Category Archives: Clippings

* Bill O’Reilly: The truth about white privilege

At the risk of copyright violation, I’m reproducing the whole text; from here.

Published August 26, 2014 | O’Reilly Factor | Bill O’Reilly

By Bill O’Reilly

Last night on The Factor, Megyn Kelly and I debated the concept of white privilege whereby some believe that if you are Caucasian you have inherent advantages in America.

Talking Points does not, does not believe in white privilege. However, there is no question that African-Americans have a much harder time succeeding in our society. Even whites do. But the primary reason is not skin color. It’s education and not only book learning. Here are the facts.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for black Americans is 11.4 percent. It’s just over five percent for whites, 4.5 percent for Asians. So, do we have Asian privilege in America? Because the truth is, that Asian American households earn far more money than anyone else. The median income for Asians, close to $69,000 a year; it’s 57,000 for whites’ $33,000 for black — so the question becomes why? And the answer is found in stable homes and in emphasis on education; 88 percent of Asian Americans graduate from high school compared to 86 for whites and just 69 percent for blacks. That means 31 percent of African-Americans have little chance to succeed in the free marketplace because they are uneducated. They are high school dropouts.

Asian Americans also tend to keep their families intact. Just 13 percent of Asian children live in single parent homes compared to a whopping 55 percent for blacks and 21 percent for whites. So, there you go. That is why Asian Americans, who often have to overcome a language barrier, are succeeding far more than African-Americans and even more than white Americans. Their families are intact and education is paramount.

American children must learn not only academics but also civil behavior, right from wrong, as well as how to speak properly and how to act respectfully in public. If African-American children do not learn those things, they will likely fail as adults. They will be poor. They will be angry, and they often will be looking to blame someone else.

One caveat, the Asian American experience historically has not been nearly as tough as the African-American experience. Slavery is unique and it has harmed black Americans to a degree that is still being felt today, but in order to succeed in our competitive society, every American has to overcome the obstacles they face. And here is where the African-American leadership in America is failing.

Instead of preaching a cultural revolution, the leadership provides excuses for failure. The race hustlers blame white privilege, an unfair society, a terrible country. So the message is, it’s not your fault if you abandon your children, if you become a substance abuser, if you are a criminal. No, it’s not your fault; it’s society’s fault.

That is the big lie that is keeping some African-Americans from reaching their full potential. Until personal responsibility and a cultural change takes place. Millions of African-Americans will struggle. And their anger, some of it justified will seethe. The federal government cannot fix this problem. Only a powerful message of responsibility can turn things around. And that’s “The Memo”.

It comes down to this.

I ask anyone the same question I ask myself every day:

What will you do
today
to improve your lot
today?

On the other hand, many people are incapable of responsibility, for reason that they lack any understanding of cause and effect.  I will discuss this more in a subsequent post, How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty, currently scheduled for release November 29.

FOOTNOTE, 2014-10-24:  Remark from my diary:  “Responsibility presumes ownership of power. But ownership of power is impossible without a grasp of cause and effect.”

(Reblogged 2019-11-28.)

* Donald Sterling sex tape

Bookmarks:
Donald Sterling sex tapePolice chokehold deathChild border crisis follow-upFacebook is cracking down on click-baitChronic lateness

Continue reading * Donald Sterling sex tape

* Jimmy, part 2

Thursday 2014-07-03.  Jimmy came up to me at McDonald’s yesterday and sat down and talked about the incident.  He doesn’t say he’d been drinking.  He says people thought he’d been drinking.

Recall his psychiatric diagnoses.

Pastor sent me this clipping about the homeless squatters’ camp underneath the Jones Falls Expressway, which the City was about to raze — again. He thought the housing vouchers it mentions might be available to me. They’re not. A different detail caught my eye: the remark that many people in the camp “struggle with mental illness and addiction.” Note the “and.”

Continue reading * Jimmy, part 2

* In playground murder, 12-year-old boy charged as an adult

Bookmarks:
In playground murder, 12-year-old boy charged as an adultHomeless woman beaten by cop speaks outRussian “aid” convoy in UkraineFirst steps in dealing with a problem drinker

Continue reading * In playground murder, 12-year-old boy charged as an adult

* Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged

I participate on a certain online discussion board. My premiere antagonist is a man who got trounced by a playground bully in fifth grade. He never fails to seek to re-enact that battle with me (or any of certain others), hoping for a different outcome this time. He casts his opponent by turns as the bully he wants to be or the chump he fears he was; and interacts with those projections. It has nothing to do with me. He might as well be playing with his G.I. Joe dolls.

Andy Kessler’s 07/08/13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Summer Jobs for the Guilty Generation,” is little different. In his quotations of others’ expressions, I hear compassion; he hears guilt. I hear gratitude; he hears guilt. I hear hope; he hears guilt. What’s up with this?

Kessler projects his own guilt feelings onto his son’s generation. That’s easier than owning them, but solves nothing.
Continue reading * Andy Kessler: Guilty as charged

* Obama and race: why Eric Holder’s words stirred such anger

Bookmarks:
The William Tell Show in the newsBody of girl, 3, found buried in Arizona backyard
Continue reading * Obama and race: why Eric Holder’s words stirred such anger

* Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down

Bookmarks:
Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down
Less incarceration could lead to less crimeFour Pinocchios for yet another Democrat ‘Mediscare’ adWhy women love bad boysSomeone’s been sleeping in my bed.Child immigration crisisPray for the honeybees

Continue reading * Two Men Use Girl As Human Shield — Until Her Father Guns Them Down

* Conspiracy theorists: America’s lost sheep?

Man who helped Sandy Hook kids is harassed by conspiracy theorists

Sooner or later, something like this will happen.

If someone were to call “The William Tell Show” proposing that the Sandy Hook shootings were a hoax perpetrated by the Obama administration as a pretext for seizing all Americans’ guns, and that Gene Rosen and the others were all “crisis actors;” I would be strongly tempted to dismiss the caller quickly and perhaps even hold up his or her beliefs to ridicule.

That would be exactly the wrong response.
Continue reading * Conspiracy theorists: America’s lost sheep?