An endangered species?

Some students at the University of Minnesota do not like the fact that, when descriptions of the suspects of crime on campus are made public, the race of the student is included. But is reporting it worth the risk?

The percentage of Americans no longer looking for work is the highest it’s been in almost 40 years. Do we really want to be pushing people out the door because ObamaCare gives them  an incentive to quit? Do we really want to tear out the incentive to work from society?

When the government is caught in a gross abuse of power, the nation’s media have been all over the story; Watergate, Iran-Contra. But somehow this fire has been lost when it happens these days.

Mentioned links:

‘U’ Students Want Crime Alerts To Avoid Using Racial Descriptions

White House: It’s A Good Thing That Obamacare Will Drive 2.5 Million Americans Out Of The Workforce

They quit their jobs, thanks to health-care law

How much is Obama to blame for the worst labor participation rate in 40 years?

George Will: IRS Scandal as Big as Watergate and Iran-Contra; So Where’s the Media?

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Show transcript

Some students at the University of Minnesota do not like the fact that, when descriptions of the suspects of crime on campus are made public, the race of the student is included. This is how they described the issue. “[We] unanimously agree that campus safety should be of the UMPD’s utmost importance; however, efforts to reduce crime should never be at the expense of our Black men, or any specific group of people likely to be targeted. In addition to causing Black men to feel unsafe and distrusted, racial profiling is proven to inflict negative psychological effects on its victims.â€

So they don’t want the identities of the people being sought in a crime to be as descriptive as possible. I guess if the perp was described as white, then it wouldn’t cause racial profiling? Since men commit a disproportionate number of crimes, should we refrain from mentioning gender, since that might lead to gender profiling? Soon we might hear this on the radio, “A window was broken in the Science building last night. Police are looking for … someone.â€

But the irony I see here is this. The letter requests an end to racial identification in description, yet was sent by members of the African American and African Studies, Black Faculty and Staff Association, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association, Black Men’s Forum, Black Student Union and Huntley House for African American Males. Yes, they’d be the ones concerned, but anyone notice the irony of those groups’ names vs the issue of identifying people by their race? I know, I get it, it’s negative connotations vs voluntary association, but if you want to be identified by your race, you might have to take the bad with the good.

—

If the government paid everyone a “living wage” with health benefits, what would that mean for us? Well, it would do a few things. Individuals will be empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods, like retiring rather than working into their elderly years or choosing to spend more time with their families. They would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

But also, there would be no garbage men, or grocery clerks, or any of hundreds of people performing necessary jobs that we need in our daily lives. Why should they work? The government is providing for them. The economy would collapse.

Yet those very ideas, expressed in those words, are how Presidential spokesman Jay Carney described the quote-unquote “empowering†news that over the next 10 years, millions will leave the workforce because of ObamaCare. Hey, they’ve got their benefits, why the need to work? Now of course, not as many will leave as if we were paying salaries as well, so let’s just collapse the economy a little.

The percentage of Americans no longer looking for work is the highest it’s been in almost 40 years. Do we really want to be pushing people out the door? Do we really want to tear out the incentive to work from society? No, I don’t want people stuck in a job just for the benefits. Or do I? Do you? You’ve seen those people on the side of the road with signs that say “Will work for foodâ€. Isn’t that an honorable goal? Or should we have them replace the signs with “Won’t work for ObamaCareâ€? (Wonder where the food will now come from.) I guess my bottom line is this: For the country as a whole, as opposed to individual hard-luck cases, which of the two is better?

-–

When the government is caught in a gross abuse of power, the nation’s media have been all over the story. Coverage of the Watergate affair lasted years, and the results of the hearing were reported on an almost daily basis. I know; I remember it. In fact, I’ve listened to some old radio shows from the early 70s, The CBS Radio Mystery Theater, which was an attempt – and a good one – by CBS radio to bring back the old-time radio drama. Some folks recorded them off the radio, complete with the top-of-the-hour news and all the commercials. Those from around the time of Watergate always have something about the recent developments. Yup, the media was all over it.

Remember Iran-Contra? The news coverage was constant, with the question of whether or not a President circumvented legislation and armed rebels in an attempt to take down a hostile government. This, too, if the allegations were true, would represent an abuse of power; a government doing what the people, through their representatives, had specifically said it shouldn’t do. The evening news in 1986 and 87 made sure you knew the facts and the names of those involved.

And now there’s an event that has occurred that represents another gross abuse of power by an administration, but the press, after having covered the initial stages of hearing, have gone silent. The use of the IRS to go after conservative groups got some initial attention, but it’s gotten to the point that when it’s brought up in an interview with the President, he just laughs it off and says there wasn’t any corruption at all. He can, because most of the media is ignoring new developments, and the Left has taken up calling it a “phony scandalâ€.

Phony. Right. Because Lois Lerner would only take the 5^th Amendment for business as usual. Doesn’t mean she’s guilty of something, only that she thinks that what she knows or what she did is worth pleading the 5^th. Phony scandal indeed.

George Will noted some disparity in the news coverage.

[see George Will video at link above]

If Obama was a Republican, we’d have had wall-to-wall coverage of the IRS, Benghazi and the tapping of journalists’ phones. He’s not. We didn’t. What a difference an administration makes.

Related posts:

1. 
   
2. Episode 30: NY Times Wakes From Its Slumber, Keeping (and Not Keeping) Secrets in the Media, and Name That Quote
   
3. Episode 29: Media Miss a Massive March, Still More ObamaCare Hidden Costs, and “Hello Kitty” Gun Violence in Schools
   
4. Episode 34: A Run on the Banks, Democrats Remember How To Create a Budget, and Slate Readers Learn of Media Bias