Israel’s right to defense and the rise of a woke culture

It is hard to understand why so many people dislike Israel, and believe that Israel is responsible for the recent fighting. Many of those Americans who dislike Israel are Democrats, which is especially odd, since Jewish voters in America lean heavily Democrat.

Are they cowering in the face of strong opposition from the Left’s anti-Semitic faction, which includes Black Lives Matter, Antifa, the notorious Squad of Congresswomen, and others?  

Israel gets the blame for the deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. However, that narrative ignores important facts. 

First, Israel did not start the fighting. Israel was attacked by Hamas terrorists, firing rockets from Gaza, and is merely defending itself. Hamas, along with other Arab terrorist groups, believes Israel has no right to exist, and is working to bring about that reality. The terrorist organization has fired what now totals more than 4,000 rockets into Israel.

When you are attacked, you must respond. And Hamas, that wonderful organization that boldly and purposefully puts the safety of the Palestinians living in Gaza at risk, set up its offensive weaponry in populated areas, knowing that Israel would, out of necessity, respond with retaliatory attacks. And it knew that when the Israeli response happened to kill civilians, used as shields by the terrorists, Israel would be blamed by the gigantic anti-Semitic faction around the world.

Prior to the recent cease-fire, more than 200 Palestinians reportedly had died in the war, and roughly two dozen Israelis have been killed. Why the large difference?

Because Israel has a defense mechanism called the Iron Dome that intercepts and destroys many or most of the terrorists’ rockets before they can do any damage, although some do get through. Some 16 percent of Hamas’ rockets reportedly fell short of their target, and landed in Gaza, and may have killed Palestinians. 

And the Palestinian death toll is a fraction of what it could be because of Israel’s efforts to keep civilians as safe as possible, even warning occupants of certain targeted buildings that an attack is imminent so that they could escape, and by carefully picking its targets.

All the while Israelis get the blame for Palestinian civilian casualties who were put at risk by Hamas terrorists firing rockets at Israel from Palestinian neighborhoods.

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In today’s upside-down America, math is now both racist and something which no longer requires accuracy and correct answers.

An opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal describes the situation: “If California education officials have their way, generations of students may not know how to calculate an apartment’s square footage or the area of a farm field, but the ‘mathematics’ of political agitation and organizing will be second nature to them. Encouraging those gifted in math to shine will be a distant memory.”

A proposed new curriculum framework for math is now being considered by the state’s Instructional Quality Commission. The new framework recommends that teachers use a manual titled “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction,” which The Journal commentary called “a troubling document.”

“This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy,” the article states. “It sets forth indicators of ‘white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,’ including a focus on ‘getting the right answer,’ teaching math in a ‘linear fashion,’ requiring students to ‘show their work’ and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. ‘The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,’ the manual explains. ‘Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity.’ Apparently, that’s also racist,” the article continues.

While 2+2 still equals 4, and the multiplication tables are still accurate, that is not as important as being sure that those who aren’t good math students don’t feel bad about it. 

This is just one more component of the new woke attack on a merit-based selection process. The anti-merit faction would prefer to have a fair distribution of genders and ethnicities providing medical care, piloting airliners, manning classrooms at all levels, leading and serving in the military, holding management positions, etc. Yet a student who was behind his/her classmates in math or science, or any subject, will likely not do as good a job as a teacher as someone who had a high ability and a love for the subject.

As woke-ism progresses, no doubt this foolish concept will creep into other subject areas, as well.

Does this really make any sense in a country where having a thriving society, and the country’s very survival, depend upon having very capable people in all important positions?

Woke-ism is a truly bizarre development. The number of people who favor it is shocking. But the scariest thing is how foolish and non-sensical these concepts are. If America does not get its feet back on the ground very soon, our future is very uncertain. We need to pay much more attention to what China and Russia are doing, and be less concerned with trying to guarantee equitable outcomes among unequal people.

Is woke-ism a new pandemic? Is it a greater threat to our future than COVID-19? It could very well be.

Does the minimum wage really benefit all people wanting a job?

Today, any non-exempt person working in a business covered by the minimum wage law gets paid at least $7.25 per hour. And there is a move today by the political Left to more than double that rate to $15.00 per hour.

A mandated minimum wage requires businesses to pay everyone they hire $7.25 or more for every hour they work starting with their very first hour on the job, whether they know how to do the job or not. Minimum wage jobs have minimal skill requirements. Persons holding these jobs often are young people who have little or no skills or experience. 

Most minimum wage supporters view wages exclusively in terms of what is good for the worker, and these days that frequently means they expect employers to pay all workers a “living wage,” whatever that is. And it has no regard for whether they do their job well, or how much their job contributes to the company’s success. It also doesn’t matter whether workers need a living wage. Teenagers and other young workers who still live at home, and many college students don’t need a living wage. 

What is good for the employer, who provides jobs for tens of millions of Americans to earn money to live on, is less important, and sometimes not important at all. And many of these supporters do not understand how businesses operate and how difficult running a business can be. 

Why not base wages on an agreement between the employee and the employer? Some people might need or want a lower wage if they can just get a job. Someone with skills the employer seeks for a critical or important job will be offered higher wages at a level determined by the employer’s financial situation. If the applicant isn’t satisfied with that, she or he can ask for more money, or look elsewhere for a job.

Competition among businesses for sales of products and services is a good thing. It helps keep prices down, and it also helps to keep businesses on their toes to do the best they can to produce quality goods and services and run a respectable business.  

Employers are interested in employing people with the skill levels they need, and will offer those job applicants a wage reflecting the applicant’s skills and experience that also fits the company’s financial requirements. 

After having a paper route for a few years, I got a real job working weekends at the age of fifteen. In those days the minimum wage was fairly new, and was set at $1.00 per hour. I learned my job fairly quickly and did it pretty well. I got a raise when the minimum wage was increased to $1.10 an hour. 

Why did I not get a raise based on my job performance after I learned the job? Because the job I had was a basic job that didn’t require a high level of skill — meaning that there were lots of people who could learn to do the job satisfactorily — and I had been on the job a relatively short time. 

Furthermore, the wage was based on the skill requirement, which was at the lowest level. Those who had jobs that required higher skill levels made more money than I did. That’s life.

The $7.25 minimum wage makes it more difficult for businesses to remain profitable than a system where employees are paid based on the financial circumstances of the business they work for, and the job they perform. Employers and employees should agree on wages, and, again, if they can’t agree, employees may look elsewhere for a better-paying job.

And, a minimum wage requirement at any level is a much easier pill to swallow for large corporations than for small businesses.

Addressing the increase in the minimum wage the Mises Institute’s Dakota Hensley wrote: “This is under the assumption that having a minimum wage helps workers and makes corporations pay their fair share.”

However, he points out the downsides of a minimum wage, and the greater downsides of a $15 per hour minimum. “It keeps low-skilled (often black or other ethnic minority) workers from finding employment, forcing them to depend on government, and leads to closures of small businesses (especially black-owned businesses) which benefits corporations.” The fewer small business competitors large businesses have, the better it is for them.

Hensley cites information from the Congressional Budget Office saying a minimum wage hike would lift 900,000 out of poverty but put 1.4 million — 55 percent more than it would help — out of work. The latter group includes less educated people with low or no skills. “It's not plumbing or automotive mechanics or carpentry. Those jobs pay tens of thousands,” Hensley noted. “Those jobs require trade school, not just a high school diploma. A minimum wage punishes those who were born poor and weren't given the opportunities to go to trade school or college and get those skills.”

He concludes by saying, “Minimum wage laws hurt low-skilled, often black, workers. Implementing these laws leads to the growth of big business at small business' expense. To be truly pro-labor and anti-corporate, we need to abolish the minimum wage.”

While millions are unemployed, millions of jobs go unfilled

A Dow Jones survey of economists earlier this year showed that one million new jobs would be added to the economy in April. Instead, only about a quarter of that number were produced, as just 266,000 new jobs were recorded. And, instead of the unemployment rate dropping from 6.0 percent in March to 5.8 percent in April, it rose to 6.1 percent.

That is sharply higher that the 50-year low of 3.5 percent in February of 2020, before the COVID pandemic hit.

This result received not-pleasant headlines. “Hiring was a huge letdown in April,” CNBC reported. Bloomberg said, “The numbers are out, and on the top line they are way worse than expected.” And Axios called it “the biggest miss, relative to expectations, in the history of the payrolls report.”

Digging into the specifics of this disappointing result, DailyWire.com noted that “The black unemployment rate increased, 18,000 manufacturing jobs were lost, no construction jobs were added, unemployment for Americans without any college education increased, and women had a net loss in jobs.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that nearly 10 million Americans, 9.8 million to be exact, remained unemployed in Biden’s economy.”

The New York Post reported that prices have increased for some goods, described as “surging due to shortages connected to supply-chain issues and other factors.” The story went on to say that some economists believe the country will experience inflation for months.

CNN’s Christine Romans said that “if you haven’t felt [inflation] yet, it’s coming.” She predicted higher prices for many goods, such as toilet paper, diapers, soft drinks, plane tickets, and a full tank of gas, adding that, “Whirlpool is raising prices of some of its appliances by up to 12 percent.”

The Post noted that business owners, especially in the retail and travel industries, are struggling to recruit new workers. And it cited comments by economists and companies that blame government stimulus payments for making it more attractive for people to remain on unemployment than for going to work. They make more money on unemployment than on the job, and going back to work and making less money would actually make things harder on their families.

This idea has been advanced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As reported on Daily Wire: “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce directly blamed the Biden administration’s stimulus spending for the worsening economy, saying that he was paying people to not work.”

The Chamber said, “The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market,” and suggested: “One step policymakers should take now is ending the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit.” 

These $300 supplements result in approximately one in four recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working, according to the Chamber’s analysis. Others do just as well, or nearly as well, on unemployment as when working.

Officially, there were 9.8 million Americans unemployed last month. And, there are 6.9 million jobs needing workers to fill them. Normally, thousands of jobs would have been created each month without the pandemic, according to Elise Gould, senior economist with the progressive Economic Policy Institute. She estimates that due to this factor, the number of unfilled jobs would be between 9 and 11 million. 

Some are asking if this condition is accidental, or if government is deliberately disincentivizing people from working to make them more dependent on government. The socialists among us would surely celebrate such action.

Whether it is a deliberate action or not, the country is suffering from too many people sitting on the sidelines. Tens of thousands of businesses have found it difficult or impossible to reopen, or to expand to previous operation levels.

Last week, CNBC reported on a March survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which “found that 42 percent of owners had job openings that could not be filled, a record high. Ninety-one percent of those hiring or trying to hire reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill.”

Holly Wade, executive director of the NFIB Research Center, commented that business owners “have made it to this point and they’ve adjusted their business operations to get through the worst of the pandemic, and now they are saddled with not being able to increase business operations when they find the opportunities.”

Many businesses have raised wages to attract workers, but many others cannot raise wages. The restrictions on occupancy in restaurants, bars and similar businesses reduce business income. Increasing costs by raising wages when income is made lower by restrictions puts the business at further risk of closure.

And yes, some workers are worried about being exposed to the coronavirus if they return to work.

The government must stop these supplemental unemployment payments that make it more attractive for some formerly employed folks to stay on unemployment instead of getting back to work. The repercussions of not ending these payments is a very serious problem for small businesses, and for the economy.

Government’s job is to create an environment conducive to businesses, not to have policies that discourage people from working.

The math doesn’t add up with Virginia’s ‘woke’ education discussion

A story back in April reported that the Virginia Department of Education is considering eliminating all accelerated math options prior to the 11th grade. Students who perform well in math will no longer be allowed to advance to upper level math study when they are ready to move ahead. 

Loudoun County school board member Ian Serotkin explained that the Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI), "as currently planned, … will eliminate ALL math acceleration prior to 11th grade.” 

He said that it “is not an exaggeration, nor does there appear to be any discretion in how local districts implement this. All 6th graders will take Foundational Concepts 6. All 7th graders will take Foundational Concepts 7. All 10th graders will take Essential Concepts 10. Only in 11th and 12th grade is there any opportunity for choice in higher math courses."

So, the best math students, the worst math students, and those in between will move through the math curriculum together, and at the same speed. Those blessed with exceptional math skills will be prevented from advancing to higher levels, moving along at the slower pace of the lesser skilled. 

On April 27, Norfolk’s The Virginian Pilot, however, published a story with comments from state Superintendent James Lane. “I’ve seen articles that say ‘Virginia is doing X, Y or Z,’” he said. “Virginia is not doing anything right now. … We are literally just having conversations with the community about what they want.”

Virginia’s math standards are reviewed every seven years, and there are two years remaining before the next revision. But this concept is being seriously discussed, and there is a significant degree of support for it.

This concept is a step toward “equity,” an element of the woke culture, and one of its goals. Merriam-Webster defines equity as “freedom from bias or favoritism.” But to the woke it means that no one is better at anything that everyone else.

Under equity, everyone should make the same grades in all subjects. Everyone should make the same money at work. Everyone must be at the same level in all things. It is unfair that some should be recognized as better than others, ever.

Most understand the reality that we are not all the same. Some of us are tall, some not so much. Some run faster or are stronger than others. Some can play an instrument or sing better than others, or are better in a dramatic part than others. Some are better at math than others, but the others may be better at history, science, English, geography or other things than the math scholar.

Each person has her or his stronger areas, and weaker areas. That is human nature. Some folks strongly resent this reality, and work to make everyone equal in all things.

However, in order to produce the most effective and strongest nation possible, our education system — public schools and private schools — must recognize those inherent strengths and weaknesses, and work to advance students to their peak in their strong areas and help them improve in their weaker areas.

If people cannot advance in subjects like math until their junior year in high school, they may never reach their full math potential. And this concept might be applied to other subjects, as well. The nation cannot afford to hold back it’s brightest in any area of study just to try to keep everybody even. First, that is an impossible task, and second, it is a foolish, dangerous goal.

Depending upon which evaluation system you read, the United States is either near the top, or as far down as 26th on the list for best education in the world.

However, the U.S. education system “is not as internationally competitive as it used to be; in fact, the United States has slipped ten spots in both high school and college graduation rates over the past three decades,” according to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

And, the World Top 20 Project does not list the United States in its top 20 nations in either 2020, or 2021.

The STEM areas — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — are critical to the future. If the VMPI takes hold and is applied to other educational areas and spreads inside the country, the United States will be focused on equity among the younger generations, rather than on enhancing their learning and advancement. 

This will lead to a national weakening, making us subject to the will of other nations. In fact, the U.S. has already weakened.

The National Interest magazine reports that the Pentagon released its annual report entitled “US Defense Industrial Base Industrial Capabilities Report January 2021,” on the state of the U.S. defense and manufacturing industrial base. There “are innumerable takeaways from the report but a consistent and glaring deficiency throughout reveals an erosion and degradation of the U.S. STEM education system and a severe shortage of technical talent in the U.S. workplace,” the Pentagon report said.

Rather than try to create “equity” among people, the United States education system must focus on developing the talents of young people to their fullest, so that we can remain a strong presence in the world. The alternative is simply not acceptable.