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Today the US Supreme Court managed to not only completely miss the obvious but also contradict themselves in the same decision about the University of Michigans admission policy

While they found the fact that Michigan uses Affirmative Action in it’s admissions procedures to be constitutional, they found using race as a specific factor in admissions to be unconstitutional. What kind of nonsense is that??

Now first of all the ideals behind Affirmative Action are good and pure, but it cannot be made public policy! The definition of Affirmative Action is as follows:

A policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.

The only way to guarantee this is to specifically take race into account and give the “minority race” preference over other races. And that my friends is the definition of racism:

Discrimination or prejudice based on race.

By leaving this policy in place but striking down the procedures that implement it you are simply delaying the issue for another day. Because their is no constitutional way to actually accomplish this policy without discriminating. Equality can be forced only as far as eliminating laws that specifically inhibit one race. That was done years ago with the throwing out of Jim Crow laws. Discriminating against one person in favor of one of another race is exactly what Affirmative Action does and that clearly violates the “Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution”.

Instead we have this screwed up system. Conservatives who want to judge people on their merit and give no attention to a persons race are labeled as racists. Meanwhile liberals who preach giving preference to one race over another are called “Champions of Civil Liberties”. And if this was really about helping minority races, then why are Asians routinely excluded from these Affirmative Action policies?? Wait a second, just because a race has a culture that emphasizes hard work and education they are no longer fit to be considered a minority? And don’t give me that crap about them not suffering as much. Many of them come from countries just as poor as anyone else. And historically they have suffered as well, I’ll give the internment camps and treatment of Asians in general during WW2 as an example.

And let’s be honest here, institutionalizing this type of behavior doesn’t benefit minorities. By allowing people who are not necessarily of sufficient skill into a program we create a very unhealthy environment. First of all, it creates resentment among those who had to earn their way in. It inconveniences others since the faculty has to give more attention to the less qualified person. And it hurts the person themselves since they may not be able to comprehend the material well enough to benefit. Therefore we either have to dumb down the material, or overlook their failures. Either way we set them up for a greater fall later on (Jayson Blair) and we potentially endanger others (for example in the medical field).

And even though Affirmative Action has been left in place, the Democrats are still screaming. And to a point that it is almost entertaining. However, what isn’t entertaining is when I here prominent Democrats (and potential Presidential candidates) publicly declaring that they would toss out our Constitutional system of Checks and Balances and do whatever they wanted in a manner of a dictator. The same Democrats who cry of disappearing liberties and jackbooted brown-shirt thugs, support a man like Gephart who says this:

When I’m president, we’ll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day”

So even though the Constitution grants the Supreme Court the power to check the actions of the other two branches by declaring something unconstitutional you’d override them?? Even though you’d take a pledge to uphold and defend the US Constitution, you’d toss out one of it’s founding principles in favor of your own personal political agenda?

People you might want to think if this is the type of party you want in power.

Recently John Hawkins of RightWingNews held a Blogger Symposium mainly on the 2004 Presidential Elections. It’s definitely an interesting read and some good point were made. I guess I wanted to put in my 2 cents.

I generally agree with the consensus of the symposium in that there doesn’t appear to be a serious contender for the Democrats in the next election. Usually at this point in time at least a couple candidates stand out among the others to make the run for president. Instead, the Democratic party is still very fragmented and that can only hurt them in the long run.

I don’t see a major front-runner and all the Democratic candidates currently in the race have major issues they would have to work on during the election run. I’d say the Democrats best bet would be to put either Hillary or Gore in. With Gore they could use their belief that the last election was stolen from them. With Hillary comes obvious benefits. My guess is that they are saving both for the 2008 elections.

John Hawkins had this to say about strategy in this next election:

I’d try to outhawk Bush on North Korea and Iran and push a Balanced Budget Amendment(that’s a weakspot).

I guess I’d like to address each of these. First of all, while I admit outhawking Bush on North Korea and Iran might actually work and win votes it’s never going to happen. The Democratic party is increasingly controlled by extremely leftist groups and they also control most of the money. Sadly I think the candidates (Lieberman) and views (outhawking Bush) which would make the Democrats the most electable with the public are exactly what the Democrats are rallying against more and more.

Balanced Budget Amendment…not sure how this is a weakspot for the Republicans. I have a feeling this would hurt the Democrats even worse in the longrun. Forcing the government to live within their budget would necessitate cuts in govt spending and limit government growth which seriously compromises the Democratic ideals.

Another issue discussed is the impact of the blogosphere. Without being too narcissistic I think we’re just starting to see the impact and the importance of the blogosphere and it’s influence on politics. First of all it will keep the media honest. There is nothing bloggers enjoy more than ripping into a flaw they’ve found in a story. Already bloggers have shown great delight in policing their own and flogging those that stray.

More importantly with such a diverse spread of people, beliefs, backgrounds and environments in the blogosphere, virtually everything is subject to scrutiny. And while each individual blog may have a relatively small readership (even blogs like Instapundit), they are regularly read by various big time media personnel.

In time I’m confident that candidates will have to court the blogosphere just as much as they court any other block of voters. And perhaps it will become even more important.

Of course no discussion of this election would be complete without discussing the weaknesses of President Bush. In the symposium, several weaknesses were mentioned such as the economy, another terror attack, assault weapon ban and the roadmap to peace.

I’m not sure the economy is much of a weakness anymore. The president has been addressing almost exclusively the economy. And as a result the economy has been improving greatly. Economic reports are starting to show truly positive news, rather than just encouraging. All signs indicate we’re either at the bottom or already on our way back up.

Heaven forbid we should have another terror attack on our soil but I’m not sure this would necessarily be negative for the Bush administration. If nothing else it would only increase the importance of foreign policy and defense in the eyes of the public, two areas which are major areas of concern for the Democrats.

I can’t imagine the Democrats making a issue of the assault weapon ban, but if they did so what? They aren’t likely to steal any points. And even if it was raised and was made an issue it would probably only piss off the NRA crowd. And who else are they going to vote for?

The “Roadmap to Peace” I believe is probably the biggest legitimate threat. Personally I’m a major opponent. You can’t talk and be diplomatic with someone who doesn’t want to talk. Hamas and related groups don’t even accept the existence of Israel, and until that happens no peace is possible. By getting involved and it repeatedly failing, Bush just looks incapable of progress in the worlds eye. In addition, he risks driving away the Jewish vote, which for the first time in a very long time was starting to lean towards the GOP.

Basically in summary, this election is following two others which were largely Republican victories. Your dealing with a president who has overcome his usual character flaws. The major weakness for this administration is the economy which has been gaining speed for the last three months. In this next election, most of the seats up for elections currently belong to Democrats. In this post 9/11 world, foreign policy has become even more important, which is an area which heavily favors the Republicans. I hate to call it a definite but something is seriously going to have to change. I’d say a large win for President Bush with accompanying wins in both the House and Senate consolidating the Republican majority. More importantly it would increase the majority enough to break Democratic filibustering which has become their main tactic of late.