EVEN A CONSERVATIVE COURT CAN ERR

I'm talking Supreme Court again here, where 5-4 is the usual margin between "I believe the makers of the Constitution were sane people," and the "I don't believe in the Constitution; only my intuitive left-wing brain-washing and ruin-the-country agenda."

Yet, lately the group were unanimous in reinstating an older DISCRIMINATION - oooh! Isn't everything here discriminatory? - ruling favoring African types in Chicago firemen jobs.

Back in 1995 26,000 applicants took a written exam to become City firemen. There were just several hundred openings, so the City decided to consider only those with scores 89 or higher. The cut-off mark eliminated a horde of partial blacks (those < or =" 100%">

Untouched in the news article and of significant importance, logic dictates, is whether the City set the mark so as to eliminate a horde of p.b.'s, to reduce their selection task among the many applicants, or to guarantee a minimum level of competence, insofar as the test was able to discriminate (Morons in English are encouraged to consult a good dictionary on the meaning of "discriminate" before going bonkers, OK?)

Certainly, if they sought to exclude p.b.'s - hard to believe in 1995 Chicago - it was discriminatory, but if they moved to guarantee a certain level of competence, HURRAY! DO IT AGAIN!

An interesting dimension of the original case was testimony by so-called expert witnesses. An informative reference to the subject of expert testimony is the transcript of the famous Scopes trial, where the defense sought to call a battalion of expert witnesses to lecture the jury on the theory of evolution. The prosecution argued, and the judge concurred, that the question was simply whether the defendant violated the law, and that the jury didn't need experts to tell them how the law read or how to evaluate the evidence.

In the Chicago case one should have asked, "What does expert testimony have to do with whether or not the City violated a law?" Answer: "Nothing."

Anyway, the would-be firemen's attorneys' expert witnesses were allowed to testify that "applicants scoring in the 70's or 80's were shown to be capable of succeeding as firefighters." (Here, readers should recall the typical elementary school classification of letter grades. When I was there 93 and above = A, and 70 was the MINIMUM passing grade.)

At any rate, this brings us to the most important question of all; What's wrong with selecting the BEST of the applicants? That is, to the extent that the test discriminates firefighting ability, why not pick the BEST of the litter? If there are m jobs, just pick the m best scorers and have done with it. Why not get the BEST?

Does a person have to be a prophet to see that's the BEST way to award the positions? Does a person have to be prophet to observe that every day distorted concepts of discrimination are accelerating the declension of this country? If Chicago wanted the best new hires, why should it have to settle for mediocre applicants "capable of succeeding?" Many "capable of''s" NEVER make it.

If it comes to someone's having to save your family or your home, would you rather have someone that MIGHT have succeeded or someone that gave the BEST indication of success. Further, look around at what's happening to the U.S. among the company of nations.