- Planet Money: What If We Paid Off The Debt?
Back in the good old days—before President George W. Bush, before fighting two wars, before September 11th, before a huge tax cut paid for with debt—it looked very much like the entire debt would be paid off by 2012. In producing the final Economic Report of the President, a researcher looked into what would happen when that happened. As it turned out, it would be terrible. Treasury bonds make the investment world go 'round. No debt, no t-bonds. The conclusion of the never-published report was that it was important to maintain some debt in order to maintain treasury bonds. - The New York World: Women ride in back on sex-segregated Brooklyn bus line
A Brooklyn bus—part of the city's public bus line—is franchised to a private company, though generally indistinguishable from any other city bus, intended to serve the Hasidic community in Williamsburg and Borough Park. It's the bus line's rule that women have to sit in the back of the bus. You can see how this story progresses. The issue of religious freedom vs. civil rights vs. free enterprise isn't wholly open-and-shut but, as a rule, anybody making an argument that a certain class of people should have to sit in the back of the bus automatically loses the debate. - American Geophysical Union: Words matter
This vocabulary guide accompanies an article ("Communicating the Science of Climate Change") in the October issue of Physics Today, explaining to research scientists that some of the words that they use to communicate among themselves simply confuse the public. "Manipulation" of data means simply to process it, but the public thinks it means to tamper with it. A "scheme" is just a plan, but that's perceived as being illicit. A "theory" is the basic unit of scientific knowledge, but people think a theory is different from a fact. These are important, as has been observed with natural selection ("evolution is just a theory!") and global climate change ("those hacked e-mails said that were manipulating the data!").
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Re: Words Matter
Wittgenstein would be shocked!
Him or attorneys.
but, as a rule, anybody making an argument that a certain class of people should have to sit in the back of the bus automatically loses the debate.
That’s a tad simplistic. This rule obviously isn’t in place to punish one class of persons, or treat them as second-rate. It is purely to separate them for religious reasons. Would you be similarly offended if the rule said that women HAD to sit in the front half?
“This rule obviously isn’t in place to punish one class of persons, or treat them as second-rate.”
That’s not so obvious to me. It seems like many (most?) conservative/orthodox religious practices explicitly do consider women as second-class humans. I don’t know anything of the particular Hasidic orthodoxy behind this bus line, but to say it’s obvious (to outsiders) that this isn’t the intent is just wrong. It’s not obvious to me and you can’t expect that it’ll be obvious to every bus rider.
Also, I’d hate to be riding that bus when a black woman gets on.
“This rule obviously isn’t in place to punish one class of persons, or treat them as second-rate.”
Sounds like Plessy v. Ferguson to me. From that decision:
“We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.”
In other words, yes, you have to be separate, but if you think that means we think you’re inferior in any way, that’s YOUR problem, not ours!
Separate (merely for religious purposes, says I.Pub) but equal. So no problem!
In addition to the points already made by Ben and Claire, I mean that as a rule of thumb, anybody in the U.S. saying “it’s OK for a particular group to have to sit in the back of bus” has lost in the court of public opinion, the same way as anybody in Germany saying “it’s OK for a particular group to have to wear a star on their clothing to identify them” has likewise lost in the court of opinion. There are a few things that we’ve established unambiguously that we do not allow, and this is one of them.
Claire, I’m glad you brought up Plessy. In that instance, the accommodations for black passengers were plainly inferior to those provided for white passengers. Is that the case here? From all appearances, it is simply a separation of the sexes into identical halves of a bus. If men want to ride it, they must sit in the front half; women in the back.
Ben, I wrongly assumed that most people knew that Hasidic Jews have a strict code regarding men being in proximity to women who are not their wives. My mistake.
I.Pub., what was plainly inferior about the segregated car for black passengers? In what way was it plainly inferior? I’m asking because I can’t find any evidence supporting that claim. I do, so far, find evidence that the Court in that case asserted that there was no difference in quality between the whites-only cars on the train and the blacks-only cars. Certainly Homer Plessy didn’t care whether the accommodations were better in the whites-only car or not — that’s certainly not why he got on the whites-only car.
I’ll keep looking on my own, but I thought you could share what you based your claim on. I’m assuming you also know that Brown v. Board concluded that it didn’t matter if the accommodations were perfectly equal–it’s the separation that’s the thing.
Claire,
There wasn’t necessarily a blacks car, but rather a second class car and a first class car. The second class car was nominally laid out with the same accommodations as the first class car, but it was directly behind the engine, and decidedly less comfortable. Blacks were prohibited from the first class cars, which were a bit pricier, and positioned at the rear of the train.
I have a couple books on Plessy — notably one by Charles Lofgren, that describes the de facto inferiority of the second class cars. If I get a chance, I’ll see if I can find something online.
It was also quite clear at the time that most blacks who objected to the policies didn’t care about the separation — they just wanted equality in what was provided to them.
I Publius,
“I wrongly assumed that most people knew that Hasidic Jews have a strict code regarding men being in proximity to women who are not their wives. My mistake.”
I honestly didn’t know this, though I assumed something of the sort based on the segregation on the bus. My point, however, was that it’s not obvious that this doesn’t, de facto or de jure, originate from or create a class system which “[punishes] one class of persons, or [treats] them as second-rate.”
Certainly, such a system is one that is traditional to the old ways of many cultures.
I. Publius, do you think Brown v. Board was wrongly decided?
I assume that the rationale for separating men from women is that women are inherently temptresses and that men can’t control their sexual urges around women. The ladies are “asking for it” by virtue of their presence.
No, Roger. Do you?
No. So could you explain how your views about separate accommodations, described above, are consistent with the decision in Brown?