Charles C. Johnson

That Thin Envelope: Time to Resist Racist Education Policy

by Charles C. Johnson

Every March, college students from around the country receive either a thick or a thin envelope. For many of them, this will be the biggest event in their lifetimes. It will be a source of pride for some; envy and disappointment for others.

affirmative-action-protest

As Americans, we’d like to believe our meritocratic sensibilities do a great job allocating talent, but alas, the truth is that at many colleges throughout America race matters more than brains.

Proponents of affirmative action, though, present a false picture when they suggest that they’d be fine with wealthy, white kids being denied admissions in favor of lesser qualified (and often just as wealthy) blacks and Hispanics. In actuality, the people who most often lose their spots at elite colleges in higher education are Asians and Asian-Americans. [The adverse impact of affirmative action against poor whites remains a source of contention and research.]

But what would a world without affirmative action look like? Putting aside your view of whether or not should exist let’s examine how it actually works by examining such a world. In 2005, The Chronicle of Higher Education cited a paper that looked at just that question.

A [2005] study by two Princeton University researchers uses admissions data from elite colleges to portray what would happen in such a world without affirmative action. In short, black and Latino enrollment would tank, while white enrollments would hardly be affected. The big winners would be Asian applicants, who appear to face “disaffirmative action” right now. They would pick up about four out of five spots lost by black and Latino applicants.

. . .

The research looked at admissions decisions at elite colleges and found that without affirmative action, the acceptance rate for African American candidates would be likely to fall by nearly two-thirds, from 33.7 percent to 12.2 percent, while the acceptance rate for Hispanic applicants probably would be cut in half, from 26.8 percent to 12.9 percent.

While white admit rates would stay steady, Asian students would be big winners under such a system. Their admission rate in a race-neutral system would go to 23.4 percent, from 17.6 percent. And their share of a class of admitted students would rise to 31.5 percent, from 23.7 percent.

But what about blacks at selective colleges? Who are they? Again, The Chronicle of Higher Education,

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 9:47 am in Culture, Education, Justice/Legal, News | 61 Comments »

Warner Todd Huston

Obama Orders Army NOT To Fly U.S. Flag in Haiti

by Warner Todd Huston

It’s bad enough that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is giving short shrift to American manufacturers and our economy by ordering extravagant new crystal stemware from Sweden to make the crystal cabinets in America’s embassies sparkle impressively, but now we learn that Barack Obama has told the U.S. relief forces in Haiti not to fly the U.S. flag over its own military compounds. He says that it will “send the wrong message.”

american-flag

Never mind that all the other nations have their flags proudly flying above their military relief installations in Haiti. Even Croatia has its coat of arms flying outside its base. Yet not the U.S. Army. No U.S. flag flies anywhere despite the fact that we are far and away the largest force and have supplied the most relief supplies and money to the earthquake recovery effort.

According to USAID, as of January 19, 2010 the U.S. had spent $130,864,571 on aid to the Haitian people to help them recover from the devastating earthquake. By Jan. 25 that number had already increased to $179,883,065. It is only going up from there.

So why did the Obama administration forbid flying our own flag in Haiti?

“We are not here as an occupation force, but as an international partner committed to supporting the government of Haiti on the road to recovery,” the U.S. government’s Haiti Joint Information Center said in response to a query about the flag.

If it is so important to be seen as just another member of that international force, then why are all the other nations still flying their flags? Oh, I remember now… unlike the U.S. they don’t have a president that is more comfortable apologizing for his country than being proud of it, even when it is engaged in saving lives through relief work.

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 8:51 am in Culture, Defense, Obama | 307 Comments »

Rep. John Boehner

ObamaCare and the ‘Buzzsaw’ of Opposition

by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)

Today, Sen. Mitch McConnell and I make our case against ObamaCare in the Wall Street Journal:

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A little over a year ago, when President Obama first took up health-care reform, Republicans reached out to him in the hopes of working together on solutions that would lower health-care costs for families and small businesses. A bipartisan bill focused on lower costs could have been sent to the president’s desk last year, and it would have received the support of the American people.

For instance, this month the president announced his support for additional reforms to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. This is something we can and should be doing already. Do we really need to pass a $2.5 trillion spending bill, raise taxes, and slash Medicare to implement it?

In other areas, Democrats have taken solid Republican reforms—such as putting an end to junk lawsuits and allowing patients to purchase insurance across state lines—and watered them down to a point where they cannot be effectively implemented. Still, we could have used this common ground as a foundation for a bipartisan, step-by-step approach to health-care reform.

Unfortunately, the White House and congressional Democrats are still insisting on their massive, 2,700-page bill that includes higher premiums, $500 billion in higher taxes, and $500 billion in cuts to seniors’ Medicare. That’s not reform.

If there’s one thing the American people didn’t want, it was for us to make health care more bureaucratic and expensive.

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 7:37 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 192 Comments »

Dan Mitchell

Why Is Obama Trying to Make America More Like Sweden when Swedes Are Trying to Be Less Like Sweden?

by Dan Mitchell

In this new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a Swedish economics student makes three important points.

1. Sweden became a rich nation in the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s by relying a free markets and small government.

2. Growth deteriorated beginning in the 1970s after the imposition of high tax rates and a big increase in the burden of government spending.

3. For the last 20 years, Swedish lawmakers have been trying to restore prosperity by lowering tax rates and adopting pro-market policies.


So if Swedes have learned from their mistakes and are now trying to reduce the size and scope of government, why are American politicians determined to repeat those mistakes?

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 6:51 am in Economics, Obama | 92 Comments »

Marinka Peschmann

Immigration Reform: Terrorists Have Applied for Green Cards

by Marinka Peschmann

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Last Thursday President Obama, whose commitment to comprehensive immigration reform is “unwavering,” met with Sen. Chuck Schumer D-N.Y. and Sen. Lindsey Graham R- S.C. to discuss a proposed bill to fix the broken immigration system. While the details remain somewhat elusive, according to the Los Angles Times:

“The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.”

With the recent failures of the government agencies on full display during the failed Christmas Day bombing of flight 253, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that would be responsible for processing millions of illegal aliens should a path to citizenship become law, deserves national security scrutiny. Like the State Department, the USCIS is on the front lines of America’s defence. As we now know, Hillary Clinton’s State Department revoked known al-Qaida member Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab’s, visa after he allegedly attempted to blow up an airliner with explosives in his underwear. The credit for thwarting the Christmas Day terrorist attack goes to the passengers and the crew of flight 253—not to government agencies. Under the Department of Homeland Security, the USCIS’ mission includes keeping nefarious people off U.S. soil while preserving America’s tradition as a nation of immigrants by processing lawful foreigners’ applications for visas, residency and citizenship.

According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report,  Immigration Benefits: Actions Needed to Address Vulnerabilities in Process for Granting Permanent Residency,  “Terrorists and other individuals posing a threat to national security have applied for lawful permanent residency–” the Green Card. The “available data” provided to the GAO found that the “USCIS background checks identified individuals who were (1) KSTs [Known or suspected terrorist], (2) associates of terrorists, (3) involved in providing material support to terrorists or terrorist organizations, and (4) agents of a foreign government involved in espionage. From March 2003 through December 1, 2007, FDNS [Office of Fraud Detection and National Security] received about 14,500 national security referrals for all application types. According to FDNS officials, about 10 percent involved individuals on TSC’s [Terrorist Screening Center ] watch list and the balance of these cases involved individuals who were not on the terrorist watch list, but whose background checks indicated other possible national security concerns, such as those having associations with known or suspected terrorists.” The same applies for the Federal Bureau of Investigations. As the GAO report documents: “In addition to identifying potential national security concerns from checking an alien’s name against watch lists in TECS [Treasury Enforcement Communications System], name checks against the FBI’s investigative files have uncovered individuals who raised national security concerns. We reviewed a random sample created by FDNS of FBI name check results provided to USCIS to ascertain the types of national security concerns identified during the name check process. We found that the FBI provided information to USCIS that these individuals:

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 5:51 am in Defense, Featured Story, Politics | 68 Comments »

Publius

Tuesday Open Thread: Caligula Edition

by Publius

Today, in year 37, Caligula became Emperor of Rome. Considering the Democrat majority is planning to pass a bill without actually voting on it, this seems like an important event to note. After centuries, have we really progressed that far?

caligula

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Posted Mar 16th 2010 at 3:07 am in Open Threads | 142 Comments »

Matt Patterson

Republic on the Precipice

by Matt Patterson

I sometimes wonder if Americans really have any idea of the scope of the danger facing this country. I also wonder if they don’t deserve the disaster that is coming.

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Americans loudly focus their anger on the President, who is seeking to profoundly alter the structure and nature of the United States. But they cannot let themselves off the hook; they elected this man, after all, and by a wide margin.

Remember, Barack Obama had long kept company with loathsome men overflowing with hatred for the United States. His associates included an anti-American, unrepentant terrorist (Bill Ayers) and a deranged, anti-American preacher (Reverend Wright). And Obama’s own stated economic philosophy is confiscatory redistributionist – “spread the wealth around,” as he so forthrightly put it.

All of this was known in 2008. And Americans elected him anyway. And now they whine and complain that this man attempting to socialize the republic? What a thoroughly unserious people – if you stick your head in the gaping maw of a ravenous lion, you would be a fool to complain when it closes its jaws. It is the nature of lions to devour flesh; it is the nature of socialists to devour liberty.

And there is another culprit who must not escape blame.

The Republican Party, which botched a war – a just war – so badly that it made a leftist “community organizer” seem like presidential material. The Party which acquiesced to massive government expansions at the expense of liberty throughout the 20th Century; the New Deal, the Great Society, untold bloated federal programs which shamefully betray Republican fingerprints, programs which have habituated Americans to a certain amount of socialism in their society, including socialism in our health care.

And now the GOP makes a stand? Now it draws a line?

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 2:57 pm in Uncategorized | 490 Comments »

Nick Gillespie

Reason.tv: Fix The Schools!: Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey, episode 2

by Nick Gillespie

Cleveland’s public schools are failing to prepare students for their futures and as a result, all parents who can afford to have been fleeing to the suburbs for decades. Yet some urban schools, like Think College Now in Oakland, California are finding out that a combination of administrative autonomy and accountability can lead to amazing results. Within Cleveland’s own boundaries, charter schools are booming and delivering quality education at a fraction of the cost of traditional public schools. Does Cleveland have what it takes to fundamentally reform its K-12 education system and become a leader in 21st-century education?

Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey is written and produced by Paul Feine; camera and editing by Roger Richards and Alex Manning; narrated by Nick Gillespie; music by the Cleveland band Cats on Holiday. This is the second of six episodes that will air March 15-19, 2010.

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 2:08 pm in Education | 32 Comments »

SusanAnne Hiller

The Consent of the Governed

by SusanAnne Hiller

Knowing that the 111th Democrat-Progressive ruled Congress is indeed tyrannical in its endeavors to ram through ObamaCare, the Left continuously touts that the American people want this bill. Now, I have seen the polls and so have you, and so have the Democrats, including Obama, and they clearly know that they American people are vehemently against this healthcare takeover.

912-teaparty-dc-09

This leads me to my next point. I search through our Founder’s words in the Declaration of Independence. I’m searching for guidance, for the Founders must have known there would be tyranny lurking at every corner to deconstruct the nation that they had instituted. So many of us read the founding documents today, dusting them off, reading every word, clinging to every word. And there it is:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. emphasis mine

What’s missing is the how. We have the Right. But, does it go further?  An obligation, perhaps? Do the Founders leave the door open to any effective means? The people have the Right to abolish an oppressive form of government. Because we do not consent, we have the Right to institute a new government–to abolish all that exists and start new. All the entitlements, bribes, kickbacks, deals, unfair taxation–everything.  They give Americans the Right, directive, and ability to dissolve the current tyrannical government.  They knew this would happen.  That is why they give us the “Right” to guard this great nation against future tyranny.

In addition, our Founders, as only Fathers could to, give us the directive in the Declaration of Independence:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. emphasis mine

It is our duty to ”throw off such government.” Not optional.  An obligation.

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 1:21 pm in Uncategorized | 234 Comments »

Bob Parks

Five Offensive Attacks On Conservative Women

by Bob Parks

The MRC’s Culture and Media Institute looked back at what the liberal media had to say about conservative women in 2009 and it wasn’t pretty. Conservative women found themselves the victims of the worst sort of vitriol – including on a particularly disgusting Playboy “hate f—” list that featured 10 prominent conservative women. But even mainstream cable networks and broadcast networks joined in the attack, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann comparing Michelle Malkin to a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it” and comedian Chuck Nice telling a “Today” show panel that Sarah Palin “is like herpes” to the GOP.

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 12:01 pm in Culture, Media Criticism, Politics | 152 Comments »

Publius

Swing Districts Oppose Health Reform

by Publius

Heather Higgins and Kellyanne Conway in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Talkradionewsservice-ConservativeActivistsUrgeSenateToKillHealthCareBill591

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she plans to bring health-care reform to a vote this week. Democratic leaders cite national polls that show support for individual provisions of the bill as a reason to pass this reform. Yet vulnerable politicians should be warned: Responses to questions about individual benefits, particularly when removed from a cost context, are different from those on the whole bill.

Voters in key congressional districts are clear in their opposition to what they have seen, read and heard on health-care reform. That’s one of the findings of a survey that will be released today by the Polling Company on behalf of Independent Women’s Voice. The survey consisted of 1,200 registered voters in 35 districts represented by members who could determine the outcome of the health-care debate. Twenty of those members voted for the House bill in November but now may be reconsidering. Fifteen voted against the bill but are under tremendous pressure to change their vote.

The survey shows astonishing intensity and sharp opposition to reform, far more than national polls reflect. For 82% of those surveyed, the heath-care bill is either the top or one of the top three issues for deciding whom to support for Congress next November. (That number goes to 88% among independent women.) Sixty percent want Congress to start from scratch on a bipartisan health-care reform proposal or stop working on it this year. Majorities say the legislation will make them and their loved ones (53%), the economy (54%) and the U.S. health-care system (55%) worse off—quite the trifecta.

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 11:13 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Politics | 124 Comments »

Brian Darling

Unconstitutional Procedure Being Used to Pass Unconstitutional ObamaCare

by Brian Darling

House leaders are preparing to ram through ObamaCare this week  without a vote.  Not only is the legislation unconstitutional, but the process being used to pass it is unconstitutional.  The House is preparing a rule that would consider the Senate-passed version of ObamaCare passed in the House even though members would never directly vote on it.  That would violate Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution.

constitution-shredded

Here is how the trick would work:  In the House, the Rules Committee sets up the parameters for debate on legislation.  House leaders are considering a complicated rule that would be structured so that a vote on the rule setting down the structure for the ObamaCare debate would allow the Senate’s version of health care reform to pass without a vote.  First, there would be a vote on a rule.  If the rule is passed by the House, then the House would vote on a health care budget reconciliation measure that is an amendment to the Senate passed ObamaCare bill.  If that reconciliation measure passes, then reconciliation goes to the Senate and the ObamaCare legislation is deemed passed without a direct vote.  The plan for the legislation is unclear.  House leadership will either structure the rule to either immediately present ObamaCare to the President for his signature or they will hold the bill and deliver it only if the Senate passes a health care reconciliation measure.  Either way, the Constitution and the American people are the losers.

Understand that this procedure is drafted in a way so your average American can’t understand it.  The simple way to understand the situation is that the House is trying to pass a bill without a vote.

The Constitution states that the House and Senate are supposed to pass identical versions of a bill before the President can sign it into law.  One of the reasons for this tricky procedure is to provide cover for moderate Democrats who don’t want to vote for the Senate-passed ObamaCare bill because it includes the federal funding of abortion.

Michael McConnell, Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, explains it this way at the Wall Street Journal today:

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 10:11 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 180 Comments »

Greg Knapp

Time to Pay the IOUs out of the ‘Lock Box’

by Greg Knapp

iou pig

All the lies about the Social Security “lock box” are now on full display. This is the year we will start paying out more from the SS program than we took in. We’ve gotten here even earlier than predicted. This wasn’t supposed to happen until 2017. Whoops…

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds— which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg’s municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn’t be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

But, wait!  We have $2.5 trillion in there and it’s earning interest. It’s real money. We’re fine, right? Right. Pull this leg and it plays “Jingle Bells.” This is the mess conservatives have warned about for so long. The lock box hoax is nothing but a promise from the government (us)  to pay us. Yes, the bonds will be paid, but that shouldn’t ease your anxiety. The money has to come from somewhere. Government only has two choices to get it:

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 9:14 am in Political Humor, Tax Reform, Uncategorized, federal spending | 123 Comments »

Kyle Olson

Robert Gibbs’ and Andy Stern’s Purple Bracelets a Mark of Clintonesque Solidarity?

by Kyle Olson

I thought it was odd that Robert Gibbs was wearing a purple bracelet (and a purple tie) during his appearance on “Fox News Sunday” and CBS’ “Face The Nation.”  SEIU president Andy Stern, the top visitor to the White House, wore a similar, if not the same, purple bracelet at one point, too. And in virtually every photo of Stern, he’s wearing SEIU’s purple color.

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The bracelet is kind of a signal to tell Stern that the administration has it under control and ObamaCare will be delivered.  Just a few more Democrats need to be shown the Chicago way.

Am I making too much out of nothing?  Maybe.  Who knows.

I do know the presidential administration Gibbs serves is doing whatever it can to deliver health care reform to Andy Stern and SEIU.

After all, that’s pretty much the only lot that wants it at this point.  Even members of the president’s own party don’t want it, which is requiring them to twist arms in a way that would make Stern proud.

And this reminded me of another time a signal was being sent by the White House some time back.

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 6:27 am in Big Labor, Congress, Healthcare, Obama | 308 Comments »

Morgan Warstler

Which Democrats Get Free Passes?

by Morgan Warstler

Starting today, the RNC should offer Free Passes to targeted Congressional Democrats who will agree to vote NO on health care.

The Free Pass should include:

  • A guarantee no national money will be used against the Democrat in the general election.
  • A guarantee if the Democrat wants to jump parties (far less likely), he/she will receive the RNC’s endorsement in the primary & national money in the general.

Yes, Pelosi still faces hurdles. Yes, a government take-over of health care would inflame America’s likely voters and lead to greater Republican gains in November.  Yes, we can attempt to repeal it.  Yes, we can cheer SCOTUS to rule it unconstitutional.

But, none of these things is worth the current Republican passivity.   We have no time for party purity here.   Our own focus must be jobs, jobs, jobs.   And we cannot get bogged down with “repeal it,” even if we gain power.

Right now, Republicans should be locking down NO votes with as much carrot as we have stick.  We’ve put the fear of god into them, for the ones still fence sitting, it is time to offer salvation.

Here’s my list of persuadable Democrats to be offer a Free Pass:

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 5:31 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 163 Comments »

Publius

Monday Open Thread: Ides Edition

by Publius

Beware the Ides of March.

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Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 3:03 am in Open Threads | 51 Comments »

SusanAnne Hiller

Gibbs: ObamaCare the Law of the Land by Next Sunday

by SusanAnne Hiller

Obama

Doing his rounds on the Sunday talk shows, WH spokesman, Robert Gibbs, stated:

Gibbs added that those on next week’s Sunday talk shows “will be talking about healthcare not as a presidential proposal but I think as the law of the land.”

It’s interesting to note that Gibbs did not mention the reconciliation package. In fact, there has been a definite cooling of the rhetoric about the prospect of reconciliation in the Senate.

Note to those members of the House, you are being duped. The Senate will not take up the reconciliation package at all. After the House is stupid enough to fall for their bait and pass the ObamaCare bill, the Senate will deem reconciliation an impossibility due to the Byrd Rule.

In addition, Gibbs stated:

President Barack Obama will look to campaign on the new healthcare law in midterm elections, Gibbs said.

“We believe healthcare reform is going to pass, and once it passes we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of healthcare reform,” Gibbs said.

The GOP would love to run on the platform of the Democrats ramming ObamaCare down our throats, and the Slaughter Rule will make it the ultimate death blow.

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Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 5:31 pm in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 348 Comments »

John K. Herr

‘Schoolhouse Barack’

by John K. Herr

Remember Schoolhouse Rock, that civic-minded Saturday morning cartoon short from the 1970s? It’s time to update it for the Obama Era.

I__m_just_a_Bill_by_kilroyart

”I’m Just a Law”

LAW (singing): I’m just a law, yes I’m only a law,
And I don’t know why they passed me at all.
Cause — no — one — knows what is in me
No one’s read a darn word,
I was typed up last night
By a 20-year-old nerd,
But Pelosi twisted elbows all day.
How I hoped and prayed they would stall
But today, all in all, I’m a law.

BOY: Hello, Law, why so glum?

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Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 3:01 pm in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Political Humor, Politics | 84 Comments »

Charles C. Johnson

Hit The Road, Jordan: OSHA’s New Head Brings Thuggishness to the Labor Department

by Charles C. Johnson

Many of my friends are currently unemployed or underemployed. They graduated from Claremont McKenna, one of the finest colleges in America, but have found it tough to get jobs.

But one alum from our college, Jordan Barab, CMC ‘75, is making it tougher still in his capacity as acting head of the Office Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Great Depression Unemployment Line

But with Barab, we have the opportunity to not only examine the implication of his appointment but also surmise what he will do and what he has already one in office by carefully considering his and OSHA’s history.

During the past eight years, Barab spent his time excoriating the Bush administration’s laissez faire labor policies from his blog, Confined Space. Left unexamined, of course, is whether those same labor policies account for us having one of the lowest unemployment levels in U.S. history during the Bush years.

Among other things, Barab argued that the Bush administration was refusing to enforce OSHA regulations and statutes that allegedly would have helped workplace safety. He published scary (and utterly unfounded) statistics pushed by organized labor:

More than 15 workers are killed every day on the job in this country and a worker becomes injured or ill on the job every 2.5 seconds. The overwhelming majority of deaths, injuries and illnesses could have been easily prevented had the employers simply provided a safe workplace and complied with well-recognized OSHA regulations or other safe practices.

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Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 12:21 pm in Big Labor, Congress, federal spending | 85 Comments »

Nick Gillespie

Reason.tv: Advice Goddess Amy Alkon on Beating Manners Into Rude People

by Nick Gillespie

“I don’t like regulations,” says Amy Alkon, a syndicated advice columnist who blogs daily at AdviceGoddess.com. “I like to shame people into behaving better.”

Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker sat down with Alkon to discuss her new book, I See Rude People: One woman’s battle to beat some manners into impolite society. Alkon explains how she and others mix chutzpah with technology to fight back against the insane drivers, coffee-house yackers, and subway perverts who make our lives miserable.

Interview by Ted Balaker. Shot by Alex Manning and Paul Detrick. Edited by Alex Manning. Music: “I Think I Started a Trend,” by Brad Sucks (Magnatune Records).

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Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 10:01 am in Culture | 81 Comments »

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