THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS: FIREMEN AND BALLERINAS PROVE THAT SOCIAL ENGINEERING IS EVIL

Sunday, August 08, 2010

FIREMEN AND BALLERINAS PROVE THAT SOCIAL ENGINEERING IS EVIL

Remember:

We are each extraordinary. Unique. Gifted.

We can each achieve extraordinary things - given the chance, and if we accept that there shall be failure along the way.

Any ideology or institution which seeks to deny a person this opportunity - even to help another person or "the common good" - is evil.

Social engineering is wrong. Evil. Affirmative action and quotas are no diffewrnt than putting weights & harnesses on the best ballerinas so that the lesser dancers don't feel bad and can get jobs.

IOW: Egalitarianism is another word for tyranny.

And don't think for a moment that social engineering based on evil egalitarianism ISN'T still happening:

August 4, 2010, 5:30 pm City Barred From Hiring New Firefighters
By A. G. SULZBERGER

The federal judge overseeing a discrimination lawsuit against the city’s Fire Department ruled on Wednesday that the hiring test being used by the department was unfair to minority applicants and issued an injunction that will prevent the city from offering positions to 300 applicants who had already taken the exam.

Two previous hiring tests have been ruled discriminatory by the judge, who has accused the city of using obstructionist tactics to avoid court-ordered reforms aimed at increasing the number of black and Hispanic firefighters in a department that has long been disproportionately white.

But the decision on Wednesday was the first time in the case that the city has been specifically restricted from hiring new firefighters. The city had planned to makes it job offers on Thursday.

The judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis of United States District Court in Brooklyn, found that the city did not provide evidence that the current test was effective in selecting the best qualified applicants. “What the examination does do is screen and rank applicants in a manner that disproportionately excludes black and Hispanic applicants,” he wrote. “As a result, hundreds of minority applicants are being denied the opportunity to serve as New York firefighters, for no legitimate or justifiable reason.”

Judge Garaufis said he would schedule a hearing as soon as possible to consider alternative measures, like allowing the city to choose new firefighters from a list of applicants who passed the current test by selecting from among those who achieved a passing score rather than in order of scores. Another option would be maintaining the injunction until the city completed a new test it was ordered to draft under court supervision.

The ruling is another significant setback for the city stemming from a lawsuit filed in 2007 by the Justice Department on behalf of the Vulcan Society, an organization of black firefighters. In January Judge Garaufis ruled that the city had intentionally discriminated by using two hiring exams from 1999 to 2007 that put minority candidates at a disadvantage. Calling the practice a “persistent stain on the Fire Department’s record,” Judge Garaufis ordered the city to give 300 minority applicants priority hiring status and retroactive seniority and to financial compensate 7,400 more who had taken the test, payments that the Justice Department estimates will total $63.5 million.

The city, which hired a firefighter class off the current exam in 2008, had pressed to be allowed to hire the new firefighters in the coming weeks, arguing that an understaffed fire department represented a risk to public safety because it would require current firefighters to work more overtime.

“We are extremely disappointed in today’s decision, and are evaluating all legal options,” said Georgia Pestana, a city lawyer. “If the Fire Department is not allowed to hire a new class — as the judge has now ruled — the city will have to make up for the understaffing by paying overtime at a cost of almost $2 million per month.”