Missed it by THAT much!

[rrader]

In light of the Court's recent rulings ("...the Constitution means whatever the hell we say it means...") I'm guessing it was the outraged ghost of James Madison giving the falling beam a big push:


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91109,00.html


Beam Collapses, Narrowly Missing Sandra Day O'Connor

PHILADELPHIA — What was to have been a spectacular opening of the National Constitution Center (search) was marred Friday when a huge wood and steel frame collapsed on the stage, injuring several people and narrowly missing Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (search).

The frame, which was at least 15 feet high, slowly toppled as the guests of honor at the ceremony pulled on red, white and blue streamers that were supposed to trigger the drop of a screen at the museum's front entrance.

Instead, the streamers pulled down the frame, which came crashing down on officials including Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street (search) and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

The crowd of 4,000 gasped as the frame came down around O'Connor, who had counted down from three to start the ceremony.

"We could have all been hit, bumped," O'Connor said into a microphone.

Street and Specter were struck on their arms as they tried to fend off the falling structure. National Constitution Center President Joseph Torsella was hit in the head and knocked to his knees.

Torsella was woozy, but walked to an ambulance. He was treated at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and released. Street and a female government worker were also hospitalized for minor injuries.

"I got a bruise, a contusion. There's nothing broken or anything," Street said outside the hospital following his release, with one arm in a bandage and the other holding a small American flag.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who was also on the stage, said he saw the frame coming and stepped out of the way.

"It wasn't frightening, because I think most of us thought it was Styrofoam," Rendell said.

As medics rushed to the stage, the show continued. Small cannons fired streamers over the crowd. Fireworks erupted from the building's roof and four military jets roared overhead. The $185 million museum opened to the public, as planned, following the ceremony on Independence Mall.

Music legend Ray Charles and Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer also attended the ceremony, but were not near the frame when it fell.

Organizers said when the guests pulled on the ribbons, a screen bearing a reproduction of the signing of the Constitution was to have dropped, revealing a newer painting underneath, with some of the celebrity guests standing in the places of the Founding Fathers.

A Constitution Center spokeswoman said officials were trying to learn what went wrong.

 

[Graystar]

In light of the Court's recent rulings ("...the Constitution means whatever the hell we say it means...")

The court's recent rulings seem fine to me. To which ruling are you referring to?

 

[jimpeel]

"We could have all been hit, bumped," O'Connor said into a microphone.

Funny that they would place what she said in quotes as that is NOT what she said. What she said was "We could have all been killed." I wonder why the writer mitigated what she said and whether she saw the face of God at that moment.

 

[rrader]

Graystar:

The court's recent rulings seem fine to me. To which ruling are you referring to?

Mainly the affirmative action ruling involving the Univ. of Michigan. In years to come the concept of race will be as thoroughly discredited as is the "science" of crainiology today IMO. Folks will look to this courts ruling that "race" may be a factor taken into account in admissions with the same wonder as if they had ruled that bumps and ridges on an applicant's noggin may be a deciding factor. They never did get around to defining the term "diversity" either, but it's apparently VERY important to supercede the concept of equal protection under the law.

Too bad that beam didn't hit Sandy on her noggin. Maybe some crainiologist could then declare her unfit to sit on the court.

 

[Graystar]

They never did get around to defining the term "diversity" either, but it's apparently VERY important to supercede the concept of equal protection under the law.

You are misunderstanding the court's ruling.

There are many schools that require more than just good grades to get in. Participation in sports, school government, and letters of recommendation from past teachers can be determining factors in a student's potential admission. When choosing between two equally qualified students, a sports-oriented school will choose the student with the better sports record. This is nothing new and has been going on forever.

All the Supreme Court said was that race can be considered in the same way as any of those other factors. It a school's goal is diversity, then it depends on what "diversity" means to that school. It is possible that, to a school in the Northeast, "diversity" means getting students from the Southwest, regardless of race. The only requirement placed by the court is that the consideration of race have equal footing with any other consideration. When this is the case, Equal Protection is not violated.

 

[tyme]

Graystar, and I think you missed rrader's point, or at least I agree with it more than with yours.

I watched some of the arguments for that case. And one of the justice's rhetorical questions (in the sense that it wasn't possible to answer it directly, even though they were trying to elicit more commentary from one of the lawyers) was, I thought, supremely important - something to the effect of "Is there anything in the constitution prohibiting discrimination based on musical ability or athleticism or family donations?"

The bottom line is that while those may not be "fair" either, there is no prohibition on them in the Constitution, and they are substantive differences - colleges have budgets, too, and at least for private colleges who they admit based on family matriculation or donations is their business. But Race is specifically banned as being a factor for discrimination for any reason (well, more or less), and treating race by itself as if it actually made any difference at all is just retarded.

That is not to say that socioeconomic status may not be different between most african american applicants and most white applicants. There is no constitutional prohibition on discrimination based on family income (though there are valuable learning opportunities for all children, those opportunities are different for relatively poor and relatively rich children), or neighborhood, or anything like that. But those aspects are not what the UMich system was about. I fully support consideration of all aspects (as many as humanly possible) of applicants' lives by admissions officers. Those aspects do not include race. Race is not an "aspect" of a person that means anything at all by itself. It's just your skin color. Nothing more. I don't see colleges having quotas (okay, okay, "factor" based admission with "goals" but not quotas... ) for light, medium, and heavy-build applicants. Same thing.

And yeah, this reasoning might bring the whole house down when genetics advances and more things are determined to be genetic, but at that point we'll have larger problems than college and workplace discrimination and quotas.

The bottom line is that if someone were getting admission points for being white and applying to a mostly-black college, I think the decision would have been different. And that decision would have been correct.

Do we want to eschew fairness in exchange for racially balanced classrooms? I've been in school with all sorts of differently colored people. I have yet to gain anything substantive from an educational experience because of someone's skin color, whether white, black, red, green, blue, yellow, cyan, or magenta. It may look bad. "Oooh, look, that college has 90% black, this one is 90% white! Whatever shall we do?!" It is almost certainly not ideal. But the alternative, what is now law, is worse IMHO.

The supreme court is wrong. I'm deathly afraid of what they're going to do in Silveira vs Lockyer. Some of their brains are halfway to the pearly gates, and there's not much oxygen up there.

 

[rrader]

Graystar:

You are misunderstanding the court's ruling.

No, I disagree. The Court ruled that an applicant's race may be utilized along with other factors in admission because this would support a school's legitimate interest in promoting "diversity". That makes it a wrong headed decision. Race should never be a factor in an admissions decision at a publicly funded school. Among other reasons, the very concept of "race" is pure junk science. What the Court really said was that the color of an applicant's skin and facial features like eye folds are somehow important to the educational process and that publically funded schools should be allowed to use these morphological features in admissions decisions. Pretty sick.

The Court never provided a definition of ther term "race" nor can they. It isn't a valid scientific term. They never provided a deinition for the term "diversity" and never explained why diverse eye-fold shapes and diverse quantities of melanin pigment in student's skin are important factors in education.

No I understand the Courts decision quite well. In their opinion, the Constitution means whatever they hell they say it means and eff the Federalist papers.

 

[4v50 Gary]

If I was a sailor, I'd say this was an ill omen.

 

[Graystar]

The bottom line is that if someone were getting admission points for being white and applying to a mostly-black college, I think the decision would have been different. And that decision would have been correct.

You don't have to think about it. That is exactly what the court decided in the other case involving a Michigan college. In Gratz v. Bollinger, decided the same day as Grutter v. Bollinger, the court ruled that race cannot be used to make a person better qualified. This decision supports Grutter v. Bollinger in that it repeats the idea that race is a quality of a person, and may be used to determine which of two equally qualified individuals is ultimately admitted. But race cannot be used to make a lesser qualified individual better qualified than an individual who would otherwise have been the one better qualified. That is what Gratz v. Bollinger says.

I watched some of the arguments for that case. And one of the justice's rhetorical questions (in the sense that it wasn't possible to answer it directly, even though they were trying to elicit more commentary from one of the lawyers) was, I thought, supremely important - something to the effect of "Is there anything in the constitution prohibiting discrimination based on musical ability or athleticism or family donations?"

I don't know the context under which this rhetorical question was asked. You present it as to support a notion that the court thinks descrimination is okay. However, I can see such a question being part of a just-because-it's-not-in-the-constitution-doesn't-mean-it's-not-prohibited line of reasoning. Without knowing what else was said, I can't comment on this.

However, judging by the court's decision, you're probably right. But a fact of life is that when faced with two equal applicants for one position, there *will* be discrimination. There has to be, because *some* factor must give one person an edge over the other. It could be race, it could be that they smile a lot. Who knows. But something has to be a factor.

What do you want to do? Force the school to admit both students?

 

[Graystar]

No, I disagree. The Court ruled that an applicant's race may be utilized along with other factors in admission because this would support a school's legitimate interest in promoting "diversity". That makes it a wrong headed decision.

Okay then. Lets say a school has one seat open and two equally qualified students to fill it. How should the school decide between the two?

 

[Raymond VanDerLinden]

If everything is equal...............

...........flip a frigging coin. The collage shoudn't even know what the skin color, or eye folds of the applicant is until that student shows up for class.

 

[Graystar]

If everything is equal...........flip a frigging coin.

But what you're failing to realize is that telling the states that they must use a lottery system is as bad as telling them they have to fill a racial quota. It goes against state sovereignty and state interests.

 

[telomerase]

Let's back up a little

Why are we arguing about the rules by which the Federal government can tell the State governments how they can steal your money and use it to build universities? I think there's a more basic problem here, which is that if they quit stealing your money you could pick what kind of school you wanted yourself.

 

[brownie0486]

telomerase:

If a family from the ghetto whose wage earners make minimum wage applied, your statement that "if they quit stealing your money you could pick what kind of school you wanted yourself." would be irrelevant wouldn't it?

How on earth is a family on welfare going to save enough money in taxes [ if they [ the govt ] stopped stealing it from them to send their youngun ot school?. Especially so when they are living off welfare and don't pay taxes or very little taxes but instead use mine.

BTW--Has any caucasian ever been admitted to the all black college who used to advertise on the tv with " a mind is a terrible thing to waste" slogan? How can a college be all black and politically correct? I would think it could/should work both ways don't you?

Brownie

 

[Graystar]

Why are we arguing about the rules by which the Federal government can tell the State governments

Because it goes to the heart of the political concerns on this forum. In this area, our main concerns are federal acts like the NFA, GCA and Brady. It's important to understand why the court decides the way it does in order to help us combat (what we believe to be) bad policy for our country.

 

[rrader]

Graystar:

Okay then. Lets say a school has one seat open and two equally qualified students to fill it. How should the school decide between the two?

Public Universities and Colleges should be able to use any criteria they wish in the selection process up to and including physical characteristics exclusive of "race."

A student's athletic ability does confer an advantage to a school, it can potentially bring in revenue that helps support the school.

"Race" confers no advantage whatsoever. It isn't possible to correlate any type of behavior or talent to an applicant based on "racial" characteritics, to attempt to do so is racist, and the Supreme Court's decision was supremely racist. To claim that some sort of "diversity" is promoted by a diverse "racial" makeup of a student body is pure racisim.

The very use of the concept of "race" demonstrates the supreme scientific illiterecy of the SCOTUS. There is no basis by which one can divide the human species into various "races." The gross morphological differences like skin color and eye folds do not denote any scientifically significant differences at all. The concept of "race" has as little scientific validity as palmistry, astrology, or crainiology.

A hundred years from now folks will look back at all of the discussion over "race" and laugh at the stupidity of this Court.

It's interesting to note also how the hard-left proponents of affirmative action (so called) have dropped the "redress of past injustice" argument in preference to the "promotion of diversity" argument. It must be because recent black immigrants to the USA are equally entilted to affirmative prefrences as are native born blacks.

Sick stuff for sure when the SCOTUS can't even uphold the concept of equal protection under the law.

 

[Graystar]

"Race" confers no advantage whatsoever.

In your view. Someone else may have a different view, depending on their goals. All the court said was that we are allowed to have that view, and such a goal.

 

[rrader]

Graystar:

In your view. Someone else may have a different view, depending on their goals. All the court said was that we are allowed to have that view, and such a goal.

No, my view has no bearing on scientific fact. The wonderfull thing about science, and it's something that attracts a lot of people to the field, is that opinions and goals don't mean a thing. All that there is in science is objective truth, and not all the political machinations of Joesph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, or Sandra Day O' Connor will change the scientific facts that the human species cannot be subdivided into "races."

With the SCOTUS's ruling America has devolved into the realm of science-serving-politics identical to when German scientists under Hitler weren't allowed to discuss the "Jewish Physics" of Albert Einstein, or the rejection of Mendel's system of genetics under Stalin.

The Supreme Court's ruling invokes a Hitler-like system of pseudo science. The Nazi's also conjured up racial heritage (Aryan) and racial differences (Jew vs. Aryan) out of thin air.

This type of propaganda, extreme scientific ignorance, and politics dictating scientific "truth" always has typified the hard-left of the political spectrum. The world witnessed it with extreme leftist like Stalin and Hitler, and now with hard-left extremists like Ginsberg and O'Connor.

 

[Graystar]

The Supreme Court's ruling invokes a Hitler-like system of pseudo science.

The Supreme Court has done no such thing. This has nothing to do with allowing states to decide which race is "better".

What's better...charcoal grilling or gas? Is one objectively and scientifically better than the other? No. "Better" is based on what is desired...convenience or that great charcoal taste. In the same way, the court has decided that it's okay for a state run school system to have such desires and to make decisions to that end...as long as the evaluation of applicants' qualities doesn't supercede the objective evaluation of applicants' performance.

 

[rrader]

Graystar:

The Supreme Court has done no such thing. This has nothing to do with allowing states to decide which race is "better".

Sorry but that's exactly what the court has done (without ever defining what they mean by race). If an applicant is given extra "points" towards admission on the basis of the quantity of melanin pigment in his skin then the University is making the decision that the applicant is somehow "better" than another applicant with a diffrent quantity.

Funny, when University admission decisions were made based on melanin pigment back in the 50's it was called racisim.

The Court's decision is "racist" in the extreme. It assumes that personality traits, academic talent, and family history can be ascribed to surface morphological features, i.e., skin color. How else could diversity of skin color and eyefold shapes be of benefit to a University unless the assumption is made that academically important characteristics of an applicant are directly correlated with skin color and eyefold shapes? What will the court permit next, selection of female applicant's based on breast size? So Anna Nicole Smith gets into Univ. Michigan and Ann Coulter doesn't?

The Court's decision is nothing more or less than the codification of a permanant racial spoils system.

Structurally the system of checks and balances is no longer working. Time to give the US Senate the power to set aside a SCOTUS ruling within 2 years on a 2/3rds vote. Institutionalized racisim as codified by this court's ruling has no place in a free America.

 

[Graystar]

Sorry but that's exactly what the court has done (without ever defining what they mean by race). If an applicant is given extra "points" towards admission on the basis of the quantity of melanin pigment in his skin then the University is making the decision that the applicant is somehow "better" than another applicant with a diffrent quantity.

I'm sorry, but I have to say again that you are misunderstanding the court's ruling. in Gratz v. Bollinger the court has specifically stated that a state *cannot* do what you just suggested.

 

[Raymond VanDerLinden]

Graystar it's you.............

.......and the High Court ( you got to wonder high on what?) that are missing the point. To use the color of skin when all else is equal, or better stated to use the area of the world their progenitors came from as the final selection requirement is evil.

Example:
Three Children all adopted at birth by the same family, all the same age and sex. The Loving parents fall on hard times and can't afford to send them to a good private college so off to State U they go. All have 3.2 grades, all are only fair in atheletics, all received citizenship awards. but there is only room for one. One child was born in Haiti, one born in Korea, and one in the Ukrain. All raised as Americans by the same parents. Pick one and explain to me how this helps the diversity of the school? And please explain to me how it isn't evil to place more value on any of these youths because of where they happened to be born.

Aren't they all Americans? :banghead:

 

[Graystar]

To use the color of skin when all else is equal, or better stated to use the area of the world their progenitors came from as the final selection requirement is evil.

What is the difference between using the color of a person's skin, a person's economic status, or a recommendation from a teacher to determine if a person is selected or not? The court stated that factors such as these may be used as long as all factors are given equal footing.

In Gratz v. Bollinger the court found that the footing given was unfair. In Grutter v. Bollinger the court found that the footing given was fair.

So your question to me is meaningless because any criteria that I use, be it race or anything else, could be good or bad depending on the footing given. Personally, I would continue the objective evaluation until it was completely exhasted. If my school was oriented towards science or engineering, I'd check the applicants' math and science grades. If my school was a law school I'd give greater consideration to their history and English grades. If the objective evaluation is exhasted and the applicants are still equal then I would go to the soft qualities such as letters of recommendation or participation in certain activities...whatever has been determined by the school to be positive and beneficial qualities for the student body. And if it has been determined that racial diversity is beneficial to the school, then I would consider race.

You are right they those three kids are Americans. That is *exactly* what diversity objectives are trying to show to the *other* students.

 

[dance varmint]

Graystar, please define "race" and "diversity".

Also, how is is OK if race has "equal footing" with the objective qualifications such as test scores, as you say the SC affirmed, yet it is not OK if racism has higher footing? Race deserves NO footing.

The SC blew it--big time.

 

[Graystar]

Also, how is is OK if race has "equal footing" with the objective qualifications such as test scores,

Race does not have equal footing with test scores. Read the opinions.

Grutter v. Bollinger
Gratz v. Bollinger

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02slipopinion.html