Today I saw a television commercial with many participants, all of them wearing tee-shirts with the slogan “Don’t stand for intolerance.” After the camera panned in on the slogan so we watchers could read it, all the participants sat down. I presume that the message was that they were not standing for intolerance. Does that mean that we are supposed to be tolerant of any behavior? While I guess that we are supposed to be tolerant of “alternate” lifestyles (the purpose of the commercial), are we also supposed to be tolerant of mediocrity, the results of public education, union behavior, to do or say nothing, to tolerate the growth of government at all levels?
Near lifetime employment for government civil servants lets workers hide from the basic system of reward and punishment, a system that breeds mediocrity, and it translates into poor efficiency and low productivity. Without reward for superior performance, people have no reason to do anything but the bare minimum. The result is mediocrity because people who want to work hard are discouraged, punished, penalized, or are held back by the civil service system. As a specific example, consider what happened in Dayton, Ohio, in February, 2011. The Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered the Dayton, Ohio Police Department to lower their testing standards to increase the number of eligible minority candidates. The passing scores on the two-part test were reduced from 66% and 72% to 58% and 63%, respectively.
The DOJ acted because, in its opinion, not enough minorities passed the test, but the ultimate result is that the DOJ order guarantees the continuance of mediocrity through lower civil servant standards. Those who studied, who prepared, who worked to pass the exam were not rewarded for their efforts, were penalized. Those who were marginal and would have originally failed the tests gained passing marks through no action or effort of their own. Lowering standards meant that more applicants passed the exam, thereby furthering mediocrity.
Are we supposed to be tolerant of that performance?
Education, a core function of state and local governments, is an industry where performance is measured by inputs, not by outputs. If performance quality falls, government says we didn’t pay teachers enough, or we need smaller class sizes, or newer schools, or we need to throw more money at the problem. Yet between 1970 and 2005, school spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test scores did not improve. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment doubled per student.
In 2010, only 32% of US students were rated proficient in math, behind Portugal, but ahead of Italy. But they were far behind South Korea, Finland, Canada and the Netherlands. In Shanghai, 75% of students tested proficient in math. The US ranked 25th in math. Similar ranking in reading and science were recorded. Only 31% were rated as proficient in reading, and 21% were proficient in science. In 2010, US students ranked 14th in reading and 17th in science. While those scores were improved from 2003 and 2006, you can see that there is quite a bit of room for improvement.
Are we supposed to tolerate that performance?
Often, the reduction of public-sector employment costs are blocked by unions. Studies has shown that states and cities could save 20% to 40% of the cost of many services, fire fighting, public transportation, garbage collection, administrative functions, even prison operations, through competitive bidding to private contractors. But unions have blocked many of those efforts. Public employees maintain that they are underpaid relative to equally qualified private-sector workers, yet they are afraid of competitive bidding for government services.
Are we supposed to tolerate union efforts?
The growth of government is astounding. Today there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. The danger of a growing government that it is paid for by fewer taxpayers. At some point, this unsustainable fiscal model will collapse. The amount of federal spending for government programs was 28.3% in 1962. In 1990, it was 48.5%. Today it is 70.5%.
Are we supposed to be tolerant of government growth, to say nothing, to let growth continue?
BTW, the federal debt has increased from $10 trillion in FY2008 to $16.4 trillion in FY2012. Are we supposed to tolerate that increase?
In the “unintended consequences,” department, denouncing intolerance opened the scrutiny door so that ANY subject can now be examined with regard to intolerance, not just alternative lifestyles.
But that’s just my opinion.
dont worry yourself, the libtards will tell you what is permisable to be intolerant of , things like Jews /Christians/ conseratives/moralists
suds
or GOD, or prayers to MILITARY or live babies, OR CONCEPTION,
Nice try at deflection. The GOP have the market cornered on intolerance
#3 That then would leave the Democrats TOLERANT OF ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. YES?
That’s a sad list of things to be accepting of. For either side of the coin.
@liberalchild: You’re still here, so that blows your theory out of the water.
Tolerance and compassion are hard to argue against. That is precisely why those concepts have been co-opted by our enemies. No other country in the world allows open borders, yet we’re intolerant if we argue for immigration control. No other society in the world has survived open-ended, cradle-to-grave entitlements. No other society in the history of the world has ever paid its least productive citizens to reproduce (let alone at an exponentially higher rate). But if we call for entitlement reform, we lack compassion. Both concepts are critical premises and are pivotal to the economic collapse and reorg our government is experiencing. It’s the elephant in the room.
Thinking people must know we can’t continue on this course. So why do we avoid calling it what it is and stop this nonsense before it’s too late? Why do we allow our leftist neighbors, friends, coworkers, and/or family win any argument about what is happening? Tolerance and compassion. It’s the same as how they use racism. No one can argue for racism or against tolerance and compassion. Who would? But when used to control, it’s a ruse that effectively deceives. It’s planned confusion and controlled chaos designed to cloud the debate. We aren’t culturally equipped to confront it because we’ve had life too good to complain about this or that loss, of an insignificant civil right. Not when it’s in the name of tolerance and compassion. Is it even possible to turn around and return to common sense?
Maybe it’s already too late. The next stage will be the collapse of the Constitution as we’ve known it. The US will no longer be our brother’s keeper to stop the international miscreants from ravaging the countries we used to protect. Totalitarianism will necessarily ensue requiring one world governance for stability. People talking about where they intend to expatriate if/when all this transpires, are misguided. There will be no island paradise or secret enclave of liberty once the US falls. Those that have destroyed liberty here won’t be tolerant of a seed of freedom being planted elsewhere. There will be nowhere to hide.
Mr. Beatty has aptly chronicled a glimpse of our present path. We’re in very serious trouble. Our election system is now so corrupted, we may never have another say. Marxism has prevailed hidden in the Trojan Horse of tolerance and compassion. I wonder how many people actually understand what is happening or can even imagine how drastically our lives are about to change? Visit any inner city and witness what tolerance and compassion creates in the hands of socialists. It is a microcosm of our future.
@liberalmann:
Usually when someone makes a claim that big, and that general, they provide specific examples to support the claim. I don’t expect that we will be hearing any of that from you, though, because that would allow for open and honest discussion that might just blow up your claim that you made.
To do as you just did is a common tactic of the stupid, lazy and ignorant. That is, to make a general claim intended to negatively reflect upon the opposition and leave it at that. The only way to fight such claims is to try and “prove” your innocence, so that you spend all your time fighting the lies and nasty remarks of the opposition instead of discussing the actual issues at hand.
SM Williams: The Constitution is already under attack…note the attack on the Catholic church, the establishment clause has been trashed.
For 26 years I have taught the ins and outs of constitutional law to high school students. In a national competition based upon a curriculum called “We The People” kids were exposed to the negative rights protections we all have against government overreach.
Two years ago under the Obama administration the national program’s funding was killed. John Podesta’s Center For American Progress, a socialist organization that has full entry into the White House issued an announcement that Congress would be asked to kill the study of the Constitution at the high school level. Podesta, former top aid to Clinton said that children must be moved from negative to positive rights: the right to have things…..jobs, education, cars, and the other things society produces…at taxpayer expense.
The only publicity the murder of this program had…was by Glenn Beck on Fox, shortly before his program was canceled. As Beck said…the Obama administration wants government to guarantee certain things that people used to have to work for. Nobody else has noticed.
“We The People” was kept going nationally this year by private funds…at a much reduced level. But make no mistake…this administration sees the Constitution as a problem that must be gotten around. It wants our kids to have little or nothing to do with its protection of basic rights we call The Bill of Rights…they want to replace the first 10 amendments with something else. If there’s a second Obama term, I’m sure we’ll get to see what these are.
SM Williams
you say every thing that many feel and don’t say, every thing that I would like to say but not as well as you,
you say what the CANDIDATES SHOULD SAY AND MORE THAN ONCE, even if there is a tear slowly run down their faces, it would be okay, you say what is suppose to be shout out loud to the people
gathered in big numbers on a special event, no applaud needed just reflection and acknowledgment,
thank you it is sublime
I love when you all come in with pure emotions words of passion foe AMERICA, THOSE ARE WORDS WHICH RISE A CANDIDATE to the top, and they should not be shy of spreading that passion,
specially at this time when the core of the youth are incited to turn their back on AMERICA,
INCITED TO TURN AWAY FROM THE LAWS of the land, why are they so important for AMERICA,
SHE IS UNDER ATTACK BY TRAITORS, AND NOT BEING DEFENDED AGAINST THEM,
the response to it is not stern enough for the range of the attack on many fronts, it must be adjusted to the amount of those arrogant decisions made to subdue a best part of AMERICA, AND yes the tolerance must also be adjusted a few notches higher from those seeking to get them out, because they have already adjusted their attack on the high gear.
the commander MARK GURGANUS ORDER THE MARINES TO TAKE OF THEIR WEAPONS
AND STAND EXACTLY LIKE THE AFGHANS SOLDIERS THEY HAVE TRAINED,
WELL SR THAT WAS A VERY WRONG ORDER TO GIVE TO THE BRAVES MARINES, YOU JUST DON’T DISARMED OUR MARINE FOR ANY EXCUSE,
YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN THE 6 MILITARIES WHO WHERE SHOT IN THE BACK BY 2 AFGHAN SOLDIERS
ON 2 OF THEM AND AN AFGHAN POLICE KILL ANOTHER AND LATER 2 MORE WHERE KILLED
BY SOME IN THERE CLOSE ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO DO IT, MEANING THEY TRUSTED THEM,
COMMANDER FOCUS ON WHERE YOU ARE, FOCUS ON YOUR SOLDIERS AND FOCUS ON YOUR RANK WHICH FORBID YOU TO GIVE AN ORDER TO DISARM YOUR PROUD MARINE UNDER NO CICUMSTANCES, AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, FOCUS ON THE WAR THEY ARE DYING TRYING TO FOLLOW THOSE IRRATIONAL ORDERS, AND REMEMBER IF ONE MARINE GO BAZURK AND KILL ENNEMIES IN THAT COUNTRY IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE ENNEMIES HELP BY THEIR OWN CHILDREN,
AND IF YOU GET TIRED OF YOUR POSITION AND MAKE ERROR LIKE YOU DID, YOU SHOULD RETIRE SO TO NOT PUT THE SOLDIERS IN LIFE THREATENING MORE DANGERS,
VoteOutIncumbents
this is very serious and nothing to pass by as just words,
we must defeat that governement in 2012, it’s the outmost urgency,
I hear and read it from so many smart people the most tolerant of AMERICA,
they where quite before OBAMA was put in the WHITE HOUSE by his gang of advisers,
but now for the first time in the birth of AMERICA those peaceful smart people from all walck of life and some DEMOCRATS ALSO COME OUT OF THEIR SILENCE AND FEEL THE NEED TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES
AS IF IT’S A LIFE THREATENING MISSION TO WARN OF THE DANGERS TO REELECT OBAMA
so to protect AMERICA they love more than any reprisal they face by publicly tell AMERICANS to let go
OBAMA and his close aids and advisers out of THE WHITE HOUSE ANY WAY THEY CAN TO EDUCATE THE VOTERS, IT IS TOO REAL TO NOT PAY ATTENTION, and the danger is there to see.
WE must stand with our only friend and ally in that hater circle, only ISRAEL STAND ALONE WITH THE COURAGE TO PROTECT THEIR OWN,AND THEIR BRAVEST HAVE SHED THEIR BLOOD FOR THEIR FREEDOM. WE NEED ISRAEL TO CONTINUE THEIR WORK IN EVERY SPECTROM OF BETTERMENT
FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO PROFIT FROM THEIR RESEARCH IN MANY SIDES OF SCIENCE,
THEY WILLING TO ALWAYS SHARE WITH THE WORLD.