South Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is being ridiculed for a recent speech where he appears to compare poor people to stray cats and connect having “ample food supply” to increasing welfare demand.
Here is the key quote:
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
Perhaps his grandma should have also told him not to quote her on this one.
Almost sixty percent of kids in South Carolina participate in free or reduced cost lunches. Bauer insists that those free lunches appear to be driving down test scores:
“I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I’ll show you the worst test scores, folks. It’s there, period.” … “You go to a school where there’s an active participation of parents, and guess what? They have the highest test scores. So what do you do? You say, ‘Look folks, if you receive goods or services from the government and you don’t attend a parent-teacher conference, bam, you lose your benefits.’”
I just hope that he does not read this blog and see the availability of haggis in a can for lunchroom cafeterias, here.
By the way, have you noticed that the number of truly moronic statements goes up dramatically with the free availability of microphones. I can show you a bar graph where politicians near free mics have the worst ideas in any state.
While I’m on my soapbox, I’ll just add that, Duh, free lunches do not make anyone more stupid. Children who need free or reduced-price lunches more than likely attend schools with poor infrastructure, over-worked teachers, and are already in a bad environment for learning. BTW, your GPA does not necessarily correlate to whether you are “stupid” or not; it correlates to your ability to take tests and thrive in a certain environment. I am a teacher, and I have met several 2.0 GPA students who are more “intelligent” than those with a 4.0.
Byron wrote: “I have seen studies that suggest that lack of intelligence is a good predictor of lower financial achievement.
I am not trying to denigrate anyone and am just offering some possible reasons for poverty. I would say your choices are just as valid. But a thought, lack of motivation and opportunity (you do tend to make your own “luck”) is a result of low self esteem.”
As someone who lives in a city plagued by a lot of problems (New Orleans), I can’t really believe that someone would make this statement in the 21st century. Do you think Africans made good slaves because they were intrinsically “lazy.” You’d have made a lot of good friends in the 18th century.
As someone else on this forum said, correlation does not equate to causation. Yes, those who live in poverty tend not to attain high educational levels. I do not believe that any one is intrinsically lacking in ability or intelligence. You know what else is a good predictor of lower financial achievement? Being born into low financial achievement. The fact that poverty is associated with lower-paying jobs and lower education achievements are due to things like: poor nutrition, poor environmental conditions, lack of access to qualified teaching and medical personnel, lack of access to higher education, lack of access to the internet, etc. I thought we stopped blaming the poor for their own problems sometime in the 1860s. I have never met anyone who did not want to provide the best for themselves, their families, or their children. Some of us are born with a lot better “luck” than others.
And, regardless of your feelings on the causes of poverty, I don’t think depriving school children of what is probably the only balanced meal they have all day is a good solution.
“How does a reduced price school lunch make a kid stupider?”
I don’t think it does, but I don’t know what is in those school lunches.
There is a direct correlation between those who need reduced-price school lunches and their GPA. I doubt it’s the lunches fault, but that doesn’t eliminate the correlation. I think it has more to do with nurture than nature.
Conservatives love to make these “you show me X, I’ll show you Y” arguments.
They can’t distinguish correlation with causation.
Why don’t people think through the mechanics of these arguments? How does a reduced price school lunch make a kid stupider? How?
“My son goes to a very good school and he tells me that if momma or daddy pony up a check for the “library fund” Jr. is usually assured a seat in the freshman class, no matter his ability. So I suspect wealthy people that went to good schools. You never do know who made it on their own or who had daddy “pave” the way with greenbacks.”
So true. I think we recently saw something like that in the news about a university in Illinois, but I’m sure it happens all over the place.
Duh:
Level playing field, no special favors for anyone. You make a 4.0 and score 2300 on your SAT, then go to the head of the class. Your race should not matter. We should have an aristocracy of merit. Where I used to work when I was young they used to say, “if you cant get it, you cant stay”. Words to live your life by.
My son goes to a very good school and he tells me that if momma or daddy pony up a check for the “library fund” Jr. is usually assured a seat in the freshman class, no matter his ability. So I suspect wealthy people that went to good schools. You never do know who made it on their own or who had daddy “pave” the way with greenbacks.
Whether it is rich white folk or poor black people, it ought to be the same. People do not, for the most part, appreciate that which is given to them.
Personally I think blacks compete quite well in most every endeavor they engage in. Look at acting, professional sports, entertainment, the arts, business, science, etc. I don’t think there is one area of human activity that blacks don’t compete at a high level of achievement.
I personally think Ward Connerly is right.
We would do well to remember that the first mention of “lack of education” was not in reference to the poor folk of South Carolina, but the originator of the foolish thought repeated by the tone-deaf politician. As he said,: “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman,….” Indeed.
Gyges,
Thanks for trying. I know it’s hard to avoid directing your comments to the idea, rather than the person who made them, but I do appreciate you trying to do so.
Byron,
I agree. I think programs like affirmative action do well to place those less fortunate at the same starting point as their competitors. The place they go wrong is when they go beyond that and start to sacrifice quality.
About two years ago I had lunch with Ward Connerly. I was skeptical of what he was trying to do. After getting a chance to hear what he had to say, and posing questions on points where I didn’t agree, I found his motivation to be honorable. I think we have reached a point where a hand up has in some ways turned into a situation that results in being carried the whole way. Many who made use of the hand up, and won the race on their own, are looked at as thought they were carried the whole way. Are we at a point where letting those less fortunate win the race on their own will work? I don’t know. The scariest thing for a parent is to let their children leave the nest. It may be too soon.
Duh,
Allow me to repeat myself: If you don’t see the difference between saying the wrong word and making a terribly flawed and unclear analogy, then I don’t really see why I should continue this conversation.
I don’t feel like tutoring you on the finer points of reading comprehension, and you’re either uninterested in or unable to understand what I’m saying. So I’m moving on to more interesting conversations.
Duh:
It wasn’t the right thing to say. I would have used it as a chance to denigrate state government, so that guy is just another chicken sierra faux conservative. He is probably more than willing to give his buddy Otis down at the cotton gin a big break and considerations to avoid having “poor ole” Otis compete with another cotton gin doing better work at lower prices. Probably owned by some small black farmers co-op. I say let Otis compete on a level playing field with no special favors from his bought and paid for Lt. Governor.
So Gyges, is it the timing, or what was stated, that makes the difference? If you catch yourself, and correct it, it’s just being misspoken, but if you don’t catch it right away, it’s stupid??
People say stupid things at townhall meetings. They don’t do it because they are Democrats or Republicans. They do it because they’re human. It’s the partisan attack of that mistake that I find annoying. Republicans do it to Democrats, and vice-versa.
I don’t take sides in this debate. I think both sides are equally flawed. I think both sides are equally human. The major difference is that partisan politics causes one side to look at any flaw as a chance to attack. It’s a childish game, and both sides are just as guilty of playing it.
Bdaman:
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/01/16/glover-haiti-earthquake-is-the-result-of-failure-to-deal-with-global-warming/
no I had not.
post is about the third off the bottom. I think this is what you are referring to anyway.
Gyges, some people just don’t get it do they?
Here I’ll answer for you.
NO DUH!!!!
Duh,
If you want me to refrain from telling you I think you’re being partisan, then try not to say things that make me think you’re being partisan. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from having your speech criticized.
My aforementioned standard is pretty much as follows: Don’t say stupid stuff.
You’ll notice that’s different than “don’t misspeak.”
What the Lt. Gov. said was, and you’ve already agreed with this, stupid. What President Obama said was misspeaking. One corrected himself immediately afterward, the other just said it “wasn’t the best metaphor” (it wasn’t a metaphor at all, but we’ll pass that over as misspeaking). If you don’t see the difference between saying the wrong word and making a terribly flawed and unclear analogy, then I don’t really see why I should continue this conversation.
Byron what thread did you post that GW timeline in. I’m trying to find it.
Also have you heard the calls for Pachuri’s resignation this weekend. They say either he will do it on his own or he will be forced to resign.
least the last six Presidents on used a teleprompter, not to mention Johnny Carson and Lucille Ball.
There is no question about that, Obama uses it more than all the ones you metioned combined.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/10/obamas-reliance-on-teleprompters/
“It’s just something presidents haven’t done,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, a presidential historian who has held court in the White House since December 1975. “It’s jarring to the eye. In a way, it stands in the middle between the audience and the president because his eye is on the teleprompter.”
Just how much of a crutch the teleprompter has become for Obama was on sharp display during his latest commerce secretary announcement. The president spoke from a teleprompter in the ornate Indian Treaty Room for a few minutes. Then Gov. Gary Locke stepped to the podium and pulled out a piece of paper for reference.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090305/pl_politico/19663
Go TOTUS 🙂
eniobob:
I have seen studies that suggest that lack of intelligence is a good predictor of lower financial achievement.
I am not trying to denigrate anyone and am just offering some possible reasons for poverty. I would say your choices are just as valid. But a thought, lack of motivation and opportunity (you do tend to make your own “luck”) is a result of low self esteem.
I think he was definately Out of Line!