Honor, shame, Zimmerman, and Martin

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Kyndyll” asks:

I have noticed over the last week or so that a noticeable percentage of the group of the people who disagree with Zimmerman being acquitted…seem to be arguing from a perspective which views physical violence as acceptable or even desirable unless a weapon is involved. I have begun to consistently see variations of this viewpoint in enough places to see it as a body of thought on this subject. Usually, it features the ideas:
1) Hitting people is a perfectly reasonable response to a non-physical confrontation, ie someone watching you, or asking you what you’re doing or following you briefly
2) If you do these things, you have “started” a fight and while the other party is within their right to beat you, you are not allowed to use lethal force to defend yourself

I have noticed a consistent anti-gun viewpoint that tends to accompany this thought, but it comes with a bizarre pro-violence attitude that I have not typically noticed with most anti-gun people.

Honestly, I am not sure where this has come from. I’ve seen people lambaste Zimmerman as a weakling (not the word they used) and not a “man” because he was losing the fight.

…Do these people live in a dystopian movie? Where is this anti-gun/pro-beat the snot out of someone who looks at you sideways mindset come from?

Excellent question, and I’ll take a stab (oops!) at it.

First of all, do not expect internal consistency in the arguments of the left. But the pattern here seems to be to defend the rights of groups labeled as aggrieved minorities to use violence as they see fit against groups labeled as bigoted and exploitative majorities. That was why it was so important to label Zimmerman a white Hispanic, once they discovered he was part-Hispanic.

If the situation were reversed, I’m not at all sure a white person in Martin’s position who began to beat up a black person in Zimmerman’s position would be receiving so much support for starting a fight.

But there’s more going on, too, IMHO. There is a tradition that has only become more extreme in recent years in certain subcultures, of which the black underclass is one highly prominent example, to consider insults to some idea of one’s “honor” to be fighting offenses. Even looking at a person funny or “dissing” him is an opportunity for attack and for proving one’s manhood, if a person sees his honor as besmirched or disrespected. Could “following” be interpreted that way? Would Martin have seen Zimmerman as some punk (“creepy-ass cracker”) cramping his style—how dare he?

But even if Trayvon was following those codes, why would his white liberal supporters be doing so? I doubt they actually would be in their private lives, for the most part. But if you combine the first principle (“the oppressed are allowed to be aggressive and violent, and it’s all the white oppressors’ fault”—which by the way is pretty much the same argument such people use to justify Palestinian and other Arab Islamicist terrorism, although in that case the “white oppressors” are the Jews) with a second principle—the semi-glorification of violence, through popular culture such as rap music and otherwise, in response to rather simple provocations that could be interpreted as an insult to honor and/or manhood and an invitation to prove one’s toughness—then you have the toxic combination.

[NOTE: See also this previous post of mine.]

“Gun violence” and the Zimmerman case

The New Neo Posted on by

Post-Zimmerman-acquittal, we are hearing extremely predictable cries from President Obama and the liberal world that the case should be used to motivate a continued fight against “gun violence.”

But the only gun violence demonstrated here was the right to use one in bona fide self defense when suddenly attacked and overpowered and in fear for one’s life. Of course, facts like that have never mattered to many of those with an anti-gun agenda. They will bend the facts to their needs.

And believe me, those same liberals, especially if they are public figures themselves, will retain their own right to either own guns for self-defense or to hire security guards who carry them. It’s only poor peons (half-white-half-Hispanic-peons?) like George Zimmerman who shouldn’t be allowed to do so. He would have been more of hero to them, no doubt, if Trayvon Martin had beaten his head long enough to kill him or to cause brain damage—although actually, if that had happened, Zimmerman’s plight would almost certainly have been ignored by those same liberals.

The only person in the Zimmerman-Martin duo who appears to have been enamored of guns and their potential for violence may have actually been Martin, although he did not carry one at the time of the killing. Why do I say that? For this reason:

Don’t sit on a hot stove till the antigun crowd spotlights that.

[NOTE: The above video should start playing at minute 23:16. If for some reason it won’t play properly for you (every now and then it wouldn’t play for me), just go to You Tube and start watching it there at 23:16.]

The day after: some thoughts on the Zimmerman trial

The New Neo Posted on by

Just a few random thoughts on this case:

—The Zimmerman case has often been discussed as dealing with issues of race. And of course it does, although primarily because of racemongers who have stirred up that aspect of it for their own purposes.

I don’t think it actually had all that much to do with race for Zimmerman. One of the most important issues in the case, though, was that of self-defense. If Zimmerman had been found guilty, it would have been a very ominous sign for the doctrine of self-defense, and would perhaps have set us on a road (or been an indication that we were already set on a road) similar to that of Britain, where the concept of self-defense has been more or less gutted.

—Have you noticed how, after the prosecution kept calling Martin a “child” during the trial and especially in its closing argument, the use of the word to describe the 17-year-old Martin has escalated tremendously around the MSM? It’s “child” this and “child” that, said in the most solemn tones. Sometimes “frightened child.”

I’ve called this case a tragedy (for the reasons I have purposely used that word, please see this). I am not making light of the taking of the life of a 17-year-old for whatever reason. But Martin—and most 17-year-olds—was no “child.” In fact, had he committed a crime (and he apparently did in this case, assault and battery) and lived to be charged with it, there is a very good chance he would have been charged as an adult. To watch people on TV solemnly intoning “child” is to see their blatant and unapologetic propaganda at work.

—I really admire the defense attorneys in this case. Something about their demeanor seems incredibly smart and thoughtful, as well as compassionate. I very much enjoyed their post-trial press conference. West didn’t pull his punches, whereas O’Mara was the contemplative, almost Mr. Rogers-like one who nevertheless had some very sharp words about the media’s role in the case.

I didn’t watch all that much of the trial itself, but instead relied on Andrew Branca’s great summaries at Legal Insurrection as well as watching some of the video. But I did see much of O’Mara’s final speech to the jury live and was highly impressed. He’s exactly the kind of lawyer who made me want to go to law school, the kind that does in fact exist and has always motivated me to defend lawyers when people bash them in generalities. Yes, of course, I know what those people are referring to when they diss lawyers. But there are more lawyers such as O’Mara than one might think.

This article about O’Mara, written when he first came onto the Zimmerman case over a year ago, turns out to have been spot on—even the Atticus Finch comparison. O’Mara’s website reads, “Helping good people through difficult times.” It turns out that’s not false advertising.

O’Mara has an interesting combination specialty: criminal law and family law. Those were the two fields of law (along with jurisprudence) that most interested me when I was in school. In fact, they were pretty much the only areas of law that interested me. But early on I realized I didn’t have a lawyer’s temperament. O’Mara does. During his post-verdict press conference, he said something that highlighted that fact for me, and as a person who got a law degree but did not practice law I understood what he meant. I don’t have the exact text of his remarks, but when asked what was the best part of the trial for him (after answering it was the moment he heard “not guilty”), he added something like this:

It’s a trial. It’s where we [trial lawyers] live. It’s like a surgeon in surgery. It’s where you want to be.

It’s certainly not where most people would feel at ease or want to be. It was never where I wanted to be, I discovered, although certain things about law and even trial law really appeal to me. But I’m very glad there are people like O’Mara who do belong there.

Zimmerman: not guilty

The New Neo Posted on by

They just announced the verdict: not guilty.

I am stunned and pleased. Justice has been served. My cynicism—which had continued throughout this case—turned out to be incorrect, which makes me very happy.

Of course, Zimmerman is a marked man. But still, this is the best possible result. There will be no appeals; the legal part of the case is over.

It will be interesting—to say the least—to see what the reaction will be. I am extremely relieved, though. If this has been an ordeal even for us as observers, how exponentially greater must have been the ordeal for all those who were more deeply and personally involved, from the moment the situation escalated to the tragic point where Trayvon Martin was killed and George Zimmerman ended up standing trial for his murder.

[ADDENDUM: Not Twelve Angry Men, but Six Courageous Women.

Listening to Angela Corey speak right now, her statement seemed decent enough at this point, quite conciliatory and non-inflammatory. Certainly unlike her earlier rabble-rousing.]

[ADDENDUM II: I take it back a bit about Corey; the prosecutors (and Corey) have now been going on about how it is that Zimmerman was really guilty. Tough. But I suppose that’s par for the course and to be expected. They can’t do anything now about the verdict, thanks to double jeopardy and the fact that a prosecution can’t appeal.

I’m looking forward to hearing what the defense has to say. They did a good job, and along with Zimmerman must have been sweating bullets these past couple of days.]

[ADDENDUM III: Defense attorney Don West says, “I’m thrilled that this jury kept this tragedy from becoming a travesty.”

Defense attorney Mark O’Mara closes the question period by excoriating the press for their earlier treatment of Zimmerman.]

Trying to read the jury’s mind[s]

The New Neo Posted on by

In the comments section of today’s post on the Zimmerman trial, I noticed some discussion of the significance of the jury’s request this evening for clarification on the definition of manslaughter.

First of all, I think that juries are inscrutable and unpredictable. So all bets are off with juries.

That said, though, I have never thought there was much of a chance for an acquittal in this case, although I also think the case is so weak that it should never have been brought—and if brought, I think that the judge should have thrown it out for lack of evidence after the prosecution had finished its presentation.

But the best result I had ever hoped for—at least that I thought had a realistic chance of actually happening—was a hung jury. I still think that is a possibility, although I have been fearing that Zimmerman will instead be found guilty of manslaughter despite the strength of the self-defense argument against it.

However, I don’t think that, as some people have suggested, the fact that the jury has asked for clarification of the definition of manslaughter necessarily means that they have rejected the possibility of self-defense, although of course it’s certainly possible. One reason I say that is that the jurors might just be going down the judge’s list in order, and I’m under the impression that manslaughter came after murder on that list but before self-defense. The second reason that they might want to decide on manslaughter first, without having taken up the question of self-defense, is that the question of whether Zimmerman committed manslaughter seems easier to decide than whether or not to find him not guilty of manslaughter because he acted in self-defense. So if the jurors looked at manslaughter first and were to decide there was no manslaughter in the first place, they wouldn’t even need to consider the more complex question of self-defense.

In the comments to my earlier post, “Oldflyer” mentions another concern:

I wonder how these women will feel if they convict GZ for manslaughter and then find that the sentence is exactly the same as for 2nd degree Murder? Thirty years in prison, or until Martin’s avengers catch him alone.

And “carl in atlanta” adds:

These jurors may think they’d be doing a GZ a big favor by returning a manslaughter verdict. No doubt they believe the penalty will be much, much less. After all, drunk drivers and enraged spouses get convicted of manslaughter all the time and they seem to get relatively light sentences…

If these jurors convict him of manslaughter, most of them are going to be in for the shock of their lives.

Agreed. Jurors are purposely kept from knowing the penalties for the crimes for which they might convict the accused because the penalties are supposed to be a separate issue from, and irrelevant to, whether that person is guilty and whether the necessary elements of a crime are present. The idea is that knowing the penalties would taint the jurors’ thought process in terms of deciding guilt and non-guilt. But the process is just as tainted if the jury doesn’t know the penalties, because in the real world people often make these decisions about guilt in difficult cases in part based on a weighing how serious the crimes under consideration are and how much of a price the accused might pay if convicted of one crimes versus the other. It would be better if they had the correct information rather than just speculating, wouldn’t it?

I have seen a number of documentaries about criminal cases in which members of the jury who convicted someone found out afterwards that the penalty was much much different (either much lighter or much heavier, depending on the case) than they had assumed while deliberating. They tended to be angry and distraught about the ignorance in which they had been purposely kept, although I don’t know how common these feelings are. In addition, if they found out after the fact that evidence they thought would have been crucial had been kept from them during the trial and deliberations, and would have affected their decision one way or the other, they likewise tended to be extremely distressed when they found out (in the Zimmerman case, I could see this happening if and when the jury learns about the Martin cell phone evidence that was excluded, for example).

In some cases, it haunts certain jurors for the rest of their lives. I have seen interviews with some in which, decades later, they are still in tears about a decision they thought they made that in retrospect they thought was too harsh or too lenient, one that they said would have gone differently if only they had known the full situation. Sometimes jurors have required therapy to try to deal with their own feelings of guilt and/or anger. Sometimes they have appeared before parole boards years later to ask that the convicted person be released if the juror thought the sentence was unjustly harsh.

Down a street of molasses

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a song by my man Richard Thompson (lyrics here), featuring his characteristic beauty and bitterness:

Those lines “in the dream I’m running/down a street of molasses/in the dream my feet gain no ground” seem an odd but effective image, like getting caught in sticky mud or tarpaper. But it also made me think of something that happened in Boston in 1919, an event I’d be surprised if Thompson has ever heard about. In fact, I’d even be surprised if most of you have ever heard of it:

The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in the United States. A large molasses storage tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and some residents claim that on hot summer days, the area still smells of molasses…

At about 12:30 in the afternoon near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700 m3) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 and 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h), and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to damage the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway’s Atlantic Avenue structure and tip a railroad car momentarily off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm). As described by author Stephen Puleo:

“Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form ”” whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was… Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings ”” men and women ”” suffered likewise.”

The Boston Globe reported that people “were picked up by a rush of air and hurled many feet.” Others had debris hurled at them from the rush of sweet-smelling air. A truck was picked up and hurled into Boston Harbor. Approximately 150 were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed ”” some were crushed and drowned by the molasses. The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing fits became one of the most common ailments after the initial blast.

It’s one of those things that initially sounds like a joke, but most definitely is not.

Snowden and Greenwald: bombshell or bluster?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve already written plenty about Snowden and Greenwald. But since they’ve recently insinuated themselves into the news in a potentially interesting manner, here we go again.

According to Greenwald:

Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published the documents Snowden leaked, said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that the U.S. government should be careful in its pursuit of the former computer analyst.

“Snowden has enough information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had,” Greenwald said in an interview in Rio de Janeiro with the Argentinean daily La Nacion.

“The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare.”

Aren’t they the brave duo.

I’m not sure whether I believe Greenwald or not. But notice that he is not alleging that this supposedly bombshell information Snowden possesses indicates any wrongdoing or overreach by the US government. Nor does it appear to necessarily involve invasions of the privacy of US citizens. The only hint the article (or Greenwald) makes at the content seems to be this:

Greenwald said in his interview with La Nacion that documents Snowden has tucked away in different parts of the world detail which U.S. spy programs capture transmissions in Latin America and how they work.

I would like to see Snowden arrested under the Espionage Act (I’ve written here and elsewhere about the ways in which he’s already violated it). But since he seems to be out of range right now, what about interrogating Greenwald, who although living outside the country now is a US citizen and does not (yet) appear to be on the run?

In this previous post I wrote about why I think that Greenwald is not protected from prosecution, either, even though he is a journalist.

If what Greenwald says is true (and I am by no means certain he is not guilty of quite a bit of hyperbole), and this information really threatens US security big time and is about to fall into the hands of countries that wish us harm, doesn’t it behoove us to find out more? After all, Greenwald is in possession of the information, too, not just Snowden. Should Greenwald and Snowden be allowed to hold the US hostage because they possess sensitive material obtained illegally, material that in this case does not even appear to involve wrongdoing on the part of the US? Is this not espionage on their part?

And remember, Snowden does not have to have actually publicized the sensitive information, he merely has to have taken it illegally. Although Greenwald is less liable if he hasn’t yet publicized it (since he didn’t take it himself), the Snowden timeline nevertheless indicates that Greenwald may have facilitated, aided, and abetted him in the taking.

Again, for those of you who still think that Snowden’s a hero because he exposed details of the NSA domestic information-gathering programs (cellphones and the like), that doesn’t appear to be the information we’re talking about here, although Greenwald has been coy enough to not say exactly what we are talking about.

The Zimmerman case: the deliberations of a jury of his “peers”

The New Neo Posted on by

We don’t know what the Zimmerman jury will decide, but I have long felt apprehensive about both this jury’s size and its makeup (all women).

I have little doubt that the first factor—the jury’s small size (6) is responsible for the second, the unity of gender. Had it been a jury of twelve, there would have been much more likelihood that some men would have made it into the group.

Is this a jury of Zimmerman’s “peers”? “Peers” doesn’t mean the jury has to match the defendant exactly in the demographic sense; we don’t need six Hispanic/white men in their twenties to try him. Apparently, it is enough that there were men in the jury pool from which the jurors were chosen; it is that pool that must represent a cross-section of the community in the ethnicity, age, and gender sense.

And indeed there were men in the jury pool; we know that because two of the four alternate jurors are men. But they don’t get a vote in the verdict decision. The women who do have certain characteristics that are troubling, too, such as this about juror B-51:

When asked if Zimmerman did something wrong by following Martin instead of waiting for police, she said: “Yeah, I guess he did do something wrong.”

There also this, from juror B-37:

During the last round of questioning, she said she had an issue with the type of weapons people are allowed to carry. She also thought weapons’ training was inadequate for people seeking permits. “It should become harder,” she said.

Finally, we have this:

One of the women, the youngest, says she used the shooting in Sanford, Fla., as an example to her two adolescent kids not to go out at night.

Will any of this matter in the end? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. What we know does matter is the ability of these six jurors to listen to evidence, evaluate it, and then apply the law to it in a fair manner.

In this they were not helped by prosecutor John Guy who said, as part of his closing summation:

I don’t have any charts or timelines. I’m asking you to use your heart.

That charge of Guy’s makes a mockery of our system of justice, and it’s hard to believe it isn’t specifically tailored to the characteristics of women vs. men, or at least the general stereotypes that are not true of all women but are arguably true of more of them than of men. It’s not all that unusual for a defense lawyer to make such an appeal, but for the prosecution to do so seems highly unusual and more importantly it violates the prosecution’s duty to present overwhelming evidence of guilt and call on reason rather than emotion in the deciding (“beyond a reasonable doubt”).

And why didn’t Guy have “any charts or timelines”? It wasn’t because he has an anti-chart/timeline fetish. It wasn’t even because he didn’t think the jurors should bother their pretty little heads about it. It was because he was unable to use the facts available to draw up a chart or timeline that favored the prosecution.

Are women actually more ruled by emotion than logic? Darned if I know, although from my own observations of human nature, I suspect it is more common among them, although men are far from immune to the problem.

I saw a comment somewhere that the OJ jury was composed of all women. So I checked, and although that was not true, it is true that although that jury consisted of twelve people, only two of them were men.

There were other interesting anomalies about that jury’s composition: it was composed of 9 blacks, 1 Hispanic, and 2 whites; there were 2 college graduates, 9 high school graduates, and 1 with no diploma; all were Democrats; “None regularly read a newspaper, but eight regularly watch[ed] tabloid TV shows…five reported that they or another family member had had a negative experience with the police…nine thought that Simpson was less likely to be a murderer because he was a professional athlete.”

The OJ jury differed rather greatly from the jury pool from which they had been selected. The pool’s racial composition, for example, was “40% white, 28% black, 17% Hispanic, and 15% Asian.” The final jury was quite different.

One of the inexplicable decisions the OJ prosecution made was to file the case in LA rather than Santa Monica, where the crime had occurred. I have no idea why they did this, but it probably determined the outcome of the trial:

The racial composition of the jury was strongly influenced by the decision of the prosecution to file the Simpson case in downtown Los Angeles rather than–as is usually the case– in the judicial district where the crime occurred– in this case, Santa Monica. Had the case be filed in Santa Monica, the Simpson jury would have been mostly white instead of, as was the case, mostly African-American. With poll data showing that most whites believed Simpson to be guilty and most blacks believing him to be not guilty, the decision to file the case in Santa Monica may have been the biggest mistake the prosecution made. Vincent Bugliosi, the celebrated prosecutor in the Charles Manson case, said the mistake “dwarfed anything the defense did.”

I have been unable so far to find any description of the choices each side has made in the Zimmerman case during the jury selection phase, except that the prosecution unsuccessfully challenged the seating of a couple of the women who ultimately ended up being part of this jury.

At any rate, whoever they are, it’s in their hands now. The length of deliberations so far indicates to me that they are either seriously considering a guilty verdict or might ultimately end up a hung jury. It argues against not guilty as a possibility, although I certainly wouldn’t count that out because jury decisions are notoriously difficult to predict.

Closing arguments in the Zimmerman case

The New Neo Posted on by

Demagoguery versus rationality.

Appeals to raw emotion versus appeals to reason and logic.

The prosecution versus the defense in the Zimmerman case.

I’ve watched a few excerpts of the arguments in the case, but have relied for the most part on summaries such as this one at Legal Insurrection.

So, which will approach will the six ladies of the jury buy? I have no idea, but I know which one I think should prevail, although that hardly means it will prevail. I continue to fear it will not, and that the power of demagoguery will outshout it.

[NOTE: As for why there are only six jury members in this case, it’s legal in Florida for non-capital cases, although I think it’s a terrible idea when such serious charges and possible penalties are involved. Six people can convict much more readily than twelve because it is easier for them to agree, and a jury of six therefore removes some of the protection for innocent defendants as compared to a jury of twelve.

What’s more, although I don’t know whether there are legal grounds to challenge it, it just seems wrong that this jury is composed of all women. Are women less likely to buy a claim of self-defense? It seems to me that’s possible.]

Thomas Sowell: the early years

The New Neo Posted on by

Thomas Sowell is a real favorite here for his penetrating mind, superior ability to articulate his point of view, and his sharp wit. If you’ve ever seen videos of him debating (for example, here’s an epic moment) you’ll know he doesn’t pull his verbal punches, nor does he suffer fools gladly.

It turns out these characteristics of his were in evidence almost from the start of his life. How do I know? I’ve been reading a memoir he published in 2000 entitled A Personal Odyssey. It’s quite a document, filled with anecdotes from Sowell that demonstrate that he always thought for himself and wasn’t the least bit afraid to express it. He seemed to have been born independent, and rather ornery at that, in a firm albeit sometimes witty way. Once you’ve read the book you understand how mentally tough Sowell is, and although he’s basically likeable—and I very deeply respect him—no one would ever call him easy, accommodating, or warm and fuzzy. When you mess with Sowell, you better be ready.

Here are some passages from his book that struck me as especially interesting, either in the personal sense or the political one. Some background for those of you who may not be familiar with Sowell: he’s an 83-year-old (looks great, though) economist, author, and political columnist who is another political changer, having been a Marxist in his early days. Although in the book he makes it crystal clear that he has not been a member of any political party in many decades, most people would consider him conservative.

Here are the excerpts:

…[W]hite people were almost hypothetical to me as a small child. They were one of the things that grown-ups talked about, but they had almost no significant role in my daily life. That remained largely true until after we left Charlotte, when I was almost nine years old, and moved to New York. Then it came as a shock to me that most of the people in the United States were white.

Sowell’s family (he was raised by a great-aunt) moved to New York, and when it was time for junior high he asked his family to petition that he be allowed to attend a school out of his district but relatively nearby, because it was a better school than the one he was supposed to go to:

I prevailed upon Mom [his great-aunt] to go to the school, which she hated to do, and sign for me to get a transfer. We waited for hours for the bureaucratic process to move on, but in the end, I had my transfer. Without it, the last door might have been slammed shut on me.

The rest of the family saw a very different symbolism in my going to junior high school. They informed me, very gravely, that none of them had ever reached seventh grade.

“You are going on further than any of us,” I was told.

Very early in his career as an economist, Sowell worked for various government agencies. One of them was the U.S. Department of Labor, as a GS-9 management intern, a group being groomed for future leadership roles. The following is quite characteristic of Sowell’s no-nonsense behavior:

Someone had the bright idea of giving management interns an extensive battery of psychological questions to answer and turn in. It was the usual intrusive kind of thing, including questions about what kind of woman I wanted to marry. I paid no attention to it. In due course, one of the busy-bodies phoned me.

“We haven’t gotten your questionnaire back,” I was told.

“I know.”

“When are you going to send it in?”

“I’m not going to send it in.”

“Why not?”

“It asked questions that were nobody’s business.”

“Will you at least return the blank questionnaire? Those things cost a lot of money.”

“I can’t. I threw it out with the trash.”

“Threw it out! What would happen if everyone had your attitude?”

“You would have to stop asking nosy questions.”

On a more serious note, one of the many places where Sowell taught was Howard, one of the premier black universities in the country. As usual, Sowell was unafraid to challenge the status quo and, as usual, he ruffled feathers:

My tightening up on [academic] standards and on cheating initially meant massive failing grades on exams. This in turn meant massive complaints—to me, to the committee chairman, and to the dean…[who] jumped in with both feet.

“For God’s sake, Sowell,” he said. “You’re not teaching at Harvard.”

“I never thought that I was,” I said. “But how are we supposed to meet those higher standards you’re always talking about if everyone who comes here is expected to conform to existing standards?

“We need higher standards, but we have to be reasonable. Kids from these backgrounds can’t handle a lot of abstractions, graphs and things like that.”

“Yes, they can—but they will not do it as long as they have sympathetic administrators to intervene in their behalf.”

“It’s my job to intervene when a teacher isn’t doing his job.”

“If you think I’m not doing my job, you can have my resignation—anytime…”

“We can talk about that later…How do you justify your teaching methods which have produced all this uproar?”

“I don’t intend to justify them at all,” I said. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Now, you give exams to graduating seniors in their major field. Good. When the students from my courses take their exams in economics, compare their results with those of students from the rest of the department.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“What else is there? We’re here to produce results, not popularity.”…

Later on, it was leaked to me—no doubt deliberately—that the dean had never taken such instant and total dislike to anyone in all his years at Howard University.

Sowell resigned at the end of the year. He explains that, by that time, his spring classes were going exceptionally well. One young student came to Sowell and asked:

“How are we ever going to advance, if people like you come here for one year and then leave?”

The question really hit me. I had no answer for him then—or now.

This incident occurred in 1963-4, fifty years ago. Sadly, the issues remain—and not just at Howard. Academic standards have been sliding nearly everywhere, and those who try to arrest that slide often get burned (or fired) for their pains.

[ADDENDUM: Sowell’s most recent column here.]

The war between the state

The New Neo Posted on by

Northern Colorado wants to become the 51st state. The reasons? The rural north has different politics and economic concerns than the more urban south, and feels the latter is crushing it and ignoring its needs.

I don’t think this will fly, although I think it’s an interesting effort. The most recent previous precedent—West Virginia vs. Virginia—occurred in the context of the Civil War and opposition to slavery, which was the major stated reason for West Virgina’s secession from Virginia and its admission as a separate state in 1863.

Maine is another example with some unique characteristics. Not one of the original thirteen states because it was part of Massachusetts, Maine was nevertheless not contiguous with Massachusetts, with little New Hampshire in-between. In 1819 Massachusetts allowed Maine to secede if Maine voters chose to do so, which occurred shortly thereafter in 1820. Maine (somewhat like West Virginia) was admitted to the US because of concerns connected with slavery, in Maine’s case as part of the 1820 Missouri Compromise. It was a free state balancing out the entry of Missouri, a slave state.

Kentucky left the mother state of Virginia very early on, and was admitted in 1792, and Tennessee(1796) had a very similar history vis a vis North Carolina.

I’m unaware of any other states that have been formed by secession from already-admitted states. It would be highly unusual at this point in time; hasn’t happened in 150 years.

What’s more, the particular beef that northern Colorado has with southern Colorado is similar to the issues that roil many other states today. For example, New York, Maine, and New Hampshire (just to mention a few that I know rather well) have north-south dichotomies where the north is more rural and conservative than the south. California has a coastal/inland split, Illinois a metro-Chicago-versus-everything-else difference. Although I’m not aware of the details (just as, prior to this news about northern Colorado, I knew next to nothing about the differences between Colorado’s north and south), I would imagine there are many other states with similar disagreements between their different areas.

But whatever northern Colorado wants to do , not only does the rest of Colorado have to agree, but Congress has to approve, as well. I just don’t see that happening, because I think the fear would be increased Balkanization of many states that could try to follow suit, resulting in (among other things) more representation for rural, conservative areas as opposed to urban ones.

Conservatives may like that idea, but I don’t see why liberals would. For example, the state of New York is reliably Democratic, but if it became two states (each with its own senators) the senate would probably gain two conservative members, because the urban southern part would continue as before (liberal) but would no longer be able to dominate the north. I can’t quite imagine any liberal or Democrat in Congress voting yes to that sort of arrangement.