Gaming the System

[paft.livejournal.com]

David Asman, Fox Business News: There’s no doubt that Obama himself used education to become successful. He gamed the educational system for years using scholarships and various connections to rise up in his field.

Yeah, that slick Barack Obama, “gaming the system” by making good enough grades to get into Harvard. So unfair.



“Gaming the system” is an expression typically used to describe someone using the rules of a system to either undermine that system, or manipulate it for an outcome other than what the system intends. I’d love to know how Asman imagines Obama going to college on a scholarship qualifies as somehow undermining higher education. I’d love to know how Obama succeeding academically through study and hard work somehow results in an outcome other than what our educational system is meant to produce.

This would be trivial if Asman were not reflecting an attitude that seems to have become ingrained on the American right. GOP leadership has either actually embraced or is exploiting the Tea Party notion that if an outcome is not to right-wing liking (like a black man getting into Harvard, or a black Democrat winning an election), the system itself has been undermined -- even if the outcome was not due to cheating or malfeasance.

Hence, the current GOP attack on voting rights, one that Bill Clinton accurately described recently as reminiscent of the Jim Crow era.. The Republicans know that students, minorities, the disabled, the poor, and the unemployed are unlikely to embrace an agenda that includes massive cuts in the social safety net. Their solution? Sell the notion that these voters are less deserving of the vote than the wealthy interests supporting the Republican political agenda. Make it as difficult as possible for these legal voters to cast a ballot. After all, if voters vote in favor of certain social services, then those voters are incompetent, and if enough of these “incompetents” vote to affect the outcome of an election, they are “gaming the system." Legal steps must be taken to prevent another such “abuse” of the vote.

It’s a worldview that dovetails beautifully with the right wing libertarian notion of the inherent superiority of the rich – who, in a well-run society, always, always get what they want.

Anything else is “gaming the system.”

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Compared to W riding his family's coattails to get into a school he never could have qualified for on his merits.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So much for rewarding success. I suppose Right-Wingers want Presidents who are functionally illiterate and executing contingency plans for war with Bahrain that sees a US blitz of London.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

What a fitting name for a Fox News host. "Asman."

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

"There’s no doubt that Obama himself used education to become successful. He gamed the educational system for years using scholarships and various connections to rise up in his field."

wait, whut?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

There’s no doubt that Obama himself used education to become successful.

that's what he's SUPPOSED TO DO! My own children should be so successful as Obama was. Pete's sake.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I don't even know how to respond to what this guy said other than "WTF".

He gamed the system...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

I believe Asman was thinking of the previous system that was intentionally rigged to keep people of color from access to higher education.

You must admit that he has a good point that an academic education is not for everyone.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

OMG AFFURMATIV AKSHUN U GAIZ!

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Balance opportunity cost with the recoup in investment - the fact that those who may otherwise end up being a drain on the economy will eventually be paying taxes in excess of their personal impact.

As far as I know nobody is saying that everyone should go to college. Higher education is one factor, headstart is another, job training still another. I don't see anything wrong with reaching out to promising students of all classes and giving them a chance to be successful in higher education by providing opportunity cost. Some will fail, others will succeed, but why write off a whole class of potential resources just because they cannot afford it?

I guess that makes me a communist or something.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

"...Bill Clinton accurately described recently as reminiscent of the Jim Crow era..."

For Bill Clinton to have accurately attributed current policy to the Jim Crow era, he would have had to pass grade-school level U.S. history. The Republican party was started by anti-slavery activists from the Whig party (ANOTHER party started to get away from Democrats) and ex-Free Soilers (also anti-slavery). The first Republican President was Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation which kick-started the end of slavery in the United States. Democrats also fought against the passage of the first five Civil Rights Acts, which were all introduced by Republican leaders. The KKK was a terrorist organization founded by veterans of the Confederate Army and they killed blacks and white Republicans. Democrats legislated Jim Crow laws and people like George Wallace (an Alabama DEMOCRAT) pushed for continuation of Jim Crow segregation. Remember his standoff at the University of Alabama (http://www.npr.org/2003/06/11/1294680/wallace-in-the-schoolhouse-door)? His inauguration speech is infamous - "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever". That's his legacy and the legacy of the Democratic party, and Bill Clinton is somehow trying to turn that around on the party that has CONSISTENTLY fought for rights of African-Americans.