Latest / Brian Thomas / History of Meritocracy - Big Picture with Jack Atherton

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History of Meritocracy - Big Picture with Jack Atherton · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: So No.
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  Speaker 2: Five fifty five care CIT Talk Station ain't very happy
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  Speaker 2: Wednesday to you. Always made it extra special for me,
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  Speaker 2: and I know somebody of my listening audience feels the
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  Speaker 2: same way, considering the emails and the messages I get
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  Speaker 2: about Jack Atherton. It's time for the Big Picture with
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  Speaker 2: Jack Athden, taking place every Wednesday at seven oh five
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  Speaker 2: here on the fifty five CARC Morning Show. Welcome back,
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  Speaker 2: my friend. It is a distinct pleasure as always to
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  Speaker 2: have you on the show, sir.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks pal and folks. If you didn't hear the beginning
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  Speaker 1: of today's show, I would urge you to go back
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  Speaker 1: and listen to the podcast because Brian, I agree with
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  Speaker 1: everything you said about meritocracy and would like to continue
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  Speaker 1: that conversation. You're the from a different angle.
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  Speaker 2: You were the springboard man. I didn't have any idea
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  Speaker 2: which direction you were going to go. It just said
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  Speaker 2: history of meritocracy is your subject matter. But I thought
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  Speaker 2: it kind of provided a springboard for the commentary. So
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate that, and I guess I, based of all
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  Speaker 2: you just said, I didn't interfere with your your analysis
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  Speaker 2: on this way, So let's take it down your road.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'm never going to tell you my topics again
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  Speaker 1: because you can't match what you said? Could we? This morning?
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  Speaker 1: Give a shout out to folks who don't get no respect.
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking about workers at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
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  Speaker 1: There's a punchline there for comedians like Rodney. They are lazy,
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  Speaker 1: snarleaning competence. We wait an hour to call your number
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  Speaker 1: and then refuse to renew your license without twenty forms
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  Speaker 1: of ID. But Brian, that's not my experience. In Hamilton
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  Speaker 1: and now Butler Counties, I've encountered nothing but helpful, smiling
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  Speaker 1: faces as BMV clerks gently remind me not to drive
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  Speaker 1: without my mister mcgoog glasses. I'm a big fan of
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  Speaker 1: most government workers generally, but only when those workers are
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  Speaker 1: doing necessary work and know what they're doing. This is
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  Speaker 1: not always the case. Some government workers are so clueless
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  Speaker 1: or so arrogant and even corron But you wonder how
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  Speaker 1: they ever got hired. Actually, people have been wondering for
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  Speaker 1: thousands of years. You know, we get into history takes
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  Speaker 1: someone many of us know only from fortune cookies, Confucius.
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  Speaker 1: He was a big booster, Brian of government meritocracy. In fact, merit,
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  Speaker 1: not nepotism, not cronyism, affirmative action, or quota. His merit
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  Speaker 1: was a cornerstone of his philosophy. Confucius lived about five
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  Speaker 1: hundred years before christ. China at that time was torn
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  Speaker 1: by invasions, civil wars, and social disorder. So Confucius for
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  Speaker 1: most of his life tried teaching rulers how to be
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  Speaker 1: virtuous even when they were. Confucius knew a state could
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  Speaker 1: not rely on a single ruler, much less of rulers
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  Speaker 1: kids and grandkids. Governments Confucius knew need a competent bureaucracy,
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  Speaker 1: and to ensure that, he called for rigorous, standardized civil
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  Speaker 1: service examination. That common sense requirement became the basis of
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  Speaker 1: Chinese governments for more than two thousand years. Meritocracy ensured
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  Speaker 1: good government and also paved the way for social mobility.
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  Speaker 1: Unlike England and as you were talking about before France,
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  Speaker 1: you didn't need to be an aristocrat to move up
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  Speaker 1: in China. And that's still true. You may not want
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  Speaker 1: to admit, but it's true. In communist China there is
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  Speaker 1: social mobility. However, when Confucius made his pupils read classic
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  Speaker 1: books and then think for themselves. Red China today requires
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  Speaker 1: a slavish devotion to party orthodoxy, which explains why Beijing
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  Speaker 1: is better at stealing technology than unleashing free market innovation. Still,
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  Speaker 1: we in America are in no position to sneer as
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  Speaker 1: Jijiunggping and his party hacks, because how good is America
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  Speaker 1: today at fostering meritocracy much less virtue? Problems start at
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  Speaker 1: are so called elite universities which don't so much educate
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  Speaker 1: as credential. Washington's governing class, Harvard, Yale, and the rest
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  Speaker 1: have always accepted legacy students whose parents or grandparents went there,
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  Speaker 1: especially if they built a building, but to make sure
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  Speaker 1: socially undesirable students did not outnumber legacy kids, these elite
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  Speaker 1: schools began imposing negative quotas, limiting the acceptance of Asians, Jews,
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  Speaker 1: and students from other high performing groups high performing Brian
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  Speaker 1: not because of their race or ethnicity, but because their parents, mothers,
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  Speaker 1: and fathers. What a concept demand excellence. But for the
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  Speaker 1: last fifteen years or so, as Marxism has dominated those
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  Speaker 1: elite schools, we've seen a different kind of quota there
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  Speaker 1: and elsewhere, woke quotas students whose performance is subpar on
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  Speaker 1: standardized tests, nevertheless, get accepted on a basis of re ethnicity,
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  Speaker 1: gender identity, or whatever other sort of victimhood they can
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  Speaker 1: come up with, all in the name of diversity, equity
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  Speaker 1: and inclusion, and not just underprivileged kids. DEI also waves
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  Speaker 1: through applicants from prosperous, even prominent families. I won't name
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  Speaker 1: some of these because I want to embarrass the children.
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  Speaker 1: They get in as long as they fit the quota.
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  Speaker 1: What's worse, what's unforgivable, is the progressives pushing affirmative action
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  Speaker 1: refused to help truly underprivileged kids. Take Baltimore. In Baltimore,
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  Speaker 1: more than ninety percent of students at many public schools
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  Speaker 1: cannot read or do math at grade level, and at
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  Speaker 1: more than a dozen schools in Baltimore, there's not a
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  Speaker 1: single student there who can do the proficiency tests. Most
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  Speaker 1: big American cities no longer follow Confucius. Instead, these leftists,
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  Speaker 1: including teacher unions, oppose standardized tests. They oppose even giving them.
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  Speaker 1: They hand uneducated students of all races and ethnicities a
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  Speaker 1: high school diploma congratulations. Then, when universities accept these so
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  Speaker 1: called graduates, they are allowed They're even encouraged to pursue
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  Speaker 1: fully undemanding majors so they can get hired by government
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  Speaker 1: and woke companies. Under Joe Biden, almost all the hiring
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  Speaker 1: in his monthly employment reports that was done by government.
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  Speaker 1: Under Donald Trump, none of it is meantime. Illiterate students
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  Speaker 1: who don't land DEI jobs. They receive free food, housing,
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  Speaker 1: medical care, and all the other welfare promised by Obama's
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  Speaker 1: life of Julia, a life totally dependent on big government.
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  Speaker 1: That's the deal, folks with Democrats. The uneducated but credentialed
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  Speaker 1: get government jobs. Uncredentialed victims get socialist benefits. The only
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  Speaker 1: real job who has to do is vote Democrat. But Brian,
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  Speaker 1: here's some good news. The Confucian ideal of advancement based
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  Speaker 1: on merit has now been embraced by the United States
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court, or has it. In a twenty twenty three
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  Speaker 1: split decision, a majority of the justices held that affirmative
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  Speaker 1: action at Harvard and other schools violated the rights of
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  Speaker 1: other applicants. Harvard's response, so what? Harvard immediately announced that
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  Speaker 1: it would rely on a loophole in that decision. A
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  Speaker 1: loophole big enough to drive a mack truck through assuming
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  Speaker 1: anybody at Harvard could drive a mack truck because our
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  Speaker 1: old favorite Chief Justice John Roberts, to the surprise of
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  Speaker 1: absolutely nobody, also wrote, and I quote nothing in this
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  Speaker 1: opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an
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  Speaker 1: applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life,
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  Speaker 1: be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. End quote. That
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  Speaker 1: consideration of race is still enough to get you into Harvard,
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  Speaker 1: if you're full full enough to cent your kids there.
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  Speaker 1: The wider issue, friends, goes far beyond school admissions, what
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  Speaker 1: came to be called the spoils system, the doling out
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  Speaker 1: of federal jobs and contracts that goes back two hundred
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  Speaker 1: years to the founders of the Democrat Party, Andrew Jackson
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  Speaker 1: and Martin Van Buren. Then Republicans took care of their
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  Speaker 1: cronies too and kept growing government until under Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: the cutting of wasteful jobs by Elon Musk's DOGE and
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  Speaker 1: now each individual federal agency. Those cuts and attrition Brian
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  Speaker 1: have trimmed about nine percent of the federal workforce and counting. Still,
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  Speaker 1: let's not kid ourselves, Washington remains anything but a meritocracy
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  Speaker 1: of competent bureaucrats, not to mention politicians doing necessary every work.
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  Speaker 1: And if voters elect Democrats again for Congress this year,
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  Speaker 1: and even more unthinkable for presidents in twenty twenty eight,
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  Speaker 1: they're incompetence. Corruption and communism will put an end to
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  Speaker 1: this country as we have known it. In some we
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  Speaker 1: can follow the lead of Confucius, or we can heed
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  Speaker 1: his prediction about bloated corrupt government I translate from the Chinese.
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  Speaker 1: That's the way the cookie crumbles. What do you say,
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  Speaker 1: my meritorious friend.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate it, and I am always blown away, Jack evident,
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  Speaker 2: when you mentioned the failure rate and the inability of
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  Speaker 2: young people graduating from high school, you mentioned a couple
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  Speaker 2: of cities that's going on, and it's happening all over
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  Speaker 2: the country that cannot perform mathematics on a basic level,
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  Speaker 2: or cannot read on a basic level. What in the
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  Speaker 2: hell were they doing from K through twelve? What possible?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's mind boggling. And I go back again,
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  Speaker 2: I peep pondering Jack, you know that I look at
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  Speaker 2: something as crazy as these policies that Democrats are pushing.
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  Speaker 2: You know, men can play against women in sports or
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  Speaker 2: any of the other ones, and wonder whether really the
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  Speaker 2: American people agree with or buy into what they are pushing. Or,
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  Speaker 2: for example, in the subject matter of education, which I'm
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  Speaker 2: trying to pivot over to right now, the idea of
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  Speaker 2: flexibility of choice. You know you'll get teachers unions and
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  Speaker 2: people rallying in the streets and support of the exact
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  Speaker 2: institutions that have literally and objectively failed our children. And
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  Speaker 2: yet the teachers unions fight against tooth and nail against
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  Speaker 2: any opportunity for younger people to benefit by just giving
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  Speaker 2: their parents a choice on the school that they go to.
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  Speaker 2: Hm M. Might my child have a better opportunity to
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  Speaker 2: learn to read and perform mathematics at that school over there,
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  Speaker 2: not run by the teachers union, mind you, than going
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  Speaker 2: to the public schools. At least I've got a choice.
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  Speaker 2: If you want to send your kids to public school,
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  Speaker 2: exercise the choice. What is wrong with the idea of choice?
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  Speaker 2: If you've got demonstrable failure within your whatever city happen
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  Speaker 2: to be in public schools, they don't have a choice,
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  Speaker 2: then you're stuck there. You cannot escape, And the product
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  Speaker 2: of not being able to escape is well, your kid's
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  Speaker 2: going to be left to a lifetime of either working
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  Speaker 2: as a dei hire or a dependent on the government.
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  Speaker 2: I just mean, I mean, someone tell me that I'm right,
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  Speaker 2: and someone tell me that no school choice is widely
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  Speaker 2: accepted and understood and embraced because it gives people at
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  Speaker 2: least some flexibility to get their children a decent education.
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  Speaker 2: Not that it's necessarily going to happen, but at least
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  Speaker 2: it creates an opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: Jack Well, I think you're absolutely right. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: as people may remember from reading the legend of Sleepy Hollow,
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  Speaker 1: the school teacher, the master Ichabod Crane, was hired by
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  Speaker 1: the parents, and he would move from house to house,
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  Speaker 1: living there, and they knew what he was up to.
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  Speaker 1: Two hundred and fifty years ago, our newborn country was
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  Speaker 1: a meritocracy because we had no choice. The Continental Congress
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  Speaker 1: was broke, almost powerless, and therefore small. To make money,
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  Speaker 1: you had to be a farmer or a fur trader,
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  Speaker 1: a craftsman, a merchant. You could not make money in politics.
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  Speaker 1: So politics was all about public service until the country
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  Speaker 1: grew and government gained power to confer everything from railroad
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  Speaker 1: easements to military contracts, anything that government controlled. That's why
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  Speaker 1: the answer doing competence and Minnesota style corruption in pocketing
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  Speaker 1: taxpayer funds is to have the smallest government possible, which
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  Speaker 1: is exactly what our constitution provides when we're true to it.
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  Speaker 1: But Brian, could I mention one other thing that I
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  Speaker 1: forgot to bring up about what's going on in the schools.
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  Speaker 1: There is another problem with affirmative action. You, as a
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  Speaker 1: recipient of affirmative action, have to carry all your life.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety one, when a conservative, Clarence Thomas was
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  Speaker 1: nominated to the US Supreme Court, New York Times columnist
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  Speaker 1: Maureen Dowd, as liberal as you get, claimed he was
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  Speaker 1: accepted by an Ivy League law school, and he got
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  Speaker 1: federal jobs and ultimately that Supreme Court nomination only thanks
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  Speaker 1: to affirmative action. He was otherwise incompetent, she said. Today,
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  Speaker 1: if you were to suggest the same things about that
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  Speaker 1: genius Katanji Brown Jackson, Wow, liberals would brand you a racist.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond the double standard, Brian, this shows that affirmative action
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  Speaker 1: leads critics of anyone on the left or the right
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  Speaker 1: open to questions about whether they are really qualified to
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  Speaker 1: be lawyers, doctors, pilots, any job that requires demonstrable skills.
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  Speaker 2: That's an excellent point, Jack add an excellent as always,
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  Speaker 2: Katanji Brown, she's the Kamala Harris of the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 2: bench and it's an absolute outright embarrassment.
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  Speaker 1: Well, well, Brian, we're not saying she drinks.
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  Speaker 2: Oh no, that's true, although I don't know it would
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  Speaker 2: go a long way to explaining some of the questions
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  Speaker 2: she's been engaged in recently among those folks litigating in
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  Speaker 2: front of her in the Supreme Court.
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  Speaker 1: Jack added, you are correct, sir.
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  Speaker 2: It's the big picture as always, and it's always brilliant.
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  Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough, Jack for just improving the
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  Speaker 2: content on this program dramatically every time you come on.
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  Speaker 2: It's just just a great thing to have you on
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  Speaker 2: and to spread your message to my listening audience and
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  Speaker 2: give people some serious food for thought. I'm already looking
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  Speaker 2: forward to next Wednesday and another talk with you, my friend.
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  Speaker 2: I hope you have a wonderful week and the best
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  Speaker 2: of love and health to you and your better aft.
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  Speaker 2: Tell Amesland I.
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  Speaker 1: Said, I thank you you too, Pal.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks brother seven to twenty. Right now, if you have
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Kersey The Talk Station, Donovan Neil Americans for prospect