ELSEWHERE

The latest Harvard flap over the fact that its small number of black students are mostly not American blacks is amusing. Blacks who come from REALLY poor environments in Africa and the Caribbean are twice as good at getting into Harvard as American blacks are. So the Leftist explanation that "poverty" keeps blacks out is sheer bunk. Surely, there is only one explanation for the difference: motivation. As black conservative sites like Crispus and Booker Rising often point out, instead of American blacks being challenged and being taught to strive and become independent, what affirmative action -- and "liberal" policies generally -- teach American blacks is passivity: the feeling of victimhood and dependency. The advantage that blacks from Africa and the Caribbean have is that they have NOT been reared in the poisonous politically correct environment of modern-day America.

I have always found Roger Scruton's view of conservatism rather idiosyncratic. To me he is a reactionary, not a conservative. He has a recent summary of his views here. There is much that he says about conservatism which is insightful but he claims to say what conservatism is without once mentioning individual liberty. Is there ANY American -- conservative or not -- who would agree that "the future is the past"? That is Scruton's summary of a core conservative outlook. By that criterion there are no (or very few) conservatives in America, I would think. I prefer an infinitely more influential conservative's view of what conservatism is, Ronald Reagan's: "If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.... The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom"

John Lewis: "Professor Henry Reynolds contends that our white forebears murdered over 20,000 of our black forebears. Keith Windschuttle argues that this figure is grossly exaggerated, prompting a call from academics and others for all men and women of good will to rise against Windschuttle and bring him down. Curiously, those who oppose Windschuttle appear to be more interested in maintaining previously-held beliefs than in determining what really happened, and do not seem to realise that figures of the magnitude claimed by Reynolds arguably contain more insult to our black than our white forebears".

Cuba could teach the U.S. a lot about democracy. You don't believe it? The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says so. Maybe they should rename it the Minneapolis Pravda. The old Soviet propaganda mill is still running smoothly in the USA.