According to an article in the Washington Post this morning:
Some influential Democrats signaled that Roberts’s ascension [to nominee for Chief Justice] increased their eagerness to press him on his record — particularly on civil rights, which they said has taken on new salience in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
What exactly is the Katrina question to which civil rights has now taken on new salience as the answer?
“What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in an interview . The question for Roberts, he said, is whether he stands for “a fairer, more just nation” or for “narrow, stingy interpretations of the law to frustrate progress.”
Senator Kennedy appears to believe that a wide, generous interpretation of civil rights laws (the opposite of a “narrow, stingy” interpretation) would, somehow, reduce the “disparity” in money and cars. Equal protection, in short, means equal resources.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s colleague, Sen. Arlen Specter, who according to the New York Times “is widely regarded as the Senate’s finest constitutional scholar,” has applied his fine legal mind to the qualities that Justice O’Connor’s replacement should have … and he’s concluded that she should wear a skirt.
“With O’Connor’s pending departure,” the Washington Post article linked above reports after a careful count,
the court would be left with one woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and one minority, Clarence Thomas. “Two women are, I think, a minimum,” Specter said, though he added he does not favor a quota.
Of course “a minimum” of two women on the Court is not a quota. Even those of us who are not fine constitutional scholars can see that.
It’s a goal.
“What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were PASSENGERS died,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said…
I just couldn’t help it….
My Katrina question is if he’s an originalist that thinks things like Katrina are unconstitutional.
Duh. I mean, things like FEMA are unconstitutional. Had bad coffee this morning.
No, actus, I think you got it right the first time. Kennedy obviously thinks (well, he doesn’t obviously think, but that’s another matter) that Katrina should be ruled unconstitutional because it had a disparate impact. Just like nuclear war, which would kill more women than men….
“Just like nuclear war, which would kill more women than men….”
hey, ban the bomb!
What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in an interview.
Does anybody know (1) how many millions upon millions of dollars Kennedy personally is worth? (2) How many millions upon millions of dollars he has donated to charity over, say, the last forty years? (3) How many millions upon millions of dollars he has donated to disaster relief in the past year or so?
Just wondering.
I despise Kennedy as a politician, but …
(1) He is worth several million, and he does not accept a paycheck, never has as far as I know.
(2) I assume he contributes a great deal to charities, as do many Americans.
(3) ditto disaster relief, ditto many Americans.
After all, he can’t advertise numbers 2 and 3.
Dom
Solution:
Blacks should be given a car at birth. Or at least a check redeemable for a car at the age of 16.
How about a college diploma, gratis, sans the cruel demand for studying and attending classes?
“How about a college diploma, gratis, sans the cruel demand for studying and attending classes?”
Only if their last name is Bush.
It appears that actus has contracted a fatal case of BDS.
“It appears that actus has contracted a fatal case of BDS.”
I’ve fallen for the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie
Most of the people in New Orleans are black. The mayor and the past mayor and the police chief are black. Many black owned businesses operate there. If the people can’t afford cars, why not. I know refugees who came here from Africa, with nothing but a small bag. They worked and in less than a year managed to buy some kind of wheels. I don’t like the sarcasm of Stephen, but he has a point in that his comment is the rational result of Kennedy’s remarks. Should the government buy people cars?
When I got out of the military in 1975 and returned to my neighborhood, the rumor going around that incensed folks, particularly black folks, was that the government was giving the Vietnamese refugees cars.
The line of reasoning was: “Hey, we’ve been oppressed, we should get cars, not these foreigners!”
Okay, maybe this is a stupid question, but I’m going to ask it anyway? Think back on all those pictures we’re seeing every day in the news, pictures of all the flooded neighborhoods in New Orleans, the flooded highways and parking lots, the flooded homes. What was the one thing that they nearly all had in common, the one thing that dramatically showed the extent of flooding? Right! There were CARS in ALL of those pictures. Poor homes in East New Orleans? Flooded cars sitting in front of or next to the majority of them. Flooded downtown? Rows of flooded cars parked along the streets. Flooded French Quarter? Cars parked along the curbs (some in No Parking zones on Bourbon St.).
So with all those cars, why didn’t more people leave?
Answer: The reason people didn’t leave was NOT because of a lack of cars, or access to cars (or buses, etc.) Most of the people who stayed, stayed for OTHER REASONS, be those reasons good, bad, or indifferent. But you are incorrect to attribute the MAJORITY of people who remained as doing so because of a lack of CARS.
With all the talk of nuclear bombs and disparate impact, I’m reminded that a “minimum of two women on the Court” would not be a quota or goal, but merely “critical mass.”
“Answer: The reason people didn’t leave was NOT because of a lack of cars, or access to cars (or buses, etc.”
Cars require fuel. Also, unclogged roads. did you see the pictures of the clogged roads?
So actus, all those cars had empty gas tanks? The point (an excellent one) is that they could have used those cars to leave before the storm hit!
“So actus, all those cars had empty gas tanks? ”
Or even full ones that would have to be filled up afte a few hundred miles.
“The point (an excellent one) is that they could have used those cars to leave before the storm hit!”
I know. and part of the point is that people who live paycheck to paycheck don’t have the money to fill up the tank at the end of the month and drive a few hundred miles to a motel.
actus, here’s a question (well, a series of questions) to which I honestly don’t know the answer(s). Did anyone who left NO and got into that horrendous traffic run out of gas? If so, did anyone offer them fuel, or were they pushed to the side of the road and left there so that the rest of the traffic could get through? Was anyone fleeing the city refused shelter because they couldn’t pay for it?
“Did anyone who left NO and got into that horrendous traffic run out of gas?”
I’m guessing that anyone one who drives uses gas and then needs to buy some. And its not going to come from the people who need it to keep on driving.
“Was anyone fleeing the city refused shelter because they couldn’t pay for it?”
Sure. Motels filled up. When the astrodome opened people who had been sleeping in their cars showed up anting to get in before the superdome people.
That’s a good point about all the cars. Poor people in America have cars. I think alot of people were waiting for someone, that is, the government, to come get them. Alot of people just didn’t think about it at all. Alot of people did not take the warnings seriously. That’s part of the culture of poor people, not paying attention to official sayings, including those of doctors or teachers or social workers (not that the poor people are always wrong in this regard, especially in regard to the last group). And part of the aftermath is due to the general breakdown of restraint and morality that has been part of the US for the past 35 years and has been pronounced among the poor. Its 35 years of teaching people that stoicism in the face of difficulty, doing your best in a bad situation, keeping up your dignity when everything seems to be against you and all that sort of thing is for suckers and losers
“That’s part of the culture of poor people, not paying attention to official sayings, including those of doctors or teachers or social workers (not that the poor people are always wrong in this regard, especially in regard to the last group).”
But they paid attention to what the Gretna, LA police chief was saying: get back to your stinking superdome, there will be no self-rescue for you.
Actus,
Now you see, there you go again with the racial element of Katrina. Don’t you know you’re going to have posters here very cross with you when you link to accounts of (surprise!) racism occuring in the Deep South?
Also, I too would be very curious which of you in here could afford some of the price gouging shenanigans going on right now in the States neighboring those hit by Katrina.
>>>”…In Texas, officials are probing complaints that some budget motels charged refugees from Louisiana up to $300 a night — six times the normal rate.
And the price-gouging wasn’t limited to the Gulf region: With Katrina sending wholesale gas prices soaring, some stations as far away as Atlanta jacked up retail prices to as high as $6 a gallon…”
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/sep2005/nf2005098_1175_db094.htm?campaign_id=topStories_ssi_5
Here’s one for “rights”, John that’s right up your alley, and perhaps a GREAT topic for a thread.
>>>”NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 – Waters were receding across this flood-beaten city today as police officers began confiscating weapons, including legally registered firearms, from civilians in preparation for a mass forced evacuation of the residents still living here.
No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms, said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said.
But that order apparently does not apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property. The guards, employees of private security companies like Blackwater, openly carry M-16’s and other assault rifles. Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards, but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/national/nationalspecial/08cnd-storm.html?ei=5094&en=efe0a58b7fc8e12c&hp=&ex=1126238400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=login
I would love to know how you, a strong Second Amendment advocate, feels about this development.
–Cobra
actus, Cobra,
Re Gretna, this was just an unconscionable decision, and the fact that authorities in New Orleans were pointing people in that direction while the Gretna police were turning them back is horrifying. So is Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson’s assumption that if the New Orleans evacuees were to get through, Gretna would obviously have been “looted, burned, and pillaged.”
On the other hand . . . well, someone just sent Glenn Reynolds a link to Chief Lawson’s photo and bio (here), and I am having a little difficulty believing that racial prejudice is behind his decision. Class prejudice, very likely. He describes Gretna as a “bedroom community.” That translates as “relatively riffraff-free,” I suppose.
Another Instapundit reader commented that most of the police in Gretna are black.
Cobra, what you’re seeing there from motels is indeed “price gouging,” in that people are simply jacking up prices because there are people desperate for shelter and willing to pay for it. The situation with gas prices is different, because gas-station owners have no way of knowing what wholesale prices or supply are going to look like in the near future, and they need to budget for new supply or else not be able to pay for it. If I made my living selling strawberries that I bought wholesale, and my own only source of money to buy them was what I got selling them retail, and I had news that next month strawberries were likely to double in wholesale price, of course I’d mark my current supply up, so that I had the money to buy the next batch. But I wouldn’t mark them up so far that no one would buy them, or that other sellers (who would be in the same boat, as it were) could easily undercut me.
Cobra, I forgot to ask what you meant about John and the Second Amendment. I don’t think I’ve seen him so much as mention the Second Amendment here.
But I’m also curious: what exactly is “a strong Second Amendment advocate”? What’s the point in “advocating” an Amendment already ratified? Indeed, ratified some little time ago, as I understand it.
‘He describes Gretna as a “bedroom community.”‘
That means suburb. Race or class, the inital comment was about ‘poor culture’ and what they listen to.
“The situation with gas prices is different, because gas-station owners have no way of knowing what wholesale prices or supply are going to look like in the near future, and they need to budget for new supply or else not be able to pay for it.”
that’s interesting. That a consumer is paying not the wholesale on the product you’re buying, but the wholesale you will buy in the future.
Of course, retail price drops precede wholesale price drops.
actus, I know what a “bedroom community” is; I grew up in one. (Strictly speaking, it’s a suburb in which most of the residents work in a nearby largeish city, but that’s most of them.)
Whatever “culture,” I imagine if you faced a line of police who fired warning shots over your head, you would get the message.
I didn’t respond to Anita because I’m so weary of the “stupid poor people didn’t listen to what their betters told them to do” meme that I didn’t have the heart for it any more. But I wonder if Anita can imagine a person who took “official sayings” seriously as a matter of course. (The dietary recommendations alone would drive anyone nuts.) I think if you’ve lived in New Orleans all your life, and stuck it out through God knows how many previous hurricanes that were each confidently predicted to obliterate the city and didn’t, you have some excuse for trying to ride out the next This Is Really, Really The Big One.
Incidentally, Megan McArdle at janegalt.net has today put up several long posts about Katrina and the plight of the New Orleans poor that are about the best things I’ve seen written about the disaster.
Of course, retail price drops precede wholesale price drops.
Oh, cute one. No they don’t, and the reason they don’t is that failing to have enough money to restock in the event of a price surge is worse than not accounting for a price drop, unanticipated or no. Again, you have to budget for the worst (reasonably likely) case in order to be reasonably confident you can afford to resupply, and for an anticipated drop in price, that would generally be that the anticipated drop doesn’t happen after all. You will notice that when the anticipated drop actually happens, prices go down right away. This is because there are a lot of gas stations, and people do notice which are selling cheaper than others, and make a point of patronizing them.
It’s tough really to price-gouge anything unless you have a de facto monopoly on it, or have colluded with other businessmen around you so that there’s a de facto collective monopoly. This is why, absent proof that all the gas-station owners in Atlanta are in on a price-fixing scheme, I’m not really worried about the people of Atlanta and their expensive gas. If the replacement cost turns out to be not much elevated, that price will come down, quick; and if the replacement cost is really nasty, the price ought to be very high.
“No they don’t, and the reason they don’t is that failing to have enough money to restock in the event of a price surge is worse than not accounting for a price drop, unanticipated or no.”
I have no idea if the concept of credit has reached the gasoline distribution industry yet.
actus, given the choice between hastily arranging a short-term loan and having the money in hand necessary to keep supply in stock, I know which I’d pick.
I’ve worked in a business in which the demand is so obviously seasonal that some cash-strapped retailers routinely take out a loan at one point in the year and repay it at another point, but here we’re talking about very short-term, unpredictable changes in price and no time to turn around in. I just don’t see any problem with upping the price of a consumable good in anticipating the need to resupply at a higher wholesale price. I’d reserve “gouging” for increasing the price of things (like motel stays) that don’t need to be replenished and don’t get more expensive to supply with a surge in short-term demand.
“actus, given the choice between hastily arranging a short-term loan and having the money in hand necessary to keep supply in stock, I know which I’d pick.”
Im sure the distribution system works as cash and carry, rather than with payment due. I mean, since I know so much about the gas business. Why would they structure it to lower prices?
actus, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, I don’t know squat about the gas business, probably less than anyone still reading this thread (since I don’t drive). But even I can’t help noticing that gas prices occasionally go down as well as up. Now why ever would that be? “Why would they structure it to lower prices?” Might the large number of closely-spaced gas stations and the certainty that people will compare prices possibly have something to do with it?
“But even I can’t help noticing that gas prices occasionally go down as well as up.”
I know. But you’re telling me there’s one way they structure their finances, which is that way that causes prices to preemptively go up but not down.
I don’t know how they do it. but it don’t surpise me they do it to make prices go up.
I rejoin this discussion several days later to answer actus’ barb that George Bush obtained his college degree sans studying and attending classes.
Two responses. First, Bush outperformed John Kerry in college.
Second, actus’ complaint here is the old Marxist complaint against inherited wealth. Passing on one’s wealth to one’s children is one of the most important rights of a democratic, capitalist society. Mr. Bush’s family outperformed my family and almost all other families, and thus was able to pass on enormous wealth and position to his children.
This is his right. actus shows his true colors here… the old line Marxist dogma that property should belong to the state is his religion. Not surprising.
The solution here is not to strip people of their wealth or to deprive them of their right to pass their wealth to their progeny. The solution is for others to accumulate wealth and property.
So, actus, I disagree with your basic premise. There is nothing negative or blameworthy in the success of the Bush family. All you have demonstrated is your loyalty to a failed and outmoded political philosophy… Marxism.
“Two responses. First, Bush outperformed John Kerry in college.”
Memo to world: they’re both New England preppy elites. Get over it.
“Passing on one’s wealth to one’s children is one of the most important rights of a democratic, capitalist society. ”
I’d say its one of the most important rights of a plutocratic aristocracy. But this is just semantics.
Michelle said
I didn’t respond to Anita because I’m so weary of the “stupid poor people didn’t listen to what their betters told them to do” meme that I didn’t have the heart for it any more. But I wonder if Anita can imagine a person who took “official sayings” seriously as a matter of course. (The dietary recommendations alone would drive anyone nuts.) I think
But the fact is poor people don’t. That’s why they smoke when pregnant and don’t take all the antibiotics and a bunch of other stuff, like feeding kids hotdogs every day and never any vegetables. (And yes she had the money to buy vegetables) Alot of stuff that middle class people regard as common knowledge, poor people don’t know or disregard it. And of course sometimes they have different incentives than people with more money. My remark was not meant to be contemptuous, merely factual. You should go hang out with some poor people. I’ve got many in my family