detecting dog in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Ridpaths nominated Carlos for the American Humane Association Hero Dog Awards in the military dog category. by Erin Prater erin.prater@gazette.com – “Bring him home.” As Ruby Ridpath typed those words into an [...]
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- Bernie Herpin may face Sen. John Morse in recall, if he gets signatures
- FIRE NOTEBOOK: Reception canceled for Waldo exhibit
- Red flag fire warning for El Paso County, dry conditions all week
- Man in custody after traffic stop
- UPDATES: New areas to open temporarily Wednesday morning to Black Forest fire residents
Life
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s ‘gentlest giraffe’ dies at age 32
Life Published: Tue, June 18, 2013
Courtesy of the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo The Gazette – The most recognizable giraffe at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, known for her unique, nearly all-white coloring, died Tuesday morning due to complications of old age. Becky, a 32-year-old reticulated giraffe, had been on a “quality of life watch” for about a year and a half, the [...]
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A&E
DOG DAYS OF SUMMER: The dogs who went Hollywood
Arts & Entertainment Published: Tue, June 18, 2013
by t.d. mobley-martinez tracy@coloradosprings.com – I love dogs. And I’m not alone. Which is probably why they have found themselves pictured or portrayed since men began to walk upright. Cave paintings and Egyptian murals. Those “Blue Dog” paintings. Tin Tin’s Snowy, L. Frank Baum’s Toto in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” Astro, Scooby Doo and [...]
Sports
Sky Sox use Chris Volstad’s pitching, solid defense to top Tacoma 4-1
Sports Published: Tue, June 18, 2013
by JOE PAISLEY joe.paisley@gazette.com – Colorado Springs starter Chris Volstad got into a rhythm and the Sky Sox defense came up with three big double plays to down Tacoma 4-1 Tuesday night. The first two double plays ended Rainier scoring threats in the second and seventh innings and the final, a line drive grab by [...]
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- Former Rockie Esmil Rogers shuts down former team in 8-3 Toronto victory
- Northern Colorado football camp entry fees given to Red Cross after fire
- Subhead
- KLEE: With limited roster, CSU football must rely on flexibility of coaches
- McBride and Paulsen can’t carry Colorado Springs Sky Sox to victory in 12-7 loss to Las Vegas
Business
New hires, promotions & honors
Business Published: Wed, June 19, 2013
The Gazette – Tom Reiter has been named chief executive officer and president of Rocky Mountain Health Care Services, which provides a continuum of services to people who are elderly, blind, brain injured, disabled or living with diabetes or AIDS. Reiter will start July 1. He has more than 23 years experience in health-care organizations, [...]
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Military
Army show at home base brings a case of nerves for Fort Carson soldier
Military Published: Mon, June 10, 2013
In The Soldier Show, the stars of the show are not only performers, but soldiers. The Soldier Show travels the world to entertain our soldiers and their families. The show came to Ft. Carson on Thursday, May 30, 2013. (Jerilee Bennett, The Gazette) by erin prater erin.prater@gazette.com – hen the Army’s “Soldier Show” rolled into [...]
- “There are no ‘cultural differences’ between blacks and whites when it comes to firefighting and I defy you to identify any”: Of course there aren’t, as my subsequent paragraph made painfully clear. That “if” of yours was extremely important (“IF the test involves only detailed knowledge of firefighting…”). You chose to ignore the fact that I fundamentally agree with you — IF the test was strictly firefighting-related. Do we know that it was? You didn’t respond to that point, so I assume that we don’t know.
* * * * * * *
- “I’ll allow your own ad hominem this once, but please keep to the debate, not the individuals in the future”: There was no ad hominem in my previous post, and I object strenuously to the accusation.
“Calling socialists, liberals and statists what they are is neither invective nor ad hominem, it’s identification”: Sorry, no. The term “socialist” was demonized long ago, “liberal” was ultimately poisoned by the Gingrich Revolution (if not long before), and “statist” has no real meaning other than its faint but damning implication of collectivist force. What’s invective on one side, of course, is descriptive on the other. Even so, several generations of Americans have grown up knowning that “socialists” and “fascists” are by definition EVIL, regardless of whatever either term REALLY means. (“Statism” is an excellent choice as your preferred epithet. “Fascist” as a descriptor of the Obama Administration and its values, as far as I can tell, originated with Libertarian demigod Tibor Machan, and is stone bullsh!+.) All four terms however are guaranteed firebombs for the Clueless Right, your target audience. The terms might have more flexible definitions within the Artificial Marble Halls of Libertarian Academia, but for the masses they have specific meanings — meanings which fire up old hatreds & prejudices. And since you are clearly a smart guy, I assume you know that & are using the terms in this blog for their demagoguic impact. Red meat for the masses.
And so I’m working on an appropriate counterbalance to that nasty rhetoric of yours. “Paleo-conservativism” doesn’t quite make it, but it’s on the right track. I’m favoring “Pre-Tribalism” at the moment, or perhaps “Troglodytism,” because they seem to sum up the back-to-the-past primitivism of Freedom’s idiotic party line.
What you “allow” is your business. You allow yourself a great deal of room to mischaracterize people you disagree with. I claim the same privilege. And since Freedom Communications is al about the First Amendment, I’m guessing we’ll have no further quarrels on the issue once your readers and I have settled on just the right insult.
“- “There are no ‘cultural differences’ between blacks and whites when it comes to firefighting and I defy you to identify any”: Of course there aren’t, as my subsequent paragraph made painfully clear. That “if” of yours was extremely important (”IF the test involves only detailed knowledge of firefighting…”). You chose to ignore the fact that I fundamentally agree with you — IF the test was strictly firefighting-related. Do we know that it was? You didn’t respond to that point, so I assume that we don’t know.”
One would assume that if there was some discriminatory taint in the test that the blacks who took the test would have been the ones filing the lawsuit. They didn’t. It was the city of New Haven itself that tossed out the results of the examination, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, only because no blacks were in the top rankings. There were 15 positions available and 14 whites and one Hispanic scored high enough to rank for promotion. As stated in the article, the reason for dumping the test given by Christopher Meade is that it is an “adverse impact” on minorities because none of them scored high enough to rank for promotion. What appears to be being tested here is the tension between two federal laws, one of which forbids discrimination based on race, and the other which prohibits hiring or promotional practices that have a “disparate impact on the basis of race” unless they are a “business necessity.” The second rule appears to require a determination of whether the test contained questions not “necessary” to being a command officer in the fire department.
According to the Hartford Courant, the Obama administration said that the city was justified in dropping the test if it had “gross exclusionary effects on minorities” and the NAACP claims that such discrimination is appropriate because of past exclusion of blacks from fire and police departments, even though blacks make up 31 percent of New Haven’s force of 221, and eight of 42 lieutenants and one of 18 captains are black.
Both the Obama administration and the NAACP are arguing that test standards must be crafted to ensure the success of minorities even if there is no deliberate discrimination involved. How anyone can craft an examination to ensure that minorities pass in a technical skill and knowledge environment like firefighting is beyond me. The implicit assumption of making that argument is that minorities are, well, inferior in their ability to learn, understand and apply the necessary skills and knowledge of firefighting command, and that is a factually racist position to take. The assumption must be that minorities are fully capable of acquiring the necessary skills and knowledge because they are equal in every way to the majority, including mental and physical ability, and that not ranking high enough on a promotional exam is merely an indication that the individuals involved have not obtained the requisite knowledge. Giving preference to anyone based on their race alone is unlawfully discriminatory. So is denying someone promotion based on their race alone, which is what happened here.
Guffman wrote: “There was no ad hominem in my previous post, and I object strenuously to the accusation.”
You said: “Ad hominem attacks don’t help your argument, or your reputation as Wayne Laugesen’s heavyweight-champeen debater, neither of which concerns me.”
That qualifies as an attack upon the individual (specifically me and my reputation), not the argument. Please avoid such personal references in the future.
As for terminology, you may choose any label you like to refer to Freedom Communications’ political position so long as it is not obscene or offensive and I will not object. However, please don’t expect me to accept your specious argument that I’m not permitted to use “socialist” or other commonly-used identifier for the left side of the political spectrum because you don’t like the taint. One of the classic tactics of socialists is to try to recast their agenda as benign and harmless while denying the liberty-destroying actions that enslave people through government application of force. I will continue to point out such obfuscations as they appear. The tactic of the socialist “Big Lie” is to state an untruth as a truth and then continue to maintain that lie steadfastly until it becomes the truth in the mind of the proletariat is well known to those who have studied the dialectic. It’s important to challenge such lies when they are put forward in order to allow the people to decide for themselves what the real truth is. I take pride in exposing Big Lies.
You are quite right that both the Gazette and Freedom Communications oppose such agendas, and while I do not speak for either, I do speak for myself, and I agree with them. Socialism is a great evil that must be opposed lest it enslave and kill more millions of people than it already has. And modern progressivism and liberalism have embraced the rhetoric and goals of state socialism, so they must also be opposed. I will continue to do so. It is, after all, my forum. As for firing up the masses, I freely admit that it is my intention to fire up the masses. Liberty is in grave danger just now and people need to be fired up. I stand in honorable company in that regard and make no apology whatsoever for defending positions that advocate individual liberty and freedom. Identifying Marxists and other statists and their ideologies and agendas and pointing them out to the masses is an important function of my column.
Aligning the Obama administration with fascism didn’t originate with Machan, and I disagree with him. The problem with finding a label for Obama’s administration is that’s it’s still unclear exactly what his actual agenda is because he keeps it pretty well concealed and constantly uses misdirection to keep the public unaware of what’s really going on in Washington. So, I favor “statist” as a useful label because it encompasses all the various forms of both hard-left and hard-right ideologies that substitute government control for individual liberty. Left or right, when government aggregates power and control to itself it’s harmful to individuals and individual freedom, and I’m an advocate for very, very limited government, particularly when it comes to the federal government.
As for “mischaracterizing” people, you’ll need to be more specific as to who I have mischaracterized and in what way.
Seth,
- “…competition is the only thing that drives people to overcome their faults and improve their performance”: Here’s a less baleful, more realistic view of Human Nature. A small percentage of humans will never succeed at anything, no matter what opportunities are placed in front of them. A small minority will excel, no matter what obstacles are thrown in their path. The majority will work at the lowest level of intensity they can get away with. And these truths apply under any political regime.
- “…the essential question is whether the test is ‘flawed’ merely because no blacks passed it, or whether it’s ‘flawed’ because it was deliberately designed to discriminate against blacks”: You will of course never grant a third possibility: That the test was designed by whites who were clueless about cultural differences between White America and Black America and unintentionally made the thing significantly harder for African Americans. Which brings us to the crux of the matter…
- “If the test involves only detailed knowledge of firefighting and administration, then those who score highest deserve promotion, irrespective of the race of the applicants”: That’s the critical point, and I’m afraid I haven’t followed the case close enough to know whether that was in fact the case. Perhaps you have. If the test ONLY involved firefighting and administration, then New Haven was in the wrong.
- “It’s another manifestation of socialist playing-field leveling attempts by statists and liberals …”: From this stream of boilerplate, would-be invective, you left out “fascists.” Ad hominem attacks don’t help your argument, or your reputation as Wayne Laugesen’s heavyweight-champeen debater, neither of which concerns me. But since you won’t lay off the playground-level name-calling, I’ve begun research to develop an appropriately hateful yet vague epithet for the particular brand of libertarianism being hustled by Freedom Communications. Something apt enough to be defensible yet subtly pejorative, ideally inflammatory, and ultimately untrue….
Suggestions from readers are welcome. Send them to me at guffman_wallah@earthlink.net.
“- “…the essential question is whether the test is ‘flawed’ merely because no blacks passed it, or whether it’s ‘flawed’ because it was deliberately designed to discriminate against blacks”: You will of course never grant a third possibility: That the test was designed by whites who were clueless about cultural differences between White America and Black America and unintentionally made the thing significantly harder for African Americans. Which brings us to the crux of the matter…”
There are no “cultural differences” between blacks and whites when it comes to firefighting and I defy you to identify any. You either know how to fight fires or you don’t. The knowledge is technical and entirely non-cultural and it’s there for anyone to learn, black, white, brown, yellow, green, or purple. Unlike civics tests or “ebonics” for young people who may or may not have a different cultural base when it comes to abstract questions about society and how it works, firefighting is a science. As a science, you either have what it takes to advance to higher levels of knowledge or you don’t, and there should be no “leveling” of the field when it comes to the requisite knowledge and skills, any more than college students need a “racial leveling” review process for testing knowledge of chemistry or particle physics. If you don’t know the material, then study harder until you do.
“- “It’s another manifestation of socialist playing-field leveling attempts by statists and liberals …”: From this stream of boilerplate, would-be invective, you left out “fascists.” Ad hominem attacks don’t help your argument, or your reputation as Wayne Laugesen’s heavyweight-champeen debater, neither of which concerns me. But since you won’t lay off the playground-level name-calling, I’ve begun research to develop an appropriately hateful yet vague epithet for the particular brand of libertarianism being hustled by Freedom Communications. Something apt enough to be defensible yet subtly pejorative, ideally inflammatory, and ultimately untrue….”
Calling socialists, liberals and statists what they are is neither invective nor ad hominem, it’s identification. Linking them to policies intended to forward the liberal, progressive, socialist or statist agenda is merely stating the truth. I imagine that the really hard-left has no objection to being so identified or linked to these sorts of policies and procedures because they appear to be in complete agreement with me about the intended result. The difference is that they think it’s a good thing, and I think it’s insanity. That I point out the idiocy of such positions when it comes to fostering a civil society that will both function and flourish is, I admit, my own ideological bent, but it’s not ad hominem because it’s to the policies and arguments, not to the individual’s character. I figure there’s enough far-left media outlets out there who pander to the liberal-progressives that I need make no apology for defending either liberty or capitalism. And I would have added “fascists” except that I’m not convinced those who support the kind of lowest-common-denominator equalization of outcomes I mention are fascists. I’m favoring “statists” these days because it covers all the various flavors, including fascists and statist-conservatives. If the left objects to having their policies being characterized as idiocy, then they need to quit supporting idiotic policies.
Now, if you’d like to make a counter argument from the left as to why kids soccer games and school grades should not be scored or competitive, then please make it. I’ll allow your own ad hominem this once, but please keep to the debate, not the individuals in the future.
“The United States Supreme Court is now considering the question of whether minorities are due special consideration in competitive testing or whether such racial considerations are discriminatory against whites.”
By what possible reasoning would “such racial considerations”–ANY racial considerations, whether favoring blacks or whites–not be discriminatory? And we need a supreme court justice to adjudicate this?
“‘New Haven lawyer Christopher Meade told the Court, “There is no entitlement to be promoted based on a flawed test.” This is true, but the essential question is whether the test is “flawed” merely because no blacks passed it, or whether it’s “flawed” because it was deliberately designed to discriminate against blacks.’”
Maybe I lack imagination, but how could anyone design a firefighter’s test that would favor one skin color over another?
My sympathies lie with those firefighters who studied for the test, excelled, and now won’t receive their promotions. A pity. And a travesty of justice.