tdaxp

Jason of South Dakota Politics sent me a pair of emails relating to my apology for supporting the Democratic Party. With his permission, his words are below:

Just wanted to say, you're forgiven ;-) No, I had thought the same thing in prior to the election, but I hadn't expected the Republicans to lose Congress entirely. I thought maybe just losing the House would have been a good wakeup call. Turns out that losing Congress entirely still hasn't provided a good wakeup call, but I digress. I think there's a frustration in America generally with our political class -- people like Speaker Pelosi are trying to establish a shadow foreign policy and all this other bs, and the politicians seem preoccupied with stuff your average American doesn't care about because it doesn't effect them directly. They want answers on education, health care, the economy, etc. Where's the leadership? Just a thought, anyways.

As a result of that post, you've started me reading through several of your other posts re: the Iraq War and Bush's incompetence, as you see it. You seem to have a pretty firm grasp of what's happening in Iraq, so I'm really learning from your perspective on events. I've read some of these posts before, but it's been a while. Might even get me to change my mind ;-) You had a post where you mentioned that Bush was acting Kennedyesque, and compared Bush to Kennedy's inaction in the assassination of Ngo in Vietnam -- which is rather relevant to me because I just wrote a paper on Ngo and Nhu's assassination for a history course I'm taking. I thought you made a really good point about him subverting a guy that was helping turn the Madhi Army away from al Sadr. You say that we need to pull out of Iraq now. Do you worry about a regional war, the way Bill O'Reilly and Pat Buchanan do? i.e., if we pull out and civil war breaks out among Shi'ia and Sunni, then Saudis, Iranians, etc. will come in to help their respective religious divides (if you've blogged on this, sorry for not seeing it).

It seems to me that the reinforcements are working to help curb violence, but I remain cautiously optimistic. I think we'll know within the next couple of months whether Gen. Patraeus's plan will work. But maybe it's not worth it? And obviously there are other problems in Iraq not addressed, like the flight of the Iraqi middle class and the self-sustaining nature of the insurgents financially. Maybe getting out now is the best plan, I don't know. Historically, it seems insurgencies have a bad track record for victory -- but that depends on how one fights them. Perhaps we've passed a point where no matter what we do, nothing can secure the Iraqi government. But then, how does this fit into the global context of the war against terrorism? And if we flee, what does that signal to the world? That we're a "paper tiger" after all? Then again, there's evidence to say most Iraqis are turning against al Qaeda and Baathists. I also saw an Iraqi govt spokesperson on C-SPAN the other morning talking about how al Qaeda is playing Sunni's and Shi'ias off each other to foster conflict, and the Iraqis are starting to realize this and are reacting against it. Maybe things will improve? Maybe the key to victory, not only for Iraq but for the war against Islamic extremism, is to empower the moderate Muslims and marginalize the extremists? So many questions I don't have answers to. It's quite frustrating, but definitely worth the mental energy.

Anyways, I'll keep reading, learning, and thinking. Maybe the answer will come to me.

Jason's second email, and my response, is below the fold:

Askhanazim Jewry, g, and Higher Education

Jaschik, S. 2007. 'The Power of Privilege.' Inside Higher Ed. April 11, 2007. Available online: http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/11/soares.

A treasured friend & trusted reader sent this article in, which discusses possibly antisemitic reasons for the introduction of the SAT test in Yale University. The piece spends a lot of time on the quirks of the New Haven, Connecticut school, so I'll just quote one part of it and talk in more general terms:

If colleges more closely understand their histories, Soares said, they might be more likely to adopt truly progressive policies today. His book ends with a series of recommendations along those lines, not just for Yale, but for other elite colleges. He calls for affirmative action policies based on socioeconomic status, a de-emphasis on standardized testing, and the elimination of preferences that defy true meritocracy (such as those for legacies and athletes).

Favoring athletes, he said, makes very little sense if talking about the social mission of higher education. Even at top universities, this has become “the doorway in,” and counter to the images many people have of athletics as a pro-diversity force on campuses, most of the beneficiaries are white. “What is it that athletics contributes to higher education? Why is it a part of higher education?” Perhaps showing the impact of his Oxford history, Soares noted that the admissions preferences offered by top American colleges make no sense to educators anywhere else in the world. “At Oxford and Cambridge, you are not going to be admitted just because you are good on the rugby field.”

Trying to discriminate against Jews by factoring in g (general intelligence would be odd, as Ashkenazim ("northern European") Jews apparently have higher average g than most other races. This seems to be a result of intense selection pressure on Jews in the past thousand years, as cruel and mean regimes adopted policy after policy to limit Jewish mobility, wealth, and reproductive success. Average- and below-average Jews were selected against, while above-average Jews were selected for, by the European environment relative to other Europeans.

Thus, institutions of higher education used a variety of methods to keep Jews out, by defining merit as something other than general intelligence. From a century ago, Eastern universities used the idea of the "whole man" to discriminate against Jews. Because Jewish cultural traditional is relatively unathletic, Jewish history in Europe kept them seperated from the land and much physical exertion, and relatively higher rates of historical inbreeding (owing to ghetto living conditions), Jews were at a disadvantage under the "whole man" criteria. Likewise, modern affirmative action is a method of limiting the success of Jews and other market-oriented minorities.

See also: My series on feminism, leftism, and cash, covering the SAT and computer science.