This is not your father's war

One of the themes of my military analysis since 1991 has been the difference between modern war and post-modern war. Modern war, just all other phenomena of modern society, are preceeded by the word "mass". So when we speak of mass media, mass production, mass transit, or mass conscription, we are talking modernism. There are no clear boundaries to this period, since it was not ushured in by some revolutionary act, like the atomic age was, nor has it been displaced by some single event. Rather we should understand its rise and fall by analogy to its favorite fuel, coal. Coal was in use for a long time, for limited purposes, before becomming the fuel of mass production. Likewise we still use it a lot, though its importance has been eclipsed by oil. So we should see a gradual rise and fall of modernism in terms of the importance and prevelance of mass institutions. For example, before the modern age, entertainment was found in the home, often around the family piano or in group reading. Modern entertainments were unifying and conforming. We all listened or watched a small number of networks. While we many of us didn't tune in exclusively to the small number of networks, they were dominant culturally. The rise of FM, cable, and home playback (first as VCR's, then as DVD's, now TiVo) gave more power to the consumer and less to the producer, and this shift signals a problem for the modern producer and often heralds a shift to post-modern niche consumption. The Internet is the ultimate post modern media. Its the opposite of a conformity producing and unifying institution in which we all view the same websites. Rather its a huge variety of disparate kinds of experiences, from e-mail to expository sites to blogs written from as many perspectives as their are content producers (and according to PEW that's 44% of us). Without a group of editors responding to the same pressures, trainined in the same fashion, and often reflecting the same background and attitudes, there are few conforming pressures on the internet. Those that do exist tend to be in the nature of format, not content. There are standards, but they are mostly in terms of code, so that my machine can read your video file.

In terms of the military, the Great War is the quintessential modern war. Large numbers of unskilled or semi-skilled soldiers, conscripted in mass, trained in mass, and deployed in mass. By WWII, we see more diversity in the kinds of jobs and the rise of highly trained specialists, like marines, paratroopers, tankers, special forces, and the normal jobs in the plain old infantry got more technical and complicated. Today, the doctrine of combat requires such highly trained soldiers that mass armies are obsolete. I posted on the draft specifically last August. Small highly trained forces are a smaller burden than large mass forces. The draft itself is only one example of this. The use of manpower no longer available to industry (because they are in uniform) is another.

The shift from sail to steam and then to dreadnaughts imposed two radical changes on seapower during the 19th century (which ends in 1914). Twice Britain was forced to rebuild her navy because new powers like Germany and America were able to build the new ships making the older ship's in Britain's fleet obsolete. Today, we have seen radical shifts in military practice, but one of the things that is most obvious is that no one but America is adapting to the new style of war. Where shifts in military technology not only helped challenge British sea power, and create powers who were willing to mobilize mass conscript armies, no one is poised to combine the high tech weapons with the tactical methods developed to produce the recently observed victories. There are no challengers to American military technique. This reinforces the notion that all future war will be asymetrical. The implications of this on American military planning are at least in part unforseen. As America takes the leading role in fighting asymetrical wars, this gap will grow.

Education come full circle

According to a Wednesday NY Times article, New York City is scrapping many of its middle schools for a return to the K-8 grammer school. The add, "Many other districts across the nation have reinstituted kindergarten-to-eighth-grade schools."

The National Association of Middle Schools isn't sure this is a good idea. Perhaps they are just self-interested.

Another quote: "Since 1999, under New York State's tougher academic standards, fourth grade scores have risen sharply on the standardized English and math tests. But eighth grade scores have improved only modestly, reflecting what the state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, has described as a lack of focus and mission at many middle schools."

This reflects a serious problem whose ultimate cause I suspect is peer socialization. If the new schools could be arranged to maintain adult authority in the school, those scores might be improved at the higher levels. The drawback is that longer childhood makes the shift to more adult behavior in high school harder. Dealing with the 10-15 year old is vexatious.

Interestingly, the remaining middle schools will be for gifted kids, which is probabaly a good move. By that age, its really counter productive to group them with the mainstream. Brighter kids just tune out and develop bad learning habits. They need more challenge and can handle more academic responsibility if handled right.

They are also experimenting with 6-12 high schools. I'm not sure what to make of that, I've heard nothing of it.

Schools used to be K-8 and then 9-12 at the beginning of the century. Then the junior high school movement came along and argued that upper elemntary kids would benefit from a more high school type of enviroment, the junior high. Organized like high schools by content area and including many of the same kinds of extra-curriculars, the junior highs were typically 6-8 or 7-9. They were replaced by the middle school movement which argued that there should be a school that transitions kids from elementary to high school and occupies a middle place between the central classroom of elementary and the content organized high school. So middle schools had less class movement because kids had a home room where they might spend almost half of the day.

This return to the original model sure casts doubt on the utility of experiment in the first place.

Nader exposed

Jonathan Chait writes in The New Republic about the myth of the "good" Nader. The thesis: "Nader is not a heroic figure tragically overcome by his own flaws; he is a selfish, destructive maniac who, for a brief historical period, happened upon a useful role."

Damning.

Chait doesn't say so explicitlt, but it seems that Nader prefers Republicans because his hatred of them is purer. What should one expect, they are the party of business. Doing their evil is no hypocracy. Nader's hostility to Democrats is based on the notion that they sell out, they betray him, and they aren't worthy because they are tainted by comprimise or some other weakness.

More Free Trade Goodness

The editors of The New Republic extol the virtues of NAFTA for the American economy. It includes such quotes as, 'According to a Council of the Americas analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, "Total employment in the U.S. motor vehicle industry has grown five times faster following NAFTA than in years prior to the agreement." ' They go on to criticize Bush for not funding job re-training programs that ease the adjustment for workers. A fair criticism. Skills are our advantage over other economies.

Edward's Rise Explained sort of

There are three possible causes for Edward's strong showing in Wisconsin and polling elsewhere.

1) Edwards has more cross-over appeal. See William Saletan's analysis here.
2) Republicans are voting strategically to draw out the democratic primary and force the dems to spend against one another for as long as possible.
3) Edwards remains sufficiently unknown that people can still fill him with there own hopes, but Kerry has become a real person unable to be all things to all people.

There is undoubtedly some of all of this at work. Which might be a dominant cause or what the proportions might be I can't say.

Free Markets and the Schools

We are talking about vouchers here. My own view is that the schools should be a totally free market, governed by the greatest extent possible by the market choices of parents. Because of the possibility of market failure (for example the information of what curriculum are needed for employment and college) the state will have some role, but ideally it will be informational and not regulatory. The state will have a funding role because there are two overwhelming benefits. First, state funding distributes the cost along the whole life of the tax-payers, rather than asking parents of school age children to produce five to seven thousand dollars per child per year of school. Second, the whole community benefits from a well educated populace, so our current tax collection scheme is fine, its the use of the money in a monopoly school system based on a Progressive ideology that is the problem.

Parents are most apt to abandon the schools when schools are failing, but a free market approach to schools should not rely on schools failing. Everywhere school choice should exist, although certainly where parents are mostly happy with schools, parent choice will largely continue to support the schools. Nevertheless, the model of the public schools is a factory model emphisizing a uniformity of inputs and outputs. Within the system, magnet schools and charter schools can provide much needed variety of teaching philosophy and curriculum, but currently this option is under utilized. Currently, there is a war between parents and the education establishment over control of the schools in which parents have the upper hand and can use the regulatory powers of the state to impose their will on a teaching staff who cannot be observed sufficiently to gain compliance and is shirking some portion of this regulatory burden anyway. All of which leads to high stakes testing to enforce compliance. This battle to win the public schools creates an adversarial situation where none need exist.

Rather, if schools were able to advertise themselves as best filling a market niche demanded by parents, most teachers could teach according their desired philosophy. Parents, aware of what was going on in the class room, because it was the attraction to send their children, would not demand burdensome restrictions, monitoring, and regulation. Much of this burden is a reflection of the fact that there is a presumption of bad faith by parents about teachers. As I have discussed earlier, this is because parents tend to be essentialists and teachers tend to be progressives. [ed. I'll be posting more on who they are a bit down the road.] With Progressive parents seeking out those teachers committed to Progressive education, and Essentialist parents seeking schools with teachers committed to or at least comfortable with Essentialist education. And so parents would be able to assume good faith by teachers. Barring problems of false advertising, which is grossly pervasive now (because Progressives want to placate Essentialists), teachers would be free to teach as they had promiced they would when they attracted parents to bring their students.

Most school districts would break down in philosophy into Progressive and Essentialist schools. Small schools would be divided into two programs. Large school districts would see further breakdown into various choices. One might imagine a large district with a classically oriented liberal arts high school, with much attention to the great books, to ancient philosophy, literature, and art, to the humanities in general with a strong does of history and literature built on a foundation of the ancients (How does Vietnam reflect the causes of war identified by Thucydides?), including Latin and Greek as language options, and which teaches math and science in order to fill out the knowledge of the educated person and in order to develope rigorous thinking skills. Another school might be more in tune with the moderns but still perennialist, concerned instead with impressionist art, Romanticism and Modernism, and so forth. Another school might be Progressive and even Social Reconstructionist in their approach, using the Humanities as a platform with which to end racism, teach social justice, save the enviroment, and all the rest of the Social Reconstructionist agenda.

Until the Supream Court decision Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the courts had not spoken favorably on school choice. When the issue first comes up in cases like Lemon v. Kurtzman and Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty et al. v. Nyquist the state's approach to schools was far more statist, and its liberalism was of the New Deal/ Great Society model. So, efforts to encourage a variety of school options resulted in direct subsidies to already existing private schools, most of which were parochial. There was little attempt to balance the Church-State issues here with the rights to a free education established in most state constitutions, especially as it pertains to the disabled or the poor, who often lacked the means to avail themselves of private alternatived to public school. Between the early 70's of Lemon and Nyquist and the present (Zelman was decided in 2002), are three key changes.

First, there is the rise of Neo-Liberalism. (See two hostile definitions here and here) Neo-Liberalism is a reaction to the statism of the mid-century which regards the market as a better tool for social policy than the state. There are neo-liberals of the left, like Bill Clinton, Mickey Kaus, The New Republic, and any democrat who advocates free trade, privatization, means testing benefits, and the like. There are neo-liberals on the right as well, although to the extent that this program is anti-regulatory and pro-business, its a more natural fit for many (but certainly not all) on the right. The rise of neo-liberalism meant that when government aimed to support alterntaives to the monolithic public school, the market became a re-inventing goverment approach to an older problem. Rather than direct subsidies to schools as in Lemon, or even tuition rebates (along side building maintenence subsidies) as in Nyquist, neo-liberals devised magnet schools, charter schools, and devised a voucher program by which parents could take the tax subsidy owed their child (who has a right to a state provided education) and transfer it to a school of their own choosing. By this device, the state avoided direct subsidies (the benefit goes to the parent not the school) and the locus of choice resides with the parent and not the state. Even if one is inclined to look at Lemon and Nyquist and find them constituional, a voucher program as approved in Zelman is better. Parents have more choice on the one hand, but that choice creates a market opportunity for educators in the form of niche schools.

A second change since the early 70's has been the rise of competing goods. Early Church-State cases basically revolved around the test of Establishment violations. While there was some discussion over state interests or public policy effects, the cases hinged on the scrutiny applied to the Establishment issues involved. The famous Lemon Test was invented to determine whether a state action was an Establishment violation. [Note: ? 1 of the 14th Amendment says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" which is understood to make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states] The Lemon Test is concerned with the intent of said action, the neutrality of said action, and any entanglements that result. No where are the Establishment issues balanced in this test by other compelling interests, such as the right of students to a free, appropriate education. The court was provided arguments on three grounds, but largely ignnored all three. These were the benefit to the state of a private school system to take up some of the burden of providing the public good, education. In the particulars of both Lemon and Nyquist, the states of Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and New York were experiencing a temporary growth of enrollments because of the demographic bubble that resulted from the baby boomers having babies some twenty years after their own births. School officials also anticipated the decline in enrollments that would take place during the 80's and so were reluctant to build new schools and hire new teachers. They prefered to subsidize the private schools to absorb as much of this burden as they could and spare the state. The fact that the courts rejected this plan is one of the reasons there was such a contraction of the school system in the 80's. A second argument made to the court was that it was unequitable for poor inner-city families to be denied access to alternatives because of expence. In Nyquist, for example, New York gave tuition reimbursements to poor families who enrolled their children in private schools. A third argument, was that disabled students could not make appropriate use of private schools without the special services increasingly being offered by the public school system. In the mid 60's the Congress imposed Title I obligations to meet the needs of all students in an appropriate fashion, and in the mid 70's the Congress added the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) as well as other legislation to mandate approriate education for all students. Cases in the later 70's, such as Meek v. Pittenger in 1975 and Wolman v. Walter in 1977. In Meek, the courts rejected the extension of special ed professionals because they feared the state professionals would be unable to resists the sectarian purpose of their sometime work enviroment. (See Section V, paragraph 8 of the Stewart opinion in the link). In Wolman, they reconsidered and while materials and field trips (because the trips were planned by sectarian teachers, despite being to secular locations) were prohibited, the special ed teachers where permissible because they operated in mobile classrooms or in public school facilities. Not only does the Court believe that teachers in parochial schools will act in bad faith, teaching religion with state resources despite prohibition, it believes that this bad faith is contageous.

The third major change that took place was the composition of the court. While Justice Burger was left to argue in dissent during Nyquist the primary purpose of the New York actions were educational and not religious, he was not in the majority. By the mid-eighties, it was possible to form majorities around accomodationist possitions regarding religion and the schools. In Meuller v. Allen in 1983, and Witters v. Wash. Dept. of Services For Blind the Court began to take a different view of Establishment. In Meuller, the court approved tex deductions in Minnasota for tuition, books, and transportation for students in private schools. Returning to older understandings, the court held that the benefits flow to the students (not the schools) and that choice in attendence lies with parents (not the state who pays). In Witters, a rare 9-0 case, the Court allowed a blind adult seeking funding for education intended for the blind to attend a seminary because the benefit was his and the choice was his. (The benefit was also generally available to the blind.) It is notable that it was in the area of disabled claims, rather than state interest or equity claims, that the court began to change it approach to Establishment, because Congress had been so vigorous in demanding accomodations. In time, the bad faith assumptions would give way as well. Aguilar v. Felton in 1985 is the last case in which the court argued,
"Similarly, in Meek v. Pittenger, we invalidated a state program that offered, inter alia, guidance, testing, and remedial and therapeutic services performed by public employees on the premises of the parochial schools. As in Lemon, we observed that though a comprehensive system of supervision might conceivably prevent teachers from having the primary effect of advancing religion, such a system would inevitably lead to an unconstitutional administrative entanglement between church and state."

After Aguilar, this kind of reasoning, assuming bad faith in parochial school educational professionals and public school special education teachers working along side them was not to be seen.

Since the mid 80's a series of cases have expanded the confirmed the more favorable approach to religion, at least as seen in the majorities. Its quite possible that a new member on the Court from the strict seperationist wing would bring us back to the 70s's (bad faith, benefits to the schools not students, choice by the state not the parents). However, as things are now, there is no presumption of bad faith, the court sees the benefits of school choice falling on students and that the choice to take these opportunities are being made by parents and students. Zelman was a 5-4 case and bitterly argued, so one can imagine how eager the strict seperationists would be to over-turn school choice descisions.

Anyone who has read over this weblog will find that I am not interested in propogating religious education. I am, however, not the least bit hostile to parents who want such an education being free to obtain it as easily as they might obtain a public school education for their childrem. Instead, I see the a great monoploly, the public schools, unwilling to reform itself, resistant to the demands of parents, taxpayers, and citizens, lacking any incentive improve quality, and founded on a philosophy rejected by the community (to the point of the community using its regulatory powers to demand compliance). While I want this monopoy of progressive education overturned, I do not want a monopoly of Essentialists put in its place. I say this for two reasons. One is that it is unfair to demand of others what I have found so objectionable, an educational orthodoxy. Second, I will not be satisfied with an Essentialist hegemony, since I want more classical studies, more reading and writing, more higher level thinking than Essentialists will settle for. I want a Perennialist school, indeed I go farther, I want an Realist school founded on Aristotelian principles. There is no classical school unless there is a market place of schools, because a classicist school is niche educational market.

Hmmm, a Trend

I've just advocated free markets, even when it produces job outsourcing, favorably linked to an article advocating choice in schools rather than a state monopoly, and here is an article from the Telegraph entitled, "Only competition will make the NHS treat patients better."

Could it be that the power to choose has profoundly liberating effects?

McWhorter on School Choice

John McWhorter, an author I look to on issues of race, has interesting things to say about vouchers and inner city schools. The whole article is about how Blacks should see in the Bush administration a golden opportunity to see real gains and captalize on them. As they say, read the whole thing.

Fear of innoculations

Some people still fear innoculations. But when innoculations first were introduced, a lot of people didn't want anything to do with them.

Today's Exite Poll is as follows: "The Bush administration announced Monday that sending U.S. factory and white-collar jobs to other countries is part of a positive transformation that will enrich the U.S. economy over time. (Los Angeles Times)

"Do you think that outsourcing American jobs to other countries will help the U.S. economy over time?"

As of right now, 73% => 12986 votes say "Heavens No, Good Sir, the corpuscules of innoculation shall spread disease, not contain it" Ooops, old poll, the 73% said, "No, it will hurt the economy." 12%, a mere 2294 votes said "Yes".

Last Week's New Republic had an article on outsourcing high tech jobs. A notable claim: "According to the McKinsey Global Institute, for every dollar a U.S. company spends on offshoring to India, the U.S. economy gains $1.14, thanks to a number of factors: savings from the increased operational efficiency, equipment sales to Indian outsourcers, the value of American labor reemployed to higher-wage jobs, and repatriated earnings by U.S. companies that own Indian outsourcing firms. "

I frequently encounter people on the right and left that think the sky is falling. Only my libertarian friends have faith in free markets that goes deep enough to defy anxiety over change. Conservatives fear for American economic power, and the benifits therefrom, Liberals fear the standard of living of working families. Considervative anxiety is heightened illegal immigration, though I don't hear any plans from them about how to solve the immigration problem. I should mention that many conservatives don't like the President's plan. Victor Davis Hanson, whose opinion I respect on this and many other issues writes against it, mostly on the basis of it being only part of what need to be a comprehensive program, and being based on some questionable assumptions. His plan:

"Reasonable advocates can set a realistic figure for legal immigration from Mexico. Then we must enforce our border controls; consider a one-time citizenship process for current residents who have been here for two or three decades; apply stiff employer sanctions; deport those who now break the law--and return to social and cultural protocols that promote national unity through assimilation and integration."

Much time in class

Taking two high level poli sci classes, and allied field to history, so I am in the neighbor's yard academically. Doing 1st Amendement law and public policy. Blogging will remain weak this semester unless I start rambling on about the subjects of my classes.

Missouri legislates scientific truth

From www.scalzi.com (linked below) I came across this bill in the Missouri legislature. Here is a sample:
'(10) "Scientific theory", an inferred explanation of incompletely understood phenomena about the physical universe based on limited knowledge, whose components are data, logic, and faith-based philosophy. The inferred explanation may be proven, mostly proven, partially proven, unproven or false and may be based on data which is supportive, inconsistent, conflicting, incomplete, or inaccurate. The inferred explanation may be described as a scientific theoretical model;'

Education repackages old wine in new bottles

Two of the three most recent posts deal with education packaging old ideas with new lables. Its mostly a scheme to get things past parents. Here is an example.

The Democrats, post start

Before Iowa I had posted several times about the break down of the Dems into labor (Gephardt), suburban socialists (Dean), and new democrats (Lieberman). Well, what's going on? Basically, and you have seen this elsewhere since its pretty commonly argued, but the Dems are putting aside questions of ideology and have embraced ABB - anybody but Bush.

Have I mentioned Education recently?

Glenn Reynolds has offered two columns at MSNBC on the situation facing smart kids and in the second, a criticism of the way school fails them. One of his links is to the Atlanta Journal Constitution peice by Marquis Harris on his being rejected to teach in high school because administrators thought he would, "serve as an unrealistic expectation as to what high school students could strive to achieve or become." They, "recommended that you seek employment at the collegiate level; there your intellectual comportment would be greatly appreciated."

I have lost count of the number of times people in the college of teacher education have suggested I consider "employment at the collegiate level." I had previously attributed these comments to someone's misguided sense that I might be happier surrounded with fellow smarties. Mr. Harris' situation puts a different spin on this comments.

Reynolds observes, "In other words, the school administrators don't want their students to aim high. We're not going to hold our own against the Indians, the Chinese, and the rest of the world that way." No, we don't want our students to aim high. This point comes up again and again on this blog. A few examples can be found here, here, and here. I have not gotten around to reviewing Diane Ravitch's book Left Back: A Century of Battles over school reform, but I will say that I have found no better explanation for why it is that we have embraced an anti-academic education for our kids. Educators are convinced that no one actually needs academic preperation. What we need is the ability to use our free time fulfillingly. Economic rivals, I might add, couldn't agree more.

I am not one to lament economic outsourcing, job flight, or the rise in new economies elsewhere in the world. As a free market advocate I would prefer to see competion motivate people to take their own competativeness seriously, rather than have protectionists lull people into a false sense of security about their economic potential and the educational attainment of our children. I do, however, make a point to students that between automation, self-service, and outsourcing, jobs that don't rely on a good education are in danger. Reynolds is right to ask wether our educational system is performing the task we have laid before it. Perhaps it is prudent to mention that the previous post here deals with the notion that schools ignore the task parents lay before it in favor of self-appointed tasks. Reynold's conclusion, that instead of worrying about outsourcing we should worry about the state of education and the efforts students make, is the right one. For Aristotle, success, happiness, and ultimatly the good life arises from habits that in turn can only be acquired by repeated action and correction. This should be the purpose of school - the cultivation of the habits which will allow every student to reach their own potential.

Are Comprehensive Sex Ed curriculum actually comprehensive?

Heritage says no. They argue that so called programs are just re-packaged Safe Sex curricula. What is interesting in the article is a Zogby poll conducted with questions from Focus on the Family. They found, "Very few parents support the basic themes of comprehensive sex-ed courses." Parents have no idea what goes on in school. "Overall, the poll shows that parents are extremely supportive of the values and messages contained in abstinence programs."

I think that a prohibitionist program, be it regarding sex, alcohol, or whatever adult activity is considered, is a bad approach because at some point young people (including college students) experiment with the thing they were told not to. If no one ever communicates how adults behave responsibly, then responsible behavior is impossible, except by hard experience or happy accident. Everyone can use the reminder that alcohol, sex, gambling, and other adult behaviors burn adults, even when they act responsibly. That is the nature of a vice. Youth will explore vice. Our educational purpose should be to delay experimentation for as long as possible, to mitigate as much harm as possible resulting from experimentation, and to aid the transition away from experimentation to boring adulthood as easily (and quickly) as possible. Prohibitionists hope the experimentation step can be avoided for everyone (tell it to St Augustine). They focus on steps 1 and 3, youth who delays and adults who no longer are interested. The Safe Sex crowd by contrast focus only on step 2, mitigating the consequences of experimentation. We need all 3 steps. Steps 1 and 3, do as much if not more to mitigate harm in experimentation as condems, &c. Ignoring step 2 leaves young people totally vulnerable if they stray from the strairt and narrow. This has two ill consequences. First some people get badly harmed because they stray and could have avoided it by knowing how to partake more safely. Second some people avoid ill effects for a long time and come to believe that all the talk of harm is without a basis in reality. Neither case is good.

The Heritage interpretation of the polling does over reach a bit.

'Some 47 percent of parents want teens to be taught that "young people should not engage in sexual activity until they are married." Another 32 percent of parents want teens to be taught that "young people should not engage in sexual intercourse until they have, at least, finished high school and are in a relationship with someone they feel they would like to marry."

'When these two categories are combined, we see that 79 percent of parents want young people taught that sex should be reserved for marriage or for an adult relationship leading to marriage.'

Another question that asks this question directly: 'Some 68 percent of parents want schools to teach teens that "individuals who are not sexually active until marriage have the best chances of marital stability and happiness."'

So there are times when I thought the 68% figure was better applied in analysis than the 79%. This 11% difference isn't a big deal, but its something I took note of. Even the low figure is better than 2/3's. The analysis is right to point out that the schools favorite message is only approved by 7% of parents. How like the Progressive school to re-package the same unpopular policies rather than actually accomodate the will of parents, tax-payers, and citizens.

Edwards

Saw him on Wednesday at SMSU. I was surprised at how liberal he was. The coverage has spent so much time on his good looks, charisma, campaigning ability (yes, he is good on the stump), that they seem to have buried his positions. He is running and us vs them campaign, wants to focus on poverty and race as well as more sensible issues like education and the economy. I think he has taken the analogies to JFK so to heart that he thinks its 1964.

I talked to several other attendees, and eavesdropped on several conversations. Everyone I talked to or overheard went mad over one of two topics. There are the protectionists who think that somehow jobs and incomes can be preserved against foreign competition of we adopt anti-competitive policies, and there were those who thought the war on terror was a means to some ultimate ends (other than that of ending the scourge of terror). I am supposed to be attending a MeetUp deal for conservatives next week. We'll see if they are as crazy, albeit differently crazy, as their Dem peers. I have in my experience found other sensible people in the world, some of whom disagree with me, so I know they exist. I am perfectly happy to entertain not only other values for sake of argument, but also other assumptions (necessary for understanding), so its not a question of agreement with me on ends, means, or fundamentals. I just want people to organize the ideas they have in a way that they make sense in relation to one another.

Is there a lemon statute in electorial law?

KausFiles has been using the idea of buyer's remorse a lot in regards Kerry.

Edwards speaking at SMSU tonight

I'll check him out.

You make the call

Oak-Land Junior High is distributing laptop computers to students, according to the Pioneer Press at twincities.com. Drew Curtis' FARK website predicts "Junior high students get their own school laptops this week, porn downloads to increase" and rates it "obvious." Science teacher Todd Rau in the story says, "For these kids, it's really not just about getting the computers. They have them in my class every day," Rau said. "What they're excited about, I think, is the opportunity to do what they're doing in my class, and do it all day long." (last graph in the story)

Who is probabaly closer to reality in their prediction? You make the call.

Why CEO's Fail

I am linking to this in part, so I can find it again. As I think I may have blogged, this issue came up in Philosophy of Ed. The teachers think its all about greed. I regard greed as a constant (they just aren't tuned in because the potential for really making a killing in the 3rd grade isn't very large). Both successful and failed CEO's are after money. No, failure comes from some combination of the list at this link (usually 2-3 really stand out).

A side effect of term limits

Dan at midagedwriter notes: "One would think that the Missouri General Assembly Republicans would chastise their Speaker Pro Tem for breaching decorum, good manners, and good judgment, but, instead, they joined him in interrupting the Governor and defended him afterward.
"Do they not understand that their actions set precedent? Or are they so immature and short-sighted that they don't care?"

When you have term limits, the world ceases to exist for you as a legislator after your last possible term ends. Who cares what precedent you set, what nonsense you pass as law, or what trouble you leave the state in. You will be elsewhere for sure, and the babes who are there to pick up the peices will have no idea what they are doing (much like you don't), so why worry?

Europe. Quite Important

According to the EUObserver, this is the slogan for Europe in the second half of the comming year. Prosaic indeed.

Why didn't we fight the terrorists sooner?

It has been my practice here not to just link to something and go on. I have preferred either an extensive commentary of my own or a pair of links that I think go well together. The most common single links without comment fall into two catagories, either they relate to something which I have posted in my prefered fashion earlier and they are yet another link in the conversation, or its an indulgence, for example links to my brother's site.

Two links came up on Instapundit this morning and last night. One, the more recent, on Clinton's speech before a group of Mideast thinkers in the Washington Post, the other an analysis of why, despite having anti-terrorist special forces, we did not use them before 9-11. Read them together. They inform one another. They both speak to Clinton's strengths and weaknesses, to the errors in American foriegn policy between Iran-Contra and 9-11, and to the supposed radicalism of George Bush.

On this last point, W's radicalism, I think what is based in is a rejection of the bad direction in policy that Richard H. Shultz describes in the Weekly Standard. He does cast aside a dozen years of thinking on terrorism. What is interesting is how Clinton did as well, but for a variety of reasons was unable and unwilling to do so himself. Shultz' final 'graph is telling: "For now, it appears that the most powerful defense secretary ever has failed in his attempt to do this." Rumsfeld knows what changes must take place, and unlike Clinton is willing to do it, but its hard. Shultz refers to the famous October 16, 2003, memo. If one such as Rummy is having difficulty changing and uprooting the bad policy, with W's support, after 9-11, imagine how hard it would have been for Clinton, prior to 9-11, hindered by his relationship with the military, and hindered by his own tendency to contemplate much and act little. He could see what needed to be done, but had a harder time acting. Now we have a presedent who can see what needs to be done, aided by Clinton's own work, by 9-11, and by people like Rumsfeld and Rice. Still the work meets resistance and hostility. There are no easy answers, even when you know what must be done.

Unscientific Poll

The Exite Poll for Sunday, Jan 18, was on removing pop machines from schools. Out of some 12,544 respondants, 64% favored removing the machines. 28% prefered to keep them. The poll was prompted by this Reuters news story: "Philadelphia officials have banned the sale of sodas throughout the public school system in an effort to fight obesity among its students." I voted for removal, though I think the responsibilty for obesity rests with parents and the students themselves, not a nanny state. My vote was based on two issues, one the caffine and sugar induced energy levels of students can disrupt their learning, their very purpose for being there, and second, I think that selling a potentialy disruptive product to generate income for schools (and it is a big money maker) puts the schools in a conflict of interest.

If parents (who are also taxpayers and voters) are happy with the pop machine arangement, there is no question: they stay. But, this unscientific poll (though the numbers are pretty handsome) suggests parents may not be. I also wonder how many kids voted to keep the machines out of self-interest.

This is an issue for me much more in the middle school than in the high school, where I think more responsibility should be placed on students, even for their own success and failure. Wither the nanny school as students get older.

Where is the center?

Eleanor Clift described MoveOn.org as representing a lot of people in the center. Now Locke reminds is that ever man is an orthdoxy unto himself, but in an age of statistical analysis of voter behavior, it is objectivly possible to find the center. There remains a subjective or a definitional problem of its boundaries, but I am quite sure that by most standards, MoveOn isn't there. Centrists tend to see themselves between two ideologies, so they don't demonize one side and idealize the other. They may demonize both sides as insiders, politicians, or what have you, but MoveOn is not just as frustrated with the left as they are with the right.

Clift was on the Laura Ingraham show this morning (her web site is annoyingly not clickable so you can't cut and paste from her site). Ingraham refered to the polls that show 2/3's of church goers identify as Republicans. Clift responded by fallacy so outrageous that I have to take her to be an idiot or a liar. Clift ignored the polling data and went right for the unrepresentative sample. Reagan wasn't very religious and Carter was, oh and Clinton seemed to know the Bible pretty well. As though these individuals are fine stand-ins for all democrats. Aparently all democrats feel lust in their hearts, cheat on their spouses with young people, and speak with a southern lilt. Or not. Ms Clift, when confronted with polling data, deal with polling data, and don't try to argue that a hundred million people can be described by the guy who chose to ran and then got elected.

She also claimed to not know why she was a polarizing figure. As I said, and idiot or a liar.

"Its just a tool boys"

Jeff Jarvis arranged these words to make an observation about the political uses of the internet. Er schrieb,

"This is still stupidly generalizing. IT'S JUST A TOOL, BOYS. Tools have no ideology or loyalty. Whether pamphleteering or phone canvassing or direct mail or the Internet or weblogs, they're just tools that are used wisely or not. Dean learned quickly and used them wisely. That says a lot about Dean -- and his people -- and little about the tools, you tools."

Yes and no. Potentially it has no ideology, but internet use is not even distributed. Recall the famous telephone survey of 1948 that predicted Dewey to win the White House. Opps, people who owned phones were significantly more likely to be Republican that it threw off the polling results. When technology is not evenly distributed (and it rarely is) its not just a tool, it has implications about its owners, even when only a small group is excluded (because sometimes that small group becomes significant). This doesn't justify some of the broad sweeping generalizations one sees about who blogs, or uses the internet, but the internet is not "just a tool" devoid of any information about its users. Even television, though nearly ubiquitous, is not watched the same amount or the same way by everyone.

Science as fact

Justin Harris at Sophorist.com posts on teaching macroevolution as fact. (He concedes that we can breed dogs, hence "macro".) His objection is that it is taught as fact and that no competing theories are advanced. I shall reply.

All science is taught as fact and no science is ever taught as theory, or definitional, or open to more sophisticated analysis. The history of science is presented as the clear and unambiguous advance of knowledge against superstition. Just this past Friday I overheard students wonder how the planets got their names. I began explaining and we moved along to the days of the weeks when a student asked about Sunday, since the Sun is not a planet. Oh, but planet just means wonderer, I explained and the ancients numbered it as one of the things that moved across the sky. Another student firmly asserted that the Sun did not move, they had learned it in school. Aside from the movement of the Milky Way from galactic central point, the rotation of the outer spiral arm of the Milky Way and hence the solar system around the center of the galaxy, and the very curious notion that such an object as the sun is fixed in place and is not pulled upon by other heavy objects, I asked the student if he could prove that it was the sun that moved and not the earth. This is a question of relativistic motion. Apparently, the teacher who had passed on this bit of cosmology has closed the door on Einstein. As a result, whoever attempts such a task must unteach some old ideas and replace them with better ideas. And this all relates to the movement or presumed stability of the sun. Imagine more complex ideas, like the evolution of species.

Science is all theoretical (in the common English usage) because it is tentative. If students were to ever come away from science with the kind of knowledge included in these course materials, this would not be an issue. Students would understand that some of what they understand to be the nature of things will be revised. My own grandmother was once taught that the atom could not be split. That has since been rejected in favor of an explanation that includes fission.

This is a particular irritation to those of us who are historically minded and see the advance of thought as including errors as well as improvements. Science texts in the public schools which pretend to an advance of inherently obvious knowledge create a false authority for science, one that science does not claim for itself (though some practitioners will).

finally that leads us to alternate theories. Well, in science class, these alternate theories should conform to the same rules as all the other science material ought to in terms of its emperical validity, framwork in a testable hypothesis, and so on. There are a good number of subjects in which science can say very little, although scientists can speculate just like anyone else on the street. Michael Crichton has useful things to say on this subject in two of the speeches up on his official website. Speech 3 and 4 adress the questions of speculation and political advocacy in science. Crichton likes neither.

Since I have followed human evolution, quite a bit has changed. The science of human evolution is quite young and just looking over the conventional wisdom of the past 30 years one can be surprised at just how much has changed. After all science is tenative. Sometimes, the whole framework is overthrown (the famed paradigm shift of Khun's scientific revolutions). This has certainly happened in politics during my adult awareness, as the Cold War ended, but it has not happened in the areas of science I pay most attention too. I hear stirrings on the nature of time, but I don't follow it to closely. In any event I am happy to witness a new understanding overthrow the old one in the question "where did we come from," but any explanation needs to deal seriously with the observable phenomena, like the fossile record and radiological dating. Any explanation needs to avoid untestable hypotheses, speculation, and conjecture. When students ask questions that cannot be answered scientifically in a science class, teachers should begin by explaining what science can and cannot answer. Its handy to have scientific annecdotes on hand to illustrate this point. Then one might venture into speculation (students may insist) with an obviously open mind, since one is speculating, and conclude with a solid barrier between speculation and the scientific method.

Say a student asks about extra-terrestrial life. One could immediatly reply that there is no verifiable evidence of any despite fourty to fifty years of search. Remind the class that negative evidence is not proof. If they want more, discuss the issues, express multiple points of view from a variety of sources, and conclude nothing except that we do not know much more than we did before Sputnik (or Columbus for that matter) and remind the class that work in this area is speculative. Point to empirical evidence of your next topic and move on.

Mental Discipline

One hundred years ago, one of the explicit purposes of education was the training of the mind for effort, patience, willpower applied to accomplish a task, and similar concepts which were grouped under the name "mental discipline". One of the first attacks that Progressive educators made against the academic curriculum was that there was no such thing as mental discipline. Their argument was that an ability gained was not transferable to a new task. That is, learning the state capitals did not prepare you in any way to learn a new set of facts in any way later on. It was effort for effort's sake, nothing was gained, and time was wasted which might have benefited the student. These challenges are nearly 90 years old. Today there is nearly nothing left of mental discipline. Rote memorization, the use of challenging tasks to build a sense of accomplishment, the notion that certain subjects imparted some greater ability to reason (mathematics and Latin were favorites for this claim) are all discredited by educational experts and most practitioners. You can find math teachers who argue that math helps reasoning aptitude, but many are happy to achieve basic functioning (with a calculator) for daily purposes. The ability to assess the risk of, say, Mad Cow Disease, of smoking, unprotected sex, or speculating on precious metals, are not common goals. Many teachers have abandon imparting any kind of reasoning all together and just want to produce results on standardized tests, thereby making the same error of reasoning that students make, namely that the test is supposed to measure the actual goal of learning, not become the goal itself.

I wonder if it could be possible to study the role of the decline of mental discipline in the schools and the rise of problems currently being labeled as hyperactivity and attention deficit syndrome. It may well be that many such diagnoses frequently occur before school starts, so could not be blamed. I can't help suspecting that if part of school was the cultivation of patience, appliction of effort, delay of gratification, a sense of accomplishment over a difficult task mastered, that we might well see less ADHD.

Then again, it could all be television.

Outsourcing of knowledge economy jobs pt II

More free market goodness from Michael Kinsley in Slate, who takes on the word "but" which so often follows the phrase, "I prefer the free market."

Textbooks

Bought my textbooks for my 12th and last year as a student and what do I find but that one of my classes draw all of its texts from Eugene Volokh.

Outrage!

Hugh Hewitt is not on KIDS anymore! I was in the drive through of a local eatery when Micheal Reagan's show came on. KIDS is hard to track down. Searches of phone lists and other sites didn't identify phone numbers of other contact information. Eventually I hit upon a web site for the city of Clever Missouri. Finally an ownership reference. A search of Thirteen Forty Productions lead me to a resume for their Controller, and an explantion that KIDS is now owned by Shepherd of the Hills Entertainment Group. I called. Bussiness office is closed. I'll try tomorrow between nine and five. I cast 1340 into perdituion if they have banished Hugh Hewitt.

Outsourcing of knowledge economy jobs

Kim du Toit argues that knowledge based jobs moving overseas is a bad thing. One of his examples, and the apparent inspiration to post on this subject was IBM's announcement that it wants to move "4,730 programmers to India, China and elsewhere." Du Toit observes that the National Review takes an unabashedly favorable view of what is often called creative destruction.

I will put aside the observation that IBM was considered an old dinosaur when Microsoft became the master of software and that cost cutting measures by IBM strike me as good news for IBM. Because, even if it were a young, vigorous company still in its growth that was expanding overseas rather than at home, I would argue that this is a good thing. There are three main reasons it is good.

1) Democracies are based on knowledge workers. Knowledge workers, like the computer programmers mentions, strengthen the democracy in India, encourages the rise of reform in China, and so should be welcomed in the parts of the world where democracy is threatened or nascent.
2) Jobs is not only not a zero-sum game, market economics (including jobs) is a geometerical growth scenario. In short, high paying jobs produce more high paying jobs. American unemployment is low, remains low, and our standard of living climbs. All of this despite the creation of jobs overseas by American firms coincident with those same firms destroying jobs domestically. As it turns out many Americans end up going from thier old job to a similar job or a better job in similar or related fields. In a country that is still subsidizing the importation of programmers because of the huge undersupply of programmerlabor available, I'm not worried.
3) Over the long run (an I mean several years and longer) free markets produce more wealth for nearly all of their participants than to "fair" markets. When the price of bread got too high (say because of a bad harvest) the bakers would be forced by a mob to sell bread at prices that people could afford. This is because there was assumed to be a fair price for bread. Today this fair/free divison remains. But the fair market advocates are really playing a variation of the hand that the socialists play. One wants fairness acomplished by government redistribution, the other by government regulation (or investment) to prevent the free flow of labor and capital.

When free markets produce more than fair markets, when job production anywhere produces job production everywhere, and when the growth of knowledge based jobs (and white collar jobs in general) is a precondition for democracy, its an easy decision to support free and unfettered market activity over any alternatives.

http://www.sophorist.com/

Bumped into this local blog (via Evangelical Outpost). I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Colin Powell lays out plans in NYT

The Secretary of State wrote a piece which appears in the opinion section of the NYT enitled What We Will Do in 2004. Key sections include:
"While our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq will continue in 2004, we are resolved as well to turn the president's goal of a free and democratic Middle East into a reality. We will expand the Middle East Partnership Initiative to encourage political, economic and educational reform throughout the region. We will also stand by the Iranian people, and others living under oppressive regimes, as they strive for freedom."
and
"The centerpiece of our program for development, to be started in 2004, is the Millennium Challenge Account — an incentive system that makes assistance contingent on political and economic reform."
and
"Freedom cannot flourish and prosperity cannot advance without security, and this we are determined to achieve. Americans are safer as 2004 begins than they were a year ago. Afghanistan is no longer a devil's playground for terrorists, nor is Iraq an incubator for weapons of mass murder that could have fallen into terrorists' hands."
and
"Freedom, prosperity and peace are not separate principles, or separable policy goals. Each reinforces the other, so serving any one requires an integrated policy that serves all three."

check it out

Terror Alert High

Fox News channel is showing the terror alert as high, but the Fox News web site is totally silent on the issue. Nothing on the home page, nothing on top stories. There is a story on hightened security for New Year's celebrations: "As cities and states across the country prepare to ring in the New Year while the country is on high alert, some homeland security actions are more visible than others." This story mentions the high alert incidentally. The story goes on to explain various security measures in place at various celebrations, but there is no explanation of why the alert level has climbed.

School Graduation Rates Fudged

The Daily Southerner in Tarboro, N.C. tell us that graduation rates in N.C. are fudged. The national graduation rate, estimated at 74% in 1998 was revised down to 71% when re-examined by Jay P. Greene at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Earlier today, the Daily Southerner reported that estimates are grossly off base in N.C. "North Carolina's high school graduation rate of more than 90 percent is misleading because the state doesn't include dropouts in its tally." This is an old trick and one that boosted N.C. numbers from 63% to 90%. It works like this. 90% of high school students who stayed in school passed enough classes to graduate. But the real question is how many entering Freshman graduate. That number is 63% for North Carolina. Given that the national numbers are in the low 70%'s, this isn't all that bad. What shocks me is that so many people opt out of an education at all. Some places will tend to provide alternatives to a liberal education in a small town world view and local, rural employment. Some families just don't support education because they don't see any value to it. But a 71% graduation rate?

Someone needs to tell students (apparently as freshman, and maybe earlier) that there are three forces that make the abandonment of education a dangerous path. They include mechanization, globalization, and customer self service. When I shop at a local grocery store I can ring up my own groceries. I have been paying at the pump for years now. This is customer self-service enabled by new technology. Sometimes new technology occurs right at the workplace and reduces the number of workers required to produce a desired quantity of goods. Sometimes the work is done by foreign workers who get the opportunity to work in factories or offices doing work that used to be done by Americans rather than collecting bits of garbage for cash. I think its cruel and foolish to deny people around the world the opportunity to move out of subsistence economies because we are too shortsighted to educate ourselves and prepare our children for a modern work environment.

Since students who drop out often did not get productive use of the years of school prior to their abandonment of the school, we are talking about people who usually squeak past basic literacy. The purpose of school is not primarily to produce good workers, its to produce a free people capable of governing themselves and pursuing the good life. [ed. for those who didn't catch it, I mean this in an Aristotelian sense] The virtue of such an education is that everything else takes care of itself. When any kind of education isn't completed the problems that result are serious.

Fudging the data to make everthing look peachy is an attempt to pretend the problem isn't there.

New-Liberalism moves Britain toward Entrepreneurialism

Neo-Liberalism, the rejection of the state as problem solver in favor of free markets and free chocies is on the move in Britain. Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer , gives us a hint of his upcomming report in the Telegraph. It looks good. Take a look.

Dollars vs. Testing

The NYT magazine has a good article on the No Child Left Behind act by James Traub. He contends that debates over the act, abbreviated NCLB, have broken down into a question of which panacea is the more authentic: more money, or testing. He describes this as a false dichotomy. Ultimately, the schools need both. More money is the only way to induce highly qualified teachers (meaning academically qualified, not pedagogcally qualified) into the schools that need them most. Tests are neccesary to shine a light on those willing to accept academic failure either because their theory of education is mostly custodial, or because their theory is anti-academic.

Mark Steyn's latest

Check it out, its a riot as always.

Intellectual history update

Two posts down I say a few words on how success begets success, what Austin Bay is calling the Cascade Effect. It dawns on me that this is the Domino Theory, or rather the Domino Theory is a specific manifestation of the Cascade Effect, refering to communist success begeting communist success. Its nice to see we are using it to our advantage rather than just trying to contain its use by rivals.

Military Wit

The military has its own style of wit. It is a cultural cocoon, so this makes sense. Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers recently said, "When you take this leader ...and find him in a hole in the ground, that is a powerful signal that you maybe on the wrong team and maybe should be thinking about some other line of work." This kind of wit is behind the success of R. Lee Ermey's show Mail Call which is full of military attitude, slang, and wit. It doesn't hurt that Ermey is a bit of a showman, willing to laugh at himself while remaining respectful of the military and the people he covers on the show. During the fighting last March, Fox News had some ananlysts who where full of this kind of wit, and it made it much more fun to watch the coverage.

How Success begets Success

On Thursday on Hugh Hewitt, TNR editor Peter Beinart (whose work I respect greatly) made a point of arguing that Libya remained the kind of rogue state with an interest in W'sMD that Iraq appeared not to have been. Oops. The very next day we discover Libya is giving up the whole deal. Hewitt argued that Libya's dictator had been humbled by Reagan during a series of encounters a decade and a half ago, and was now much less of a threat than Iraq. Ultimately, I think this kind of thing suggests that the Neocons were on to something when they spoke of changing the dynamic of the region by changing the regime in Iraq (something that Afghanistan wasn't going to do - too peripheral). Austin Bay of Strategy Page wrote about this change in terms of "cascading effects". He also had a few things to say on NPR on the subject.

Four days ago, I suggested that Dean's suggestion that we internationalize the Iraqi deployment was based on a phantom military capacity in the rest of the world.

Andrew Sullivan has written a piece for the New Republic covering Dean as well as the idea of internationalization. The point that strikes me most in his article is that Russia blocked the kinds of internationalization (mostly through the UN) that we seek in Iraq today. They supported their "little brother" Serbia (a policy that worked really well for them in 1914) and so America fought a war in Yugoslavia (now a geographical term) with the support of some of its NATO allies. Germany, it can be argued adopted an irresponsible policy of early recognition of Slovenia and Croatia, which I think precipitated the early (Croatian) phase of the war of Yugoslav disintegration. Sullivan doesn't mention German in this regard, but does note that she is refusing to cooperate in Iraq, as well as pointing out that any contribution she could make to the force structure is small.

Bringing back the UN requires safety, and no one can provide that except the United States and the forces that are there now. Any additional forces in the world are either A) not capable of operations in a hostile enviroment B) not able to leave hostiles who are nearby (say, India who can't leave Pakistan), or C) we don't wan't them (no Chinese paratroops, thanks). The same is true for internationalizing the military there. Units that may know how to fire their weapons aren't neccesarily capable of offensive action against a determined foe. They can offer some deterance, but only some. US forces, with their battle proven capability, offensive action training, and laser guided bombs offer substantially more deterance and ability to back it up. Once things get quieter in Iraq, the number of troops that could be brought in grows substantially.

Andrew Sullivan states this observation as follows: "But in their vague and convenient allusions to an "internationalization" option that simply doesn't exist, they are mistaking fantasy for reality." He then follows it up with this conclusion:

"Worse, they may be coming up with an option that they themselves know is unfeasible--merely in order to keep a distance between themselves and the coalition's fate in Iraq. That's putting short-term partisan gain over serious grappling with national security. Which is what many of us suspected of the Democrats in the first place. "

Its worth a read.

Ethics Quiz advances

In mid October I saw the ethical philosophy selector quiz on National Review and took the quiz. Here are my results. It now appears that the Elder at Fraters Libertas has posted his results. Note the familiar results: 100% Aquinas. Another Classical Realist. I think its interesting that he scores so high in Aquinas and a 70% Epicureans, but no reference to Aristotle. I think the Elder owes it to other Classical Realists to come clean on his Aristotle score.

The Frozen Monkey posted his results as did R.B. post his at Infinite Monkeys.

Evangelical Outpost took the quiz, results here.

The word is that all of this started is second round with Professor Baimbridge. He posts results to this and other fun quizes. Again, no description of Aristotle results.

And as noted previously, now we just need to get Hugh Hewitt to take the quiz.

Again, three choices

Dean, Lieberman, Gephardt. Dean claims the world is no safer with Hussein captured. Lieberman balks, Dean is climbing into his own spider hole. Gephardt asserts his own moral courage in supporting the war. Dean is a viable candidate who has the progressive wing of his party (the suburban socialists who read Utne Reader) behind him. Lieberman is the centerist with a program similar to a good number of party leaders, but no solid base (the problem with all centrists is that too many potential voters are cross-over, not the mainstay of primary voters), and Gephardt is probabaly the toughest Dem in the national election, because its easiest to see all the Dems uniting behind him, but he represents the past, union labor, hawkish dems, a Missouri democrat who might claim the mantle of Harry Truman, if given the chance. But alas for Dick Gephardt, no one is looking for Harry Truman just now. As rural and industrial Iowa, Missouri, and other Gephardt strongholds give way to suburbs, they are becoming Dean-friendly. While Gephardt might be the strongest in the national election, he is clearly not the frontrunner in the primary.

Comments on the BBC site

The BBC puts this comment in its own box:

"What a phony staged event between the US and our ex-CIA stooge Hussein trotted out 10 days before Christmas to garner support for a phony pointless war and a worthless president" Barbara Bowie, Redlands, USA

Ms. Bowie's wag the dog sentiment is a self-fulfiling analysis of events, as well as an example of the alternate worlds that Mark Steyn was refering to in his article mentioned in my previous post.

Another: "I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will now have to fear the rule of George W Bush and his kind forever more. Your dictator was just replaced by another. Sorry. " Mathew Goad, Ojai, CA , USA

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss? Hmm, we have 400,000 to kill, and only 4 years to do it, we'd better get a move on. Maybe if we can't kill enough Iraqis we can count American dissidents? I would hate for Mr Goad's analysis to appear to contradict the evidence or appear cynical in any way.

"It sounds more fantastic than one may think for a person of Saddam Hussein's military strength to be arrested in a simple way like that expressed by Paul Bremer. It is not my intention to negate the news but one has to approach it with caution."
Angelo J, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania

That might have made sense for explaining why it was neccesary to send in three divisions in the first place, but since we have, the military strength that remained available to Saddam Hussein appears to have been a pistol, which he chose not to employ.

Mark Steyn posses the question well

In a recent commentary, Mark Steyn asks the following:

"The extreme Left has made a terrible strategic mistake shacking up with the Islamists. In one sense, they’re not as incompatible as they might appear: Islamism may be religious in origin but in its political form it is simply this decade’s brand of oppressive statism, as communism was before it. But the only question now is how deeply this strategic error infects the less insane Left."

He goes on to mention the Dean refence to the "Saudi's let Bush know about 9-11 in advance" theory which Dean found so "interesting". Hugh Hewitt wrote about this specific problem a few days ago, but I am drawn to Steyn's formulation. The extream left will join arms with who ever is most obviously at odds with the capitalist west, especially America, especially when lead by a Republican. The following question then, how much of this is conducted through to the less insane left by the Nation, Noam Chomsky, and the rest of the usual suspects? The Dean reference suggests the medium of the left becomes more conductive when energy is added in the form of Bush-hatred.

The fact that Lieberman would charge, "If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place," seems to confirm this theory.

Dean still clueless

Dean still suggests that other troops be brought in to allow US troops to be sent home. Whose troops is he thinking of? Of all the countries capable of power projection, all but France already have troops in Iraq. Most contries don't maintain proper militaries. Those who do are largely either engaged in hostilities or potential hostilities (eg. India) or are rivals of the United States and have no business in Iraq. Its a fact of the democratic world that the large number of friends of democracy either maintain little or no real military power (Germany and Japan are obvious exampes, but Brazil and Mexico also fit into the catagory) or are already present (Britain, Australia &c).

Either Dean thinks there are viable combat forces in other countries, in which case someone needs to pull him aside and enlighten him, or he thinks things in Iraq are ready for the kinds of troops who can't shoot back, don't expect to get shot at, and would be worthless in a real fight, in which case should needs to pull him aside and enlighten him. Either way, he's clueless.

More on the Democratic coallition

Rachel Swarns writes in the NYT of the Dean/Gephardt contest in Iowa, focusing on the unions. What is interesting here is the fact that the complaints mentioned in the article are Dean's old neo-liberal policies, that is his openness to free-trade and willingness to slow the growth of the kinds of middle class entitlements that union members typically rely upon. There is no mention of the hostility that rank and file union membership are likely to have with Dean's more recent progressive policy approach. Consider, Gephardt backed the war in Iraq as well as the $87 billion for Iraqi reconstruction. Traditionally unions, or at least labor unions (Dean's support is far more from government employee unions than labor) have been more hawkish than other members of the democratic party. One of the sources of Reagan democrats were union members who were socially conservative, pro-gun, and rejected the dovishness of Dems on the Cold War, including Vietnam. The NYT article quotes Steve Rosenthal, the longtime political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O, as saying, "It's not like the day after there's a presumptive nominee everyone's going to kiss and make up. There's going to need to be some time for healing."

My reading of this is that if given a choice between Bush and Dean, the unions are going to have to figure out where to go from there. And its gonna take some time. Dare I say, soul searching?

Are the Democrats Goldwater in '64, Eugene McCarthy in '68, or McGovern in '72?

Hugh Hewitt has a good article on Dean's embrace of the nutty Left's worldview. Realignment is in the works. Clinton masked it by being a neo-liberal, being a Southerner, and having an enormous charisma. Hence its hard to assess where in the process we are. Dean's own quirkiness cloud's assessment. The anti-Bush hatred suggests '72. Part of the question (the '64 part) revolves around where we will go in the struggle between neo-liberals (Clinton) and progressives (Dean). Note that old style Dems (Gephardt) are reduced to the role of spoilers.

William Saletan makes some useful observations from the NH debates in Slate. Scroll down to point 3. My take home from all of this is that Lieberman wants to carry the neo-liberal/new democrat mantle so clearly abandon by Gore in 2000.

I saw Gore speak at the University of Missouri in '92 and '96. He was a democrat I could live with, especially on economic and domestic issues. Likewise Clinton. I prefered Gore to Clinton on foriegn policy. When Gore ran in 2000, I was disheartened by his lurch to the left. He ceased to be the kind of democrat I could live with. Though I was not enamored by W (I voted for McCain in the primary), when confronted by an indifferent Republican and any Democrat I don't actively like, I vote Republican, because I'd rather have republicans appointed to Treasury, Commerce, State, Defence, and the rest, to democrats. In this case, I was abandonded by a dem I could have liked, and had no problem voting for W. I was right. Even before 9-11 proved thet W had come to office with a huge unexpected capacity, I liked his foriegn/defense team. Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, its all good. Its a line up like that which makes me a Republican. Presidents have limited power and spend a great deal of time being national exemplars, and so on. A good spate of appointments can make some real headway. For the record I was a Paul O'Neal fan as well. Its too bad he was shuffled out.

What the hell happened to Al Gore? In 1988 one of the memorable moments of the campaign (the seven dwarves, God I love Al Haig) was when Dick Gephardt charged Gore as follows: "So you decided that you'd better move to the right on defense and a lot of other issues. And lately you've been sounding more like Al Haig than Al Gore." Read about the whole incident here. That was an a democrat I could live with. Sure I supported Haig in '88 (and have the bumper stickers and campaign materials to prove it), and voted for Bush in '88 and '92, but Al Gore was the kind of Democrat you could work with. Not in 2000, he wasn't. He never had my vote in 2000, he lurched to the left. Now we see he's just kept going left, driven no doubt by resentment and animus over Florida (the dummy should have just won Tennessee) and vered from the land of the Vital Center to the land of MoveOn.org.

I'm a neo-liberal of the right. I like market solutions to social problems, and I am anti-statist (unless we're talking national security). I often find I have more in common with neo-liberals of the left than I do with other kinds of conservatives. I get along well with old anti-communists, and I like the WSJ crowd. If the Republican party is the party of business, I'm a happy camper. If it stands for capitalism, free markets, and a strong national defence, they reflexivly have my vote. Its the social conservatives I worry about. I tend to sympathize with social conservatives, but given a choice between, as Dennis Prager puts it, being pure or being free, I pick freedom every time.

So, as a neo-liberal of the right, I take a great deal of concern with what is going on with neo-liberals of the left. Who will win this power struggle in the democratic party? Will it be Lieberman and the Clintons, or the new Dean/Gore alliance?

This may be over the top

I get the sense that this latest Supreme Court ruling may turn out to be one of those constitutional moments historians later shake their head at. Others include the time Niceas and Alcebiades colluded to break the Ostracism, and when Sulla refused to lay down the Roman dictatorship. The power of super wealthy interests, whether a George Soros or a well funded PAC, seem to have grown considerably. The power of regular people to influence politics seems to have diminished. As I say, this might be over-reacting, but its certainly not the right step. I'd much rather see changes which increase the power of political parties and diminished those of special interest organizations.

Rand Simberg doesn't understand history

His explanation at Fox News totally fails to understand the benefit of understanding history. History is not mathematics. History doesn't tell us what will happen in the future, searching for these kinds of lessons is futile. History tells us what has happened in the past.

Having walked to the nearby sandwich shop, I have a pretty good idea of what will probably occur next time I walk there. I have a good understanding of the likely kinds of things that might happen. However, all kinds of things may happen that have never happened on the way to the sandwhich shop. History, or indeed any kind of experience, gives us a range of likely outcomes, unlikley outcomes, and the highly unlikely outcomes. It doesn't tell us what will happen.

It so happens that there are patterns in human and social experience, and so things are not totally and completly new all of the time. By the same token, these patterns are not governed by mathematical certainties, even complex ones.

Holiday a Success

Made the turkey this year. 12 and a half pounds for 5 people. No leftovers to speak of, which is pretty much the way I wanted it. First time I've gotten to host the Thanksgiving meal, and it went quite well.

That burns me up

Matt makes an excellent point on the evils of change.

Mark Steyn does it again

Another fantastic opinion piece by one of the greatest wits of the war on terror.

"Profound changes in the above countries would not necessarily mean the end of the war on terror, but it would be pretty close. It would remove terrorism’s most brazen patron (Syria), its ideological inspiration (the prototype Islamic Republic of Iran), its principal paymaster (Saudi Arabia), a critical source of manpower (Sudan) and its most potentially dangerous weapons supplier (North Korea). They’re the fronts on which the battle has to be fought: it’s not just terror groups, it’s the state actors who provide them with infrastructure and extend their global reach."

BTW, I just want to snicker at Wesley Clark whose complaint is that we should be fighting a war on terror, not states. I don't think Gen Clark has much of a clue. Put right up there with McClellen.

Jesse Jackson protested

Recently, Megan McArdle wrote about the Principal-Agent Problem in regard unions and membership. Many observers believe this problem exists as well between Black leaders and the Black community. WLS TV in Chicago has a report on a protest against Jackson and his effort to draw attention to the need for jobs.

"We are tired of coming here to voice our opinion when we got African-American people sitting at the table and saying they represent our interests and playing this puppet game," said one protester.

Another said, "What has he sacrificed for his beliefs? Us. We've been sacrificed. On the altar of his political ambition our people have been destroyed."

What is interesting is Jackson's responce: "They lashed out at Dr. King, they lashed out at Nelson Mandela, they lashed out at Jesus, so all of those who fight for change become the object of frustration."

This statement only reflects how out of touch Jackson is from the people he claims to represent. Principal-Agent Problem indeed.

More on Movies

This article by James Pinkerton at Tech Central Station provides an interesting, allied view to what Matthew was talking about in the previous link. Pinkerton writes about the SW series and the Matrix movies as well.

Movie essay Arrived

My brother says "... going through Two Towers goodness.... will be writing a blog explaing with LOTR examples how George Lucas Screwed up Star Wars."
He pauses and continues, "Well not screwed up.... more like could have told differently"

Here is the link.

Velvet Revolution in Georgia

EUobserver reports that Eduard Shevardnadze has resigned as president. A useful run up to today/yesterday's events can be found at rantburg. A brief bio of Shevardnadze can be found here.

Prager rebroadcasts show on Social Reconstructionism

My last post, or post attempt, failed when this show was originally broadcast. Dennis exaggerates the influence of social reconstruction in the schools. Its a significant philosophy of teaching to be sure, but its not dominant. The dominant philosophy of education is progressivism. Progressives and social reconstructionists get along well, as I detail in the above link, the later emerges from the former in the same way that essentialists emerged from perennialists. The real problem, however, is not the schools. Especially after 9-11 the number of teachers displaying and encouraging patriotism clearly outnumbers the social reconstructionists. The problem is textbooks, education departments in colleges, and professional teacher organizations, especially the NEA. The professional organizations and the text books promote a social reconstructionist perspective (the professional orgs as advocates of the glorious future that awaits and the textbooks in order to avoid offending anyone). This reinforces the progressivism and social reconstruction that is promulgated by teacher education. All of this insidiously created ontological commitment from teachers who otherwise would have little interest in social justice and all the rest. It is also organizations outside the school who impose political correctness on the school. Social reconstructionists are their allies in the school, but no one imposes punitive penalties for free thought on themselves, and since teachers normally operate without observation of the work, political correctness can be said to be an externality. This is especially a problem because most teachers lack a formal intellectual training and so lack disciplinary integrity, that is to say a commitment to the teachings of their subject as revealed by a method.

So why am I not affected? First I was an Aristotelian prior to ed school. I know how to reason, I understand the primacy of metaphysics, I have a theory of society and human conduct. Second, I had formal academic training, getting a masters in history before starting teacher training, so I had further developed my reasoning ability, but specifically I studied intellectual history and my undergraduate advisor was a specialist in the conflict between the humanists and the scholastics. Hence, tracing the movement of and analyzing ideas was well developed. As a result, when I was given an idea in teacher ed, I was able to put it in an intellectual framework and make sense of its place in the history of education. Once you know what progressivism and social reconstructionism are, you can elect to embrace, reject, or dabble in their philosophies. Those who lack such a capacity are far more apt to accept the world as its described by a teacher ed program, and is then reinforced by professional organizations.

For example, teacher education wrings its hands about poorly performing students. It speaks about them at great length and with great concern. It has almost nothing to say and no concern about students who are doing well. The teacher college does not recognize the gifted, talented, or exceptional student as a problem to be addressed as though they presented no special challenge to a teacher. Certainly poorly performing students is a problem. But, its not the only problem, its just only problem teacher ed has anything to say anything about. All of its totems and fetishes concern the poorly performing student, motivationally, culturally, cognitively, and so on.

As a final note, Prager comes away looking an awful lot like a Rousseau, and Jean-Jacques is the father of all this wackiness Prager finds so offensive. I propose Prager bush up on his Aristotle and Locke.

College Readiness

The St Louis Dispatch had a story yesterday on readiness for college. The story refers to this report by the Manhattan Institute. The demand in our society is not for plumbers, but for the college educated. There are not enough of them.

Universal Education

There are those who imagine that the traditional liberal education is fine for the wealthy (if they want it) but that the common man and woman benefits from a different kind of education, which despite its theoretical claims amounts to vocational education. This offends me on grounds both egalitarian and meritocratic. As an egalitarian I am offended by the notion that some students cannot profit from knowledge about the natural world and the social world as reflected in math, science, history, and literature. That they should be content with the life of a tradesman. This is especially curious in a world in which mechanization has eliminated so many jobs. Mechanization, as well as self-service and globalization constantly threaten the simple tradesman. Less so the engineer. Indeed the engineer may profit from all of these trends. As a meritocrat I am offended by the notion that the children of tradesmen are themselves best suited for trades and that the professionals of tomorrow will inevitably spring from the children of professionals. This denies the very real possibility that some of tomorrow's professionals will spring from the children of tradesmen if only they are given educational opportunities, rather than guided into vocational instruction. My own parents, professionals with four masters degrees between them, were the children of a janitor and an envelope cutter. This I think is the American experience.

Updated your bejo lately?

If proscriptivists ever replace "blog" with "web journal" they must understand that "web journal" will be contracted into something like "bejo" or something else as irrational as "blog". Like it or lump it sayeth the rabbit.

Max Boot in the NYT

Max Boot has an excellent opinion piece in the Times today. Take a look.

Lileks asks "This Riyadh bombing story would be cause for a brief dank gust of saudenfreude if the damage hadn’t been so horrible. Will the Saudi newsmagazines run covers that say “Why Do They Hate Us” – or, more accurately, “Why Do We Hate Us”? It’s a blue-pill / red-pill moment for the Saudis; it reminds you – if you needed just a jab – that history is moving swiftly around us. And it would seem to be an act of audacious stupidity by Al Qaeda – this isn’t just biting the hand that feeds them. This is biting it, tearing it off, chewing it up, and blowing smoke rings with the bone powder.

"And it makes me wonder: They stick the shiv in the ribs of their richest and most enthusiastic backers.

"What makes them this confident?"

The answer to Lilek's final question is a key one. Al Quaeda doesn't just attack the West, they attack states which are insufficiently Islamic. One thing you can see is that from the POV of Al Quaeda, the Saudis are insufficiently Islamic. Do they think they will shame the Saudis into rejecting the West?

Observation

Those who would criticize privatization in schools totally ignore the fact that public schools are also slaves to the dollars they need to keep operating, and so seek to send parents and legislatures away happy (with or without satisfaction). Focus on test scores, dropout rates, or class size are intended to please the constituents of the public schools to keep tax dollars rolling in and the critics at bay. Government serves customers just as private companies do, they just do it differently. The willingness of schools to sell junk food and candy to students in huge quantities leaves me in no confidence that the public schools are immune from the same kinds of pressures as private schools would be.

One of my regular blog reads has moved

www.matthewstinson.com now replaces A Fearful Symmetry.

Books Arrive

Diane Ravitch's book Left Back: A Century of Battles over school reform has arrived. It looks very good. I'll comment on it as I get more reading done.

Odd Occurance

Going through matchbooks at Lileks.com. Matchbooks with phone numbers for their businesses like MAin 3297 (sic), TEmpleton 8-7987, and ELdorado 5-9858. It put me of a mind for Pennsylvania 6-5000, by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. Suddenly it appeared on MoonTaxi, the internet radio I was playing. Coincidence, or master plan of the Martians?

Dumbing Down Our Kids

Been reading Charles J. Sykes book Dumbing Down Our Kids. Its a stark indictment of our schools. Its specific examples of what is goofy about our schools strike me as the most egregious examples rather than representative ones, but I can attest from within the beast that the differences are only of degree, not of kind. I have since gone ahead and ordered Diane Ravitch's book Left Back. Typical teaching methods are so riddled with utopian fantasy, that I'll have to seriously examine contemporary practice and the long history of educational practice to devise a more reliable classroom practice.

America and Europe

Thomas Friedman has a columnn today on the breech between Old Euope and America (he doesn't use that term). He postulates that we have different goals and that this is the source of our problem. Indeed, but I don't think things are as technocratic as some of the lines in his column suggest. He quotes Carl Bildt, the former Swedish PM, "Every European prime minister wakes up in the morning thinking about how to share sovereignty" and "the U.S. president wakes up thinking about where the next terror attack might come from and how to respond." [the quotes are of TF paraphrasing CB]

Yes, and no. Another line gets closer to the heart of the matter. "Pretending to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people — by calling for the removal of sanctions but keeping Saddam in power so he can buy lots of stuff from Germany and France — is priceless to them. But easing the suffering of the Iraqi people by removing Saddam's whole sick regime is worthless to them." France has shown a certain unwillingness to embrace the globalization the US granted the world in 1944 at Bretton Wood. They resent US interfearance in what was effectively a satalite state, Iraq. Hence the notions of a counterweight to the US.