The Mind of Flapjack

A Public Service Announcement from Michael Moore

2011-08-08T19:19:00.000-05:00

When the going gets tough, the clueless and frustrated get authoritarian. That’s the message from a Washington Times article about Michael Moore and his Tweets. Apparently, Mr. Moore thinks that President Obama should “arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors” because, in part, S&P downgraded the United States’ credit rating on 5 August. Like a good, budding authoritarian, Mr. Moore linked S&P to former president Bush – the scapegoat for virtually everything that has gone wrong during the past three years.

So, that’s the medicine put forth by Mr. Moore, darling pseudo-documentarian of the Left. Given his adoration of Cuba, Venezuela, Castro and Chavez, there’s no wondering where he picked up his professed, preferred method of dealing with entities he finds counterproductive. Hopefully President Obama does not subscribe to Mr. Moore’s prescription for dealing with “this big, messy, tough democracy.”

Change, Really...Just Not Quite Yet

2011-08-04T22:20:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, President Obama said, among other things, "When I said 'change we can believe in' I didn't say 'change we can believe in tomorrow.' Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we've got this big, messy, tough democracy." But that's not really the case.

When he was touting his "change we can believe in" mantra, he pushed it with words that indicated the "change" would begin immediately. Evidence this famous - for lack of a more polite term - statement, made in June of 2008: "...generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth."

Yet it has not taken generations for us to be able to look back and realize that the summer of 2008 was not the low point, the valley from which statist policies would lead us to greater heights. Our government has gotten much larger - even after President G.W. Bush bloated it; the sick have had legislation enacted so as to make them words of the state; unemployment and longer term unemployment are much higher; we've added a war of sorts in Lybia to go along with Iraq and Afghanistan. I can't speak to the earth healing or slowing ocean rise (however odd that sounds) - but it doesn't seem that installing fixes for those were within the purview or power of the US government.

So Mr. Obama now wants to push that change is coming...just wait for it. Really. But we have seen the change that comes with statist policies - and it's not good for the bulk of us. Sadly, Mr. Obama may be right; the "real" change may still be yet to come. And that would prove to be a very scary prospect, indeed.

Encounters with Functional Illiteracy – The Burger Joint

2011-07-29T17:06:00.000-05:00

Once is an instance. Twice is a coincidence. Last night, my lovely wife planted the idea in my head to go get a burger from a non-fast-food burger joint. After about fifteen minutes of thought, I decided it was indeed a good idea. The young lady, who, much like the young man at the butcher counter must have been about 18 years old, was working the register. Like him, she was probably not far removed from a time where basic arithmetic in various classes should have been a common activity.

She took my order; the total was $7.52. I handed her $8. She took my money, hit a button on her register, and paused. She reached below the counter and her hand emerged holding a calculator. I got curious. Why the need for a calculator? She said that she hit the “exact change” button on the register - and implied by grabbing the calculator that she was unable to figure out in her head that the change due was 48 cents.

The young lady punched a few numbers into the calculator and then said, “Eight, right?” I informed her that I did indeed give her eight dollars. She replied that she means eight cents; that I am due eight cents in change. I don’t know what my face said, but my mouth said, “Sure.” I put the three pennies and one nickel in the tip jar, which was where the 48 cents would have ended up anyway, and walked away a bit bewildered and more than a little sad.

I don’t think that I’m noticing these instances because I’m looking for them. They just occur and I happen to be there. And I fear they’re far from anomalies.

Encounters with Functional Illiteracy – The Butcher’s Counter

2011-07-26T13:07:00.000-05:00

This morning, I stopped by a local grocery store in order to pick up the basics for dinner for the next two nights. That amounts to meat to put on the grill and frozen vegetables. I was greeted by a young man working the butcher’s counter; he was perhaps 18 years old, maybe a bit younger. In any case, he was certainly young enough that his high school level mathematics should have been still tucked somewhere near his recent experience at the grocery store and his common sense.

I chose two steaks. The young man put them on a standard foam tray, the kind ubiquitously found in meat and poultry departments everywhere, and placed them on the electronic scale. The steaks weighed in at a pound and a half. I glanced down and noticed the price: $11.99 a pound. So, $18 in rough numbers.

When the electronic scale spit out $3.25 at the young man, he simply hit a button, wrapped the steaks in clear wrapping, carefully set the printed price tag on the wrapping and handed me the steaks while kindly asking if I would like anything else. I said no, took the steaks, and walked away. I made it three feet before my conscious and curiosity (thankfully) got the better of me.

I returned to the counter – I was the only one there – informed the young man that I thought he had made a mistake and asked him if he was sure he put the correct price on the steaks. He looked confused; he asked how much I wanted to pay. I informed him that the steaks were supposed to be $11.99 per pound. He took the steaks, put them back on the scale, punched in some numbers, and magically came up with another amount, which was again far less than the $18 I expected. I verbally prodded him to do a little “math in public.” $11.99 per pound, 1.5 pounds. He looked at me confusedly and asked again how much I would like to pay. I informed him that $18 was close to the correct price. Somehow, he managed to punch the correct numbers into the scale to produce a total close to that. I thanked him and walked away.

What I find sad is that this young man appeared to be functionally illiterate when it comes to numbers and simultaneously unable to detect errors that, due to their magnitude, should immediately make one question things. Yet he plodded along, punching numbers into a computer, accepting whatever numbers the all-knowing computer returned to him, and pleasantly going along with his job – oblivious to what the numbers mean and unable to reach a correct answer without the “expert” knowledge of an electronic aid.

Sadly, this young man’s situation is not isolated. I wonder how he was taught math in grade school; I wonder if he was required to memorize multiplication tables, write simple arithmetic equations in endless repetition. Probably not. Doing so would be to use outdated methods in a modern time, or so some would have us believe. Yet “repetition is the mother of pedagogy;” those foundational elements learned by heart are not easily forgotten. The young man in this case, and many others besides, would have greatly benefitted from such outdated methods, methods which allow for greater, deeper, more reliable building of knowledge as one grows older.

Technology and Underpants Gnomes

2011-04-23T15:15:00.000-05:00

A rather funny (and not too offensive) episode of South Park involves a pack of gnomes who "collect" underpants at night. Their motive is profit. The problem is that there is no bridge between the two; "phase two" is missing. I bring this up because it seemed particularly fitting of a conversation about using technology in high school classrooms. In some (and probably in many) states, there is a legal requirement for teachers to use technology in the classroom, the assumed end being that doing so will result in better educated students. What "phase two" is, what it consists of, no one can say for sure. But there is it: the means and the dreamt-of end. One thing the underpants gnomes have over administrative and state education officials is that their "phase one" (underpants) are tangible. In many districts, it would be a stretch to say that there is enough technology (largely measured by numbers of computers) to even pretend to meet mandates.

But to be locked into that conversation - how much technology must be used - means ignoring another, more fundamental question: what purpose does a bit of technology - be it a computer, internet access, a "smart" board, etc. - serve the classroom it is in? For instance, is it more effective for a student to read an article, a short story, or a novel on a computer screen or on low-tech paper? I would argue that paper is far superior. Reading from a CRT monitor is hard on the eyes, flat panels a bit less so but more expensive (unless we're building from zero). Paper is easy on the eyes. Paper is also portable. Students can write on paper. Put those two together - students can write on and take their studies with them. That sounds like a great combination for teaching and learning.

Of course, low-tech generally means low cost, and low "wow" factor. A video of, say, a classroom full of kids discussing a story and referencing notes taken on their own copies of the story doesn't make for a scintillating presentation if the audience has already determined that technology is "phase one" for better educated students.

Both options, paper and various technologies, are rather parts of "phase two" techniques. They are methods of delivery, of communication, and each has advantages and drawbacks. If the goal is to teach grade school kids fundamental math, what would be the point of mandating the use of technology? Do mouse clicks help young students memorize their multiplication tables? If the goal is to teach high school students geography, where might technology be of use and where might it be a hindrance? But if the goal is to teach students to use technology - and this seems to be the only plausible educational goal of technology mandates - then technology becomes the subject, the class, the focus. Using other classes to primarily teach technology is to substitute a goal with a means, and that is a mistake.

Better Health Through Coercion

2011-04-14T19:17:00.000-05:00

In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Mark Bittman attempts to show how $1 trillion might be saved by the federal government by "preventing disease instead of treating it." He cites alarming statistics about how many Americans have largely preventable health issues, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some types of cancer. He then relates each of these to dollars spent - "more than one seventh of our GDP" - to cure them. His point is that it would cost far less if preventative measures were pursued, like improving diet and increasing exercise at an individual level. A valid point, indeed, especially as it appears to be a result of individual choice and improvement; the money saved is the result of changes by individuals.

However, that is not the case. In Mr. Bittman's view, the individual is the thing to be managed, the cog to be turned by coercive forces so as to benefit the whole, and the whole will pay in the form of higher taxes so that the individual can be coerced.

The first indication that Mr. Bittman prefers, whether he recognizes it or not, coercive methods to pursue better, healthier eating occurs when he claims that money can be saved "if an alliance of insurers, government, individuals - maybe even Big Food, if it's pushed hard enough - moves us toward better eating." First there is the obvious reference to pushing Big Food to do what Mr. Bittman surely feels it ought to do, the connotation that any "Big" industry not only needs coercion but deserves it as well. No, the more subtle portion of his statement is also more telling of just how far he feels the state should go toward enforcing better health habits. Mr. Bittman wants government and other entities to "move us" to do what is deemed to be the right thing. He does not use a more gentle term, like entice or encourage. The use of "move" implies actions upon the individual; the individual needs to be moved. So Mr. Bittman really means that his "alliance of insurers, government, [and] individuals" (individuals who we may assume include folks like him) must coerce the Big Individual into doing the right thing, that is eating as the "alliance" sees fit. No individual liberty or personal accountability to be found there.

But this coercion doesn't come on the cheap. That, however, is not an issue when the coercive power of government is brought to bear. Mr. Bittman quite simply states that the "investment" - forcing people to ear healthy diets - is one for which "you must spend money to make or save money. (Yes, taxes will go up, but whose taxes?)" When only about half of American households don't pay federal income taxes, it's an easy bet that only half of the population will pay into this "investment" in coercive behavior. Big Food and Big Whateverelse will also get the bill. But it's an "investment" in people's health that will save money - so what's the worry?

In order to get away from the question of actually paying for coercing individuals into taking proper care of themselves, Mr. Bittman uses a now-common false comparison which is meant to evoke both nostalgia and a sense of self-loathing. He claims, "if we can put a man on the moon, we can create an environment in which an apple is a better and more accessible choice than a Pop-Tart." Of course, the Apollo Project has absolutely nothing to do with proper diet and exercise, but that's of no consequence for Mr. Bittman. What is more important for the reader is the level of stupidity he expects of you. How does he figure that apples are rare finds in supermarkets? Does he think that his readers, or Americans in general, do their grocery shopping primarily or exclusively at locations which cater in boxed food that is grabbed on the go, like gas stations? What's more is that he thinks there is a need to "create an environment in which an apple is a better...choice" than a boxed, sugary pastry. Mr. Bittman insults everyone's intelligence if he really thinks that the average human being needs to be told that an apple is a better bit of food than a frosted pastry. Yet, he would use the coercive force of government to drive this and other healthy points home.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Mr. Bittman has good intentions. No decent human being would want others to suffer from diabetes or heart disease. But where Mr. Bittman makes his downward turn is in his belief that the answer rests in government "investment" in coercing individuals to practice healthier living.

What I believe Mr. Bittman either refuses or is unable (due to his statist leaning) to recognize is that the coercive power of government has limitations - indeed, many folks may argue that it can do no social good. The taking from some in order to "help" others who are somehow unwilling to help themselves is a path of folly. For the vast majority of people, a decent diet and a modicum of exercise are well within their grasp. What must not be allowed into the conversation are excuses which are groundless - No one told me that honey bun was bad for me; I live just down the street from a fast food joint and I'm "addicted" - I'm too tired / sore / fat / unmotivated to exercise. If individuals are relieved of the responsibility for their own health - their own care and feeding - then they will have truly become children of the state. And we will all pay the price, higher taxes being most certainly the least consequential. For a society in which individuals who are supposed to be adults turn to the government for direction on what to eat is a society which has no soul, no will, and no hope.

Ignore the Man from Florida

2011-04-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

It is said - and I believe it is true - that I order to be offended, one has to choose to be offended. Or, to put it another way, if a person chooses to not find offense, he doesn't. However, some things are quite hard to ignore and exactly what those things are vary from person to person, from culture to culture. Many Americans find it offensive when someone burns their flag As part of that group, I understand why: the burning is a statement of contempt bordering on belligerence. But upon further analysis, if burning a flag or any other symbol is the limit - in a practical sense - of action, then it is essentially an empty final act where the symbol becomes more important to the one destroying it than to the one intended to be offended by the action.

I write this as a backdrop for consideration of two days of what have been variously called protests and riots in Afghanistan which have left about 20 people dead and many dozens injured. These protests, deaths (including two beheadings), and injuries are in response to a stupidly foolish man in Florida - half a world away - burning a Koran. Never mind that this Florida man (whom I refuse to name - he deserves not recognition but rather our collective deepest apathy) and his stupid act are impotent. Many Afghanis are offended; enough, it seems, to kill those around them and behead UN workers.

Take a step back from both the Florida man and the rioting Afghanis, and one wonders why the two pay any attention to each other. The Florida man is either incapable or unwilling to make his mark by reading, analyzing, and arguing against the book he burned, and so the strongest statement he is able to conjure in his head is to burn it. His act may be symbolic, but it is also empty. The ideas and beliefs he feels he is destroying - however symbolically - are not touched. If he were worth his salt, he would pen numerous criticisms of the book he finds so repulsive and then perhaps he might accomplish something meaningful. But I suspect nothing will come of the Florida man other than his vacuous act.

News agencies, and people in the West by extension, will pay attention to the rioting Afghanis because people are being injured and killed. But it seems to me that their acts are just as impotent and empty as the Florida man's. And what's more, the Afghani's acts seem more self-destructive; one might expect most of the injuries (if not most of the deaths) have been inflicted on Afghanis by Afghanis. And for what?

At the risk of injecting a Christian verse, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven." And this would seem a season for Afghanis and all Muslims to join Americans in ignoring a stupid, impotent man from Florida.

Powerful While Sleeping

2011-04-01T21:56:00.001-05:00

I can be a stickler regarding word usage. There are some commercials that get under my skin because they make no sense, yet one would assume someone professionally edited the language in them. The most common abuse of language in commercials seems to be comparisons to nothing: tools that promise to accomplish something in "up to half the time;" fuels that burn "40% cleaner." Compared to what, you ask? Indeed.

More and more, though, I find laziness regarding language in straight news reporting (and by that, I mean to segregate news from opinion). It's been a week since I read an astounding claim in the first sentence of a story reported in the Seattle Times. Perhaps some who read this post might recall the controller referenced in the sentence; he had the unfortunate (and strangely fortunate - lots of big things going on in the world) fate of having fifteen minutes of news cycle spotlight on him. According to the Seattle Times, he deserved much more. Perhaps even a scientific study.

An air traffic control supervisor who fell asleep during a midnight shift and forced two planes to land without assistance at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport this week was suspended Thursday.

That's one powerful air traffic controller.

This sort of laziness with language is all around us, and it's not unique to our times. But consider how many messages we get every day and the length of those messages. News sound bytes are perhaps five to fifteen seconds. A really long sound byte might be just under a minute. Posts on Twitter, called tweets, have a 140-character limit. Text messages are generally fairly short, many times no longer than a tweet. If I only have 140 characters (or fewer) to fully make a point, I would want to use very precise language. It is curious, then, that as our utterances become shorter and shorter our language seems to become sloppier.

Instead, we get all sorts of contradictions, convolutions and inaccuracies. We get an air traffic controller capable of forcing airplanes to land while he sleeps unassisted. Or maybe I'm just too critical.

Thoughts on Entitlement

2011-03-29T20:37:00.000-05:00

Recently, my aunt, who belongs to a writing group called Spin Class, asked me to read a piece she had written about entitlement. And because I could not resist, I thought I'd write a bit on that subject as well. Call it subject coattail riding.

Because definitions are important, the third definition of entitlement on dictionary.com seems appropriate: the right to guaranteed benefits under a government program. I say appropriate because, under presidents on Congresses of both political parties, benefits have expanded and mutated to the point where a claim may be put on just about anything. A partial list of entitlements might include the following: health care, health insurance, an education, a college education, a job, a house, homeownership, food, and broadband internet. Where all of those entitlements come from, I have no idea. I can't find them in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence - unless under some twisted, living-breathing twist on "pursuit of happiness". After all, how can one achieve happiness without broadband internet delivered to his own home? Generations have suffered. We owe it to ourselves.

But a look back at that definition reveals something about our use of language. The following three words are, for better or worse, equated: entitlement, right, benefit. I would say the equivalency of those three words is to our detriment.

A common understanding of what rights are and their origin comes from the afore mentioned Declaration of Independence: "that [all men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". But through applying the word "right" to so many things, some important aspects have been stripped away, most importantly the originator of our unalienable rights - the Creator. Instead, rights have become whatever is legislated, they have become things of man, and yet are still somehow considered unalienable, things which cannot be refused once enacted (or, one might use the word granted).

And so the idea of a right begins to shift into an entitlement, granted by government. But such things must also, and to a greater degree, be given rather than earned for many. Entitlements as a form of government giving have a veneer of compassion for the individual. They are for the benefit of the downtrodden, the suffering, and that is a good thing - except that the entitlement tends to be without end. Would anyone say that dependence on government giving, government compassion, is a beneficial way for an individual to live? Does it help the individual in his pursuit of happiness?

I would argue that it does not. Entitlements, and more importantly, a sense of entitlement in individuals is a corrosive force in our society. Dennis Prager famously said, "The bigger the government, the smaller the individual." Entitlements have the consequence, intended or not, of growing government at the expense of the governed. Yet the governed can feel comforted, cushioned, protected. It only costs individual liberty. And it may be that many, many people would rather feel a sense of protection under the dome of entitlement than the uncertainty and freedom of individual liberty. How and why that balance shifts will say a great deal about our national character.

My "Missing Tile" Moment

2011-03-23T22:56:00.000-05:00

Recently, I ran a 10k race. I primarily ran for the fun of it; for me, running is an enjoyable activity and being in a race is a good way for me to get some variety and friendly competition into the mix. For this most recent run, I had not planned on any specific goal, mostly because I had signed up for it about a week before the race date - not a great deal of time to train specifically for that race.

But running - or rather, racing - without a goal is somewhat counterintuitive, so I set the modest goal of running about the same time as my previous 10k. But as the race progressed, I noticed that my pace was a bit quicker than my last 10k, so I switched goals mid-race. I decided I would better my previous time. As I was past the halfway point at that time, it was a fairly modest goal. Further on, as I was going into the last mile or so, a race worker made a comment about a group of us "still being able to make" a certain time. I didn't quite set that time as my goal, but still pushed hard in an attempt to make it. As I crossed the finish line, I knew that I had missed that last goal, or almost goal, but not by much. I was very happy with my race. I didn't know my exact time because I had inadvertently stopped my watch one point in the race, so I had to wait until scores posted - a forty-five minute wait.

As I waited, I chatted with some other runners about the course, the hills, our times. And then my missing tile moment came.

One of my favorite thinkers, Dennis Prager, describes the missing tile syndrome in this way: If you stand in a room and there is only one ceiling tile missing, you will focus on that spot. If a ceiling isn't missing any tiles...no one notices. It's "perfect". We, being human, do the same things with ourselves and others. If there is one thing we do not like about ourselves (our missing tile), then it seems to us that everyone else has that "tile". Mr. Prager's example is a bald man who, when out in public, sees that everyone around him has hair. And unlike a ceiling, we can never be perfect; we will always have missing tiles.

Some of these tiles are momentary; and my missing tile moment didn't last long, but that may only be because I recognized it for what it was (thankfully). When my time came up, I found out that I was seconds short from placing in my age group. And for about a minute, all I thought about was my missing tile, which consisted of seconds I could have made up at various points on the run. But thankfully, this feeling didn't last long. Shortly, I remembered the two goals that I did make, and the third that I almost made. And lastly, I realized that if I were running to place, I'd be racing others and not myself or the course, which for me is less enjoyable. So I gladly let that missing tile stay missing (as if I could do anything else) and soon enough, I didn't notice it. I only pray that all of my future missing tile moments will be as brief, as I know I'll have many more.

Practical Utility in War

2011-03-20T16:33:00.000-05:00

In anticipation of hours and hours - perhaps days - of cable news comparisons of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Operation Odyssey Dawn over Libya, it is important to discuss the idea of practical utility when it comes to war. By practical utility, I do not mean lofty goals and end-state proclamations; no "to secure democracy" or "to defend civilians" squishiness, however easy and comfortable it may be to limit discussions to those types of statements while iron is falling in some far-off place. Practical utility tends to shun such squishiness and relies more on language which may offend espousers of the squishy.

As an aside, I do not suppose my thoughts that follow are original; they have all been said in various forms and forums many times. But as a new war starts, it is instructive to take a critical look at our recent past.

In 2002, faced with an ugly place to fight anyone let alone a loosely organized pack of true believers, the US went through the necessary steps to expand the war to Iraq. In March of 2003, the Iraq theater was opened. The practical utility of expanding the war to Iraq has far less to do with weapons of mass destruction, human rights, or bringing democracy to the Middle East - though all of those sound like perfectly good reasons. The practical utility has to do with choosing the battle space. If Afghanistan is a nearly impossible place to fight, with mountains so high that aircraft can be shot at from above by men, then Iraq is preferable, even given the urban setting where (according to news reports) much of the ugly fighting happened. Add that the Iraq battle space had been "prepared" - a military euphemism of sorts - by bombing both the northern and southern no-fly zones regularly as follow-on to Operation Desert Fox in December of 1998. Regardless of all of the miscues, mistakes, and misfortunes which followed, the practical utility of fighting jihadists in Iraq instead of Afghanistan is clear: it was easier for us to kill more of them in Iraq as opposed to the other way around in Afghanistan.

That may be an ugly truth that folks do not want to hear, but it is important to hear it nevertheless. Every jihadist who came to Iraq was one who didn't have to be fought in another place, most notably Afghanistan. In the end, the invasion of Iraq probably - and I believe certainly - saved US and coalition lives and hastened the demise of many of the enemy.

As we begin another war, it would be very, very helpful to be clear about the practical utility of fighting in Libya. So far, I have been unable to discern one.

Words of War - Odyssey Dawn

2011-03-19T19:20:00.000-05:00

As Operation Odyssey Dawn - a title with its own interesting connotations - were about to kick off, Secretary of State Clinton used some interesting words. What I mean by that is the words she used, her diction, seemed rather odd for what has turned into a barrage of more than one hundred cruise missiles. According to the Washington Post:

Questioned on whether the mission was aimed at ensuring the safety of civilians or at pushing Gaddafi from power, she said, “It is to protect civilians and provide access for humanitarian assistance.”

I don't want to seem like I'm picking apart her words, but she is the lead diplomat for the United States and diplomatic words are meant to be picked apart. First, her words are in my opinion not meant necessarily for a foreign audience, which may seem odd at first. They are meant for folks in the US who are understandably very, very leery of hopping into another foreign adventure, especially one as apparently disconnected from US interests as a civil war in a North African country of 6.4 million. After all, if supporting rebels against dictators were a cause for war, the US would be actively engaging in many more countries in the region at the moment.

So Secretary Clinton instead mentions "protecting civilians" - a euphemism. After all, if one protects, then one guards, one stands watch; to protect has a defensive connotation. This is a much more palatable and perhaps even laudable perception of Odyssey Dawn. Unfortunately, the euphemism is a thin cover. One side in Libya is made up of Gaddafi's military; the other is made of up civilians who have taken up arms. "Protecting" these civilians means, in actuality, taking a side against Gaddafi. Not that doing so is a bad thing.

But what the government is selling, through its words, is not a war, regardless of how many munitions actually get fired into and dropped on Libya. What the government is selling is a defensive action of civilians only and providing a route for humanitarian assistance.

To paraphrase President Obama, make no mistake - America is engaged in a war in Libya. It may be short, it may be long. We may be limited players in a coalition. We may only send in cruise missiles and keep our fighters and bombers above the reach of any Libyan arms. But we are at war. The least the administration can do is not euphemize on the subject, but perhaps they don't think highly enough of either the goal in Libya or the American electorate to say it straight.

Yet We Must Abide

2010-11-24T19:48:00.001-06:00

I would like to respond at some length to a comment made on my previous entry, Thoughts on Scans and Pat Downs. Kristin wrote:

"What's interesting is that your comment "when a decision is made" doesn't include any of our individual concerns when they make their decision, but yet we must abide. And even with this loss of individual rights, are we really that much more 'secure?'"

First, some may consider the fact that the head of the TSA, an executive branch appointee, has to be confirmed by the Senate. Because both the President and Senators are elected, one might argue that the electorate has had a voice in who heads the agency which makes the rules under which the electorate must operate. Take that for what it is worth, which is not much, substantively, in my thinking.

What drives the executive branch - in particular the agencies which would have to respond to events like another 9-11 or hurricane Katrina - to make the policy decisions is a desire to avoid a negative response from the electorate after an horrific event. Heads roll after horrible events; they don't tend to roll before a potential event. Thus, there is at least some self-preservation operating with regard to the rule makers.

This self-preservation is not, on their part, an irrational act by the policy makers - if keeping their jobs is highly important to them. The idea, particularly in urban areas, that the federal government must respond energetically and omnipotently to a disaster. Most notably was the outcry for the lack of federal response to hurricane Katrina, particularly from the people and politicians in New Orleans - never mind the total lack of response from the truly responsible parties at the city and state levels. President Bush never recovered politically from the false impression that the lack of a federal response to Katrina caused the city to be decimated and the urban population to suffer.

As a result, politicians and policy makers don't want to get "Katrina'd" and therefore come up with preemptive measures which can be pointed to in case some horrific event does happen. These measures are the "but we did (insert preventative measure here), so we cannot be blamed" tactic.

The sad truth is that the part of the electorate that demands an energetic and omnipotent federal response to tragedy bears much of the blame for such policies. So, if the TSA does not want to have its collective head handed to it by the public, then rules, procedures, and policies become more and more stringent - just in case something might could happen.

I could go on to discuss the infantilization of the electorate, zero-tolerance culture and such, but it is sufficient to say that TSA frisks and such are a result of a not-so-uncommon desire on the part of the electorate to be protected from tragedy. The TSA may not have asked explicitly for public opinion, but public responses to past tragedies and political self-preservation drive decisions. I don't expect government agencies to change "safety uber alles" mantra any time soon, if ever. But then again, that's just my read on it; I could be wrong.

Thoughts on Scans and Pat Downs

2010-11-23T15:16:00.003-06:00

There has been an overabundance of talk about the TSA’s new security measures – full body scans and frisks. The conversation ranges from “do everything possible to make sure that nothing bad happens on any flight,” particularly another terrorist attack, to “this is a violation of fundamental rights” and every shade in between.

The discussion is useful, I think, if there is an understanding that the real question lies underneath the security versus rights debate. There will always be a tradeoff between security and individual rights; the more safety one demands from the state, the more individual liberty one must relinquish to the state. On the other hand, if one is willing to accept a relatively less secure situation, one tends to be able to exercise more individual liberty.

There is also another important thing to understand, or be reminded of, when it comes to the government providing security: once the measures are decided upon, compliance is not optional. It is more important, I think, to consider how intrusive we want our government to become in our lives in exchange for safety from those who wish us harm. It is my estimation that the more we allow the former, the more indistinguishable the two will become.

Of Happy Meals and Individual Liberty

2010-11-09T11:22:00.000-06:00

In an article on CNN.com, San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar attempts to explain why he felt the need to propose and push a city ordinance that bans the addition of a toy to any nutritionally suspect meal. Mr. Mar cites child health costs, impact with regard to the city's budget, and states that "everyone must do their part" to fight child obesity.

It seems that Mr. Mar feels that his "part" is to tell others how to run their private restaurants. It would stand to reason that Mr. Mar might suggest that restaurants like McDonald's "part" would be to offer government sanctioned meals for kids. Mr. Mar might also suggest that the "part" parents should play is to expect restaurants to offer only nutritious, government sanctioned meals (which may include a toy) so that neither they nor their children are tempted by less healthy choices - the toy being a lure.

I might suggest the folks he's trying to help - according to his own words, "[c]ommunities of color and low-income families" - simply vote with their dollars rather than have rules imposed by government. That would be an exercise in individual liberty (pardon the pun). I might further suggest that if folks did take their business elsewhere that, over the long term, restaurants like McDonald's would offer more choices which would appeal to health-minded consumers (regardless of economic or ethnic "status"). Again, restaurant owners would exercise their individual liberty by freely choosing - albeit influenced by business concerns - to offer different food options. But somehow I do not think that the Supervisor had individual liberty in mind when he wrote and promoted this law.

I might further suggest that if Mr. Mar is truly and deeply concerned about the health and welfare of the children of San Francisco that he devise a business plan and open a restaurant which offers healthy, inexpensive, fast meals. That, however, would be a financial risk; one which I'm willing to bet Mr. Mar would not be willing to make. Far easier to legislate, as political "capital" is made and spent far easier than real money.

Who Should Drive the Car?

2010-11-08T07:52:00.001-06:00

President Obama, among many other Liberals, has repeatedly likened the economy to driving a car. The use of this metaphor reveals a serious misunderstanding on the part of the user.

Mr. Obama and his supporters, in order to cast blame on Republican lawmakers, state that the GOP drove the economic car into a ditch and therefore cannot be trusted with the keys. The choice implied - the only choice available in our political system - is to leave the keys in Democrat (read: Liberal) hands. But what the use of this metaphor shows is a fundamental misunderstanding of free-market economy. By using this metaphor, Mr. Obama assumes that the government must be in the driver's seat. That he and other Liberals repeatedly use this metaphor suggests that the assumption of government as economic driver is a fundamental one. It is not, say, a conclusion reached, but rather a basis from which to develop policy.

Private parties, not the government, should be in the economic driver's seat. The government's proper role is to set the "rules of the road", so to speak, and those rules should not direct the economy (as was done in home mortgage lending, for instance) but rather make it fairly safe for participants on all of the given highways and side streets.

Thoughts Before Election Day 2010

2010-10-27T11:42:00.000-05:00

Perhaps unlike many with whom I share common values – call us Tea Partiers, conservatives, Constitutionalists, whatever – I am hesitant to become too excited about the upcoming election day. I can best express my feelings of the prospects this election day with an analogy to watching Chicago Blackhawks hockey. The analogy isn’t perfect; no analogy is, I suppose. But it will suffice for the time being.

As a life-long Blackhawks fan, I had suffered through what some have called 49 years of futility. Most un-memorable, perhaps, were the teams of the early 2000s. Or rather, they were memorable for what they might have been.

It wasn’t that the Blackhawks did not ice good players during the early 200s. But it seemed that the team either expected too much from players or that certain players didn’t expect enough of themselves. A fan favorite like Kyle Calder eventually left Chicago after the 2005-06 season, bounced around the league, and never again approached the 20-goal mark he twice broke in the Windy City. While in Chicago, Calder was given first line time and put up bigger numbers as his career progressed, though his hard work in the ugly areas of the ice is his forte. The team expected a lot of Calder. Perhaps he did not understand how he would fit in elsewhere, or that his leading role on the Blackhawks was earned and would not transfer to elsewhere. In any case, Calder has not played in the NHL for nearly a year. On the other hand, Tyler Arnason was given every chance to become a star in the league. What’s more, he had the skills to be a star. But as is widely reported, Arnason didn’t have the tenacity to show up for every game and every shift. He would take shifts off regularly. He did not expect enough of himself. And so, Arnason also left the NHL, or rather, the NHL left him behind.

The Republican Party – the only party which has an abundance of candidates and officeholders who are conservative – probably suffers from both of the above symptoms. We, as supporters of the party, cannot ask too much of our elected officials. By that, I mean that we must not throw them under the bus if they are unable to do the vital things we are asking of them. If they plow ahead in a steady manner, if they do not deviate from the course (meaning “compromise” away the legislative exercise of our common goals), then we should allow them the time to continue their work. On the other hand, those who do not have the tenacity for the task at hand – the rebuilding of our government based on a non-living, non-breathing Constitution – must be left behind, and this must be done during the primary process. We must not allow unopposed reelection of all sitting Republicans simply due to their incumbency. Each and every candidate must be accountable for his record during the primary.

The post-lockout defensive re-tooling of the Blackhawks, through the signing of Adrian Aucoin and Jassen Cullimore, was supposed to provide the ‘Hawks with a steady, explosive core from which to build. Unfortunately, management had not factored in rules changes when these players were signed. The ‘Hawks had been rebuilt for a game which had existed before the lockout; the game – and many players on the way to the net – passed the Blackhawks by. It took years to rebound from that mistake. In fact, about four years.

If the “game” passes conservatives by, if it passes Republicans by, we need to keenly take note of that. Once in the majority in either legislative house, Republicans must begin the effort to repeal and replace, to de-develop the federal government. Those who would be passive because, and in truth, such efforts will be vetoed by the sitting President need to be challenged in their next primary race and thereby replaced. The process of replacing these folks whose time has passed will indeed take years, but that rebuilding effort will be well worth it.

Finally, there were many times in the early 2000s when, as a Blackhawk fan, optimism ran high – indeed, too high. Even within individual games, there seemed to (even if only occasionally) be a sort of “high” in every potential win. And yet all too often, the outcome would be negative. One common refrain between my sister and I when watching the ‘Hawks was, “That would have been cool.” This feeling ran so deep – the high expectations followed by dispiriting let down – that when Patrick Kane scored the Stanley Cup winner in overtime, I stood motionless in front of the television. I did not celebrate; I stood silently and waited for the play to be waved off, for the referee to blow the whistle for the next faceoff. I went so far as to, in the most pessimistic part of my mind, concede Game 6, Game 7, and the Cup. It would have been true to form for the ‘Hawks of the early 2000s – not their fault, just destined to happen. Only after Kane’s goal became official did I allow myself to believe.

The same stand true for my expectations for Tuesday night, 2 November 2010. It seems that all of the pundits and true electoral experts (like Barone) are predicting a Republican house and a split Senate. Given the history of the Republican Party, I won’t be all that excited with a win on Tuesday. I’ll be excited if, once in office, Republicans stick to the hard road of de-developing the federal government. Anything short of that will not be cause for celebration.

A Comment on a Comment on Columbus Day

2010-10-11T14:02:00.000-05:00

The night before Columbus Day, I read a comment on a social network that suggested each one of us celebrate the day by walking into someone’s house and declaring it ours, essentially kicking out the owners of the house. This post struck me as harmful for one reason in particular.

The comment reveals a belief that loathing history is more important to some than learning from the past. To think that Columbus – or Westerners for that matter – was unique in that his actions displaced indigenous people is contrary to reality. Indeed, throughout history the expansion of one people or country has come at the cost of another. There is a level of self-loathing, then, coupled with demonizing Columbus, his supposed ill-gotten gains being the beginning steps of the very country which allows folks to make comments on social networks. It is akin to despising the house in which one lives, declaring its builder and financer evil people, and yet refusing to move out of the house. Nevertheless, not a few Americans live within this contradiction. I see this condition as very unhealthy for the country because it seems to constantly point backward with a damning finger instead of seriously considering lessons which ought to be (and in some significant ways, have) learned and proceeding with greater wisdom.

On the other hand, the former is much easier and ideologically safer to do than the latter – which explains much. George Orwell wrote in 1984, “Orthodoxy means not thinking - not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” Thinking is a difficult business; it is human nature to avoid difficult tasks if they can be avoided. Orthodoxy provides the road. But, I think, it is healthier to question ourselves, our pasts, and our values not so that we can look critically backwards but so that we make a habit of carrying valid lessons forward.

Education as a Privilege

2010-10-02T13:42:00.000-05:00

In all of the ballyhoo about education "reform", about the need to transform our system of public education, there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding regarding education. This misunderstanding may not exist in the day-to-day attitudes of many students, parents, or teachers, but it is deeply embedded into the maze of laws, regulations, and dictates which flow from the state and, more and more, the federal levels. The misunderstanding regards the acts of educating and learning.

The misunderstanding is that a child has a right to an education. This is a false statement, though it is easy to understand why some may believe it to be true. Saying that a child has a right to an education implies that nothing should get in the way of that education; that somehow, an education should be imputed upon him. This misunderstanding places - at least in theory - all of the responsibility for the outcome of education on forces outside of the student himself. He becomes the passive receiver of education. It disregards the fact that the student is active in his education; it may even attempt to diminish or negate the times when the student actively works against his own education (and the education of others, as well). In the end, it treats the student as a thing instead of a person - with all of the complexities that comes with being a person.

The Latin word for the verb "to learn" is discere. One of the important things about the Latin verb discere is that it has no passive form; it has only active forms. Therefore, one could not say, "I learned the students math today." Learning requires action by the person learning. And yet, because an education has become a right in the eyes of many, there is a corresponding belief in some (or many) that the gaining of an education can be - or should be - largely a passive exercise by the student. And so, laws are created ostensibly to put more and more emphasis on removing all barriers to this kind of passive learning. What laws and regulations of this sort may actually do is kick the can of "hard learning" down the road while simultaneously pushing off difficult learning tasks onto others - or simply neglecting them altogether. Thus, in pursuit of a right to education, many students may well have their education actively blocked by "well intended" laws and regulations.

This must change.

The only thing a student has a right to is an opportunity to gain a basic education - the ability to read, write, and work with numbers. The reason why my statement is limited to the very basics rests in the nature of equality of outcome. If we are to guarantee a right to something - even the guarantee of opportunity - it must always be at a minimal level, at least as these guarantees apply to the nation as a whole. To claim that every student in every corner of this large nation will have the same educational opportunities in total is to promise the impossible. Too much variety of resources, needs, and desires exist - even if one were to only look within a large school district. Thus, the guarantee of opportunity must be limited to the basics, to those things which can in reality be available for all students in all locations: mathematics, literature (fiction and non-fiction), and writing.

Outside of those basics, it should be up to localities to offer educational opportunities based on how they choose to use their time, money, and resources. This will, of course, result in vastly different educational opportunities for children; opportunities will vary based on location and culture, on community and family decisions, and on the relative importance that each individual puts on his education (or how much pressure each parent puts upon his child to gain an education). But this diversity - and I mean diversity in the truest sense of the word - has the potential to birth a creative, responsible, and intellectually curious generation in a way that our current top-down, authoritarian education apparatus may promise but can never fulfill.

There is No “Right to Serve”

2010-09-23T14:14:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading an article in the NYT which, among other flaws, bears the headline “Military Equality Goes Astray”. (It appears that the link requires registration, which is why no hotlink is presented.) While no form of the word “equal” appears anywhere in the article, the gist is that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is prejudicial in that it precludes openly homosexual persons from serving in the military.

Indeed, it is prejudicial. It is also only one of a myriad of ways in which the military selects servicemen and women. The military also discriminates according to age, intelligence, physical fitness, mental fitness, past behavior, ability to train, and probably dozens of other ways which don’t immediately come to mind. After beginning service, the military discriminates even more, based on the serviceman or woman’s ability to live by the UCMJ and all directives. These include prohibitions against adultery, alcohol abuse (and even alcohol use in some locations), and fraternization.

It is right and proper that the military does discriminate in these ways because in the final analysis, the “right” of a person to serve – if there is such a “right” which can be dreamt up under some lefty bo tree – should always be trumped by the requirements of the military.

What follows is a thought exercise only.
Let’s assume that everyone has a “right to serve” in the military. Let’s suppose that Gene (a completely fictional character) has convinced himself that he really wants to join the Army. Gene has a bit of a colored past…he’s written some bad checks. In fact, he’s written enough bad checks to be charged and hauled into court. Gene is also more than a bit out of shape – running two miles is not on the horizon for him – and has trouble with basic math – he freezes on math tests. Should this hypothetical person be “accommodated” (to use a euphemism from the world of public education) so that his theoretical “right to serve” is not infringed? Given only what is presented here, would Gene make a good soldier? Should he be trusted with a rifle or an artillery piece?

Let’s suppose the answer is yes; the military (whatever branch) gives Gene the opportunity to serve. Pardon me…bows to his “right to serve”. Going further down the road of this thought exercise, let’s suppose that Gene somehow cannot stop writing bad checks. Six months into his service, Gene has written so many bad checks that he is no longer able to write checks on base and is on restriction. The military then chooses to terminate his service, and Gene is discharged. If Gene has a “right to serve,” shouldn’t the military be required to keep him on even if he cannot conduct himself by the rules? How much energy should the military expend to keep Gene in the military so as to support his “right to serve”?

In my view, the hypothetical Gene would best not be allowed to serve if for no other reason than his habitual writing of bad checks. It’s a pattern. If Gene were to habitually get into bar brawls, he probably shouldn’t be allowed to serve, either. That Gene should have a right to serve is counter to the idea of service – where the person serving proves himself worthy based partially on his willingness and ability to live by set rules and regulations. (I would also suggest that this is true of any kind of service, not just military service.)

Now, I’m not equating open homosexuality with writing bad checks or being physically unfit. The point is that there is not, nor should there be, absolute equality when it comes military service; there is no “right to serve.” People who wish to serve in the military must submit to the rules and regulations of the military – rules, it should be noted, that Congress ultimately holds the hammer on. Even though this is completely counter to the current culture of spontaneously generated “rights,” the military is not a non-discriminatory institution, nor should it be.

Redefining Diversity

2010-09-20T15:18:00.000-05:00

(What follows is an incomplete idea which I’ve developed while reading F.A. Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit. My goal is to show the value of shifting the connotation of “diversity” or what makes up a “diverse group” from its current form to something more substantive. Comments, points of discussion, and disagreements are appreciated.)

If one were to ask for a working definition of the word “diversity,” one might reliably hear a mix of phrases involving sex, ethnicity, skin color, religious belief, and income level. Thus, a “diverse group” of people would consist of various combinations of the preceding individual characteristics. As a matter of practice, we are told that groups which achieve a certain, arbitrary level of “diversity” – as much of a mix of ethnicities, colors, etc. – are indeed more valid than less “diverse” groups.

Interestingly, several of the factors which go toward making up what passes for a “diverse” are not indicative or predictive of what an individual brings to a group.

A person’s color does not determine his behavior, his values, or his abilities; to think it does reduces the individual to a stereotype and is essentially negatively prejudicial. A person’s ethnicity is not determinative of his behavior, values, or abilities, either. While some cultures and ethnicities carry differing values and mores, these are not constant across an entire ethnic population. Thus, while understanding a person’s cultural background may be beneficial for initial interpersonal understanding – or at least the reduction of misunderstanding – it does not predict an individual’s character.

Just as cultural background may give a broad-brush feel for a person’s general character, but not his specific character, so too can religion. To hear that a person belongs to a particular religion may provide an initial basis for interpersonal understanding, but is not the final word.

Income level, I think, is the least predictive of individual behaviors. Some may assume that because a person is poor, he will act in a certain way or that he has some special needs that others do not. Similarly, some may assume that an affluent person maintains attitudes about those less economically well off or that, because of his economic status, he necessarily “avoids” certain difficulties in life. None of these makes sense outside of stereotyping and assuming. Indeed, assumptions of these kinds may well lead to interpersonal misunderstanding and alienation.

As an alternative to the above mentioned criteria, it might well be better to call a “diverse” group one which brings a number of different, discrete abilities to a group.

This kind of diversity can easily been observed in team sports. One look at the starters on a professional (American) football team shows quite a range of simple physical diversity. Along with the differences in physique come different individual capabilities and limitations. There are, to be sure, diverse intellectual attitudes toward the game as well, the various positions requiring somewhat different attitudes and facilities. But what is more important is that these abilities and limitations, these attitudes and facilities, have found their niche in the team structure as dictated by the game itself. Given this working explanation of diversity, teams which most completely engender it have the greatest chance of success (though certainly not a guarantee – there are no guarantees in sports or, for that matter, in life).

Thus, it seems paradoxical that basing diversity off of what might be characterized as “natural” factors which one might use to judge diversity actually result in a synthetic, superficial kind of diversity. Conversely, what might be characterized “developed” factors tend to create meaningful diversity. The difficulty, it seems to me, lies in the reluctance to make judgments about individual character. It is far easier to set an arbitrary benchmark for “diversity” based on bubble-filled personal characteristics: race, ethnicity, religion, sex, income level, etc. It is far more difficult in today’s world to build a group based on “developed” factors – abilities, limitations, attitudes, facilities, values, etc. – without being accused of some sort of negative prejudice, the accusation usually coming in an ad hominem attack. However, changing our view of what makes a group diverse would do much to relieve our culture of much “victimhood” and would move us closer to realizing Martin Luther King Junior’s ideal of judging each other not based on the color of skin – or any other “natural” differentiating factor – but by the content of character.

A Comment Worth Considering – Keynes’ Long Run

2010-09-19T08:27:00.000-05:00

Reading F.A. Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit has proven to be a valuable use of time – especially considering the brevity of the work (a slim 140 pages). I find Hayek’s consideration of others’ words especially important and interesting. One quote that bears significance to our current economic (and cultural) situation comes from John Maynard Keynes, whose economic philosophy has been out into active practice recently and most pointedly since President Obama’s inauguration.

Keynes is said to have “justified some of his economic views, and his general belief in a management of the market order, on the ground that ‘in the long run we are all dead” (57). There are a couple of potential explications of Keynes’ proposition.

One is that if the short run is not taken care of – in an economic view, if Keynes’ prescription for spending is not followed – then the long run doesn’t matter, as economic ruin will surely follow. This take would have the public and those who set policy concentrate on short term stability, apparently with the assumption that continual short term stability would necessarily lead to long term stability.

Another, and one which Hayek puts forward, is that the long term is not even a consideration for Keynes. Or perhaps better put, if foreseeable consequences in the long term are either “beyond our possible perception” or indicate failure of the desired short term goals, then it is best to dispose of discussion of the long term altogether (57). After all, if we are indeed all dead in the long term, then we can – perhaps even should – adopt a carpe diem fiscal attitude; make the short term as comfortable as possible and ignore the wall which awaits in the long term. This sort of fatalistic thinking would be only academically interesting, instead of worrisome, if it weren’t being put into practice today.

As our federal government expands spending, entitlements, and bureaucratic growth in pursuit of proving Keynes’ economic theories can pull the nation out of its current recession, it is instructive that Keynes himself dismisses the long run. I suppose that dismissing the long run is forgivable if a theory remains on paper only; if it is not put into practice, it never encounters the long run. But since the Obama administration and the Democrat congress has decided to pursue Keynes’ theory in the short run – to the tune of trillions of dollars – we cannot dismiss the long term impacts of such spending. Given the performance of such spending in the short run, one can only imagine the deleterious effects of the accumulated debt in the long run.

Work Cited

Hayek, F.A. The Fatal Conceit. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1991. Print.

Mort Kondracke’s Wacko Litmus Test

2010-09-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

Tonight on Special Report, commentator Mort Kondracke made a stunning declaration that he has developed a “litmus test” (his words) to tell which Republican candidates backed by various Tea Party groups are “wackos” (again, his word). Mr. Kondracke says that if one of these candidates says that the Department of Education should be abolished, then that candidate is a “wacko”. Mr. Kondracke equates the term “wacko” with far-right wing extremists who are unworthy of holding office. Mr. Kondracke’s litmus test could not be more off base.

First, as Stephen Hayes noted on the same program, it would be worthwhile to have a discussion about how schools have performed under increasingly greater and greater interference – or direction, depending on one’s point of view – from the federal level. Mr. Kondracke claims that schools are horrible now, with the implication that the federal role should at least be maintained if not increased. But this is typical for supporters of big government; if something isn’t working, then the size and scope of federal intervention must be increased in order to “solve” whatever problem is perceived. The idea that government is the problem when it comes to education (to borrow a phrase from President Reagan) seems to never enter the mid of bog government types.

Mr. Kondracke’s point – that abolishing stacks of levels of federal administration is a “wacko” idea – suggests a counter to his litmus test. One might posit that any person who claims that government agencies and programs are entities which cannot, must not be reduced or eliminated is himself a “wacko” of a different sort – a big government sort (regardless of party affiliation). Attaching the “wacko” label, though, would be ad hominem, so it might be best left off.

What might be more productive than various litmus tests would be several analyses and debates about the real-world efficacy and constitutionality of the multitude of departments which have sprouted over time in the executive branch of the US government. Surely some of them are necessary (Defense, State come to mind immediately). Others invite debate. One thing is for sure: if the government is unable or unwilling to critically evaluate its various agencies and departments, it will one day grow so large as to crush itself from its own mass.

As an aside, I invite Mr. Kondracke to read J. Gresham Machen’s testimony regarding the proposed formation of the Department of Education, given in February of 1926. It is quite a read.

Restraining Our Appetites

2010-09-16T12:01:00.000-05:00

While reading F.A. Hayek’s The Fatal Conceit, I came across the following quote from Edmund Burke: "Men are qualified for civil liberties, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their appetites: in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity." What struck me about Burke’s words are not simply that there ought to be a link between liberty and responsibility, but rather the universality of the negative aspects within men, those things which must be controlled in order to live a good life.

That all men have within them some basic, fundamentally negative aspects – or perhaps better put, selfish aspects – is reflected in a quote from Bob Dylan. Dylan captures something that is essential to remember about the human condition: “Human nature really hasn’t changed in 3,000 years. … It’s not meant to change. It cannot change. It’s not made to change.” Thus, there are aspects of being human which simply cannot be avoided; they must rather be confronted. For Burke, appetites – those things that individuals crave – need to be constrained and redirected (if not conquered).

I mention all of this because it seems that our culture may be at a pivot point. We may, as a culture, embrace our appetites and allow for far greater government control of necessities (food, shelter, individual security, physical health, etc.). We may, however, commit to control over our individual selves; we may choose “to put moral chains on [our] appetites” so that we may exercise personal liberty. I for one choose the latter. At least that way, if I purposefully fail, I can easily find the person to blame.

Nihilism in Dostoevsky's Devils

2010-09-13T16:16:00.000-05:00

Nihilism is significant issue in Dostoevsky's Devils. It infects characters, especially younger characters, to a greater or lesser degree. It is captured in the character of Kirillov, a civil engineer and eventual suicide. He thinks his suicide is meaningful - indeed, the only meaningful suicide up to this point in histoy. What it represents is the physical manifestation of his own philosophy.

Kirillov comes to represent an excellent culmination of nihilistic thought and being. As an atheist, he does not believe in the actuality of God, though it may be reasoned that the idea of god is a very real thing for him. Indeed, the idea of god is so lofty, so different in kind from man that it will take a sort of "new man" to become in actuality what God is as an idea. This "new man" will not "care whether he lives or dies" and will "[conquer] fear and pain" as he "become[s] God." According to Kirillov's theory, this "new man" will usher in a whole new world; he will be his own revelation. All of this seems far too lofty and important, too meaningful for a nihilist to handle intellectually while maintaining his philosophical position. This is where Kirillov's theory takes a bizarre, yet in my opinion functional turn (121).

Kirillov concludes that the only thing he "can do to demonstrate in the highest degree [his] own independence and [his] terrifying new freedom" is to kill himself (694). For him, this is no idle threat or intellectual exercise; he really and truly means to do it. The need to negate one's self is, according to his own theory, the obligation of a "new man" and the pathway to opening a new world. What I find so consistent in how Kirillov wraps up his theory is that it plants him firmly in the same spot where his intellectual roots - nihilism - are. The word nihil, in Latin, literally means nothing. The flourishes about God, god, and "new men" are more romanticism than philosophy, more a peek at the human need of (and, I would argue, the natural necessity for) something more, something greater than itself. Since his atheism forces him to reject God, Kirillov must put a man - himself - in the place of God. Kirillov's nihilism, in turn, deals with the man. In the end, Kirillov's nihilism makes him the embodiment of nothing.

Work Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Devils. Trans. Michael R. Katz. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Remembering September 11th Through Poetry

2010-09-10T22:48:00.000-05:00

While there will undoubtedly be countless hours of television remembering the events which took place nine years ago, I urge folks to take a few minutes to read a poem. The poem is "The Names". It was written by Billy Collins, who, as poet laureate, was compelled to compose some sort of memorial piece. I for one am thankful for his circumstance; he composed a simple, elegant piece of poetry.

The poem can be found at several different sites, but I recommend checking out the PBS site (link here). At the top of the PBS link, there are options to watch or listen to Mr. Collins reading "The Names". Although at the time of writing the video link was broken, perhaps it will be fixed in the near future. In any case, please take the time to read the poem and remember.

Consistency of Argument – Can Versus Should

2010-09-07T20:42:00.000-05:00

In the dust-up over the building of the Ground Zero mosque, several political types supported – and continue to support – its construction based on the First Amendment’s assertion of freedom of religion. Politicians like New York City Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama make the argument that the government cannot refuse the right to build on the proposed location simply because some (or most) Americans (or New Yorkers) feel it should not be built there. These political types, we are told, are doing the hard work of upholding the Constitution against a formidable foe: public opinion, or the tyranny of the majority.

I hope that in the next few days, the very same politicians who ardently support the building of the Ground Zero mosque as an expression of freedom of religion will also and with equal vigor support the burning of Muslim holy books in Florida over this coming weekend. If, as we are told, what is legal and constitutionally allowable cannot be denied to a person, then these two actions – the expression of religious freedom and the expression of free speech – must be equally supported. To not do so is transparently disingenuous.

On the other hand, those in the majority of everyday folks say that the Ground Zero mosque can be built, but given the special circumstances of the location and its special history, should not be built. It’s a matter of judgment, not a matter of rights. It would not surprise me if those very same people also firmly believe that the yahoo who wants to burn Qurans has the right to do it but absolutely should not – it’s simply wrong. What’s more, this consistency of argument poses no issues of disingenuousness.

The Result of an Unexamined Life

2010-09-03T11:38:00.002-05:00

There are plenty of times when things happen which could not be predicted beforehand. Then there are times when evidence exists which can indicate the general path of things, like the future track of a tropical storm, for instance. Given such evidence, one should be able to guess roughly what may happen in the future. Such evidence was available with regard to the Obama presidency during the campaign. That so much of it was purposely ignored is directly related to how disillusioned much of the electorate is with his administration now .

One such piece of evidence is Mr. Obama's belief that wealth should be redistributed based on government policy. From the famous - or infamous - Joe the Plummer exchange, where then candidate Obama claimed that spreading the wealth around is the right thing to do, one might logically assume that he would pursue policies to do just that. For some reason, many chose to ignore candidate Obama's off teleprompter moment and bought his hope-and-change vagueness instead. That was a mistake.

Less than two years into the Obama presidency, the county has massive government intervention into virtually all corners of industry and life. Not only did we receive a 2,000+ page health insurance mandate bill, but Mr. Obama recess-appointed an avowed wealth-redistributor, Donald Berwick, to head Medicare. Money has been redistributed to car companies (GM and Chrysler) and to individuals to entice them to buy cars (cash for clunkers). Money has been redistributed to too-big-to-fail quasi-governmental loan agencies (Fannie and Freddy) and individual mortgage holders (mortgage modification). All of that money comes out of regular, responsible American pockets at some point - either now or in the future. While the specifics might not have been predictable, the general redistributional drift certainly was if the off-teleprompter words of then candidate Obama's had been taken as his worldview.

It could have also been foreseen that Mr. Obama would verbally twist and turn, sometimes almost painfully, to avoid taking a strong, public stance on matters. Mr. Obama's record of voting "present" while in the Illinois State House is well documented. It is therefore no surprise that he would punt the particulars of policy matters so that he does not have to be tied up in deciding the details. This is true for the "stimulus" and health insurance reform, where Mr. Obama left the details to Congress. A more direct instance is his lack-of-stance on the so called "Ground Zero mosque." Mr. Obama has said that it is legal for the building to be built - a point which is not disputed. But he now refuses to take a stand on the propriety of building it. What's more, the matter is too big and has too many players for him to simply have a "beer summit" so that he can elucidate parties in a teachable moment and move on. So he ducks. This kind of tendency was also predictable.

Lastly, there is the illusion that Mr. Obama would be a president for all of the people. Then candidate Obama said that he would be a post-partisan president, a post-racial president; he would bring a new politics to Washington and would work with all interested parties. He even promised that his administration would be the most transparent, that unprecedented access would be afforded to the electorate. But this was not meant to be. Whereas Mr. Obama's campaign rhetoric seemed pivot on an inclusive "we", his history - and now most especially his speeches - revolve around the first person singular, "I". Mr. Obama has turned out to be an unprecedentedly first person singular president. But once again, this was predictable. Any man who writes two autobiographies (or self-focused books) before turning fifty should be suspected of thinking far too much of himself.

Mr. Obama's redistributive urge, his avoidance of particulars, and his self-centeredness were all evident while he campaigned for the office he now holds. And this very short list is not exhaustive; there are more aspects - some much more incendiary - which were clearly evident as well. The point here, however, is that he was able to sell the electorate a bill of goods which were not backed up by the evidence, they were rather only backed up by his teleprompted words. While there is danger in pulling out the microscope on political candidates, where flaws will certainly be found and may be needlessly magnified, getting the general drift, the philosophical underpinning, of a candidate is vital. If the candidacy and early presidency of Mr. Obama can teach us anything about how we go about evaluating our politicians, it is that we should look at the whole man, not just the teleprompted, sculpted words that flow melodiously from his mouth.

Word Choice in Political Speech - Obama 31 August 2010

2010-09-01T06:42:00.000-05:00

During one of President Obama's departures from what was supposed to be the central issue of his address on 31 August, he spoke directly to the issue of education. I admit that I'm a stickler for words, especially in a prepared speech such as this. With that in mind, I have a problem with one statement in particular. Mr. Obama claimed, "To strengthen our middle class, we must give all our children the education they deserve, and all our workers the skills that they need to compete in a global economy."

The first problem I have is the idea that education is something which is given. This is absolutely not the case. An education is something that must be worked for. An education is not something which can be wrapped up and given like a present, like some gift. The Latin verb discere - which means "to learn" - does not have a passive form; it can only be an active verb. This may seem to be a minor point, but it is important nonetheless. Mr. Obama's coupling of education with the action of giving indicates a belief in a passive learner, one who can be molded as the teacher sees fit. It is a belief that does not meet reality. One may offer an education; it is the business of the student - be he a kindergartener or someone retraining for a new job - to grab and internalize that education. It cannot simply be injected; education has to be personally ingested, which is an activity of the learner, not the teacher.

The second problem is Mr. Obama's use of the pronoun "we" in this statement. One must guess who exactly he means, as the antecedent is not clear given the full context of the speech. If one looks back several paragraphs, one might deduce that Mr. Obama means all Americans - the "big" we. However, given the lack of a clear antecedent, he may mean the government. Or he may mean his administration and the various agencies within the executive branch. If either of the last two is the case - and I believe it is - then it is clear that Mr. Obama sees the federal government is the "giver" of education. This would be consistent with what appears to be his view of the role of government - centralized control should be exercised over as much as possible because, in the end, the government knows how to cure social problems. I strongly disagree with this view of the role of government.

An Interpretation of Beck's Reclamation

2010-08-31T16:26:00.000-05:00

The rally organized by Glenn Beck on 28 August 2010 is bound to be a political football for some time regardless of the lack of politics involved in the rally itself. And while the political impact of the rally may be contested, I think the roots of Beck's appeal has two major components.

First is the assertion that American social life - that is, life outside of the private realm of the individual or the family - is a subject which is within the intellectual grasp of everyday Americans. As it stands, "experts" would have us (the American public at large) believe that society is immeasurably complex, with so many subpopulations and comprised of innumerable racial, sexual, religious, and other identities, that the everyday person cannot navigate properly through everyday life without their "expert" direction. But this purposeful atomization of society can be defeated through individual application of Martin Luther King Junior's theme statement that we should judge people based on "the content of their character." Governmental agencies and "experts" need not inform the populace what this means; it is accessible to everyone.

Second is the declaration (or re-declaration) that Judeo-Christian ethics represent the core values of the country and, moreover, that Judeo-Christian ethics can be embraced in civil society by all citizens. This point informs the previous point. If we are to judge others on "the content of their character," then there must be some basis of good and bad, of right and wrong. Some "experts" would have us believe that culture, race, economic situation, sex, or any of a litany of other "factors" influences right and wrong. In their view, acceptable behavior - and even excellence of character - depends on one or more of these factors. What is more, assuming that there is an objective interpretation of right and wrong is a violation of multiculturalism. On the other hand, basing a society's concept of what is right and what is wrong, what should and should not be done, on Judeo-Christian ethics is far more egalitarian than the "expert's" way. It is so because it is not a moving bar; it judges all equally based on one set of ethics. Furthermore, it emancipates individuals from the box of whatever "factor" group he has been funneled into. He is his own man - a dangerous idea indeed for those "experts" who wish to fragment people into easily definable groups.

Every January, I have taught MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech; my students and I have analyzed the ideas that he put forward in that speech. The idea that men should, indeed must, be judged "by the content of their character" is, in my opinion, the most dangerous idea in the speech. It is dangerous because it requires us to judge others based not on any preconceived ideas about the person but rather on their words and deeds. In doing so, we must develop within ourselves a strong understanding of what is right and wrong, what should and what should not be done - along with a recognition that each one of us will always remain imperfect, will always be deepening our understanding. This is a real-world understanding and application of social interaction. The world of the "expert" would reduce man to a machine-level predictability under their guidance and tutelage - a very unreal world.

The Rich Calling Out the Rich; Pot, Meet Kettle

2010-07-29T18:28:00.000-05:00

Hardly a week goes by without some elected (or appointed) government official claiming that the rich are getting over in America, that the rich need to pay “their fair share” (according to Mrs. Clinton), that the rich are to blame for the economic woes of America (and, indeed, the world). But there is something which must be kept in mind when this flavor of demonization comes to pass: many, most, if not all of those who make such claims about the “rich” are indeed “rich” themselves.

Take Mrs. Clinton for example. Her and her husband earned more than $100 million in the period between 2000 and 2006, with after-tax earnings of about $57 million, according to an old Chicago Sun-Times article. Would Mrs. Clinton say that paying nearly half of her family’s income in taxes is not enough? Would she willingly and without provocation pay more? If her conviction is that the “rich” should pay more, surely an upstanding woman such as herself should lead by example.

Speaker Pelosi and her husband are also quite wealthy, according to the Washington Times. Between land and stocks, their wealth reaches into the tens of millions of dollars. And yet Mrs. Pelosi has repeatedly worked and called for tax increases on the “rich.” What there should be no doubt about is the fact that she and her husband are members of the very club that she – as Mrs. Clinton – claim must do “their fair share.”

The same Washington Post article lists Senator Reid’s wealth at about one million dollars – a relative lightweight among the tax-raising crowd. And yet he too would fall into the “rich” category under the squishy definition which the Obama administration employs.

One must ask, therefore, what are these politicians attempting to do? A few things to consider seem fairly straight-forward to me:

1) Tax-and-spend politicians of any political stripe feel free to raise taxes in part because the personal benefit outstrips whatever personal cost – in this case, loss of capital – might come about. Thus, at least as much would come into their pocket as they would have to pay out due to higher tax rates.

2) Politicians of any political stripe who point the “they’re rich” finger at someone else are confident that they themselves will not be judged as “rich” by the electorate. The politician merely directs the eye of the electorate at those to be demonized (e.g. auto executive, investment bankers, oil company chiefs, etc.) thereby diverting attention from themselves. Any corollary action taken by the politician can then be categorized as “protecting” the electorate from the “rich”; the politician can therefore proceed as in the previous point.

3) There is power in money and there is money in power; politicians of any political stripe who are keen to enlarge their command of both realms are dangerous. And here, I don’t mean conspiracy-theory control – I mean real control. When Congress spews out 2,000+ page laws regulating this or that major economic activity, it gains for the federal government both power and money, power being the more precious of the two. The federal government can (and does) print more money.

So the next time you hear a politician – again, of any party affiliation – bleat on and on about the rich, the greedy, the ambitious, remember to consider just how rich, greedy, and ambitious the source is. Because while the kettle may indeed be black (it is not my purpose here to discuss that), there is no virtue or validity in the pot calling it such. Indeed, there’s something in the pot which – at that point in time – surely demands examination.

The Change Mantra – The Risk of Removing National Character

2010-07-14T10:43:00.000-05:00

Today in the New York Observer, an opinion piece by Joe Conason warns that voters ought to think twice (or thrice…or as many times at it takes) about voting for conservatives "because what they get may well be very different from what they actually want." Voters, he claims, must "be careful when they demand change." He then goes on to put forward his argument against current conservative candidates, which is all fine and good.

This mantra – beware of change; it may not be the change you want – is only convenient to liberals at the moment. Like all liberal arguments, it will be put back into the doublethink basement once its utility is gone, only to be resurrected immediately as needed.

The lure of "change" as a political hook has not only been employed in American politics; it was also the driving force behind the election of Labor Prime Minister Rudd in Australia. As I wrote back in 2007 – I was living and working in Australia at the time – it seemed that a majority of Australians got tired of seeing the same face as head of government, hearing the same message, voting for the same man (or party). The result was, then, change for the sake of change. Mr. Rudd came into power and change was inevitable.

Three years hence, for all intents and purposes, Australians are wary of the change which has taken place and perhaps even alarmed at the logical end to such change. One aspect of "change" which appears to have alarmed Australians (based on opinion pieces from Australia and America) is immigration. Julia Gillard, the lady who replaced Mr. Rudd as Prime Minister, has turned away from his less restrictive immigration policies because she sees a valid "concern that large-scale immigration and multiculturalism are threatening Australia's core values and identity." In order to keep Australia Australian, Ms. Gillard apparently understands the need to turn away from the "change" instituted by Rudd, as it amounts to removing Australia's national identity. It remains to be seen if Ms. Gillard will also shift away from Mr. Rudd's "climate change" initiatives; decisions have been put on the back-burner until after elections. But one may suppose that if climate change policies threaten to alter the national character of Australia, the electorate will reject them in the long term. Change for the sake of change, it seems, has a rather sour aftertaste.

In America, belief in "change" seems to be fading as well. Eighteen months into the Obama administration, the meaning of Mr. Obama's version of change has come fully into focus: epic-length legislative packages framed as "reform", astronomical debt levels, "emergency" spending sprees, and an arguably more divided population. Change means not understanding what impact legislation will have until long after it has passed – Speaker Pelosi said that the "health insurance reform bill" would have to be passed before we could find out what was in it; no one knows what rules will come as a result of the "financial reform" bill. Debt levels and the federal government's addition to spending (under both parties) go hand-in-hand. The unification of races and classes which was promised during Mr. Obama's campaign has turned into demonization of various groups – banks, car companies, oil companies, insurance companies, tea partiers, gun-owners, and so on. The recent spate of race-related news stories is further evidence of explosion of divisive speech, speech which lacks substance and therefore relies on simple differences to categorize as "good" and "bad". Divisive speech has created a balkanization based on race, income, and profession.

Getting back to Mr. Conason's point, understanding what "change" means for the future of a country, any country, is a very important aspect for the electorate to consider. America has now had a hefty drink of Mr. Obama's version of change. I would argue that the growth of government and the population's dependence on government, the growth of national debt, and the growing divisions within have made America less American. If the path our country is on is indeed taking away from our national character, a change is indeed needed.

Arendt and the Necessity of the Transcendent

2010-06-25T14:29:00.000-05:00

In her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt traces the emergence of totalitarian regimes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. she discusses the implication of making man the source of the rights of men and suggests the real implications of disconnecting rights and the rule of law with some thing (purposefully written as two words) above and different in kind to man as one of the final steps on the road toward totalitarianism. She writes: "A conception of law which identifies what is right with the notion of what is good for - for the individual, or the family, or the people, or the largest number - becomes inevitable once the absolute and transcendent measurements of religion or the law of nature have lost their authority."

Some form of "religion or the law of nature" is necessary in the formulation of rights and responsibilities, and these must also necessarily be "transcendent" as well. If, in the final analysis, man is accountable to that which is beyond his full comprehension, then man must accept rights and responsibilities as they are. These rights and responsibilities simply are. They are beyond man to change. And while their source is ultimately incomprehensible to man - knowing the mind of God or the source of nature is beyond man's capabilities - the rights and responsibilities are nearly tangible and immutable. The stability of such laws are preferable to what inevitably occurs once man allows himself to shirk the divine and distribute rights and responsibilities as he chooses. As Arendt concludes:

"For it is quite conceivable, and even within the realm of practical political possibilities, that one fine day a highly organized and mechanized humanity will conclude quite democratically - namely by majority decision - that for humanity as a whole it would be better to liquidate certain parts thereof. Here, in the problems of factual reality, we are confronted with one of the oldest perplexities of political philosophy, which could remain undetected only so long as a stable Christian theology provided the framework for all political and philosophical problems, but which long ago caused Plato to say: 'Not man, but a god, must be the measure of all things.'"

Arendt's assertion that the final arbiter of human matters must have as its source that which transcends man - which is different in kind and which is as opposed to which is created by man - is just as important, indeed vital, today as when The Origins of Totalitarianism was first published in 1951. If man as a political entity is only answerable to himself, if man is the source of all law and all rights, then what passes for rights - even what Arendt calls "the right to have rights" - is arbitrary. Rights and responsibilities become fully mutable depending on what is needed at the particular moment by the designated giver of rights, be that one person or a political body.

There is plenty of evidence today that once the distribution of rights and responsibilities becomes the tool of whomever is power, all certainty is put into jeopardy. It is, at the moment, paradoxical that the US government is creating vast amounts of individual and communal uncertainty at the same time that it institutes policies which are supposed to ensure individual security. Car companies - sources of pollution and horrendous debt liabilities - are demonized, bailed-out, and taken over by the granters of rights in Washington. This is done supposedly to save jobs, the environment, the economical viability of the country. What is consumed by those in power thus is transmuted - it becomes a "good". The health care industry is demonized as well, while government bureaucrats craft the specifications of a "reform" law which will result in (at the very least) a stranglehold on health care nationwide, thereby internalizing it and transmuting it as well. This "reform" is deemed not only good for the every individual in the nation, but for the fiscal health of country as well. Banks have been demonized as well, and bailed out, and reformed (with the notable exceptions of semi-federal entities). These are piled on top of retirement assurance and insulation against all natural catastrophes - one a Ponzi scheme and the other an infantilizing fantasy.

The shift away from personal responsibility and toward government surety, which also becomes the grantor of rights, is sold to be a net good - good for the "little guy", whom the government claims to look out for; good for main street, which is supposedly always the target of Wall Street. Government, after all, can assure equality and evenness - even if it cannot ensure either in reality. The right to health insurance, the right to inviolable economic security, the right to never be inconvenienced by disaster - these instruments are results of man-generated rights and therefore cannot end in surety.

For just as the government of man by man-as-grantor-of-rights begins its headlong lurch forward in the US, it is clearly evident that the push is bankrupt - ideologically as well as economically. The country cannot afford, in a strict sense of dollars, what the government supposes it can accomplish though its programs. The country cannot ideologically afford what the government has instituted; the electorate cannot survive as a lively, innovative body if it simultaneously rejects higher law for the seemingly sure yet ephemeral rights as granted and guaranteed by man. What remains to be seen is if this push has already hidden the transcendent from the electorate so completely that it has nothing left to turn to but what it has before it now: man-as-grantor-of-rights, man-as-god.

Do Not Follow the Bright, Shiny Thing

2010-06-18T12:10:00.000-05:00

My mother sent me an email regarding President Obama’s speech on Tuesday and distractions. The lack of specificity in the president’s speech was there, perhaps, specifically to get attention away from the Gulf of Mexico and on to the next big thing. His presidency, after all, is founded a series of big things. Aberrations like the oil spill simply get in the way; they must be dealt with – at least rhetorically – quickly lest they grab too much attention. Thus the attempts to paper over the spill with a few presidential “I pledge to you” statements. If he promises to take care of it, then we can all get on to the next big thing.

In this fast-paced political environment, with all its moving and shaking, its hope and change, it would do us well to slow down and take stock of where the fundamental changes, where the big spending has taken us.

Evidence that the health insurance “reform” bill – I mean, law – will result in higher costs and fewer choices. It appears that if you change health insurance providers or if your provider changes your plan, you’ll be subject to the new legislation. So much for keeping your health insurance. Indeed, one report claims that 51% of workers will not be “grandfathered” under new regulations. What is more, according to the New York Daily News, “Obamacare is already proving costly to American businesses.” The article also reinforces the point that employees may well lose their current health insurance benefits because of the “reform”.

But that hurdle, that change is in the past for Mr. Obama. Health care reform has been achieved. He would have all of us focus on the next thing instead of taking a good, hard, analytical look at what this “reform” really has “achieved”.

To look further back, there is the stimulus. Mr. Obama claimed at the time of its passage that it would hold unemployment to 8%. Unemployment has hovered around 10% for some time now with few signs of abating – despite the amazing addition of hundreds of thousands of (temporary) census jobs. If one adds underemployed and those who have stopped looking for work, the unemployment rate (called the U-6 by the Labor Department) jumps to 16.6%.

But that spending – somewhere in the stratospheric neighborhood of $1 trillion – is still going on, jobs are still being created and saved, the administration would have us believe. And after all, Mr. Obama would most certainly add, the economy was an inherited problem. He is just trying to “clean up” someone else’s “mess”. Never mind Mr. Obama’s tenure in the Senate from 2005 – 2008. He would have us focus on Mr. Biden’s claims regarding jobs.

Health insurance reform and the stimulus are only the big, big things that Mr. Obama would have the public pay no close, analytical attention to. (Funny that an intellectual like Mr. Obama would not want intellectual examination of his initiatives; it speaks volumes.) Is anyone discussing the administration’s offering of jobs to politicians in exchange for dropping out of primary races? Will there be any response to Mr. Greenspan’s warning that the U.S. will soon hit a borrowing ceiling? Is there any urgency on the matter of passing a budget, which Congress still has not done (which is a pretty fundamental requirement of the government)? Or the vast number of foreign policy issues at the moment – from Iran to Afghanistan to Gaza? Will there be any explanation how Mr. Obama’s spending policies differ from those practiced in Europe which are crushing European economies?

No. Mr. Obama would have us all focus on the bright, shiny thing that he puts before us. On Tuesday, pie-in-the-sky renewable energy took its place as the bright, shiny thing. Mr. Obama wants the populace to focus on it – and never mind the men and women behind the curtain pulling the levers.

Future Power Issue: Green Out?

2010-06-17T10:18:00.000-05:00

It’s not often that I hear a new phrase and think out loud, “Now that would make sense.” While having an end-of-class discussion, a student asked what a brown out was. I explained as best I could; I’ve not had to suffer through one of them that I know of. While we were having that discussion, I heard, or thought I heard, a student mention a “green out” and it made pretty good sense at the time. Perhaps it will, unfortunately, in the future as well.

A green out, as I see it, would occur when a locality (or a state, or a nation) chooses to turn away in large from coal and gas in favor of “green” power sources, which are renewable. However, the urge to be green, to use mostly or exclusively renewable energy sources like wind and solar, hits a brick wall when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. These sources, barring serious battery backup, don’t have the constancy that coal, gas, and nuclear do. Thus, when the power goes out because of the inherent limitations of renewable energy sources, there would be a “green out.’ Like a brown out or a black out, but at least one might feel better that the whole process costs less in green guilt.

At the moment, the idea of a green out seems far-fetched. Surely the highly integrated power grid of the US would allow for even the most “environmentally conscious” of communities to avoid the real-world intrusion of a green out. Well, maybe. (Transferring electrical power over a line is not like sending an email over the internet.) And it may be that sentiments of green guilt would be waylaid by serious contemplation of a life without constant power. Life without instant rechargability of phones and laptops might cause more than a little discomfort to all, including those who demonize the use of fossil fuels. Maybe.

But as hysteria and finger pointing regarding the BP deepwater drilling accident mount, there is sure to be more lurching toward renewable sources regardless of the readiness of those technologies. Renewable sources are not ready, and the only technology which might realistically replace the burning of coal is the use of nuclear – a bogeyman of environmentalists in its own special way. So, it may be that the term “green out” is something to put in the back of the mind for later use.

My Thoughts on the Oil Spill Speech

2010-06-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

I suppose that President Obama’s speech from the Oval Office last night was not “the” oil spill speech. But it was supposed to be something important. Two things caught my attention during the speech.

The first thing that caught my attention was Mr. Obama’s continual demonization of BP. Because BP is the easy target here – and is almost certainly at least partially at fault for the spill – Mr. Obama appears to believe that BP can be used as a political punching bag while still counting on them to actually cap the well. Perhaps the academic in Mr. Obama does not fully grasp that the more he publically flogs BP, the more money he “asks” BP to preemptively put in an escrow fund, the less BP is able to focus on capping the well. The administration needs a punching dummy, though, and BP fits the bill in a populist manner quite well.

Secondly, when Mr. Obama calls for a revolution in the energy sector, his inability to be specific is truly scary. Indeed, Mr. Obama clearly stated that he does not “yet know precisely how to get there.” What’s more, Mr. Obama gave no signal where “there” is; it is some strange vision of magical energy production which creates no pollution and makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside. He likened this energy push of his to the charge President Kennedy made for landing on the moon. But there is a key difference between the two: landing on the moon is a tangible, measureable goal; finding the answer to our energy dilemma is vague at best. And yet this completely vague goal will have its costs. Senator Lieberman said it would be about one dollar per person per day. Don’t believe it. Like the imaginary reform of health care, that one dollar figure will balloon once, as Speaker Pelosi once said, they pass the bill and we find out what’s in it. It will be a money-sucking boondoggle.

But that seems to be the modus operandi of this administration and their cohort in Congress. More drastic reforms are demanded – a crisis must never go to waste. More voluminous legislative steps are taken resulting in more money being sucked out of private circulation (in the form of higher taxes or deficit spending). As the central government “reforms” aspects of our society, each of its citizens enjoys less individual liberty. Wash, rinse, repeat. This cycle has repeated too many times in the last eighteen months for it to be an accident. I am not saying that our current political “leaders” are purposefully out to ruin the country; I am saying that the end result of their “leadership” methods will indeed result in the ruining of the country.

Lessons from the Oil Spill - Potential and Otherwise

2010-06-15T07:52:00.000-05:00

Recently, President Obama claimed that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is akin to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. What is implied in the comparison has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or fault. What the comparison attempts to do is give magnitude for change which the president wants to impose. He believes that “this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.” When disaster strikes, we shape how we think about matters based on valid lessons learned.

While I’m not an oil expert – far from it – is seems like a valid lesson which might be learned is that the deeper we go to drill, the more difficult everything becomes. Water is heavy, and once one gets a mile down, it is really heavy. Even if there isn’t a problem, everything is difficult a mile down. Thus, if we are able to drill in shallower waters, we ought to.

Additionally, if we are able to drill for oil on land, we should. It is obviously easier to control and contain an accident of this type if it occurs on terra firma. While I may be mistaken, I am willing to bet that there are a fair number of spots fit for drilling within the coastal boarders which are barred from use by the federal government. Re-examining and reducing federal limitations is something we ought to do.

Finally, if forced to drill miles off-shore and a mile or more under the surface, then clearly delineated responsibilities for containment and cleanup must be established and adhered to. At the moment, who is in charge of what and who is responsible for what is more than a little fuzzy – and may change depending on the political spin deemed necessary at a given time. This is not the way to prepare for and execute an emergency response.

What President Obama tells the nation tonight in his speech about the oil spill will probably contain none of these points. Instead, he’ll talk about things that are being done (the six-month moratorium on drilling), he’ll pay no attention to things which aren’t being done (or haven’t been done – sand barriers off the coast of Louisiana come to mind), and probably make a push for an energy plan, which in reality means “cap and trade”. While it may come off as politically expedient, the speech tonight will not, I believe, show Mr. Obama to be a leader. He is, in the end, a community organizer, and the oil spill gives him an excuse to push his next money-wasting social program: squeezing tax dollars out of the country under the auspices of renewable, “green” energy. For Mr. Obama, the spill is a crisis which simply cannot go to waste. After all, he may have a Democrat-run Congress for only a few more months.

A Good Week to be a Blackhawks Fan

2010-06-11T14:13:00.000-05:00

After 49 years of futility and less than three years since Rocky Wirtz ascended to power, the Chicago Blackhawks have captured Lord Stanley’s Cup. While some may see this team as a team of destiny and others may see them as fortunate to have won, I’ll opt to choose neither. Buying into destiny may allow one to shrug the daily grind; after all, if something is fated it does not have to be worked for, one might reason. Saying that the team was fortunate suggests that luck was the primary operator. While the hockey gods certainly smiled on the team, the grit and determination on display in Game Five of the Final is a testament to how hard work creates luck. For example, Pronger was not made less effective by luck but rather by solid, fearless hits. The “luck” resulting from working hard against Pronger was his taking penalties at key moments – and making the Flyers pay for them.

I rather see this great win as a testament, as you might have guessed, to perseverance and dedication. Denis Savard asked his troops in January 2008 to “commit to the Indian,” a reference to the famous Blackhawks’ logo. And even after being relieved from his coaching duty, Savard is still committed; evidence his continual presence as a Blackhawks ambassador. Pat Foley, the voice of the Blackhawks for as long as I can remember, is another shining example of dedication. Though he was asked to step aside for a time, no one doubted that he would be back under Rocky Wirtz’s leadership. Even long-since-departed ‘Hawks felt the pull of this great victory. Jeremy Roenick, a member of the 1992 team which was swept in the Final by the Penguins, nearly broke into tears in the aftermath of Kane’s goal. In that one moment, with that culminating goal, it was as if every Blackhawk, past as well as present, had won the Cup. In an interview after the game, it was clear that the great Bobby Hull, the Golden Jet, had himself shed tears.

Thankfully, the victory is shared by Blackhawk fans everywhere. For those of us who have followed the team though the good, the bad, and the ugly, Kane’s goal may have been a moment of sickening hesitation, the desire to celebrate coupled with the fear of hearing “No goal.” We fans have, after all, felt just about every emotion a fan may feel. I, for one, felt great release once the goal was official, once the match was decided. Perhaps I’m a little odd, but I did not jump and shout and such; I simply stood, smiled, and took it all in. My disbelief, charged with recognition, became intense gratitude for the sacrifice of the players and coaches. They may never know what this victory means to each life-long fan, what they have provided for all of those fans who committed long ago to the Indian. But they certainly felt the magnitude of their win at the intersection of Michigan and Wacker today. A heartfelt thanks from afar to the team and the organization from Blackhawks fans everywhere.

A Better Bailout for Schools

2010-06-09T14:11:00.000-05:00

In the last few weeks, Congress has quietly dropped a proposed $23 billion bailout for public schools, which would have been a second round of bailouts, the stimulus being the first. Funny thing about these bailouts is that they need to be repeated; they only paper over the problem of too few dollars chasing too many requirements. As a teacher, I hope that instead of pumping more money into the public education hole, governments, state and federal, will instead reduce the number and scope of mandated programs devised ostensibly to assist individual students, but which in practice seem to only create paper trails and bureaucracy.

Some requirements are no more than bureaucratically driven time-suckers. The reams of paper generated each year in an attempt to document that students are indeed being helped drains significant time and resources (not the least of which is money) from the actual helping. If the real goal is to help students achieve to the utmost of their ability, there are other ways to monitor student progress and teacher measures taken to ensure such. But what seems to be the goal is living up to the law – namely IDEA and Section 504 – which requires mounds of paperwork and a number of committee meetings. And, as you might guess, more and more legal expertise as opposed to teaching expertise. Everything must be documented, sometimes on forms so cryptic that even experienced administrators get glassy-eyed examining them.

I am not suggesting that students covered by IDEA and Section 504 should not be handled specially – though I might suggest consideration of the alarming position that all children must be taught the same things to the same level. What I am suggesting is that in pursuit of avoiding lawsuits, the educational train has jumped the rails. Money, time, and effort are being poured out in pursuit of…equality of outcome? Or is it documentation thereof? Or is it documentation of attempts to achieve equality of outcome?

What I am sure of is that in many places throughout the country, students of all ability levels would be better served if local communities had the responsibility and flexibility to educate their students as their citizens decided. Education is a local matter. Indeed, the more educational success is stressed by locals, the more I believe it would be valued by students of all ability levels. On the other hand, as Dennis Prager has said, “The bigger the government, the smaller the individual.” As state governments and the federal government relieve localities of control, education becomes more legalistic, less of a community binder, and less valued by the individual, who sees education as an entitlement instead of as a goal. The nation hardly needs another $23 billion to further enmesh federal bureaucracy in what should be a local matter; it needs to save the billions wasted to keep federal and state bureaucracies happy.

“So I Know Whose Ass to Kick”

2010-06-08T06:45:00.001-05:00

I thought the headline on Drudge – video through Real Clear Politics – of our president uttering the words “so I know whose ass to kick” was a joke. Surely this president would not utter something like this, which sounds more “cowboy” than the previous president’s statements regarding terrorists and terrorist-supporting nations. But he surely did.

Somehow, I do not think that I want our president directly targeting any company; it’s not his place. In a country still governed by laws, none of which contain a presidential butt-whipping clause, there are plenty of legal methods to ensure that BP and other parties pay monetary damages for any negligence or neglect. That time will come; there are more pressing concerns about a mile below the surface at the moment. The president’s desire to take matters into his own hands, or his own foot as the case may be, is a sign of the arbitrary nature of executive butt-kicking power. BP gets the foot; GM gets bought-out; Fannie Mae gets paid. Such are the proclivities of presidential power.

A more important question, perhaps, is where might be a more appropriate place for the president to focus his attention. Granted, the BP rig explosion and resulting spill is huge and will have a devastating impact. There are other matters which only the executive branch under his leadership can and should deal with. Iran comes immediately to mind. North Korea as well. These countries did not have their status as opponents dropped onto them through some mix of natural circumstance and potential negligence; each country purposely chose its position as a nation in conflict with our own. But those fights, metaphorical or otherwise, are difficult. Putting a butt-whipping on BP is not; it is an exceedingly easy thing for the executive.

One wonders if Mr. Obama understands that by letting countries like Iran and North Korea do as they will, he is creating an extremely unstable condition internationally. One may also wonder if he understands the ultimate effect of the government’s continual demonizing of businesses (and therefore of people) within the United States will be the internal weakening of the very country he is supposed to defend.

Mr. Mahoney and Spelling Rules

2010-06-05T18:01:00.000-05:00

On Fox News today is an article concerning protestors at the National Spelling Bee. In an effort to make the world more comfortable for themselves and boost the spelling self esteem of others, the protestors want to “simplify” spelling by making all spellings semi-phonetic. From the article:

“According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for "fruit" to be spelled as "froot," ''slow" should be "slo," and "heifer" — a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta — should be "hefer."”

Clearly the idea here – though I am only guessing at the motives of Mr. Mahoney and his fellow protestors – is to liberate the masses from the tyranny of formalized language. It is a limiting factor, a repressive construct from which some unknown number of humans must be freed. One may imagine just how many new, exciting ideas would come from the mass of humans suddenly unshackled from the constraints of formal spelling. Or, at least freed from the rules as they are now. Mr. Mahoney might be compelled to come up with his own dictionary. I would, too; you might, as well.

His idea of “new” spellings is semi-phonetic because one may clearly argue that if words are to be spelled purely phonetically, then individuals who pronounce words differently or communities which speak different dialects may well spell words differently. If Mr. Mahoney and his ilk think that spellings are confusing now, he might attempt to consider the social implications of many different spellings across the union. How would a Texan read the words of a Bostonian?

This strange utopian dream – the decimation of formal spelling rules – is truly more senseless than it may seem at first. Surely the purpose of a shared language, both spoken and written, has much more to do with community, not individuality. And even if Mr. Mahoney’s ultimate concern is the voice of the individual, he must surely understand that ideas and language go hand-in-hand. One does not matter without the other. If, as Mr. Mahoney suggests, I have my “own dictionary,” then I might as well share my ideas with myself only. If I share my personal dictionary with a few others, my ideas may matter, but only in my small circle. It would seem that the logical result of Mr. Mahoney’s vision would be a segregation of individuals on the basis of self-styled language, a limiting of dissemination of ideas, and a creation of disunity where there is now at least some unity through shared language.

As a final note, it may be worth considering how often “liberating” individuals from social rules, most notably those rules which bind a community together, tend to isolate individuals and divide communities.

Teaching Values (Whenever Opportunity Knocks)

2010-04-10T21:05:00.003-05:00

A few days ago, one of my classes got on the subject of “end of the world” scenarios. It was the result of discussing the end of Fahrenheit 451 – one of the novels I had students read this spring. Teaching literature is a wonderful thing because there are many times where I have no idea where the conversation will lead. Two interesting topics came up: why people find end of times scenarios so engrossing and choosing between common values and material goods.

The end of Fahrenheit 451 is somewhat apocalyptic; the society is ruined by a massive attack – one would assume that the other side was as well – and the main character, Montag, and his newfound friends move to help pick up the pieces. This discussion brought up the theory, and the movie, regarding 2012. Students noted that like the Fahrenheit 451 scenario, it was not the end of the world in the movie. It was more of a starting over “from scratch.” I put that in quotes because there really is no chance that such a thing could happen. We always have memory, history, and mores to pull our past into our present, to project our present into our future.

And yet, it seems a frequent human desire to “start from scratch,” to happen upon or create a societal tabula rasa. Perhaps it happens when there is anxiety about the future, when folks aren’t quite sure in which way history is taking them and their culture. Perhaps it happens when there is a loss of hope or a feeling of certainty of rough times ahead. The students and I talked about these things and it lead directly to the second topic.

One student commented, in response to this discussion, that the outside world could be wiped clean, so to speak, as long as luxuries that ensure personal comfort were not affected. While this is a very teenager thing to say, I posed a somewhat unfair question, but for a purpose. I asked if the student had to choose between a “destroyed” society keeping their material comforts or a common set of social values – in our case, American values: liberty, e pluribus unum, in God we trust – which would the student choose. The student chose material comforts. I thought it would go that way. So I closed off the discussion by making the point that a society with only shared material comforts will most likely lose those. However, a society whose people have shared values such as our American values can, over time, create material comforts (as well as provide security and foster community). This is a point which young folks may forget; indeed, may forget often. But adults must always remember and teach, and remember and teach.

Easter and the Necessity of the Divine

2010-04-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

It seems to me that a human being needs some thing greater than himself; there is a necessity for hierarchy. Human beings must have some thing above them, guiding them, in order to not be subject to dawdling apathy. When a human being rejects God – that which is wholly different in kind and greater than man – he must replace the divine with some thing. The rejection of God demands a replacement.

At best, this replacement could be something relatively superior – not benevolent – which is beyond man’s ability to fully comprehend and which cannot be bargained with. (Though clearly what would be missing is any positive component; chance or fate or nature might be one’s guide, but none of them compels one to act with kindness or demands gratitude.) Worse, the replacement could be another man, an elevation of one above the rest, making him viewed as somehow different in kind than other human beings. Still worse, the self could replace the divine – a wicked bit of Orwellian doublethink wherein the self is greater than and different in kind to the self. Nothing appears to me more hellish than a multitude of humanity, each of which is a monotheist worshipping himself; a heard of finite, little gods.

I am thankful for the life, the opportunities, and the limitations which God has given me. I am thankful for his forgiveness, which is celebrated on this day. And I am thankful that I am not more than what he made me; that I may practice – fail and succeed – and attempt to live well while under God’s watch.

Ortega and Granting Inalienable Material Rights

2010-04-03T10:12:00.000-05:00

While considering the current legislative road America is travelling down, and indeed has been travelling down for some time, I happened to begin reading Jose Ortega y Gasset’s The Revolt of the Masses. While he was writing about the early twentieth century, I have found myself underlining a number of passages which make the leap from that century to this. Not surprising, as human nature – regardless of what some would have us believe – does not change from one century to the next, only the guise of its interaction with the world around it.

So, with regard to the current expansion of enumerated “rights” in the United States, I highlighted the following from Ortega:

“The world is a civilised one, its inhabitant is not: he does not see the civilisation of the world around him, but he uses it as if it were a natural force. The new man wants his motor-car, and enjoys it, but he believes that it is the spontaneous fruit of an Edenic tree.”

It would seem that our “new man” (as Ortega might refer to him) wants what is his due, what he is told are his material rights, and cares not where they come from, who id demonized to get them, or what may be wrecked so as to sustain them. The short-term Eden of material rights, like those found in health care insurance reform or forgiveness from home and student loans, are to be his. It is as if life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were not the only inalienable rights; along with them would be health, home, food (as long as it is government approved), and risk-free life as his birthright. Where these expanded, inflated rights come from are of little concern to him, and the cost of their maintenance never occurs to him.

But what is even more worrisome to me about this is that our “new man” is that he seems to not question, let alone lose sleep over, under whose authority these new rights come from. And in his not doing so loses understanding of where his true inalienable rights, as delineated in the Declaration of Independence, actually come from. Thus, if government is in the business of handing out new rights, it may be accepted by the unquestioning “new man” that it was government which granted inalienable rights as well. Or perhaps worse, he begins to consider new material rights as inalienable. And worse still by extension, that man confers inalienable rights upon man. Consequently, man himself becomes the highest authority, supplanting God, that which is truly greater than to which appeal can be made and which is simultaneously immutable by vacillating impulses.

Rank material benefits, government-granted largesse to the electorate, must be removed from our civilization in order for it to survive. While I may be mocked by some for using such a phrase, I do not doubt that it is appropriate, because when citizens buy into the idea that they deserve a set course of life and that such can be provided for by government, then government becomes men explicitly directing the lives of other men. Individual freedom – and the responsibility which comes with it – is sacrificed for individual security. The arrangement becomes, in short, an agreed upon servitude whose wages are thought to be the safe, care-free living of the one in servitude as provided for by the power of the state, the government. It is an utopian vision which, like all utopian visions, will end tragically. Thankfully, it appears that perhaps half of the American electorate is questioning the utopia being sold by big government types. One hopes that enough of the electorate – and those who they elect in the next two cycles – have the fortitude to back away from the utopian vision.

Obama Sell-a-Thon

2010-04-01T22:20:00.002-05:00

Nearly two weeks after the passage of the health care insurance reform bill and its severed conjoined reconciliation twin “fix” bill – which, incidentally, has its own split personality in the form of a federal takeover of student loans – President Obama is still attempting to “sell” the fix to Americans. This should tell us something about the contents of the bill, which Speaker Pelosi said would have to pass before we could all find out what was in it. Now that the bill is under even greater scrutiny, as it is law and not one of an array of squishy-fungible-voluminous proposals, the administration is convinced that the selling must continue.

Indeed, only today in Maine, Mr. Obama, according to the Associated Press, “urged Americans not to judge the nearly $1 trillion legislation he signed into law last week until the reforms take hold” – though perhaps not mentioning that such a wait would also push judgment past the midterm and next presidential elections. Very convenient for the perma-campaigner. It is a political case of having cake and eating it as well; health care insurance reform is a monumental achievement which the Democrats proudly claim as the president insists that it must not be judged until it is more fully implemented.

This administration is long on promises which differ greatly with what it delivers. The rhetoric does not match policy. Mr. Obama doesn’t want smaller government, he has claimed. However, the student loan takeover nationalized the student loan business. The health care insurance reform bill adds another sixteen thousand-ish IRS agents. One wonders just how many government minions will be employed by education “reform” – the reform of the NCLB reform, one might add – and senseless carbon taxing might be. Might the IRS need another ten thousand agents to “monitor” industry compliance with carbon emissions? Might a small army of new “experts” be hired to enforce curricula implementation?

Of course, we are at the moment a long way from those things. But if Mr. Obama manages to sell the current health care insurance reform bill without much complaint from the electorate, he will no doubt feel that he has a mandate to push through other “reforms.” Thus, his message – as false as it is – must be knocked down with hard facts as often as possible, and then some. When someone comes out and claims that the bill – excuse me, the law – will save somewhere around $100 billion, ask them to justify spending $1 trillion in order to save such a small sum. When someone claims that it is only humane to give health care to all, retort that the law itself is about insurance, not health care itself (though it will without doubt impact health care delivery, and very negatively). When someone claims that health care is a right, pull out a pocket copy of the Constitution and ask him to point to the exact location within the document which guarantees health care insurance for every citizen. Ask folks who tout this law just how much they value individual liberty. Ask them who has responsibility over the individual in our free country. Ask them, to paraphrase Dennis Prager, at what point the size and power of the government reduces the citizen to a mere subject.

Bomb Patterns and Social Justice

2010-03-27T20:48:00.000-05:00

“Bomb patters?” General Peckham repeated, twinkling with self-satisfied good humor. “A bomb pattern is a term I dreamed up just several weeks ago. It means nothing, but you’d be surprised at how rapidly it’s caught on. Why, I’ve got all sorts of people convinced I think it’s important for the bombs to explode close together and make a neat aerial photograph. There’s one colonel in Pianosa who’s hardly concerned any more with whether he hits the target or not.”
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

For good or for ill, I’ve attempted sporadically to find a sound definition for the term social justice. I have failed. And then just several days ago, I read the above portion of Catch-22 and realized that searching for a definition would be chasing the wind. There is no definition; it is some mushy bit of diction used to justify whatever might need to be justified at the moment, and it’s only apparent application involved political power and exercising a “victim” class so as to gain and/or maintain political power.

Yet, just as Peckham’s bomb pattern idea found devotees quickly, social justice has its own political following – or perhaps it is one of the tools of choice for one political party and flirted with by the other (under the heading of “compassion”). Take the recent passage of health care insurance “reform.” The public has been told varying reasons that the type of reform Democrats pushed through was required, including endless stories of special cases where some bit or piece – or the whole lot – of the health care machinery failed someone. This is the perfect situation where social justice is applicable. Never mind that bad things happen to people, that no human being is healthy forever, or that as imperfect beings, humans make mistakes. The victim of the deleterious health care system must have justice, social justice. Thus, the overhaul and extended regulation is justified; a tighter bomb pattern is achieved. Equality of outcome. At least that’s how it may look from on high by the experts who have begun to administer the program will perceive it. Perhaps we’ll be hearing about the number of lives “created or saved” under the “reform” at some point around 2016. The aerial photo of health care, in other words, will be appealing.

Indeed, the bombs in the health care “solution” may land very close together in the near future. But equality does not mean quality, just as precision does not mean accuracy. A very precise bowler can knock down the number ten pin only on a regular basis, but a professional career is not in that person’s future unless accuracy is improved. I would argue that equality of outcome, which is at least superficially the goal of social justice, is an attempt to create more precise outcomes for everyone. If every shot is off-target in exactly the same way, then equality has been achieved. Not that this precision will make health care better. Nor will it make people happier if the outcomes of health “care” are, to put it euphemistically, undesirable. One might argue that one technique, universally applied, does not account for the natural diversity of people, communities, and particularities. An equally applied solution which makes matters worse over time does not tend to make folks feel good about being equal. It might even make them rightly distrustful of those in power who precisely and firmly believe that they know better.

Bigger Things at Work Indeed

2010-03-23T21:20:00.000-05:00

In his most recent post on National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg disputes the claim that the latest health insurance reform bill – law – will cause “massive improvements in American life expectancy,” according to Nick Kristof. Mr. Goldberg refutes this argument on several points, and finally states that when it comes to individual longevity, “there are bigger things at work.” Bigger things indeed.

One of the reasons why supporters are probably hesitant to discuss these bigger things at work is that they defy human control. For instance, Mr. Goldberg runs through a list of life expectancy rates in his post. Not only does it matter what one’s racial heritage is when it comes to life expectancy, it also matter where one lives geographically – even given roughly the same racial background in comparative groups. How would the federal government, or any human institution, deal with a group which is a “victim” of lower life expectancy? Deport them to another location? Genetically alter them? Mr. Goldberg argues that more health care is not and will not be the difference maker. Indeed, one wonders if there is a realistic difference maker.

If there is not a realistic difference maker – not even bank-breaking equity of health coverage, if not health care – then the idea of equality of outcome is shown for what it is: a well-intentioned yet futile hallucination. It is the denial, explicit or otherwise, of the recognition of things greater than man and his machinations which allows those who advocate such things as the panacea of universal health insurance to believe – to be true believers, in an Eric Hoffer way – in man’s ability to deliver equality of outcome. At the moment, the true believers in equality of outcome are winning the cultural tug-or-war. Those of us who believe in bigger things need to set in for the long-haul intellectual pull in order to affect a shift in thinking.

Some Good that May Come of “Reform”

2010-03-21T14:31:00.000-05:00

As the House gets ready to pass – or at least I expect it to pass – what is referred to as health care insurance reform, I have had a bit of a time finding some reason to be optimistic. I am firmly against the federal government enlarging itself in just about any way that impacts every citizen’s life. I am especially against reform that is an embodiment of Orwellian doublethink. Health care insurance reform claims to reduce the deficit by spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 trillion – that’s one million squared. And never mind the IRS doing periodic checks of each individual’s health insurance coverage. That isn’t a government takeover; it is considered oversight. Oversight over individual citizens, watching their health insurance status on a consistent basis. Perhaps as a cost saving measure, we can just install telescreens for the periodic insurance checks.

Yes, indeed, I need a reason for optimism. And so it is my hope that the backlash from this government intrusion into where it has no business being at all will be deep and long lasting. My hope is that by forcing the pendulum so far to the side of big government that the statists – liberal Democrats and abettors of all political persuasions – will, through overreaching, propel the opponents of big government to office. (Please note that I did not say Republicans – big government is a bipartisan affair.)

My hope is that this backlash will begin in 2010. It would do a great deal of good if a large number of small, limited government minded folks were elected to the House and Senate. And I’m not talking those who want to limit or eliminate earmarks and pork. While those are laudatory goals, they are small potatoes in my book. What is $50 million for a (insert random government project here) compared to the $46.8 billion spent this year on the Department of Education or even the $1.15 billion for the Corporation for National and Community Service? Those are big pork projects.

And even those would be small potatoes in a realm of multi-trillion dollar holes like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. While the current health care insurance reform claims to save the latter two – through cuts in funding, another bit of doublethink – it seems to me that making a program larger does not automatically make it more viable. Thus, it would be prudent for the group which I hope begins its crusade on Capitol Hill to begin reducing benefits and, to a great extent, eliminating these programs. The rough road ahead will be in keeping these programs afloat financially for those who are already getting benefits and who are unable - in a real sense, from either age or serious disability – to function otherwise.

Of course, this is all in a way a very self-interested push on my part. I already realize that I will not see a dime from Social Security when I reach whatever retirement age is set by government. Social Security is already empty; there’s no money in it. So why would there be in, say, thirty years? Why would I expect Medicare to be anywhere near solvent once I reach enrollment age? To think that either will be around is delusional.

Better to face reality now, go through a painful shift of benefits and reductions, and get on with life. It would be far better than living the lie that somehow our developing nanny state can shelter and coddle us through life. Like so many lies, the longer they have to be maintained, the bigger they become. Better to fully and wholly accept the truth, drop the pretense of big government, and return to something closer to individual responsibility – and thus individual liberty. I hope and pray that the first proclamations of this goal are made today and the first steps toward this goal are taken this November.

My Saturday 2¢ on the Health Care Takeover

2010-03-20T15:45:00.000-05:00

As I sit and watch the House Rules Committee, I wonder how it is that lawmakers have the time and energy to create a 2200 page piece of legislation. I’m convinced that they, in fact, do no craft the legislation which they vote on. The 2200 pages would probably resemble a poorly made jigsaw puzzle dumped on a table whose corner pieces have to be accepted as a matter of trust based on the word of the majority legislators who have never – and perhaps will never – see the puzzle fully put together. No one knows, really knows, the short, medium, and long-term implications of this government monstrosity, be it takeover or over-regulation or stepping stone to single-payer. Like Victor Frankenstein’s monster, once it wakes up and makes its way in the world, these 2200 pages will have long legs.

Briefly on the language used. Folks with pre-existing conditions are now “allowed” to have health insurance? Some of the language used in the committee, especially when speakers wax personal, gets far less than precise. Thankfully, there isn’t a great amount of personal anecdote.

Yet, the sob story must at some point happen, I suppose. There is a Mr. Cardoza on at the moment go on and on about his personal stories on health care. He is, by his own statement, a Democrat. While his stories may be accurate or heart-wrenching, if I hear the phrase “health care for all Americans” or “now is the time to get this done”, I think I’ll throw something. Perhaps up. Like global warming / climate change (GWCC), the debate has been deemed over by the very same people who drone on about individual stories and circumstances.

Funny how those who drone on about individual stories and circumstances tend to be the same ones who want to have a universal solution to health insurance “reform”. It’s the same for education “reform” and cap-and-tax. One size must fit all – all of those unique, individual experiences and circumstances. That is the truth of government control of health care, or education, or industry. You pick.

Four hawks just drifted by my window in a counterclockwise loop, and from my left. Good thing that I’m not an ancient Greek; I think that might make for an ominous omen. The committee time ends with a personal story of insurance coverage denial. While these stories may be touching, governing through emotion is a prescription for tragedy.

I got in late and only watched the last two hours. Thanks to Fox News for streaming the feed online. Good to see Rep. Ryan and Rep. Sessions making their cases – neither of which, as I recall, revolved around emotive responses. I only wish that Rep. Hensarling would have been in the committee room as well. Tomorrow is another day, and perhaps the first day of the fight to repeal the mess which our Congress and our president are foisting upon the electorate.

Having a Voice or Being Counted – Census Misconception

2010-03-18T09:36:00.000-05:00

On Monday, I watched some local school children - probably in middle school - spout clearly scripted lines about the census. The children were urging all to fill out their census forms so that their "voices will be heard". By filling out these forms, the middle-schoolers assured their audience that filling out a census form is a way to be "active" in a civic manner.

Obviously, these kids were basically parroting lines given to them by those who have an interest in pushing the census as a politic activity rather than a head count. But there's an important underlying message here. By relegating one's political voice to the simple act of being counted, a great amount of individual gradation is pushed aside. I either stand up or I do not, and I do so without asking questions; my comment is contained within the act of standing or sitting. It would seem that being counted is enough; being counted is the important thing. This is especially true when it comes to government largesse. This is reflected in the other prominent message in various census commercials is that one's voice - being counted - is vital for getting more government funds into one's community. Thus being counted is worth money, taxpayer money. Other taxpayers' money.

The implied link, though perhaps a bit tenuous, is that political voice ought to be linked to government largesse. Stand up and be counted so that the "proper" amount of money is pushed toward one's locality. Refuse to be counted and it costs money. It's binary; it defies nuance. And what's more, it takes very little thought. Indeed, many political questions and issues seem to be boiled down to either / or choices. Universal health insurance reform or the status quo - never mind the middle ground. Belief in anthropomorphic global warming / climate change or contentment with destroying the planet. Ever-increasing federal money and levels of intrusion into local schools or giving up children. All posed as loaded either / or questions with the "preferred" answer clear.

Perhaps it would make more sense to ask serious questions whether or not money should be spent at all - a nearly unthinkable question given current and recent leadership at the federal level. But regardless of individual job security, just how much government do we not need? Antithetical to much current political thinking to be sure, and surely has no place in the minds of many of the political elite, especially when many Americans' answers would cost government jobs in heaps. Avoiding questions with more than two answers ensures shallow thought and increases the permanence of ever-growing government.

Health Insurance Entitlement Reform and My Broken Teeth

2010-03-16T12:48:00.006-05:00

In an attempt to get back to writing in this blog - something that has not happened in about six months - I've taken a week off of work. This happens to coincide with spring break and the last, last, final, penultimate push for health care insurance entitlement "reform". The former is, in fact, the reason I've taken off of work; the latter is a running joke. A running joke, that is, until it actually happens.

If health care insurance entitlement "reform" passes in one of its current Democratic forms, then I may actually have to find a new job, as I do not expect that the insurance currently offered by my employer will survive. And I would really like to have health insurance, and insurance that I can generally count on, for that matter. I've had experience with the minimalism of government run (or influenced) health care, and as I sit and write today, I experience the long-term results.

While in the Army, I had some dental issues. My teeth were not very healthy. However, as the dental care structure at my base was stretched thin, my problems were not bad enough to qualify me for a dentist's chair on base. I was, in no small way, told that I was healthy enough. As a 20-year old, bullet-proof young soldier, I did not take matters into my own hands - which I absolutely should have done. Indeed, it took me another three years to do that.

When I did finally address my dental issue, it had ballooned into sixteen fillings - literal trenches in all of my molars. The wicked irony is that I had to get the dental work done so that I could pass a commissioning physical and re-join the military. What I should have done, indeed, what I should have been told to do (as a 20-year old private) is to take care of it myself, on my dime, and on my time. However, I bought into the "you're in the military, they'll take care of it" myth. And now, as the silver fillings put into my mouth some fifteen years ago literally split my molars, I am painfully aware of the wrongheadedness of relying on government agencies to take care of such personal matters as health care.

I do not relay this story for sympathy; I do not want my Representative to tell my story on the floor of the House. This small story is a cautionary tale, and one which I will certainly tell my students. Take care of yourself and your family. Indeed, force yourself to take care of yourself and your family. No one else should, and abdicating this responsibility to the government ensures that no one will.

Congress and Pay-Do

2009-10-12T06:57:00.002-05:00

Since the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) came out with an estimate on Thursday that the Buacus health insurance reform bill would cost only $829 billion over 10 years, there seems to be an attitude that if America can pay for it, it should do it. It is as if money were the only important factor when it comes to health care, insurance, and government intervention.

For the moment, I'll put aside the fact that each of the Democrat proposed bills doesn't provide a shred of increased health insurance coverage until 2013 - though there's a 10-year price tag attached. I'll also put aside that the CBO's estimate is not based on legislative language, but rather a rough outline of what might end up in the bill. And I'll put aside as well the notion that anyone will be able to read - let alone "score" - the final bill before it becomes law; our lawmakers will make sure the bill doesn't see the public stage in final form until President Obama has signed it.

Putting all of that aside, one must still ask if massive government run "reform" is what's needed. Do the American people want or need more federal intervention into everyday life?

Forget the extension to the above question which would qualify it: would the intervention be for the "good" of the people or would it be "detrimental". Or, if that qualification must be invoked, why should the federal government, and the people who run it, be given the power to make decisions on what is individually beneficial? What is individually beneficial to me may well not be the same as what is beneficial to my neighbor, let alone someone 1,000 miles away. Yet here we are on the doorstep where one size fits all, "universal" health care...um, pardon me, insurance reform...may be imposed universally.

In my mind, the most important question when it comes to any government action is not if it can be paid for. The most important question is should the government do it? Is it the right and proper role of government to impose (insert random "reform" project for the "betterment" of the electorate here) upon the American people? When it comes to health care insurance reform, my answer is that the government is already too involved. A bit of deregulation is needed, more choices are needed- like the choice to buy across state lines and have tax exemptions for individually purchased health insurance. Those types of things, options outside of government imposed and "managed" plans, would increase individual liberty. But it appears that is not what is wanted by those in Washington D.C. who are attempting to "help" the lamentable electorate. So help they will - never mind the loss of liberty.

Real World (War) and the Imaginary (Peace)

2009-10-09T05:58:00.005-05:00

On the same day that we find out President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize would be the perfect day for him to approve General McChrystal's request for more troops in Afghanistan.

Perfect because, according to the AP, the choice of Mr. Obama for the Nobel seems to be for "initiatives that have yet to bear fruit" in the real world. Indeed, it is unclear just how Mr. Obama's international outreach program will impact world affairs. To some at home, it seems that Mr. Obama denigrates the U.S. and its most recent former president as a matter of course. This tactic might make for flowery speeches but it does little to advance U.S. interests; indeed, it damages them.

Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee, cited Mr. Obama's work toward nuclear disarmament as a reason for his selection, along with giving the American people "hope for a better future" - the "h" word had to come in at some point. But there seems to be little change on the nuclear front. North Korea and Iran are still on the same trajectory as they were under Mr. Bush.

It seems that the current president is inexerably linked to him immediate predicessor. One might argue that there would be no President Obama without President Bush. It seems clear that Mr. Obama would not have won his Nobel if it were not for his predecessor.

So on this day, it would be a fitting irony if Mr. Obama were to grant General McChrystal's request for more troops in full. But with as much hemming and hawing coming out of the White House regarding "the good war" in Afghanistan, I'm nto so sure that the Commander in Chief understands a paradox of military operations: using a great amount of force in the proper place at the proper time actually saves situations from further violence. This lesson should have been learned from Kosovo. It should have been learned from Iraq. I think perhaps Generals McChrystal and Patraeus understand this. If Mr. Obama were to actually earn his peace prize, he must understand how to wage war.

Another Push for More School Time

2009-09-29T20:17:00.001-05:00

Originally posted at American Thinker.

In an article published on multiple website (Fox News link here), it appears that President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan are renewing the push for schools to be in session for more hours and perhaps more days. The overarching goal would supposedly be better educated high school graduates. But the list of reasons used to justify a longer school day, week, and/or year reads more like a brainstorming list -- hammered down and unrefined.

The first reason listed in the article, attributed to Mr. Duncan, is that the "school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy" and that simply does not fit with the modern world. Kids don't work in fields, so the idea of a summer vacation is antiquated.

Next up is that school children in other countries spend more time or more days in class. Here, Mr. Duncan would "level the playing field" by increasing the time American kids spend in school. Note the intimation of equality of outcome here. But as the article clearly illustrates, several countries in Asia -- those who might easily be cited as beating the pants off of the US in test scores -- actually have far less instructional time during a school year even though their students have more school days.

This point is key because it implies that students are expected to learn outside of school. It supposes that students are expected to do homework; they are expected to expend the blood, sweat, and tears on their own. The increased number of days, then, allows for more overall time for instruction -- both inside the classroom with a teacher and, as Dr. Seuss famously said, outside the classroom "sitting alone in a room". This is a hint of what would be a more proper understanding of education. Teachers are there to teach, students are to learn. Teaching takes less time than learning, and no teacher can "learn" his student. The student has to do the learning on his own. The model of more, yet shorter, school days appears to put the onus of learning where it ought to be - on the student.

However, that would be antithetical to the equality of outcome model sought after and legislated for in this country. Other reasons for more school time must be advanced in order to keep the equality of outcome ideal in focus.

The administration argument puts forward the idea that summer vacation is a time when kids' education stagnates, and postulates that poor kids may well regress due to lack of opportunity. Clearly these things are probably true in some cases, but this is just a stepping stone for Mr. Duncan's final point of the article: "Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for [low income, inner city] parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table." And there's the rub. Longer school days, weeks, and years are being advocated with keeping kids safe as, I believe, the primary goal. Schools substitute for homes, teachers for parents. And so as not to single out inner city, poor kids -- that would be discriminatory! -- reforms will be called "universal". One size fits all education.

I ask the reader to imagine the 17-year old freshman in high school who is forced to stay in a school building for an extra three or four hours a day -- no choice. How well might that work out? Would this create a safe environment for other students? How would this child's learning be advanced in the longer school day model?

As I've written before, the matter isn't so much about the amount of time spent in school but rather how that time is used. Simply adding time, or forcing districts to add time, will not necessarily result in better educated students. Students must have valuable activities, like simply practicing what they have learned over the course of an academic day, in which to participate. And that creates another rub: academic education, for all its merits, is a volunteer activity. Students who choose to not participate and who have parents who are either too busy or too selfish to care will tend to not opt in. Those students may be in attendance physically, but they will have mentally checked out. Some things, it seems, simply can't be legislated. Individual student achievement is one of them.

The Bright Shiny Thing

2009-09-28T20:24:00.001-05:00

Not content with attempting to deal with the evolving situation with Iran or figuring out how to attempt to solve the problem of Afghanistan, not even satisfied to stay in the wholly domestic push for government run and/or further regulated health insurance, President Obama seems to have been caught by his personal siren song to campaign. It seems he simply is not remotely content to be the chief executive. He must be in sales mode.

So the president is traveling to Copenhagen to plug Chicago for the 2016 summer games. He’s taking local politics global. He’s chasing the bright, shiny thing. And it’s a sign that perhaps he’s simply bored and/or frustrated by his job. If that is somewhat true, then the country is in for a long, long three years and four months.

Obama Pushes Domestic Agenda, Drops the Wartime Ball

2009-09-27T13:57:00.002-05:00

Today on Fox News Sunday, Senator Feinstein made an interesting assertion regarding President Obama’s desire to take weeks to consider how best to handle the war in Afghanistan. This careful consideration comes six months after announcing a change in tactics. But that was March, this is September. Mr. Obama seems to have taken his eyes off of Afghanistan – the “good war” we are told – to push his statist domestic policy. Consideration of Mr. Obama’s focus brings out an interesting observation.

Some things, some issues are truly urgent. Having the right strategy at the right time is crucial to winning a war. Regardless of political stripes, everyone should have gained that insight from the Iraq War. When the upper reaches of the chain of command outline a strategy for the Commander in Chief, he really ought to take it to heart. Instead, Mr. Obama seems to be content to bicker around a conference table. On some issues then, the debate is not over; the time to bicker has not ended. The time to act is not now. I wonder if the generals will have a seat at the beer conference when the new, new strategy is settled.

But for folks like Mr. Obama and Senator Feinstein, taking a number of weeks to stew over strategy – even though the generals have a plan they would like to implement – is the responsible, level-headed thing to do. The fight in theater goes on, though. And while it might be tempting to call Mr. Obama’s feet dragging a “rope-a-dope,” that would indicate that he plans on punching back at some point in order to win. But very little seems to be urgent to Mr. Obama when it comes to foreign policy.

Not so when it comes to domestic policy. The public is told over and over (and over) that economic stimulus, health care reform, and going “green” are all of such urgent import that no further debate is needed, no time for consideration can be taken, indeed no time to read legislation can be spared. The time to act, we are told with feverishly increasing urgency, is always now. The government, we are told, must act, must save us from – well, better just save us. It appears that is the goal of Mr. Obama’s administration: to save the American electorate via government intervention.

It would be prudent if folks who have a voice in the political realm would ask and answer what the proper role of the federal government is. Is it the government’s role to push domestic spending and balloon bureaucracy so as to “save” the electorate? Or is it the government’s role to train, equip, and field the military so as to meet national defense objectives? Where should the federal government focus its attention?

I don’t suspect that these questions will be asked or answered any time before the 2010 elections, at least not in the wider media – the supposed “mainstream” media. But for the individual, here is something to ponder now: How much government intervention are you willing to have in your life? It seems to me that the less the federal government focuses on “fixing” what it feels is wrong with my little world, the more it can focus on defending America from those who would do it irreparable harm – and that would be more its right and proper role.

Blind Squirrel Finds a Nut: Friedman

2009-09-21T18:15:00.001-05:00

In an op-ed piece Sunday, Thomas Friedman makes a great point regarding nuclear power. He points out that France gets “nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power” and that the US is too chicken of nuclear waste and the ghost of Three-Mile Island to build new nuclear plants. He also points out that Yucca Mountain would be a “totally safe” place for nuclear waste storage. While Mr. Friedman misses the point of reprocessing waste into usable fuel – something the French do but is shunned in the US – his overall point about nuclear power is well made. The US ought to begin to allow private companies to build nuclear power plants without endless “environmental” roadblocks.

What Mr. Friedman doesn’t seem to recognize is that environmentalists are by in large responsible for killing nuclear power in the US. And they are powerful. While I’m no expert – far from it – but I’m guessing that by just challenging environmental impact studies, those who claim to care for the environment make the process of approval for a new nuclear plant so expensive and time consuming as to price it out of the market. But that, perhaps, is a matter for another time.

Mr. Friedman misses when he gets to the main point of his article – raising the federal gas tax by $1 a gallon. Mr. Friedman would allow 45% of revenue gained to pay down the deficit and another 45% to pay for – get this – health care. How a gas tax is linked to health care is beyond me, but the more egregious point would be allowing the federal government to take and spend more money on big programs which aren’t proven. So I offer an alternative to Mr. Friedman: take that second 45% and let the individual states keep it for the sole purpose of paying for unfunded federal mandates shoved down their collective throats.

If you noticed 10% missing from the above equation, Mr. Friedman has a plan for that as well. Can’t forget the proletariat. Mr. Friedman would give “10 cents to cushion the burden of such a tax on the poor and on those who need to drive long distances.” Stand by for the bureau of poor and long distance drivers (PLDD) to administer this 10% as a service to the great people of the United States of America. You can bet that the definitions of “poor” and “long distance” will be quite malleable and porous. Then again, perhaps 10% is a standard fee for federal imposition and bureaucracy creation (FBIC).

Taking Liberties with Words

2009-09-20T21:37:00.001-05:00

While I had hoped to write about something a little more cerebral today regarding liberty, I have to note that simple, small words are being demolished. Taking liberties with what simple words mean is a way to blur our world. Example: President Obama ignores the denotative – dictionary – meaning of the word tax. When George Stephanopoulos refers to the denotative meaning of the word tax (video) in one of the five Obama spots this morning, things got a little interesting.

For the record, the definition reported to Mr. Obama was, “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.” Seems pretty straight forward to me.

But Mr. Obama rolled his head to the side and laughed, as if to imply that this was all one silly mistake, a charade, a distraction. He even accused Stephanopoulos of “stretching” by resorting to the dictionary to find the definition of a word. He then deftly denied that taking money to fund health care insurance reform (or some other euphemistic label) would be, in fact, a tax. This word needs to mean exactly what he needed it to for the moment in which he needed it. At that moment, tax could not mean what Webster says it means, so it did not. A long time ago, Mr. Obama could have revised what the meaning of “is” was at a given point in time.

But this simple act of morphing the meanings of words is a dangerous thing. If tax does not mean tax, then it can mean anything at any time. Perhaps today it’s a fee, tomorrow, a penalty. Later, a re-acquisition of government property. I realize that’s going a bit far, but when a word means whatever it needs to mean in the moment, one can go just as far as his power, audacity, and creativity will allow him.

On Liberty

2009-09-19T14:17:00.000-05:00

Much has been said recently about the erosion of the Constitution, growing big government, spending by that big government, bailouts, socialism, and public capitulation regarding these matters. The debate, those on the left would say, is over. It has been over as far as they are concerned for a long time – it’s just that no one else knew it. The various tea parties and “conservative” protests are a peculiarity, an eccentricity. The remedy for such things is to simply turn off Fox News.

What is really going on in what strangely is called our national conversation is the re-emergence of liberty – individual, personal liberty – as a point of discussion. To paraphrase Dennis Prager, bigger government makes smaller citizens. And citizens have been shrinking at an alarming rate. When the bill comes due for all of this compassionate, bail-out, too-big-to-fail spending by Democrats and Republicans alike, the citizenry is likely to go from small to downright miniscule.

But where did the shrinking stature of citizenry come from in the first place? One might say that it came, in part, from shirking individual responsibility. From easy credit (which, incidentally, is still pretty easy if one has a good credit rating) to “universal” government plans to “universally” tackle any perceived problem, it has been all too easy to slough off personal responsibility onto something else, be that thing minimum payments at 15% APR or another lump of mounting, money-hungry bureaucracy. Either way, any perceived issue can be deflected elsewhere. At least for a time.

At some point, though, all bills come due – even the bills for the bills that pass through Congress which we are told will expand our “freedom” and our “rights”. What I believe they expand is the envelope of risk-free living. These “guarantees” – from free health care to job security to investment certitude – are supposed to make living more antiseptic. No risk, no worry, all happiness. That’s the message of the authors of the savior plans.

What these savior plans really do is limit personal liberty. Choice and risk are required for liberty. They also require the ability to fail; they allow the potentiality of bad things happening. Bad choices lead to bad outcomes. Risk is around us daily; pretending that we can somehow be shielded from it is an illusion. What I plan to write about in the next few weeks is the joy of liberty, the joy of being able to take responsibility for one’s own life and one’s own choices. Cheers.

Chatting with the White House

2009-08-14T06:53:00.003-05:00

On 10 August 2009, I received an email from info@messages.whitehouse.gov with the subject line, "It's time for a reality check." It concerned the health insurance/care legislation germinating in Congress. It was "signed" by David Axelrod. Why did I receive this email? Because a long time ago, I submitted a question for President Obama via the White House website. I guess I snitched on myself; I'm on the list.

Since I was already on the list, I figured that I might as well take the email's invitation to reply to the White House. Note: I say the email's invitation because I don't suppose for a moment that my email will earn any sentient being's attention. This is, supposedly, an open and honest debate about health care - as long as one side talks (dictates) and one side listens (capitulates). Here is my (not as eloquent as a teleprompted time-sucker) reply:

With regard to the recent Axelrod email, please note that the main concern folks have is one of choice. Regardless of whatever spin various political parties choose to put on the matter, more government control over health insurance will result in LESS choice for all Americans. The far end of the spectrum would be single-payer, but this is not a binary, all-or-nothing matter. Single-payer or its euphemism, "Public Option", is the far end of less/no choice in health insurance.

What is needed is more choice. Currently, it makes little to no sense economically for a family to attempt to buy health insurance if an employer provides it. If I could and if it made some economic sense to do to, I would be thrilled to shop around and buy my own health insurance. Indeed, I could shop around for just the benefits I wanted; I would not have the government or my employer telling me what options I have.

It's simple: Liberty is a concept which this country was founded on; Equality was not. Liberty includes the freedom to fail, to fall over, to make mistakes. Liberty is necessary for freedom to truly exist. Please do not needlessly limit the Liberty of Americans by mandating fewer choices when it comes to health insurance.

Nanny-Pentagon: Non-Smoking Military

2009-07-11T14:38:00.003-05:00

According to FoxNews, a report has come out of the Pentagon which urges Defense Secretary Gates to end tobacco use in the military. "Any tobacco use while in uniform should be prohibited" is the recommendation of the report. It all comes down to cost, though, as the report claims that the Pentagon and the Veteran's Administration lose or spend about $7 billion on tobacco related issues (lost time, health care, etc.). Where I think the report really launches into loony land is when it claims to want "new officers and enlisted personnel to be tobacco-free". What bizarro world do these report preparers live in?

It seems that at some point the Pentagon - and by larger implication the federal government - would figure out that they deal primarily with issues involving human beings. I know that sounds ludicrously obvious, but it is a point which needs to be made. So often, dollar costs, time costs, this cost and that cost are thrown on "issues" in order to give them scope and scale. Sooner or later, I suspect a few token examples of tobacco use "ruining the life" of some poor soldier will be held up as the example of why this ban must be put in place; the Pentagon simply must save our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen from themselves.

It is, I think, a reflection of the larger debate about who will pay for health insurance for every living soul in the country (regardless of any and all particularities between them). One size must fit all, it seems. So much money can be saved; so we've been told. I'm sure there are shocking statistics about amount of work time lost due to some people's inability to find "affordable health care". And the individual cases of how the health care system has "ruined a life" have been put forward. So the federal government must save its poor subjects from themselves.

But this denies the humanity inherent within each one of us - though that human nature will cause us to do things which are damaging to ourselves. I speak from experience; I was one of those soon-to-be-banned tobacco users while I was in the military. Many a long duty was broken by having a smoke. Many a long, intense flight was "supported" by a bit of chewing tobacco. And then I quit both. I didn't need nor want the government which I served to tell me that I couldn't smoke or chew - things which are not prohibited to any American over 18. In fact, I would have deeply resented it.

But I suppose this drive for a tobacco purging is an extension of various governmental bodies getting into matter which they should never even consider touching. The executive as auto maker. The Pentagon as health cop. The Federal Reserve as economic czar. The EPA as CO2 tax collector and Al Gore surrogate. Schools as baby-sitting facilities. Universities as sports venues. News reporters as infomercial dispensers. It's a very, very mixed up culture that we've immersed ourselves in. If we can pull out of the dive, perhaps there will still be enough liberty out there so that our fighting men and women can still have a smoke, if they choose.

Final Words in Crime and Punishment – Gradual Progression

2009-07-07T18:24:00.000-05:00

In the final paragraph of the second chapter of the Epilogue in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, the word gradual is used twice as well as the phrase slow progress. This is in stark contrast with the character of Raskolnikov throughout the rest of the novel. And as these instances occur at the end of the novel, as that parting shot, within them lies a lesson, I think.

Raskolnikov has, right up until the very point in the novel where he picked up the Bible of his own accord and began to read, attempted to gain through immediate exercise of some sort. He believed that killing the pawnbroker would allow him to achieve untold ends – ends which it appears he had not really considered or which the narrator does not see fit to inform the reader of. Raskolnikov thought that the act and his audacity of positively undertaking it would propel him forward and that in an instant. What follows his act concerns five parts of the novel – his unwillingness to realize that he has not been propelled forward instantly through his act, his crime. His desire of instantaneously propelling himself forward has turned out to be a lie.

His attempts after the double murder reflect his desire for instantaneous results; he wishes to reach some sort of conclusion to his ordeal, as long as he is not called to task for his actions (and indeed for his thoughts, his delusions concerning his own station in life). His encounters with Zametov, Zosimov, and most importantly Porfiry, all either come from or contain within them some attempt to satisfactorily and instantaneously conclude the episode of the double murder.

Yet Porfiry foreshadows the final paragraph of the novel when he informs Raskolnikov (on two different occasions) that over the course of time, this murderer will turn himself in. That Porfiry has moved on before Raskolnikov has volunteered his confession furthers the proof of the inevitability of the confession – Porfiry does not need to be present when proved correct, the fact remains that he is. Gradually, over time, he is proved right.

As a theme which carries over to today, I think it is clear that the message of “gradual renewal”, “gradual regeneration”, and “slow progress from one world to another” is one which must be heard (465). We as a society are bombarded by things which we are told are “crises”. We are then told that immediate actions must be taken, lest what is already in a state of “crisis” become something beyond crisis – whatever that might be. But if we lift the panic-inducing diction of propaganda, we might ask just where the quick fix might land us. Might the quick fix just land us in some gaol? Might we learn that we have lost our national soul to the quick fix? Have we already?

Work Cited – Dostoevsky, Feodor. Crime and Punishment. Ed. George Gibian. New York: Norton, 1964.

Understanding the Joy of Outrage

2009-07-07T18:23:00.000-05:00

In Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Svidrigaylov makes an interesting comment regarding personal outrage. His deceased wife, Marfa Petrovna, seems to have felt most alive when she felt outraged about something. He recognizes, at the beginning of Chapter 1 of Part Four "that it sometimes happens that women are highly gratified at being outraged, in spite of their apparent indignation. It happens with everybody: mankind in general loves to be affronted". And while Svidrigaylov specifically attaches this talent to women, he clearly understands that this need for personal outrage is actually a form of personal "entertainment".

We can see this sort of thing today reflected in media coverage of our culture. I hesitate to call any of it "news" because, as Svidrigaylov notes, it is designed more for our "entertainment". Much news coverage is designed specifically to outrage certain groups of watchers. The outlets of this entertainment want the audience to ask, "How could he/she? How dare he/she?" This sort of emotional reaction is quite easily stirred up given the vast number of celebrities, pseudo-celebrities, and political-celebrities which inhabit the culture. One may even consider the possibility that this shift in focus onto personalities is intentional. By focusing on other individual personalities, the propagators of outrage "entertainment" are assured of a steady stream of subjects. Just when one story line has run its course, another human failing occurs - as it surely must - and the cycle can continue. Endlessly.

But what then are the ingestors of this "entertainment" not focusing on, not thinking about? Indeed, are they capable of serious critical thinking? Or is it just too comfortable, too safe, to simply enjoy himself while being "outraged" and the world outside?

Raskolnikov’s “Exceptional” Man

2009-07-06T20:45:00.001-05:00

As I hit the half-way point in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, one of the central ideas has finally come out in the novel. This is the third time that I’ve read it, so it was more of a matter of my remembering where the part occurred rather than knowing that it occurred. In the fifth chapter of Part Three, Raskolnikov explains an essay he wrote in which he explains two classifications of people. The great mass of humanity is made up of normal people who must follow the rules of society. But, Raskolikov suggests, there are a very few who are “extraordinary” and indeed must break social customs in order to advance society – despite the best attempts of the mass of humanity to keep life regular and unmoving, or to put it another way, to conserve social order.

The problem with Raskolikov’s thesis of the rare, “exceptional” man, which suggests the idea of the ubermensch, is that there is no real criterion with which to designate such a person. Before the point of action, it may be simply a feeling that there is something special, something unprecedented about one’s own thoughts and ideas. After all, if a person comes up with something new in his head and as long as he stays in that environment – in his head – does he ever really know if his idea, his motive, his drive is unique? It is easy to believe one’s self special if one’s self is the only person one ever puts one’s self up to for inspection.

Raskolnikov, in the days and weeks prior to the double murder, does just this. He boxes himself up in his room, neglects all others and even himself, and is concerned only with his own thoughts. Surely he can and has convinced himself that he is an “exceptional” man who is capable of murder and theft. All he must do is complete the task and advance himself. Only after the deed does he understand that he is not “exceptional” at all. He is all too human.
What I think that Raskolnikov has tried to lose through his logic of the “exceptional” man is the practical fact that man needs to have something, some force, over him in order to prevent radical, or even immoderate, digressions from social morality. Raskolinov attempts to make his case for the “exceptional” man quite forceful by taking it to the extreme case that such men may logically be excused from committing murder so long as it advances their agenda. If murder is permissible for such men, then everything else is as well.

But Raskolnikov finds out early in the novel that there is some force greater than the “exceptional” man – if there is such a thing. Later in the novel, he will find a name for it; he will rediscover it through Sonya. For the reader, though, his is a cautionary tale. Self-absorption and an inflated sense of self-importance are quite dangerous things. If we but look around, we can see these all around, blown up (figuratively) on big-screen televisions and through the internet; the hyper-celebrity culture icons are not unlike Raskolnikov’s “exceptionals”. The difference is that unlike his supposed reasoning that these men act to advance a culture, there is no such lofty goal for the hyper-celebrity. All is excess and debauchery. And sadly, both they are we are culturally the lesser for it.

Health Insurance and Numbers - Some Simple Thinking

2009-06-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

Here’s a little simple math regarding health care “reform” or what would be more aptly put as the federal government’s push to universalize health care insurance.

President Obama, through his Health and Human Services Secretary on Fox New Sunday, reiterated that the goal of injecting a federal health insurance plan would be to increase competition in the health insurance realm. The numbers of that logic are as follows: one insurance provider – the federal government – would ensure that all other insurance providers competed in a manner which lowers cost. Or, even more simply, one influences many.

On the other hand, there is an alternate opinion that each person in the US should be able to purchase health insurance for himself and his family in much the same way that drivers buy auto insurance. People would be able to buy the level and depth of health care which they choose to carry and can afford. The numbers of this alternative is that the millions – those buying individual and family insurance – would expand choice and competition simply by having the ability to pick and choose their coverage. Private companies would strive to meet the needs of the customer. Thus, the multitude of consumers would influence (and most likely expand the number of) insurance companies.

The problem that I see with health insurance is that individuals and families have no idea how much their insurance costs; they are decoupled from the dollars. Bring the costs and the responsibility of health care closer to the individual, and liberty and choices are expanded. What’s more, costs would probably drop. One must ask if the current government would be please with that outcome.

Energy and Liberty

2009-06-26T10:26:00.002-05:00

The Waxman-Markey energy bill is up for a vote today, and my guess is that it will pass the House of Representatives. 1,201 pages - which no one will read until after it has passed -of money-grabbing, power-taking, industry-killing, public-impoverishing drivel.

This bill, should it pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama, would take enormous amounts of money out of the open economy and funnel it into government regulatory Hades from which it would never return. The statist-leftists claim that Waxman-Markey is required so as to save the planet; left unsaid is that it must be saved from us horrible, eco-devastating humans. Their chant, their message: It's for the planet! Don't we have a right to a clean planet! Down with CO2! (Never mind the plants...)

The actual result of the Waxman-Markey plan, however, for the common folks (those folks which Mr. Obama and statist-leftists like him claim to champion) will be a poorer, meaner life. And in taking people's earned income away from them, the government will take their personal liberty as well.

And that's the point. Energy "reform", health insurance "reform", and soon-to-be education "reform" will all cause power to gravitate to Washington D.C. and away from states, municipalities, and most importantly individual citizens. That's the point of these efforts by Mr. Obama and the statist-leftists. They seek to expand governmental power at the cost of trillions of dollars and untold amounts of individual liberty. Mr. Obama and the statist-leftists have and will tell the citizenry that these efforts are all for the citizenry - everyone has a right to (fill in the blank with high-cost, unattainable universality here). We will end up with far less liberty, far less freedom, and far, far less personal wealth. But we'll have government; we'll have our kind, loving Big Brother.

Repower and Propaganda

2009-06-20T14:48:00.000-05:00

Every time I see the old fellow on the "Repower America" commercials, it makes me just a little angry. Not angry in an I'm going to throw a book at the television way, but more in a "do you think I'm an idiot?" way.

The speaker in the commercial is an older gentleman with a non-urban type of accent; both of these aspects are purposefully chosen by the ad's creators. The hope is that the viewer sees the speaker as a down to earth, common sense spokesman. So when this spokesman says that the country burns oil "in ways that kill God's green earth", the hope is that we - the audience - will agree, in part influenced by his age and demeanor.

But what is at work is a plain-folks propaganda technique coupled with anthropomorphizing of the planet. This is the image: a trust-worthy guy tells the audience that burning petroleum distillates has the unbelievably immense consequence of bringing mortality to the very ground the audience stands on. That is a very strong statement.

When I was younger, the Cold War was still on. It was understood that a nuclear war - not just a one-off explosion - would kill most if not all life on the planet. Mass extermination, and that outcome was and is clearly demonstrable. The planet - for what it would be worth - would survive. Life and the taking of it belongs to the living.

The effectiveness of anthropomorphizing the planet is deep and lasting, which is why such language is used by "Repower America". So, one might ask, how can we cure our nearly dead earth? The speaker has an answer.

The speaker asks - rhetorically - "Why can't we use our own clean energy and create good-paying jobs here instead of sending billions overseas?" It's rhetorical because he asks the question while walking in a wind-turbine farm as flashes of solar mirrors come and go. Never mind the fact that currently a very small slice of energy is produced from those two sources. Never mind the infighting between environmentalists who want wind and solar power and those who claim that there's too much of an environmental impact from those sources. We can, the speaker claims, just use this ready energy and make jobs. Easy. Done! Who would guess that the solution would be so simple?

The speaker closes the commercial with the demand that "It's time to get real." At this point, I begin to agree with him. The United States really has lots of oil and natural gas within the borders of our great country. The United States really can build and run nuclear power plants and safely reprocess spent fuel rods. The United States really can pursue conservation and curb the growth of energy consumption. Why does "Repower" not advocate those positions? The earth is dying for an answer...right?

Hurry-Up Legislating

2009-06-19T17:18:00.000-05:00

After nearly six months of the Obama administration, it seems that one thing is clear about his method when it comes to domestic policy: I want what I want when I want it, and I want it now. Seemingly all legislative action on "big" issues - health insurance reform, cap-and-trade climate control, stimulus, Sotomayor's confirmation, the Obama budget, financial oversight and bailing - must happen immediately and with no delay. Certainly no delay for debate. The debate, they say, is over. Over on this, on that, and on that other thing. We must act now!

But perhaps the twin pushes for cap-and-trade and health insurance reform are causing even Democrats to recoil just a bit, and for an obvious reason: money. When legislators get a feel for just how much these wonderful new programs are going to cost, it appears to make them pause. Surely they understand that the trillions of dollars which would be soaked up by cap-and-trade and universal health insurance cannot be simply taken (in the form of taxation) from the 5% of the population that Mr. Obama promised during the campaign as taxable.

The speed with which Mr. Obama attempts - and in some cases, succeeds - to introduce and enact huge spending bills leads me to a pair of conclusions which cannot both be true. First, the Obama spending/legislation spree has been embarked upon so as to cram-down as much and as many liberal-progressive programs and ideology as possible in the shortest amount of time. The speed is necessary because actual debate might cause more people to actually think about what is being passed. Second, the Obama spending/legislation spree has been embarked upon so as to break the US economy. The ensuing catastrophe would be an opportunity to recreate governmental institutions through a liberal-progressive lens.

The answer to which is correct - if either is - is not as important as it is to simply slow everything down. Going slowly and asking questions on top of questions on top of questions is one of the best ways that Republicans and Obama-doubting Democrats can slow the descent into statism. What the Republicans can also do is publish competing ideas to the public at large. They should do this regardless of the cost; surely the RNC can stop sending "questionnaires" about Mr. Obama's policies and send outlines of truly conservative policy samples instead.

Numbers, Real and Otherwise

2009-06-10T08:18:00.002-05:00

President Obama has, since the birthing of the “stimulus bill” been proud to announce just how many jobs will be created through his massive government spending scheme. Or rather, “created of saved”. It’s that last portion which makes his job numbers works of fiction; that has been evident from the outset, though few in the media called him on it. The Wall Street Journal finally did:

“Mr. Obama's comments yesterday are a perfect illustration of just such a claim. In the months since Congress approved the stimulus, our economy has lost nearly 1.6 million jobs and unemployment has hit 9.4%. Invoke the magic words, however, and -- presto! -- you have the president claiming he has "saved or created" 150,000 jobs. It all makes for a much nicer spin, and helps you forget this is the same team that only a few months ago promised us that passing the stimulus would prevent unemployment from rising over 8%.”

There’s one un-real number in that paragraph, and it’s the one created by Mr. Obama – 150,000 jobs. And when Mr. Obama claims that 600,000 jobs will be created in his “next 100 days” – apparently his need for an immediate sequel extends past autobiographies – that number is fictional as well.

But the 9.4% unemployment rate and 1.6 million jobs lost are real numbers. And they’ll be really difficult for Mr. Obama to sweep under the rug with his imaginary broom for too much longer.

Here’s another real number for taxpayers: according to the Fox Business page, the government has doled out $80.3 billion to automakers Chrysler and GM. That money came out of the TARP funds which were meant for banks and such. $80.3 billion is a lot of money to sell one zombie carmaker off (to Fiat) and to transform the other zombie into a government-run, money-bleeding dysfunction. The only thing imaginary about the $80.3 billion spent on these automakers is the idea that we, the people, really have it to spend – or burn, as the case may be.

But we shouldn’t worry. Mr. Obama called yesterday – yesterday – for instituting “pay-go”, or pay-as-you-go legislation. This means that any new or expanded spending must be paid for through higher taxation or taking money from something else. Of course, any numbers put at this will be – you guessed it – un-real, because Mr. Obama has cut trillion dollar holes in it already. According to an AP article via Yahoo Finance, the legislation “would carve out about $2.5 trillion worth of exemptions for Obama's priorities over the next decade. His health care reform plan also would get a green light to run big deficits in its early years.” $2.5 trillion plus healthcare are big, real, scary numbers. But not to worry; everything else will be paid for as we go. Nuts.

Folks who claim that Mr. Obama is in the process of rapidly bankrupting the nation may be derided as scare-mongers, Obama-haters, or unpatriotic. But the numbers – real numbers – don’t lie. The counter-clockwise swirl created by spending and borrowing is growing more rapid by the day. Mr. Obama is accelerating the swirl through ever more spending, ever more borrowing, and ever more fiction-pushing. This spending and borrowing and spending will create an all too real collapse of our economy. And not only the banking sector. The whole thing.

Out of Money? Try Doublethink.

2009-06-04T20:29:00.001-05:00

A thinking person has to wonder just what the federal government is doing concerning spending, borrowing, and planning. Not long ago, after increasing spending by bazillions (please pardon the hyperbole), President Obama said that “we’re out of money now” in a C-SPAN interview. Yet the bailing out continues, the growing statism continues, with healthcare next on the block. Then perhaps curing “global warming” (or whatever euphemism suits the current climate) through “cap and trade” legislation. Finally, Mr. Obama will round out his “fixing” by turning schools around (and around and around).

But all of this will cost money – lots and lots of it. Bazillions might not be out of the question. Don’t worry though, the electorate is told again and again by Mr. Obama; these big fixes are just what are required to put the country on the right track. Some way will be dreamt up to pay for them, or (better yet) they’ll pay for themselves through “savings”.

Enter Chairman Bernanke (as reported on Bloomberg):

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said large U.S. budget deficits threaten financial stability and the government can’t continue indefinitely to borrow at the current rate to finance the shortfall.
“Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth,” Bernanke said in testimony to lawmakers today. “Maintaining the confidence of the financial markets requires that we, as a nation, begin planning now for the restoration of fiscal balance.”
Bernanke’s comments signal that the central bank sees risks of a relapse into financial turmoil even as credit markets show signs of stability. He said the Fed won’t finance government spending over the long term, while warning that the financial industry remains under stress and the credit crunch continues to limit spending.

I would suggest that Mr. Obama’s grand plans for “cap and trade”, health care nationalization, and education “fixing” will not lead anywhere near the planet, let alone the neighborhood, called “fiscal sustainability”. They will lead the country into a hole of government spending – and governmental control – from which it and we may never emerge.

The doublethink operating in the Obama administration is shocking. Mr. Obama says that the country is out of money. Mr. Bernanke tells him (at some point, surely he has) that long-term fiscal stability is in danger because of deficit spending. I expect a serious head nod and tilt from Mr. Obama. Then the next big government program is envisioned and figures are dreamt up that will pay for it. The second will fix the first, if the first were even a problem to begin with. Until the first is a problem (again). Wash. Rise. Repeat.

Washington Post Posts 10 Steps for Schools, Without Student Accountability

2009-06-03T05:45:00.002-05:00

On May 30th, the Washington Post published an article by three folks from the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE). The article suggests ten steps which are supposed to turn failing schools in America into “world-class schools.” The authors claim that their recommendations are “radical” and that they will “get us where we need to go”. I was underwhelmed by the steps. Below, I will cover a few of them; text taken from the story is presented within quotes and in italics:

“Get outstanding students to go into teaching and treat them like professionals, not blue-collar workers in dead-end jobs. That means putting teachers in charge of their schools.” That sounds all fine and good, but there are roadblocks that the authors refuse to acknowledge. It would be a stretch to put teachers in the profession at this moment are in charge of their own classrooms – with regard to curriculum – let alone their schools. More often than not, curricula are dictated at the state level, either in the form of overly-complicated lists of learning objectives, mandated tests, or both. These factors end up in lowering the education bar and focusing on “bubble students” just enough to get them to pass standardized tests. For more on this, please check Booher-Jennings piece called “Below the Bubble”. The idea that individual teachers would be in charge of federally administered schools as opposed to those whose curricula are essentially dictated by the state defies current reality and the imagination.

“Hold faculty accountable for student achievement. Take over every school that, after three years, is unable to get at least 90 percent of all major groups of students on track to leave high school ready to enter college without the need to take any remedial courses.” After claiming a desire to empower teachers, to treat them like professionals, and to put them in charge of schools, the authors then set an honestly unattainable goal for them. Not only would the authors see these newly empowered teachers make sure students graduate, but have 90% of them ready to walk into college without remediation. Do they not realize that, even after years of testing in big states like Texas, getting 90% of students to pass their exit-level tests (which are not college entrance tests) the first time is still a tall task? And these tests are somewhat "minimal skill-set" tests, not college preparatory tests. There is another force in the classroom besides the teacher which is at work, yet the authors refuse to even acknowledge it.

Additionally, the authors obviously feel that not only is education through high school graduation a right (which has turned into an entitlement), but that college is a right as well. And whose job is it to push students – 90% of them, anyway – to be ready for college? (The other 10% would just need a little remediation in the authors' eyes before they gain their rightful places in college.) The authors would say that teachers are responsible. Perhaps they don’t understand that the verb “to learn” is an active-only verb. There is no passive tense for “learn”; no student is “learned by” their teacher. Indeed, student accountability is wholly left off the table in the authors’ bold, “radical” ten steps.

“Replace the current accountability tests with high-quality, course-based exams.” So much for treating teachers like professionals and putting them in charge of schools. I recall a time not too long ago when the teacher had the say as to whether or not a student achieved a level of understanding sufficient to pass a class, when student grades in a class mattered. Sure, teachers ought to be given a level of proficiency to which students must achieve (as a minimum), but the measurement of individual students in individual classrooms ought to be left up to each professional teacher. The teacher, as the authors suggest, ought to be in charge of his or her school and, one might assume, classroom. “high-quality exams” are already out there and in use: the SAT, ACT, et cetera; these are used to indicate a student’s aptitude to move on to college.

“Make a range of social services available to children from low-income families and coordinate those services with those students' school programs.” Here, we hit the core of the “radical” proposals. The authors realize that there are serious “social” issues within some low-income families. Perhaps their attempt is to use the framework of public schools to “fix” these family issues. If that is the case, then I suggest that federal boarding schools be opened for students who are deemed to have “social” issues too egregious for regular school settings.

Of course, this last comment is a leap in a direction I would not recommend. A government which can pull students preemptively into boarding schools – even for their own good – is a government which has far too much power. I’m not saying that the authors want to see this happen, but I do say that it is a logical conclusion to the steps they recommend. It would not surprise me to see it happen within my lifetime.

Somehow, there appears to be a growing feeling that government intrusion into private life is fine and dandy as long as it’s for “good reasons”, like protecting someone or something. We see this in America through government intervention into the economy, into banking, into industry, and soon into health care and energy production. It stands to reason that, like AIG and GM, the federal government may come to see urban school districts as “too big to fail.” When that happens, look out – cradle to grave direct federal intervention into individual lives will be here.

Barone Get It Right – Run Against Centralization

2009-06-01T05:50:00.004-05:00

This morning on Real Clear Politics, Michael Barone makes a good case that should run future campaigns on the platform of limited government. This would mean running directly against President Obama and his avowed statism, against nanny-like “benefits” dispensed by government, and against government-corporate collusion. One wonders just how Republicans would posit this argument against the seemingly unstoppable wave of statism.

For starters, the Republicans should develop, as quickly as possible, alternative programs for just about every statist program that Mr. Obama puts forward. Republicans already have somewhat solid thoughts on health care. They should also put forward ideas on military preparedness, the balance between diplomacy and military force when dealing with adversaries, corporate bailouts, and financial regulation. Indeed, Republicans may have all of these, but getting them out into the public will take a great effort, as the media largely kowtows to any action or plan that Mr. Obama comes up with.

Republicans must frame their plans and arguments under the banner of individual liberty. Every plan put forward by the statist Mr. Obama essentially takes liberty away from individual citizens and places it somewhere else, either in the government or in government backed institutions (like labor unions). Republicans must consistently and coherently remind the public that individual liberty is what made the United States the great country that it is. And while it is not hoped for, it can be expected that the statist structure which Mr. Obama is putting into place will cause nearly irreparable damage to an already weakened economy. If and when that happens (actually, it’s only when), Republicans need a clear message and plan for re-instituting individual liberty as the backbone of our country.

Washington Post Posts 10 Steps for Schools – Not Buying It

2009-05-30T17:41:00.001-05:00

Today, the Washington Post published an article by three folks from the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE). The article suggests ten steps which are supposed to turn failing schools in America into “world-class schools.” The authors claim that their recommendations are “radical”. I was underwhelmed by the steps. Below, I will cover a few of them; text taken from the story is presented within quotes and in italics:

“Get outstanding students to go into teaching and treat them like professionals, not blue-collar workers in dead-end jobs. That means putting teachers in charge of their schools.” That sounds all fine and good, but there are roadblocks that the authors refuse to acknowledge. It would be a stretch to put teachers in the profession at this moment are in charge of their own classrooms – with regard to curriculum – let alone their schools. More often than not, curricula are dictated at the state level, either in the form of overly-complicated lists of learning objectives, mandated tests, or both. These factors end up in lowering the education bar just enough to get some number of students to pass standardized tests. For more on this, please check Booher-Jennings piece called “Below the Bubble”. The idea that individual teachers would be in charge of federally administered schools as opposed to those whose curricula are essentially dictated by the state defies current reality and the imagination.

“Hold faculty accountable for student achievement. Take over every school that, after three years, is unable to get at least 90 percent of all major groups of students on track to leave high school ready to enter college without the need to take any remedial courses.” After claiming a desire to empower teachers, to treat them like professionals, and to put them in charge of schools, the authors then flip the table on these newly empowered teachers. Not only would the authors see these newly empowered teachers make sure students graduate, but have 90% of them ready to walk into college without remediation. Do they not realize that, even after years of testing in big states like Texas, getting 90% of students to pass their exit-level tests (which are not college entrance tests) the first time is a pipe dream. There is another force in the classroom besides the teacher which is at work, yet the authors refuse to even acknowledge it.

Additionally, the authors obviously feel that not only is education through high school graduation a right (which has turned into an entitlement), but that college is a right as well. And whose job is it to push students – 90% of them, anyway – to be ready for college? The authors would say that teachers are. Perhaps they don’t understand that the verb “to learn” is an active-only verb. There is no passive tense for “learn”; no student is “learned by” their teacher. Indeed, student accountability is wholly left off the table in the authors’ bold, “radical” ten steps.

“Replace the current accountability tests with high-quality, course-based exams.” So much for treating teachers like professionals and putting them in charge of schools. I recall a time not too long ago when the teacher had the say as to whether or not a student achieved a level of understanding sufficient to pass a class, when student grades in a class mattered. Sure, teachers ought to be given a level of proficiency to which students must achieve (as a minimum), but the measurement of individual students in individual classrooms ought to be left up to each professional teacher. The teacher, as the authors suggest, ought to be in charge of his or her school and, one might assume, classroom. “high-quality exams” are already out there and in use: the SAT, ACT, et cetera; these are used to indicate a student’s aptitude to move on to college.

“Make a range of social services available to children from low-income families and coordinate those services with those students' school programs.” Here, we hit the core of the “radical” proposals. The authors realize that there are serious “social” issues within some low-income families. Perhaps their attempt is to use the framework of public schools to “fix” these family issues. If that is the case, then I suggest that federal boarding schools be opened for students who are deemed to have “social” issues too egregious for regular school settings.

Of course, this last comment is a leap in a direction I would not recommend. A government which can pull students preemptively into boarding schools – even for their own good – is a government which has far too much power. I’m not saying that the authors want to see this happen, but I do say that it is a logical conclusion to the steps they recommend. It would not surprise me to see it happen within my lifetime.

Somehow, there appears to be a growing feeling that government intrusion into private life is fine and dandy as long as it’s for “good reasons”, like protecting someone or something. We see this in America through government intervention into the economy, into banking, into industry, and soon into health care and energy production. It stands to reason that, like AIG and GM, the federal government may come to see urban school districts as “too big to fail.” When that happens, look out – cradle to grave direct federal intervention into individual lives will be here.

Hearty Thanks for a Great Blackhawk Hockey Season

2009-05-28T19:41:00.001-05:00

In a break from my normal subject matter, I want to say thank you to the Chicago Blackhawk hockey organization for a memorable season. As one who has been a Blackhawks fan for as long as I can remember, it has been a long time coming. Since taking over the club, Mr. Rocky Wirtz has put the right people in the right positions in order to propel the team forward. Just as importantly, he put the team on television in the Chicagoland area, something anathema to the late Mr. Bill Wirtz. The effect, I understand, has been a resurgence of Blackhawks fans coming to the United Center. Playoff games this season were standing room only affairs and stuffed to the rafters.

And they came to see a team which is just as exciting as those of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, when names like Roenick, Graham, Larmer, Sutter, Smith, Savard, Secord, and Belfour. One day, names like Towes, Kane, Seabrook, Keith, Byfuglien, and Versteeg may join the group in Blackhawks lore. Some players, like Khabibulin, Ladd, Havlat, and Sharp may eventually be remembered more as Blackhawks than as members of their previous teams. And hard-nosed, hard-workers like Burish, Brouwer, Barker, and Bolland may well join the rolls of Blackhawks greats as they move forward with the club

And while I realize that I’m missing some names here, my goal is not to be all inclusive; rather, it is to show just how deep, how full of talent that the Blackhawk hockey club is. And that’s a refreshing thing to say. I hope that Mr. Wirtz and Mr. Tallon are able to keep the momentum going over the summer, through the draft, and into training camp.

So to the entire Blackhawks hockey organization, I give a heartfelt thank you. Die hard Blackhawks fans are eternally grateful for this fantastic season, and we hope for success to build on success next season. And next playoffs, I hope to grow my own playoff beard…and shave it off sometime in June.

VAT is a Bad Idea for Americans

2009-05-28T06:51:00.002-05:00

There was some discussion on the edges of the news yesterday regarding the possible implementation of what is called a Value Added Tax, or VAT. It is essentially a sales tax, and it would be paid by individuals and businesses. But the VAT would not be quite like your state or city’s sales tax rate; we’re talking double-digit sales taxes, all going to feed the federal coffers (which are empty and getting more and more so).

The push for VAT, it seems, stems from trying to find a way to pay for government-run, single-payer, universal health care. What a great reason to impose an additional tax burden!

An article from the Washington Post gives a hint as to what the VAT might look like in the US:

What would it cost? [Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel] argues in his book that a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments. In his 2008 book, "100 Million Unnecessary Returns," Yale law professor Michael J. Graetz estimates that a VAT of 10 to 14 percent would raise enough money to exempt families earning less than $100,000 -- about 90 percent of households -- from the income tax and would lower rates for everyone else.

Please note in this portion of the article, there would seem to be a link between the 10 to 14 percent VAT and paying for Medicare-like health care, but that link is not explicit. More likely, this level of VAT would only replace the income tax of households earning less than $100,000 a year, and there’s no mention of lowering or eliminating corporate taxes. So, while this might look like some sort of tax reduction or simplification, it really is a tax expansion into a new realm, one where “tax creep” would be all too easy. Will we notice an extra quarter of a percent here and there as time goes by?

The article continues:

And in a paper published last month in the Virginia Tax Review, Burman suggests that a 25 percent VAT could do it all: Pay for health-care reform, balance the federal budget and exempt millions of families from the income tax while slashing the top rate to 25 percent. A gallon of milk would jump from $3.69 to $4.61, and a $5,000 bathroom renovation would suddenly cost $6,250, but the nation's debt would stabilize and everybody could see a doctor.

So just 25 percent on everything we buy, every service we enlist would “do it all”. But note again that the income tax and corporate taxes would not be eliminated. That many would be “exempted” from income taxes is just a verbal band-aid; when the new universal health care program starts bleeding money, expect both to go up and up.

Also, the claim that a 25 percent VAT would mean that “everybody could see a doctor” is disingenuous. Everybody – or virtually everybody – can see a doctor now. Paying for that doctor’s visit is another story, but won’t you be happy to know that the 25 percent extra you pay for your whatevers will go toward paying someone else’s doctor bill? Won’t this kind of noble consumerism make us all feel just a little bit better about ourselves?

What interest in the VAT shows is the common knowledge that the US is rapidly running out of money. Even President Obama admits that “we are out of money now,” and that even before anything is “done” about health care. The last four months – the first four months of the Obama administration – has amounted to a spend and tax scheme to provide “stimulus” for our flagging economy, bailouts to companies which are “too big to fail”, and services which Democrats think everyone is entitled to. The next benefit is a universal, government-run health insurance scheme (not health care – that’s a different beast). But with projects deficits running into the multi-trillions – a number hardly imaginable in its enormity – the statist Democrat-run federal government must find some means to pay for it all. This is the only reason that the VAT has come up from the Democrat side. There is no intention of lowering the tax burden on anyone, there is only the hope that this additional tax will somehow stop the bleeding which 100+ days of Democrat spending has induced (on top of the bleeding already occurring because of the recession).

Therefore, unless and until the income tax and corporate taxes are abolished, the VAT should sit on a bookshelf in the Emanuel’s respective homes and collect dust. If implemented in addition to other taxes, in particular income and corporate taxes, the VAT would provide an easily adjustable, insidious tax on everything we buy. And eventually, sooner probably rather than later, folks earning under $100,000 a year would be paying income taxes again.

North Korean Tests and Resolutions

2009-05-26T06:45:00.001-05:00

Over the long, holiday weekend, the North Koreans tested a nuclear weapon and test fired some missiles. Various agencies suggest that the nuclear test was on par with the bombs used to end World War II. The UN Security Council will most likely issue some sort of “resolution” or other condemning the act – as if a voiced, group condemnation will reverberate more with the Dear Leader than singular ones.

The uncomfortable thing about North Korea, from my point of view, is that negotiations and rational discussions are precious little good, and indeed may be counter-productive to those who would contain the totalitarian state, because the North Koreans are not your typical, rational actors. The UN cannot negotiate its way around the North Korean problem. This means, I fear, that the UN will ultimately be reduced to doing nothing meaningful.

The way to deal with North Korea, I believe, is to isolate it as completely as possible; what goes into and what comes out of the country must be closely guarded. This would be a very difficult task, to be sure. Where this gets even more difficult is that, eventually, naked aggression would emerge from North Korea, the totalitarian reaction from being forced into a box. Therefore, responsible and affected countries would have to be fully prepared to preempt or absorb a North Korean military push. Also, the US would have to (and should) aggressively pursue missile defense systems, especially those which are nimble enough to handle emerging threats regardless of region.

Not that these will happen; I do not think that they will. What will most likely emerge from the UN this week is a “resolution” condemning past actions of the North Koreans, strong wording urging them to come back to the negotiation table, assurances of aid and such if this is accomplished, and the ball will roll on down the line. We’ve been here before; wash, rinse, repeat.

Green Day – American Idiots

2009-05-24T20:04:00.001-05:00

I was not surprised at all to learn that the band Green Day was upset with retailer WalMart for not selling the band’s latest album. I suppose the boys in the band feel that they are now big enough that they should be exempt from the chain’s policy to not sell albums which carry parental advisory labels. The AP story even claims that this and their previous offering dealt with “weighty topics”. Weighty indeed; I’m sure it’s a cerebral, musical tome concerning themes such as, as the AP puts it, “the loss of innocence and confusion in today's society”. Apparently there is enough of both to land a parental advisory label on the compact disc. Who would think that obscenities – which I’m guessing is why the disc has the PA label – would properly punctuate commentary on “the loss of innocence”?

It seems to me that Green Day has a bit of confusion about the marketplace. What Mr. Armstrong and his band mates don’t seem to understand is that no store, no matter how big it is, is legally or morally bound to sell their album or any album regardless of the reason. If WalMart doesn’t want to sell music by bands whose names begin with the letter “g”, they are free to do that, with the understanding that they cannot complain about the potential loss of revenue.

Mr. Dirnt, Mr. Armstrong’s band mate, claims that WalMart “should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art.” Another idiotic statement. Neither WalMart nor any other retailer is or should be required to sell anything – certainly not the “correct” version thereof. Mr. Dirnt and Mr. Armstrong are free to open their own stores in which they can choose to sell the “correct” versions of all of the “art” they choose to stock. I’m sure they won’t choose to censor anyone who, say, differs significantly with the Green Day’s political views. On the other hand, the band mates might just see fit to deem those views as “incorrect” or “not artful”.

But the big laugh occurs at the end of the AP piece. Mr. Armstrong questions “I mean, what does [WalMart’s censorship rule] say to a young kid who's trying to speak his mind making a record for the first time?” It says that perhaps upholding some modicum of decency is important, at least in some public situations. And while I may think that WalMart’s willingness to carry “clean” versions of compact discs is a bit cheesy – I mean, filling in the blanks on a “cleaned” version is a very easy exercise – it is at least a step toward non-governmental enforcement of basic decency. What it might suggest, however quietly, to the kid recording his first music is to think before he “speak[s] his mind”. A novel idea, that; nothing idiotic about it.

Thoughts on The Oresteia and Our Constitution

2009-05-16T19:24:00.003-05:00

While reading Aeschylus’ drama The Eumenides (which is the third part of The Oresteia), I was struck by the following lines:

Never pollute
our law with innovations. No, my citizens,
foul a clear well and you will suffer thirst.

Neither anarchy nor tyranny, my people.
Worship the Mean, I urge you,
shore it up with reverence and never
banish terror from the gates, not outright.
Where is the righteous man who knows no fear?
The stronger your fear, your reverence for the just,
the stronger your country’s wall and city’s safety…

They are spoken by the goddess Athena as she stands as judge presiding over a jury of Athenians. Their chore is to judge Orestes for his crime, matricide, which he has committed because his mother willfully committed mariticide. Apollo stands with Orestes; he set Orestes on his task. These crimes stand at the end of a long line of acts committed in service of what is called justice throughout The Oresteia, but which truly amount to revenge.

Standing before an objective judge and jury, the cycle of revenge is broken, though not without risk to Orestes. Only Athena saves him through casting the tie-breaking vote. Athena breaks the cycle of revenge by setting Orestes free and justifying Apollo’s command to him. She does this not necessarily because she feels that Orestes or Apollo is blameless. Athena, in her divine state, uses the opportunity to make the Furies – those spirits as old as time who drive revenge ever onward – to serve not as the loose cannons of revenge but wather as the sword of objective justice. They are the “fear” and “terror” which stand as a warning on man’s moral map, they caution, “Do not pass this point.” They inflict pain and suffering on those who choose to ignore the warning. They are the severe negative consequences for choosing to disregard the highest law. They are the other side of mercy, because justice without the possibility of the Furies is nothing of the sort. It is the folly of blind kindness and can only lead to anarchy or tyranny.

Would that we had earthly justices as wise as the fictional Athena proves to be in this instance. Her advice to “Never pollute our law with innovations” seems particularly appropriate for our time. We should have reverence for our highest legal document, the Constitution. It is what keeps our country on the mean, away from tyranny and anarchy. It is not living; it does not breathe. We need not become innovative with it. And it does have roots in that of a higher power, something which man cannot touch, yet which sets our inalienable rights before us, those being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Work Cited: Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin, 1984.

More Obama Doublethink

2009-05-14T21:49:00.003-05:00

It seems a simple thing; one cannot spend and spend and spend and then complain about one’s debt. Yet that appears to be just what President Obama has done. After presiding over the most extravagant spending spree in US history, he now claims that “current deficit spending [is] ‘unsustainable.’” He also “warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries” according to Bloomberg.com.

There is some serious doublethink going on here. For those not familiar with the term, it comes from Orwell’s 1984, and it is the act of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and believing that they are both true. These contradictory ideas can be flipped and molded as need be at any given moment, depending on what the moment calls for. For example: the government must spend untold volumes of dollars to “stimulate” the economy so that it “recovers”; the government cannot go on spending and borrowing money, or the whole show will fall apart. Mr. Obama certainly must operate under doublethink on some level because his actions and words demonstrate it.

Another example: the government must cut its budget and get rid of agencies which are ineffective; the government must add huge bureaucracies to administer trillions of dollars of benefits. Or another, which I covered in my last post: government administered health care (Medicare) will go bankrupt in 2017; the government must install universal health care for all citizens, and this will save money.

Doublethink, in my opinion, performs two functions for the doublethinker. First, it allows for an ever malleable arguing strategy with which to keep opponents off balance. This is especially effective in our current sound-byte culture. Second, it becomes a very comfortable way of thinking for those who practice it. There need be no hard choices because the truth – one’s impression of the truth, that is – is whatever it needs to be in the moment.

Of course, our world is not yet what Orwell imagined in 1984. There is no Ministry of Truth which retroactively corrects history to coincide with the current version of fact. We still have records and hard history, a fact which Speaker Pelosi is squirming under at the moment. The thinking mind can detect doublethink if it pays enough attention, if it coolly weighs words and actions. Defeating doublethink, though, is becoming more and more difficult because one side, one vision within doublethink instances is a nice, tasty carrot for the masses, a utopian idea. But that’s a topic for another post.

2017 Versus Universality – Too Much to Swallow

2009-05-13T19:57:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month, the Financial Times and other news agencies reported that Medicare will run out of money – a term which is difficult to understand – earlier than previously predicted. Medicare is now projected to go broke in 2017. Medicare is a government run, taxpayer funded health care system. That it will go broke in the relatively near future should tell the average taxpayer something.

What the Obama administration would like for the electorate to believe is that the looming bankruptcy of Medicare is really a strong message that the healthcare system needs to be reformed and costs need to be lowered. Directly coupled with that argument is universal, single-payer, government administered health care (by some other name, certainly, so as not to scare folks before the ink is dry). If we, the Obama folks claim, only trust in our government, then everyone will be covered under wonderfully administered and egalitarian universal health care. The price tag, according to a post on the Miami Herald’s website, goes something like this: “The current guess is somewhere around $1.2 trillion over 10 years.”

Given the current administration’s panache for spending “somewhere around” amounts in the trillions, one might expect that the $1.2 trillion is a serious low-ball. But the real question is this: how quickly will government administered, universal health care go bankrupt? Could we, the tax-paying American electorate, expect a longer life for universal health care than we already expect for Medicare? Will more people in government health care programs somehow extend the life of all government health care programs?

The answer is, I think, perhaps, but only in that more money will keep the monster alive a bit longer. Also, some folks will become quite wealthy by providing infrastructure to the government. But the people who are supposed to be helped – those who are supposed to get fantastic, world-class, government administered health care will actually see their medical options reduced and their pain (figuratively and literally) increased. In the end, the whole thing will go bankrupt; Medicare is the predictor of this. How many trillions of dollars and how many lives will be spent proving that the result of Medicare (a bankrupt government medical program) will have the same effect once it is grafted onto the whole of the American people?

The Obstacle of Definitions

2009-05-11T06:14:00.000-05:00

Quite recently, I’ve engaged in a conversation concerning torture. The discussion group in which this has occurred bills itself as a place where people “who appreciate thinking, discussing and debating using reason, logic and wit” should converse. Apparently, reason and logic get chucked out the window when it comes to opening discussions on subjects like torture.

I put forward what I think is a great first step for any contentious debate: define important terms. I invited others (though not explicitly) to define the very term that was up for debate. I was immediately met with the response, “Word-chopping is the first step towards casuistry.” Who would guess that defining a term would result in an accusation of deceptive practice?

I responded that definitions are essential to argumentation; without at least a roughly agreed upon definition of terms, the parties in a discussion may waste all of their time arguing about very different things. Definitions of important terms set the boundaries of debate, in a manner of speaking. Definitions allow all participants in a debate to debate the same thing.

I also put forward my own definition, which is based on actual denotation (dictionary definition) with a slight but important modification – permanence of effect. This, too, was to no avail.

I was informed that my attempt at defining the term was actually “playing with words and invent[ing] euphemisms”. Never mind that agreeing on a denotative meaning for a word already in common use is something very different from inventing a term specifically to avoid denotative and (more importantly) connotative meanings. I’m happy to use a word like “torture” in a debate, but the meaning must be set, not squishy or endlessly mutable.

And that, I believe, is the very thing that dissuades those battlers against definition. If we actually define, in hard terms, what an idea like “torture” actually is, then that term can no longer fit any and all situations in which one might find it useful. Additionally, things that one might consider “torture” may not, upon further investigation, really be “torture”. In these ways, definition becomes an obstacle to echo-chamber thinking.

While over time the discussion has become more diverse, I think that it is instructive to pay attention more so to how it opened, which is why I have described that here. When words lose their meanings, people find it more and more difficult to communicate effectively. Another effect is that groups become more and more polarized; they fracture into groups using different definitions for important ideas. Currently in the US, we are somewhat embroiled in a difference about “torture,” though I doubt there is any attention paid to definition of the term. It may not be long until we find ourselves talking past each other, fracturing into groups with different definitions of “liberty” and “freedom”. Should that happen, we will be truly in crisis.

What’s in a Name – The GWCCCC Edition

2009-05-09T23:23:00.002-05:00

The New York Times reports that a group called ecoAmerica has conducted “focus group sessions” in order to find terms which the public might find more palatable. The Times reports that the term global warming “turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes.” Of course, it might have something to do with the recent cooling temperatures over the past ten years, as reported by Fox News’ Special Report this past week.

So here’s a short list taken from both sources of the old and new terms that ecoAmerica would want us to use. Remember, it’s all for the planet – my comments in italics.

Instead of “global warming”, use “climate crisis” – I don’t think that this one will work. At the moment, everything is a crisis. Banks, autos, mortgages, swine flu, unemployment, and on. In fact, I think climate crisis is worse than the uber-ambiguous term climate change. If there really is a crisis, then we’d better do something big, some many things big, and quickly. Surely no one is going to buy that.

Instead of “carbon”, use “pollution” – Just because the SCOTUS says that carbon dioxide is a pollutant does not make it so. Anyone who honestly believes that it is should consider cessation of his own personal pollution factory – his lungs.

Instead of “cap and trade”, use “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund” – No matter how its phrased, it’s a horrible idea. The idea, though, is to sell the scam by claiming that the “less fortunate” will somehow not be affected by higher prices. Just the creation of the bureaucracy to administer any “cap and trade” program will suck money out of consumer pockets. The only “refund” that will be given will be well after the fact, and a fraction of the cost to the consumer at that. The lovely thing for the statist is that “cap and trade” will put the state in touch with every aspect of production and consumption in the nation.

Global warming / climate change / climate crisis (GWCCCC) advocates do not, I think, believe in conservation, really. If they did, they would do more to press for individual power reduction. But all of our technology, travel methods, and consumer goods require lots and lots of energy. Conservation means making individual choices to use less. The GWCCCC crowd’s desire to create more bureaucracy and government intervention in order to “save the planet” should be a dead giveaway to just how serious they are about doing that. No government agency in the world, or of the world, will “save” the world from its supposedly human-induced “climate crisis”. However, if the GWCCCC crowd has its way, we’ll all spend untold billions of dollars to find that out.

If and after “cap and trade” – I mean the “pollution reduction refund” – is put in place, it will be instructive to follow that money. At that point, ecoAmerica and groups like it will have to come up with another lexicon to euphemize us into submission.

Going Into Overtime

2009-05-08T06:25:00.001-05:00

The great thing about rooting for a team that is (even after eons of not being) competitive is that there is always a chance that the team will pull out a win. Going into the third period of last night’s Canucks-Blackhawks game, I thought that perhaps my beloved Blackhawks might be able to solve Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo at least once, if for no other reason than to make it interesting. But as the final frame wore on, it seemed there was nothing the ‘Hawks players could do to get one past him. Then at 17:16, Martin Havlat put one past Luongo and the UC erupted.

The second thought that occurred to me after the goal was, “This might be a long one.” But no worries; my Friday promised to not be too taxing. And anyway, when it comes to one’s favorite team and a run at the Stanley Cup, certain sacrifices are to be made. As it turned out, the Blackhawks made it an early night, a short overtime tilt, ending the game just 2:52 into the extra frame. I was happy to hit the hay so unexpectedly early. I would have been just as happy with the same outcome much later in the evening (or earlier in the morning) if need; playoff hockey demands sacrifice.

When I read earlier this week that 5-on-5 playoff hockey might be in jeopardy, it made me cringe. After the triple-overtime game, which was carried live on NBC, I thought there might be some backlash from those who just don’t get overtime playoff hockey. I had no idea that the push the change had come from within the ranks of the NHL. Changing to a 4-on-4 format after the first overtime would be like removing three football players after the final whistle. It would be like taking away the shortstop and center fielder at the beginning of the 11th inning. It would be…unnatural.

Going 4-on-4 after the first overtime would also remove some (or much) of the built in tension and excitement that exists in 5-on-5, sudden death overtime, especially multiple overtime games. Those games, which stick out in memory even more than great 60-minute games, are special. They are lived through by fans. They are a focal point for experiencing the sport. Hockey fans remember when Brett Hull scored against Dominik Hasek in the third overtime to win the Stanley Cup. I remember it well because it was the one night, while deployed for Operation Allied Force (Serbia), that I did not fly. I was sick, and we had been on a night-flying schedule. So while I rested during my night/day, I listened to the entire game on Armed Forces Radio in a cold-medication induced haze. I wouldn’t have slept for the world; some things are important.

I recall the 1996 series between my beloved Blackhawks and the Colorado Avalanche. Four of the six games needed to win the series, with the Avalanche emerging the victors. I remember it because I was in pilots training at the time and I spent much more time than I should have watching hockey. (Which, in hindsight, was just fine; I was a horrible pilot). And to prove the naysayers wrong when they claim that series with long or multiple overtime games “suck the life out of” a team, the Colorado Avalanche went on to win the Cup that year. The stuff of memories.

So when folks talk about hockey games being too long, or when I suspect some network program director freaks out that triple-overtime is headed his way, bumping an episode of The Golden Girls, I cringe just a bit. Hockey in the US is not, it seems, for the masses. It is a flowing, crashing, concentration-demanding game. It does not happen in 10-second spurts, like football. You can’t channel surf between events, like one can while watching a baseball game. And in playoff overtime hockey, there are no television time outs. We’re in until it ends. And perhaps that is what is great about playoff overtime hockey: a sense of commitment. Win or lose, staying until the end. I hope that commitment doesn’t drop to 80% (4-on-4) after 20 minutes of overtime.

Picking Empathy Over the Constitution

2009-05-05T06:17:00.000-05:00

When considering his first nominee to the Supreme Court, President Obama made his intentions clear: judicial empathy matters more than fidelity to the Constitution. According to Forbes, Mr. Obama believes that “We need somebody who's got the heart to recognize--the empathy to recognize what it's like…” After that, fill in the blank. With anything and any time. And it need only last a moment. Like a kind thought while passing someone in a hallway. Like a wave from a car window. Like a sentence fragment.

Courts are supposed to interpret and uphold the law of the land, to deal justice based on those laws which are enacted by the legislature and signed into law by the executive. Judges are not supposed to make law themselves. Yet time and time again, from carbon dioxide to changing the definition of marriage, the US has seen individual judges, or groups of them, effectively create law and policy.

Purposely bringing “empathy” into the discussion would take this activism to a whole new level. Under the “empathy” rubric, judges may side with a complainant simply because…well, they feel for the complainant. The convenience – for the judges, that is – would be that their judgments, their empathies, would not necessarily set precedent. Their “empathies” may simply change from case to case, from plaintiff to plaintiff.

Sense a road to corruption here?

The great thing about defending and protecting a piece of paper – the Constitution – is that it does not change just to make someone, or itself, feel better. It simply is; it is the law of the land that we must live up to. “Empathy” in the judicial branch will do nothing but drag the Constitution down into the cultural, political winds, where it will be whipped around like a windsock.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

2009-05-04T05:52:00.000-05:00

Last night I needed some space and air. I took a brisk walk through the neighborhood. Before leaving the house, though, I loaded up a podcast of Mark Levin’s radio show from a while back (March 31st) in which he played a speech given by Ronald Reagan in 1964. Good walking stuff, that.

I had heard this edition of Levin’s radio show – or parts of it – when it was aired. I had, as it were, happened on it by accident while running errands. On that day, I ended up sitting in a parking lot for most of an hour listening to Mr. Reagan’s speech. As I listened then, and as I listened during my walk, I realized that the things that I believe today are the same that Mr. Reagan was advocating in 1964. And while some of the big players were different, some were not. There was then, as there is now, “liberals” who sought peace through “understanding” the adversary, that if we showed enough empathy for them, they would just leave us alone. Mr. Reagan vigorously opposed this idea because it was, and is, weak and naïve.

But Mr. Reagan also covered, in an in depth manner with many statistics, anecdotes, and vision, why small government is better than big government, why individual freedom is more important than collectivism, and why we must work towards those ends now. Free markets, low taxes, and limited government are still what conservatives should be working towards. Now is still the time – even more so than in 1964, perhaps.

This morning, I read an article from the Financial Times about Margaret Thatcher. Not to my surprise, many of the same positions taken by Mr. Reagan are echoed in the article about Mrs. Thatcher. In the article, Lord Saatchi writes that if Mrs. Thatcher could see where Britain (and presumably the US) is headed at the moment, “She would block it with every ounce of her body. Because she knows where it is headed.”

Indeed, many people do know where this is headed, and not all of them are against it. Those who push statism know the end toward which they advocate. Those who fight against it fear the power of the state, and rightly so. The counter-punch against statism lies in the application of a few simple principles: limiting government reach and power, increased personal liberty (and through it, individual responsibility and freedom), and protecting and defending the highest law of the land – for the US, its Constitution. All other considerations are offshoots of these principles, and all three must be employed to slow down, stop, and roll back statist advances.

Ready For a Serious, Two-Way Conversation

2009-05-01T19:27:00.001-05:00

During a town hall meeting in Missouri celebrating his 100th day as president, Mr. Obama said:

“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular -- and you see folks waving tea bags around—Let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we're going to stabilize Social Security.”

On April 15th, I had no idea that my attendance at the Dallas Tea Party would have such beneficial effects for me. Mr. Obama may want to clear his schedule, though, because having a serious conversation requires that he listen as well as talk. And by talk, I mean spout talking points which are read from a teleprompter.

Health care costs are not the government’s to control. Too much government intervention, let alone outright meddling, alters prices and services. Yet I would agree that the status quo is less than optimal. Here’s a market solution: let folks buy health care like they buy car insurance. If this were the case, all Americans would have the opportunity to buy from any number of companies who would be competing for policy holders. What’s more, we would have more choice, or at least a whole lot more choice than the 2-3 “levels” of coverage from a current employer. Health insurance would also be portable; Americans would not have to worry about losing insurance if they lose or leave their jobs, nor pay steeply higher COBRA payments.

The problem, of course, is that individualized, private, market-driven health insurance doesn’t fit Mr. Obama’s bill. Arguments that people would be uninsured because of this or that malady are nothing but a cover, or to use Mr. Obama’s favorite terms, a “distraction”, an “old argument”. Government granted, “universal” health care serves Mr. Obama’s statist drive. It would grow government to new, unseen heights and provide an avenue for government intervention into individual’s personal space like nothing before it. Those on the Left who think that the Patriot Act was intrusive haven’t seen anything yet. Mr. Obama wants a vehicle for larger, more intrusive government, not a conversation about health care. Move along.

Social Security, a deeply rooted weed from FDR’s administration, is unlikely to be “stabilized”. Many citizens around my age – 35-ish – and younger recognize that they will never see the dollars they paid into the Social Security scheme again. The money is simply gone; it was gone the moment that the tax was paid. So stabilizing it doesn’t quite capture the picture. A more appropriate metaphor might be “laying it to rest”, though that may seem insensitive to those getting Social Security checks at the moment. I’d like to argue that younger Americans would be willing – albeit grudgingly – to continue to pay Social Security taxes if three promises were agreed to and kept. First, those of a certain age and beyond would be allowed the Social Security benefits they were promised, perhaps with raised retirement ages and other concessions. Second, that those younger folks would have a portion of their Social Security taxes placed into individual, interest bearing accounts payable to the individual tax payer or his designee. Third, when the first group passes on that Social Security would be abolished in total and all funds in individual, private accounts be paid in full to their beneficiaries.

But this conversation will not happen, either. Abolishing Social Security is a non-starter to the statist. The individual liberty gained by controlling one’s own money, one’s own retirement dollars, takes away from the power of the state. So while Mr. Obama claims he wants to “stabilize Social Security”, he wishes to do so not for the betterment of the individual citizen but rather for the enlargement and entrenchment of the federal government.

I wonder, is that a serious enough conversation starter for the president? Have a I made my points in a direct, succinct, and rational way? Have I bloviated? Or does my attendance at the Dallas Tea Party on April 15th allow my president, our president, to dismiss my thoughts, my concerns? The sad thing is that despite Mr. Obama’s claim to want a “serious conversation”, I will most assuredly never know.

Rebranding Versus Reforming, Part III

2009-04-27T06:37:00.001-05:00

While conservatives should reform by way of refocusing primarily on what it means to be conservative, the growing movement on the left deserves a new title. The Liberal title has always been a bad moniker; it confuses, which I suppose is its point. Progressive is a poor moniker as well because it presupposes that all policies put forward by the group will move something forward, and that something is assumed to be society. Far from it.

I side with the viewpoint put forward in Mark Levin’s new book, Liberty and Tyranny. The proper name for the left’s policies, and therefore for the left, is statist. Whereas socialism and fascism have loaded connotations attached to them – indeed, some folks seem to believe that one or both are movements of the right – statism has neither. It simply has a definition: concentration of power in government at the cost of personal liberty.

The simplicity of this definition is key its utility. Rebranding the left’s movement as statist allows for a proper reframing of the argument between Conservatives and the left. Using this moniker repeatedly when referring to the left may well make it stick. Coupling the rebranding with consistent reminders of its definition – statism is the concentration of power in the government at the cost of personal liberty – is a must, lest the term’s connotation become twisted and duplicitous, like liberal or progressive.

The most important aspect, though, is that the rebranding of the left as statist provides a basis for an argument which conservatives can win. When government conferred “benefits” and “investments” and other programs are discussed, conservatives must always, always show how greater government will result in less personal liberty. Conservatives should be prepared to give specific, everyday examples of what liberties may be lost is statist policies are implemented. These examples should be as simple and straight-forward as possible.

What’s more, the statist term allows for conservatives to reject even erroneous policies put forward by those who are right of center based on the weighing of personal liberty versus government power. This is important when it comes to maintaining conservative principles. So when the urge comes, as it surely will, to grow government – the urge toward “compassionate conservatism” - this reframing of the argument would prompt conservatives to police each other when it comes to policy. Thus this rebranding serves not only to correctly define the objective of the opposition on the left, but also to inoculate those who are right of center against the lure of growing their own power.

(Previous article on statism here.)

Secretary Duncan and the Unaccountable

2009-04-24T06:54:00.000-05:00

In an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal two days ago (22 April 2009), education secretary Arnie Duncan discusses school reform, stimulus billions, best practices, and stakeholders who ought to want kids to have better educational opportunities. But through all of his chatter about billions and change, one group is conspicuously left out: students.

That Mr. Duncan would so plainly leave out what I would argue is one of the most important groups when regarding educational accountability is a bit strange. The only slight nod to student accountability – and one would have to read a lot into it to get there – is a reference that the country should be “pursuing what works best for kids”.

Here’s a quick stab, in the few minutes I have to write here before I go to work for the day, at what I think “works best for kids”. I think that setting a limited number of clear, understandable, and measureable learning objectives is a good start. Those should be stated up front and reviewed from time to time with the students. Then, students should be taught to those objectives (and beyond, if the occasion arises). This should be done in a way so that the students internalize core knowledge. Finally, students should prove that they have met and mastered the learning objectives. This does not mean perfection on the part of the student. It means that the student can work with a level of proficiency appropriate for his age (and beyond, for those who can).

School and teacher responsibility rests in setting up such learning objectives, providing a good classroom environment, to include the knowledge dispensed, and properly measuring student proficiency. The students, and their parents by extension, are responsible for the students’ learning.

As I’ve written before, this model requires a great deal of professionalism. There can be few or no “victims” in this system. And there must be honest, ongoing, and frank assessments of abilities, limitations, and shortcomings on the part of all involved in this system, along with individual commitments to always, always improve themselves. Students included. Learning is a serious business, and it is important that those who engage it in most regularly – students and teachers – view it in this way.

I do not expect this to happen on a national level; I do not share the federal government’s belief that the federal government can provide the basis for equally wonderful education across our entire country. This is a utopian vision. It would be nice, though, if localities in public education were given a free hand to strike forth on their own and find better ways to education the children in their districts, to use accountability models that work for them. But in a land in which the growing thrust is toward central planning, education seems to be a leading indicator. No Child Left Behind was the beginning, and it may well be that Mr. Duncan and the Obama administration will look to push a unified vision of reform and progress on all schools. But given Mr. Duncan’s own words, we might expect that students, and most importantly, student accountability, will be left behind.

The Original Sin of Respiration

2009-04-21T20:00:00.001-05:00

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), prompted by a Supreme Court ruling on the Clean Air Act, has begun the process of regulating the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, including methane (link here and here). Both of these gasses are produced by animals – all of them. Supposedly, this action by the EPA will push Congress into creating legislation to curb or cap emissions of greenhouse gasses. One way or another, it appears that the Global Warming / Climate Change (GW/CC) crowd is going to have its way on this matter.

The intended consequences, however, seem to be quite clear. If the release of gasses like carbon dioxide is to be controlled and reduced, there will be a resulting rise in the price of energy – and everything that the resulting energy produces. That rise in price may come in the form of emissions control equipment (carbon-capture devices, perhaps) and/or punitive taxation for the emissions. I say punitive because no entity, to my knowledge, produces carbon dioxide as its main purpose. Other goods and services are produced; carbon dioxide is a by-product. Industries which produce the gasses as a by-product of their real business will be punished for it, . Punishing industry for various by-products is nothing new. But in my mind, there is something different about this latest push. It is a push to impede and eventually remove (with hopes of replacing) the lifeblood of our economy: safe, reliable, and relatively cheap energy.

A more cynical person might take the whole a drastic, but logical, step further. It might seem obvious that we, as human beings, cannot get around the cycle of photosynthesis and respiration, the cycle which takes oxygen, changes it into carbon dioxide, and then back to oxygen. The cycle involves all living things. Therefore, just through our breathing, each animal on the earth is a polluter. It is, from a GW/CC point of view, the “original sin” of man (and animal) to breathe and thus “dump” carbon dioxide into the earth’s fragile atmosphere. Cap and trade, curbing emissions until it hurts (and then some, and then some more) may then be seen as repentance and remuneration for the harm of the GW/CC original sin of breathing.

That might be taking it all a bit too far, but it might be best to not underestimate the argumentative lengths to which GW/CC true believers will go.

One look at living and travel habits of those who most vocally espouse the GW/CC dogma belies the seriousness and suggests other motives. From holding climate conferences in Bali to Mr. Gore’s world travels to proposed caps on the “carbon emissions” of us all, those who advocate GW/CC dogma do not, and I believe have no intention to, live by the words they preach. They are the gods among men, the ones who will judge the living and breathing. And they are the ones who will benefit from the policies – be those policies from the EPA or Congress – which will tax all of us down the economic ladder and create yet another deep and enormous footprint of the state on each of our private lives.

Rebranding Versus Reforming, Part II

2009-04-19T20:48:00.002-05:00

One of the problems with the current conservative label is that in the very recent past there has been very little practice of that which could rightly be called fiscally conservative. Indeed, government expansion under the Bush administration was a cause of alarm for more than a few conservatives, though I doubt the concerns matched those on the left. I, for one, had no problem at all with the Patriot Act, with wire-tapping calls involving foreign nationals, or with holding terrorists at Guantanamo. All of these can be viewed as responsible government reactions to a real and present threat.

What did bother me occurred on the domestic front; this thing called “compassionate conservatism” turned out to be nothing more than a statist euphemism. Federal intrusions into education through No Child Left Behind top my list. But not far behind are prescription drug “benefits” and government “partnering” with private charities. Then the Bush bailouts began, and President Bush admitted that he had “abandoned free market principles to save the free market system”. This was a bridge too far for me.

The conservative label, it seemed, became quite blurred with its supposed political opposite, especially on the economic front. But what had really happened, I believe, is that conservative politicians had somehow convinced themselves that government had somehow changed from an obstacle to a solution; indeed, government had become the solution.

(I realize that the above statement is a generalization. I generalize only to make a point, not to provide a comprehensive view of the situation as it was or is.)

So, from a domestic conservative/libertarian point of view, what politicians who would call themselves conservatives must do has nothing to do with rebranding. Though it may be tempting to rebrand conservatives as something else – say, traditionalists – I doubt the move would be very successful. The problem with rebranding for conservatives is that for them, definitions are supposed to matter. Being conservative means something: “belief in natural law, belief in established institutions, preference for liberty over equality, suspicion of power—and of human nature, belief in exceptionalism, [and] belief in the individual.” These are in stark contrast to the statist point of view.

What conservative politicians must do is to reform their governing policies to conform more so with the principles stated above. The two main difficulties that conservative politicians in office at the federal level face are that 1) they are in the minority, and 2) their brand is tainted. Because of these two factors, the road to reform will not be easy for them. It is imperative, however, that they (and those who would see true conservative governance return) work tirelessly to offer conservative policies and options to both their counterparts at the federal level and to the electorate at large. In doing so, conservative politics may reform itself into what it ought to have been and perhaps thwart the statist movement which is afoot.

Rebranding Versus Reforming, Part I

2009-04-17T23:08:00.000-05:00

Politics relies heavily on words, the meaning of words, and how people perceive words. Labels applied to people and movements are quite important, especially where connotations outweigh denotations. Once a label or designation gains a negative connotation, or perhaps even a perceived negative connotation, there is a good chance that the label will be changed. The hope is that negative connotations will be cast off along with the old brand name.

I believe that it was for this reason that global warming became climate change. Global warming became too tenuous a title, too constraining a dogma. If the climate happened to cool – which arguably it has in the last ten years – then the moniker becomes laughable. Thus global warming was rebranded as climate change. Any change in the climate can, through this rebranding, be blamed on greenhouse gas emissions produced through human activity – presumably including human respiration. Never mind that some things, including climate, are always changing, and controlling them is a pipe dream. If one wishes to believe enough, the logic granted through the rebranding is simply accepted. Even a global ice age may be explained through the trapping of heat by greenhouse gasses.

It may be argued that modern liberals became progressives in the recent past when a negative connotation surrounded the liberal label. This rebranding as I’m referring to it here only goes back as far as this past election cycle. Never mind that there is nothing liberal, in a classical sense, in the modern left-liberal-progressive agenda. The progression of an idea from individual liberty – an element of the classical liberal idea – to centralized, state dominated power structures does not, I would argue, ensure or suggest progress. It does not, I would argue, even employ “new or experimental methods.” The modern left-liberal-progressive agenda has been attempted, albeit without the homeland loathing attitude commonly espoused by the left’s glitterati. When it comes to policy, the name may change, but the song remains the same.

On the other side of the spectrum, the name has stayed the same, but the song in many cases changed. More on that in part two.

Dallas Tea Party Report

2009-04-17T19:56:00.001-05:00

Originally posted at American Thinker (link) near the bottom of the page.

Yesterday evening (15 April 2009), I decided to drive the hour to Dallas so that I could take part in the Tea Party. I am nearly 40 years old and had never taken part in a protest of any type. I’m not really the “protesting” type – there is, I think, a stereotype protestor, one who screams slogans (mostly cheesy rhymes) and carries signs printed by organizations which the protestor is largely, and pitifully, ignorant of. The group I joined outside of Dallas City Hall was not the stereotypical bunch.

Most folks who had signs which they had obviously made themselves. There were not, as far as I could tell, any mass produced signs, though there were t-shirts aplenty. “Don’t Tread On Me” shirts were ubiquitous, and I must admit to seeking out the stand which sold them. I never did find it. Some folks even had “Right Wing Extremist” shirts, the product of a little quick, industrious work by some local shirt screener. There were also no cheesy slogans; no bullhorn-lead chants. While most people stood, there were lots of people with lawn chairs; about a third of the crowd were sitting and listening to the speakers. In fact, most of the crowd was listening to the speakers.

Outside of Mark Davis, a local radio host, I did not recognize most of the speakers. Some were from politically active groups, which is to be expected. But not one elected official was up to speak. The logic being, I suppose, that the electorate hears elected officials all of the time; this was a time for them to hear the electorate, the “regular” folks. One speaker was a mother of two (if I remember correctly) who talked about the decisions she made to work hard instead of joining the welfare rolls. Her story met with great applause, which was to be expected, given the crowd and its purpose.

One thing which one might not expect, though I certainly did, was that this was no partisan gathering. Republicans were skewered along with Democrats. Indeed, even Texas native President George W. Bush was derided for his big government approach, in particular the bail-outs and No Child Left Behind.

And that is one thing that folks who just dropped by or drove by might not understand, and perhaps something that the media chooses to not understand. This rally was not, in my mind, against all taxation. It was anti big government. The most tangible symptoms of big government (so far) are various taxes. It is a bridge too far to believe that the recent federal mega-spending spree will not, at some point, result in much higher taxes for everyone, not just the supposed “rich”. What’s more, as the federal government doles out money created from the ether, a growing number of people realize that the strings attached to that money are quite real, quite entangling. The more states and localities are bound though largesse to the federal government, the more the electorate will find itself limited in its freedom. Restrictions, constraints roll downhill.

People are beginning to understand that, and they are growing uncomfortable. Many are realizing that their tax dollars are funding the very policies and practices which limit their freedom. There is nothing partisan about it. Or perhaps there is, but not under the Democrat / Republican rubric under which we all supposedly fall.

Back on the Blog

2009-04-16T21:54:00.001-05:00

After a fairly short hiatus, it seems that I’m going to resume blogging. Two things in particular have nudged me in this direction.

First, a few weeks ago a friend of mine and I had a chat about why I stopped blogging. I explained my point of view briefly, mostly why I didn’t feel that my written opposition to policies and actions were needed. In the end, it seemed that my opposition might just seem angry, which was not (and is not) how I want to present my point of view. The only response my friend made was that this was the very time when reasoned points of view were needed and that I might rethink my decision. That started the ball rolling.

Second, I attended the tea party at Dallas City Hall. It was heartening to see so many folks who felt, at least someone, the same way that I do. (I hope to have a more complete account of the tea party up very soon.) Many of the speakers – none of which were elected officials – commented that like-minded folks cannot sit back and just hope that things work out okay. We must do something.

I do not pretend to think that simply writing a (rather obscure) blog will do much. I plan on becoming more involved, as much as I can without taking too much focus away from my primary occupation, which is a joyful time-sucker. But in this space again, I hope to put forward reasoned thought without hesitation to call a duck a duck. I hope to regain a reader or two and perhaps pick up some more. Thanks for reading. Cheers.

Last Post - #395

2009-03-22T14:49:00.004-05:00

I've been negligent of my writing lately, or rather, I've been negligent in my posting. The reason for this is that, as the few who read this may guess, I have no confidence in the direction and declared purpose of the legislative and executive branches of our government. That being said, I have been stuck in what I think is a bit of a strange position: I have strong opinions about the political direction of our country, yet I do not see the importance of posting my thoughts. They are, to put it bluntly, not unique nor particularly compelling. I would be a nay-sayer, another voice of "NO" in the (hopefully) growing discord. I would prefer to be part of a loyal opposition - which I would be under any party's administration. But as I said, I have no confidence in our current government and therefore cannot offer any loyalty with my opposition. My efforts are best spent in other ways.

For those who have read, or who have stopped by and taken a look around, I thank you. If and when I begin to post again, it will probably be elsewhere; I'll pop a link here if it happens. But as of now, the Mind of Flapjack is closed.

More Time Does Not Equal Better Education

2009-03-11T19:50:00.001-05:00

One thing that jumped out while reading about President Obama’s address on education on Tuesday was his call for longer school days, longer school weeks, and longer school years. From the AP:

Obama also wants kids to spend more time in school, with longer school days, school weeks and school years — a position he admitted will make him less popular with his school-age daughters.

Children in South Korea spend a month longer in school every year than do kids in the U.S., where the antiquated school calendar comes from the days when many people farmed and kids were needed in the fields.

"I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas…" Obama said as the crowd laughed [because he had mentioned his daughters]. "But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

As I’ve written before, simply making a school day longer will not result in better educated children. Becoming educated takes time and effort, and both of those tend to be solo acts. As Dr. Seuss put it, “You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.” Forcing kids (notice that I did not use the word students) to stay in a school for longer periods will not equate to more work, more rigorous curricula, or better test scores. It would most certainly not transform restless, undisciplined, education-resistive kids into sponges for knowledge. If school days – let alone weeks or years – are to be increased by federal mandate, that increase in time must be accompanied by at least two other elements.

The first element would be to exclude students who do not show a disciplinary bent toward learning. What good would a longer school day be if it were largely disrupted by children who do not wish to be in school in the first place, who do not value their own education and have little to no self respect – let alone respect for those who have responsibility over them. But I do not expect this to come to pass. Education, after all, has become one of the many, many “rights” which permeate our society. The “right” to an education is a birth entitlement, and it is growing. As politicians and “activists” claim that even a college education is a birth right of all Americans, we can bid farewell to merit-based achievement in education. This can already be seen, somewhat, at the secondary education level, where a high school diploma is already seen as a “right,” an entitlement, of students (and parents) without much regard for actual achievement.

By making a longer school day a privilege instead of a “right” or federal mandate, local schools might get buy in from a very important piece of the puzzle – students. Parents could help foster this by engendering education as not just an important aspect of growing up, but the important aspect. There is a reason why South Korean kids are willing to spend longer days in the classroom, and it is not because the government tells them to. It is probably because parents expect them to; it is probably because parents expect their children to work as hard as they possibly can to achieve whatever level of education they are capable of. In pursuit of that, the students are willing (or compelled) to spend longer “sitting alone in a room” mastering material. A longer school day, by this logic, does not result in a better educated student, but is rather the result of a serious attitude toward education by parents and students, the combination of which may well result in the student reaching as close to his or her maximum potential as possible.

Whereas the first element is negative – the removal of some aspect – the second is positive. In order to not “waste” school time, any added time to the school day, week, or year must be well conceived. Simply making class periods longer by 15 minutes and thereby making the school day an hour longer (for a block-schedule school) would do nothing to promote better learning. Simply adding a week or two onto the school year would not result in better educated kids. Time is a limited commodity, and too much of it is wasted in schools already. Any additional time must be used to the students’ benefit, not to their comfort. For instance, if a “study hall” period were to be made mandatory, it would have to be monitored to ensure that kids weren’t simply sleeping, texting, or playing various games. If students were allowed into writing labs, those labs should not have internet access for the simple reason that internet access becomes an empty surfing “experience” all too often.

And yet, extra time in school need not necessarily result in students taking more classes. Valuable time “sitting alone in a room” while completing multiple iterations of required learning exercises – be they in math, science, history, or literature – only need a quiet, monitored place. Yet that alone would be a challenge in many schools. Thus, the first element is instrumental. In fact, it is instrumental now, in our current education model. More time in school would only make it more so.

It comes down to making education a thing to be sought after, an educated mind something for young people to aspire to. If education is seen more and more as a “right,” as an entitlement, all of the hours in a day will do little or nothing to change young attitudes.

Your Plan, Mr. Obama?

2009-03-10T06:55:00.000-05:00

Today, President Obama is supposed to roll out his approach to “fix” schools in the US. Expect more money to flow into schools and school-related programs in order to “help” keep student in school through graduation and to “recruit” high quality teachers. And then, expect more talk about tough standards, high expectations, and rigor.

The reader may note the use of quotation marks above. They are meant to imply cynicism and sarcasm. At the root of both is a fundamental question: what role does the federal government have in local public education? My answer is: none.

But in this time of ever-growing government “oversight” and “bailouts,” there’s no reason to expect that Mr. Obama will make any move to reduce local dependency (especially in urban areas) on federal dollars. There is no reason to expect that there will be less oversight; more dollars would seem to necessitate more “oversight.” But the single, most important thing that Mr. Obama, the first black president the United States has elected, could do would cost nothing – or perhaps just the jet fuel needed to fly the president to a location of his choice for the press conference.

Mr. Obama could, and should, make it clear that gaining an education is not a matter of money or privilege, not a matter of subsidies or stipends. A well-educated mind is the result of persistent work with difficult subjects. Too often, kids of all skin tones belittle and mock academic achievement – indeed, mock even turning in assignments – as “being white.” For a troubling number of kids, there is more prestige in being bad, in not doing what is expected of them, than in making themselves better people through the hard work of education. Telling these kids that that attitude is absolutely wrong would be a strong and resounding message for Mr. Obama to send. It would do more, I suspect, than the billions he will no doubt propose.

A Letter Against the Stimulus Trillion

2009-01-25T10:03:00.002-06:00

The following is an email I sent to my elected representatives in Washington regarding the "stimulus" spending spree.
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As the Congress makes its way through constructing an economic "stimulus" bill, I would like to voice my disapproval of extending and expanding the spending begun under the Bush administration. As we close out the month of January, there are apparently many unanswered questions as to where TARP funds are and what they are being used for. That's somewhere around $350 billion dollars - and rising - in lost tax-payer dollars. Or rather borrowed dollars which tax-payers will have to repay at some point. Soon, we can expect another $350 billion in TARP funds to go down the memory hole. And we stand on the verge of dumping close to (or more than) $1 trillion on "stimulus".

As a relatively young American (37 years old), I already understand that Social Security will be bled dry long before I reach retirement age. I also understand that Medicare will also not be around by the time I get to the age where it may be available to me. Both programs, I feel, will render themselves bankrupt. And while I believe they will have a detrimental effect on the country as a whole, there is still time to lessen their effects. There is time to deal with the all-too-clear consequences of over-promised benefits.

Therefore, it bears considering if the massive spending which Congress and the new President have claimed is essential to our economic survival will really and truly have the needed effect, or if it is a $1 trillion pork barrel designed to make the populace more dependent on government largesse. While it may be a cynical way to view the latest GAO report on the timing of overall "stimulus" spending, the GAO report clearly shows that the "stimulus" money will still be driving pork-dollars into the next presidential election cycle. Thus, the "stimulus" spending is in reality a government IV-drip of borrowed spending on pork projects and bailouts designed to keep those currently in power firmly in place.

That this latest government intrusion on tax-payer dollars - future tax-payer dollars, in this case - follows on the heels of what some regard as the nationalization of the banking industry is worrying to those who believe that, as President Reagan so aptly put it, "government is the problem." President Obama, in his inaugural address, claimed that the question is not about big government or small government, but rather about working government. But the only thing that government seems to be able to do well is to get bigger and more intrusive; the only thing that power-holders seem to do well is to solidify their own places in power, regardless of the fiscal cost to those they represent.

In preparing for the new administration - regardless of who won the presidential election in November - I began to read F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. The socialistic path down which our country is headed is unmistakable. It runs across both political parties; President Bush's "compassionate conservatism" and bank bailouts has prepared the way for President Obama's Left agenda. It appears to me that both sides - Republican and Democrat - have capitulated to the idea that only the government can "fix" things.

But it is precisely for this reason that I urge you, my elected representative, to fight for limiting government, lowering tax rates as much as possible, and stripping the federal government of extraneous and harmful appendages of domestic influence (which it has no business in anyway, as they interfere with things which belong to the realm of the various states).

Thank you for your time, attention, and service.

Concerning Chesterton's Orthodoxy

2009-01-24T12:41:00.002-06:00

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
One of the most interesting, convincing cases made for orthodox Christian theology, but made in a distinctly non-dogmatic way. Though the text is 100 years old (I believe it was published in 1908), the arguments still make sense - indeed, perhaps make more sense - today. Mr. Chesterton uses logic to show just how illogical rationalist beliefs are, and then links his own ideas (and ideals) gained over time to orthodox Christian beliefs.

While some may think that this text is too difficult to tackle, I would say that it is deceptively difficult. Mr. Chesterton's style seems simple enough, and his turn of phrase can sometimes lead to a chuckle. And then one sinks his mental teeth into the words and finds them quite chewy, in a good way. So while it may take time and effort to dig into Mr. Chesterton's deeper meaning, the work is quite rewarding, especially in the early parts of the text.

This book is a must-read for folks who like to think and who perhaps wonder if logical arguments can be made for Christian orthodoxy. Mr. Chesterton shows that this is possible; his arguments are convincing.

One further thought is that, like all writers, Mr. Chesterton puts forward some views which just don't hold much water. After completing this book, I read Orwell's essay "Notes on Nationalism" (text at http://orwell.ru/library/essays/national... where Orwell claims - rightly, I think - that Chesterton's "romantic" view of the French revolution is detrimental to his argument because if someone else else had written the same things about Britain, Chesterton "would have been the first to jeer". (Orwell also makes other remarks on Chesterton, but I leave those aside at the moment.) This critique does not, however, negate the whole of Chesterton's argument in my eyes; it only stands to prove that all of us, even the most readable and reasonable, are subject to the pitfalls of our own proclivities.

View all my reviews.

Asylum from Martyrdom

2009-01-19T16:01:00.002-06:00

From Fox News:

A Swiss lawyer working on behalf of the Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush said Monday his client will seek political asylum in Switzerland.

Geneva-based lawyer Mauro Poggia said Muntadhar al-Zeidi's life is in danger if he stays in Iraq.

Al-Zeidi has been detained in an Iraqi jail awaiting trial since he was seized by guards after his Dec. 14 outburst at a joint news conference in Baghdad by Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"He is in danger over there," Poggia told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. "He's also in danger in other Muslim countries because people who support his action could try to make him a martyr."

This is rich! Chuck two shoes at an outgoing US president, and you're the hero of the Muslim world (or the Muslim street…or the Arab street…or one of those. What the hell do all of those tropes thrown around by the media mean, anyway?) And what would they choose to do with such a hero?

Kill him, of course. You're not a true hero to the Islamo-fascist wing unless you're dead. That says a lot about the world view of the Islamo-fascist.

And where to keep your warm body if you're a reluctant Islamo-fascist "hero" waiting for someone to finish the coronation? In a Western country, of course. And Switzerland, no less. A quick Google search shows that Switzerland has been criticized for its immigration laws being "racist" (see here and here). What better place for the unwilling Islamo-fascist hero to hide from his martyr-making brethren?

This is how the West will lose itself. In trying to save parts of the world from its own hate of it, it will invite the hate into its home, feed it, clothe it, give it "asylum", and call it its own. Never mind that the wolf was witness donning sheep's clothing on the doorstep. It'll be ok, as long as we're nice to it.

The Lesson of Prince Harry

2009-01-12T06:56:00.002-06:00

The lesson is simple, but one needed in today's hyper-media driven culture: never videotape anything. This might be extended to picture taking, emailing, and audio recording. No record of anything, because there is a high probability that our "lesser" moments, attempts at humor, or otherwise private musings will come back to haunt. This is the price of living in a largely humorless society.

God save the Prince and his desire to be a soldier; who would have thought that such an aspiration would come at the cost of letting off a little steam with his brethren?