TUCSON – At a recent council meeting, the Tucson city council decided not to change its foolish transit policy of free bus rides. But it did say that it would look into ways of reducing the crime that has resulted from the policy and consider various fare options at a later date.
It’s hard to believe, but Uncle Sam has his busy nose in Tucson’s bus rides. According to federal law, the city is required to determine how the options would affect “minority” riders.
Ah, the magic word that gets government, media, industry, and the body politic to engage in strange rituals and speak in indecipherable tongues.
“Minority” underpins many public policies but lacks specificity or even a clear definition. To muddle things further, the word is often conflated with race, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic class, skin color, and ancient American history that is no longer relevant.
Try defining the word yourself.
Now, answer a couple of questions based on your definition: Is a bus rider of Armenian descent a minority? How about a bus rider of Mexican descent?
You no doubt know where Mexico is located but may not know that Armenia is located in the Caucuses, which is where the word “Caucasian” came from. Armenians were victims of genocide at the hands of the Turks in 1915, when the Ottoman Empire still existed, and are suffering again at the hands of the Azerbaijanis.
Incidentally, the Ottoman Turks were into settler colonialism in a big way for centuries, although this is conveniently overlooked by the revisionists of history who want Americans to believe that settler colonialism was just a European evil.
The Turks were in the minor leagues compared to the Mongols. Today’s Mongolians are so proud of their heritage of settler colonialism that a major tourist attraction in Mongolia is a massive statue of Genghis Kahn on horseback, standing 130 ft. tall, making it the largest equestrian statue in the world.
Anyway, a couple of statistics might help you with your answer to the question I posed earlier about Armenian and Mexican bus riders. Armenian Americans are probably less than one percent of the city of Tucson’s population, while Mexican Americans number over 40 percent.
So, who is a minority, an Armenian bus rider or a Mexican bus rider?
WAIT! Before answering, you should know who is in the majority. After all, for someone to be in the minority, someone else has to be in the majority.
The remaining 60 percent or so of Tucson’s population is a grab-bag of other racial/ethnic groups and nationalities, including German, English, Irish, Dutch, French, Swiss, Swedish, Russian, Greek, Iranian, Arab, African, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Latin Americans from other than Mexico, and so on.
If you drill down further, you’ll find scores of unique ethnocultural subgroups within each of the aforementioned groups, as well as within all of the other major groups not mentioned above. There are hundreds of subgroups. A comprehensive list of them can be found here.
For example, a so-called Mexican can be 100 percent Spanish, a mix of Spanish and indigenous peoples (mestizo), or 100 percent indigenous. In turn, the indigenous can have ancestry going back to the Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, Mayan, Zapotec, or Mixtec.
An interesting sidenote: Mexico does not collect census data on ethnicity.
People labeled as Hispanic have even more ancestral diversity. Just in terms of nationality, Hispanics include Mexicans, Columbians, Argentinians, Peruvians, Venezuelans, Chileans, Ecuadorians, Guatemalans, Cubans, Dominicans, Hondurans, Paraguayans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Costa Ricans, Uruguayans, Puerto Ricans, Spaniards, and Portuguese. Each of these in turn is comprised of many unique subgroups.
Heck, I might have Hispanic blood. After all, the Spanish Empire almost made it to my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, when it established the town of New Madrid on the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. Moreover, as an Italian, I have some of the most diverse DNA on the planet, as a result of all of the peoples who marched through the Italian peninsula and spread their seed, including the ancestors to today’s Hispanics.
(There’s no need to dwell on the fact that about two percent of the Italian genome is DNA from Neanderthals.)
What all of this means is that there is no ethnocultural group in the majority in America, because none of them comprises more than 50 percent of the population. Actually, all of the groups are in the minority. Therefore, Armenian and Mexican bus riders are both minorities.
Granted, in some quarters, “majority” and “minority” are not defined by numbers but by political power. Those with political power are seen as the majority, and those without political power, as the minority.
Well, Mexican Americans certainly have political power in Tucson and southern Arizona, as evidenced by a Mexican-American mayor, a Mexican-American member of Congress, and Mexican-Americans on the city council and county board of supervisors—all of whom are members of the Democrat party, which has had a de facto monopoly in the city and county for decades.
By contrast, I have very little political power, not only as a Tucsonan but also as an American. You see, philosophically speaking, I’m a “2” on a 10-point scale of government power, where “0” is anarchy (no government); “1” is a government with just enough power to protect life, civil liberties, and property; “2” is a government that not only protects life, civil liberties, and property, but also helps the ten percent of the population that can’t help themselves or be helped by private charity; “6” is the power of today’s Democrat and Republican parties, and “10” is totalitarianism, whether on the left or right.
A ”7” marks where the Tucson city council is philosophically. If it had the chance, it would not only keep bus rides free but also provide free food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, college, tattoos, and piercings.
How would the poor city pay for this? It would force the minorities at “2” on the scale of government power to foot the bill.
Mr. Cantoni is hiding in a secret Tucson location but can be reached at craigcantoni@gmail.com.
A lot of writing, but about what? Another Craig article? Or is this more BS, Bill Sellers.
So many words for what? Anybody other than a white male is a minority to democrats.
and TUCSON RAIL is De-RAILED! as two of the cars RUN INTO EACH OTHER ! Which reminds me of the famous last words ‘YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID’ – Oh CRAP!!!! it is astounding that there’s not much that could happen but this and ‘butt heads’ they did – lights out for TUCSON RAIL pull the plug. Hey it started as a hobby rail on 4th street – private citizens building cars running them on a very limited track.. this is what the city turned that into.. don’t forget to grab the brass ring
Another boffo discussion from Mr. Cantoni. Read it and weep.
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” ~ Ayn Rand
Rand in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute. (Rand 1957 [1992]: Afterword) … or ‘it’s all about MEEEEE ME ME ME ME..
Bible presents a much greater truth of who we are, why we are, where we are, who we should strive to be.. we are flawed from evil but will prevail with and by the Grace of God.
Rand had no qualms with charity if the benefactor was honest with himself about his benevolence. Help people because, 1) you think there is potential there, 2) you know they are decent ppl and have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own and will return to prosperity given the opportunity (and hand up, not a hand out), 3) it makes you feel good, or 4) you are trying to buy ecclesiastic absolution (not that she believed in that, but honesty first).
What she argued against was the moral imperative of being, “your brother’s keeper”, because as an absolute you are required to sacrifice your happiness and wellbeing to take care of not only the good and misfortuned, but also the lazy, the addicted, and the senseless; basically anyone with their hand out – it becomes your duty to meet their ‘needs’.
Worse yet, indoctrinating a society to this moral standard means that grifters have all the leverage they need to steal opportunity and money from the productive in order to ‘redistribute’ to the ‘less fortunate’, and do to so with their own sanction.