Saturday Forum

05/29/09 - A Vermont Democrat Predicts Her Party's Moderates May Block Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court Nomination

An Angry Chicago Father Says America's Top Universities Shut His Daughter Out Because She's White; etc.

From: Philip Sanchez (e-mail him)

Spring is a time of passage for many high school seniors who will learn the admission decisions from America's best universities.

But it can also be, as it was for my daughter, the worst time in an aspiring student's life.

"Jane" attends one of Chicago's best, most diverse and most academically-driven public high schools.

Over the past four years, Jane has worked hard to gain admission to one of the top schools.

She has a 3.94 cumulative GPA, a 32 score on the ACT, four years of Chinese language study, attended a Chinese university last summer at the U.S. State Department's expense, and has achieved the highest scores on all five of her advanced placement tests.

Jane hopes to major in Foreign Affairs and continue her Chinese language education.

Despite her glowing resume, Jane received rejection letters from Yale and Stanford and was wait-listed at Georgetown's Walsh School for Foreign Service.

On the other hand, her minority fellow students were accepted into Ivy League schools even though they had significantly lower GPAs and test scores.

While those kids and their families celebrated, my hard-working daughter, overwhelmed with a sense of rejection and failure, cried her eyes out.

Simply stated, since Jane identified herself as Caucasian on her application, she was held to an entirely different standard than the minority students.

My daughter just learned that as a white person in America, the deck is stacked against her. The elite take any possible reason to choose minorities over whites.

The irony is that, even though we have a Hispanic surname because my stepfather adopted me when I was a small child, my daughter and I have always refused to put down anything other than Caucasian on questionnaires. Both of my biological parents are white. 

But we know that, if she had applied as a Hispanic and with her grades and test scores, all the universities would have accepted her.

As long as the liberal elite use race to select who gets an opportunity and who doesn't, then racism will live on.

Neither my ancestors nor I had anything to do with slavery, Yet 150 years later, Jane based on her skin color paid for those transgressions from long ago.

America is headed in a direction that would make our ancestors spin in their graves. I am ashamed and completely sick to my stomach.

Peter Brimelow comments: I wrote this reader: "Please tell your daughter that the system is completely corrupt and will collapse before she reaches my (admittedly advanced) age."

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A Delaware Reader Wonders Where Feminists Are On The Muslim Beheading Case

From: Dave (e-mail him)

Re: Robert de Brus' Column: A Newsman's Thoughts About The Buffalo Beheading And Other Atrocities

After reading de Brus' column, a thought occurred: Where are the feminists when it comes to crying out against violent crimes perpetrated against their sex by immigrants? Why are they indifferent?

Liz Robbins wrote the New York Times story that de Brus cited. Robbins is a 40-something female who certainly knows Islam's attitude toward women. [Upstate Man Charged With Beheading His Estranged Wife, By Liz Robbins, New York Times, February 17, 2009]

Why would Robbins or the Times editors want to do public relations work for Muslims by glossing over the brutal facts?

The ideologies of feminism, Zionism, and liberalism, rife at the Times, should bias the newspaper in the other direction.

Give the expertise at vilification that the Times shows toward VDARE.COM and Marcus Espstein, you would expect it to be at least as harsh on killer Muzzammil Hassan.

Frankly, I am puzzled.

The only possible reason Hassan escapes feminist ire: he is an immigrant and therefore exempt from criticism, even if his crime is a monstrous violation of female rights and an atrocity against all humanity.

"Dave" is a semi-retired software engineer. He defines "semi-retired" as meaning that if work comes his way, retirement ends. Dave's previous letters about Senator Larry Craig and Somalis in America are here and here.

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A Texas Reader Says Randall Burns Misses The Big Picture In Illegal Aliens Health Care; Randall Burns Replies

From: Don Reynolds (e-mail him)

Re: Randall Burn's Blog: Health Care And Immigration

If a comprehensive health care bill passes that excludes millions of illegal aliens, that becomes yet another sob story argument for legalizing them.

But if "comprehensive immigration reform" is approved, there will be no illegal aliens in the USA.

The issue of health care and illegal immigrants is a ruse by the Democratic administration to put the patriotic immigration reform movement to sleep. Barack Obama is counting on generating sympathy (and votes) for his amnesty bill by deliberately creating another "humanitarian" argument for legalizing them.

But including illegal aliens in health care legislation would add massively to the cost of insuring Americans in the work place.

Burns needs to remember that illegal aliens are already covered. No hospital or emergency room can turn them away.

Reynolds is a city planner and economist. His previous letters about bias in journalism, the U.S. enemy identification problems, the folly of a third party and patriotic immigration reform's southern dimension are here, here, here and here.

Randall Burns replies: I agree completely that, if we have a health care bill passed before "normalization" of illegal aliens' status, it will likely impose huge indirect costs onto American workers.

That is why the issue must be thought through ahead of time. Immigration reform  patriots must be fighting against any direct or indirect subsidization of health care costs by citizens for non-citizens.

My proposal: Illegal aliens may lie to protect their employers--but if they cannot present proof of citizenship, proof of legal residence or proof of temporary insurance granted to legal workers, then their health coverage costs should go into a pool. That pool should be funded by the expropriation of property of illegals' employers, investors in companies managed by those illegal employers, and landlords who rent to illegal aliens.

It's dangerous from a public health perspective to create disincentives to use medical care for anyone living in the US. To avoid the problem, we need to focus on enforcement.

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