Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by James Otteson
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The More Things Change
Here is a clip from, of all things, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 in which Moore asks some people from congress whether they had actually read the 2001 PATRIOT Act before they voted on it. Of course they hadn't. (Note especially Representative Conyers's condescending answer to the question.)
Fast-foward eight years: Once again we are seeing the passage, and attempted passage, of massive bills threatening civil and other liberties without anyone having read the entire thing. Plus ca change.
Friday, May 29, 2009
"Men in Power"
What began as a spoof has grown into a movement: According to the Chicago Tribune, a student who joked about wanting to start a student support and development group for men was inundated with requests from students that he do exactly that. So he has. It's called Men in Power.
A U of C representative said there are approximately nine women's advocacy groups on campus, but this would be the first men's advocacy group.
I wonder whether this will start a trend.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Proving the Negative
What is most disturbing to me about Obama's new call to eliminate tax deductions for companies that earn profits in countries outside the U.S. is not that it seems like the economic equivalent of erecting a Berlin Wall. It is not that it also calls for the hiring of 800 new IRS agents as border guards--keeping people in, not keeping undesirables out.
Bad as those are, this is what worries me the most: "Obama also planned to ask Congress to crack down on tax havens and implement a major shift in the way courts view guilt. Under Obama's proposal, Americans would have to prove they were not breaking U.S. tax laws by sending money to banks that don't cooperate with tax officials. It essentially would reverse the long-held assumption of innocence in U.S. courts."
Under the newly proposed guidelines, once you are charged--for whatever reason--with attempting to evade taxes by exploiting a "tax haven," you are presumed guilty. And you would have to prove your innocence to federal judge who, one suspects, is likely to be inclined against you already. That is a dangerous precedent indeed.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Adam Smith's Other Book
There is an interesting discussion on Econtalk about Adam Smith's first book, his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments, and its relation to his other, now more famous, book, the 1776 Wealth of Nations.
The discussion is with Dan Klein and Russ Roberts on podcast. Be sure to read the comments as well, since they contain some interesting further elaborations.
Much of the discussion is prompted by the so-called Adam Smith Problem, which asks how Smith's two books go together. One is about morality, the other about economics; one talks about "sympathy," the other about "self-interest." Therefore they must be in conflict, some have thought. This issue has been debated for well over a century now. For full disclosure, I have discussed it too
Friday, March 20, 2009
A Liberal Education?
Here is a link to an interesting conversation between two George Mason University professors--Bruce Smith and Dan Klein--about the extent to which higher education is dominated by left-of-center politics, and what effects that has.
One snippet: Bruce Smith says that conservatives are not discriminated against in academia, adding that many of them are "crybabies." Right.
UPDATE 3/22/09: Two other Klein offerings on this topic:
1. An article in The Independent Review, entitled "Groupthink in Academia: Majoritarian Departmental Politics and the Professional Period," here.
2. A podcast of Klein with Russ Roberts on "Truth, Bias, and Disagreement," here.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Update on Peter Singer
As an update to Aeon Skoble's post below, I thought readers might be interested to see this interview of Singer with Steven Colbert on the Colbert Report:
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Gone Nuts?
According to its website, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has two main areas of investigation: "national security priorities" and "criminal priorities." Under the former are included counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber crime; under the latter are included public corruption, civil rights, organized crime, white-collar crime, and "major thefts/violent crime."
So . . . why is the FBI conducting surprise raids on peanut butter companies?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Do I Hear Five?
"Bank bailout could cost $4 trillion," according to Fortune. It's good thing the feds are sitting on all that paper that they can print money with.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The "Free Market Mindset"
Harvard Law School is hosting a conference entitled "The Free Market Mindset: History, Psychology, and Consequences," on March 9, 2009. It is part of its "Project on Law and Mind Sciences," all sponsored by Harvard Law School.
I noticed that the previous years' conferences were not on the ideologies of other schools of economics, but perhaps future years' conferences will be. Anyone going?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Just How Bad Is It?
According to Iain Martin in the London Telegraph, Britain is on the edge of bankruptcy. All that could save it now, he says, is if somehow President Obama, by sheer force of personality, can restore confidence and energy in markets worldwide. Alas, however, Martin is not sanguine about the chances: "Obama is talented, but he is not a magician."
So, two questions. First, is Britain really that close to bankruptcy? Second, if so, what does that mean for the rest of the world--and for us in particular?
The 2012 Pelosi Sport Edition
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Story of Stuff
Have you heard of this yet? It's published by "Free Range Studios." It's available in pieces on YouTube (of course). A student of mine alerted me to it. Here's the first installment:
Sunday, December 7, 2008
An Auto . . . "Czar"?
According to the Wall Street Journal today, talks of a Detroit bailout have slowed because of discussions of what the scope of the power and authority of the newly contemplated "auto czar" would be.
The Auto Czar would apparently oversee the restructuring of the entire American automobile industry. Once the current crisis is past, would the Auto Czar then, like Cincinnatus, simply return the reins of power and resume working his farm?
Monday, December 1, 2008
No, It's a Bailout
UAW president Ron Gettelfinger argues that the $25 billion handout he is urging Congress to give to the Detroit-based auto manufacturers is in fact not a bailout: it's a "loan--a bridge loan."
He goes on to argue that the companies and the unions are working on financial plans that will ensure the long-term stability of the companies.
But if those both those claims were true, shouldn't they be able to convince a private bank or private investors to give them the "bridge loan"? If it were such a certainty that they would pay back the "borrowed" money plus interest, surely profit-minded investors would be interested to help them out. But curiously, they aren't.
Let's see: (1) If A, then B. (2) Not B. Therefore . . . .
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
They Ignore the . . . What?
Judge Andrew P. Napolitano writes in today's Wall Street Journal that "most presidents ignore the Constitution."
I suppose it is important that a claim like that is being voiced in the mainstream media, but, really, is that news?
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
"American Math Chuckleheads"
That is the title of a column, and accompanying short video, from Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes Magazine.
Karlgaard argues not only that American innumeracy is worse than American illiteracy, not only that the innumerates actually worsen the lives of others while illiterates only worsen their own lives, but also that this pervasive and growing innumeracy in America might even have had something to do with the current banking crisis.
A scary thought.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
A Different Twist on "Obama Nation"
The number of comparisons between Obama and Hilter are increasing, and are numerous already. (A google search on the two terms reveals 3,650,000 hits.)
Most of those are meant either as comedy or are just plain way over the top. But there are some eerie videos making their rounds on the internet.
One was the subject of a recent column by Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post under the headline "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid." (The article contains a link to the relevant video.)
A second shows a group of young men calling themselves "Obama Youth" and marching and chanting, military-style. They enter chanting "Alpha, Omega, Alpha, Omega"--apparently comparing Obama to the Christ.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Spanking Children
Yale psychologist Alan Kazdin argues in Slate today that parents shouldn't spank children. He says studies find a host of negative consequences:
"The negative effects on children include increased aggression and noncompliance—the very misbehaviors that most often inspire parents to hit in the first place—as well as poor academic achievement, poor quality of parent-child relationships, and increased risk of a mental-health problem (depression or anxiety, for instance). High levels of corporal punishment are also associated with problems that crop up later in life, including diminished ability to control one's impulses and poor physical-health outcomes (cancer, heart disease, chronic respiratory disease). Plus, there's the effect of increasing parents' aggression, and don't forget the consistent finding that physical punishment is a weak strategy for permanently changing behavior."
Two quick thoughts about this. First, I wonder whether spanking, like any other parenting technique, might work better (or worse) for some children than others. We often want a single policy for all children, but since children differ widely in temperament, personality, and so on, it seems likely that no single policy would be appropriate in all cases.
Second, it is interesting to note that modern psychology seems to be catching up with . . . Herbert Spencer! Spencer argued in his 1851 Social Statics that children deserve the same respect as adults and are equally protected by the law of equal freedom; one consequence of this, he thought, is that corporal punishment of children--or what he called "coercive education"--is as unjust as slavery.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Short-Term Memory
Here are the first two paragraphs from a fascinating 2003 story in the New York Times, under the headline, "New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae":
"The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.
"Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry."
Read the rest of the story here. Be sure to note Barney Frank's comments about how people are exaggerating the problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
[Hat tip: Power Line Blog.]
Friday, January 26, 2007
The Pharoah Arrives (Or, How the University of Alabama Apparently Has Unlimited (Taxpayer) Funds)
(Somewhere in there is Nick Saban, the new University of Alabama head football coach.)
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Now Here's a Shocker
It turns out that children of rich, famous, well-connected, or otherwise influential people are getting preferential treatment at colleges and universities.
The article also mentions the by-now ho-hum fact that Asians are held to higher standards than any other ethnic group, although a new term is given to them: the "new Jews."
One final thought: the article compares Notre Dame's practice of giving preferential treatment to alumni children to the practice of other universities of giving preference to rich people. I don't think those are in the same boat. Universities that let in rich people are only interested in prospects of money (they call them "development admits"!); by contrast, Notre Dame's practice of prefering children of alumni is in part a way of saying "thanks" to people who have already gone to Notre Dame.
(Full disclosure: I am a graduate of Notre Dame, though, as the first in my family to graduate college, I am not the child of alumni; and I am married to a woman who is a third-generation Notre Dame graduate, but who was actually denied the first time she applied to Notre Dame (she was accepted as a transfer student after her first year).)
Monday, April 10, 2006
Let No Peaceful, Voluntary Act Go Unpunished
Our fearless leaders in congress just cannot leave people alone. Not even card players: see here.
By the way, can someone enlighten me on exactly what is the moral--or even the religious--objection to gambling? It can't be just that one might take it too far, since that applies to just about everything in life. So what is it, then?
Monday, August 29, 2005
Long Live Adam Smith!
Liberty and Power readers might enjoy a new blog by a good historian of economics, Sandra Peart. The blog’s excellent name is Adam Smith Lives!.
Sandy has done a lot of interesting work with David Levy in straightening out a number of misconceptions in the history of economics. See, in particular, their illuminating "The Secret History of the Dismal Science: Economics, Religion, and Race in the Nineteenth Century," which, among other things, sets out the real source of the epithet “dismal science.”
Friday, July 1, 2005
Who will the next appointment be?
Breaking news: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has announced she will retire.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Kelo protest
Jeff Jacoby has informed me that the Institute for Justice, the courageous organization that has defended the homeowners throughout the long legal journey ending in the Kelo decision, is sponsoring a protest at 6pm on Tuesday, July 5th, at the City Hall in New London, where the first public City Council meeting since the ruling will be held.
Hope you can make it!
Friday, June 24, 2005
Another politician we need to take very seriously
Kofi Annan argues (sorry, subscribers only) in today’s Wall Street Journal that the United States should not take Henry Hyde’s advice and make a “draconian and unilateral cut in the U.S. contribution to the U.N. budget.” Annan’s argument is that … wait, hold on a second—tell me again why should we care about anything that Annan says?
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Constitution Day
Some members of my university would like to plan an event celebrating Constitution Day this September 17th.
We are thinking of a panel of speakers to discuss the notion of states' rights and federalism, perhaps taking the recent Schiavo, medical marijuana, and Kelo cases as our starting points.
What are your institutions planning, if anything?
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Cost of Catholic education
My letter to the editor a couple of days ago claiming that Catholic education costs on average 65% of what public schools cost prompted this good question: “I’d like to know whether Catholic schools, which you show as being cheaper compared to public schools, are also supported by the catholic church. If this is true, then you have to take this into the cost-calculation, too, because the money from the church also comes from someone (it’s the same idea as behind public schools).” This is such an important question, in fact, that I decided another blog about it was warranted.
It turns out that even accounting for the money Catholic schools routinely get from their associated parishes they are still cheaper. I quote from Andrew J. Coulson’s excellent Market Education: The Unknown History (footnotes omitted):
The simple fact is that the average independent school costs half as much per pupil as the average public school: $3,116 versus $6,653 during the 1993-94 school year (the most recent year for which national private school data are available [as of 1999]). These averages, however hide significant variations within the private sector. Schools affiliated with religious organizations spend considerably less than nonsectarian schools. Independent Catholic schools charged an average tuition of $2,178 in 1993-94, while other religious schools averaged $2,915, and nonsectarian private schools averaged $6,631.
One factor Coulson cites as partially explaining the huge cost differential is administrators. For example, in Baltimore, despite the fact that the Catholic “Archdiocese’s students were spread out across twice as many schools [as Hartford County’s public school system], it required only one-ninth the number of central administrators” (p. 272; my emphasis).
This discrepancy has led many critics to suggest that religious schools are able to charge low tuitions solely because of parish subsidies and endowments. In reality, parish subsidies accounted for only about $700 per year per student in Catholic elementary schools during the 1992–93 school year. Endowments from alumni and community members were far smaller, accounting for only 2 percent of Catholic-school income in the same year. Thus, even taking these funding sources into account, the cost of religious independent schools remains around half that of public schools. (p. 277)
Monday, May 23, 2005
And maybe the minimum wage doesn't lead to unemployment . . .
I sent this letter to the editor of my local newspaper, the Tuscaloosa News. They won’t print it, of course, so I thought I would post it here. Their editorial was in response to an article in the Phi Delta Kappan claiming that private schools do not necessarily do a better job teaching math and science to kids than do public schools.
One might call this, adapting Steven Pinker's phrase, the moralistic fallacy: since my moral scruples tell me it should be true, therefore it is true.
Dear Editor:
Your editorial “Private schools are not the solution for public school problems” (May 11, 2005) is grotesquely misleading. You cite a study that you claim shows that “students are just as likely to succeed in public schools as in private schools.” Please.
That study appears in a non-peer-reviewed magazine published by an advocacy group whose stated mission is, according to its website, “To promote high-quality education, in particular publicly supported education” (my emphasis). Little surprise, then, that its articles downplay the superior performance of private schools over public schools.
Contrary to your fanciful claim, a mountain of studies—published in actual peer-reviewed journals—has shown that students at private schools consistently outperform those at public schools, even controlling for variables like socioeconomic status. Indeed, it is among the poorest students where the gap between private and public schools is greatest. Students in the Catholic schooling system, for example, have higher average standardized test scores, higher graduation rates, higher college-acceptance rates, and they do better on average in college—again, even controlling for their parents’ socioeconomic status. Catholic schools do this, moreover, while costing on average 35% less than public schools. This information is easy to find, if you just look for it.
From one special-interest advocacy piece, however, you drew this sweeping conclusion: “The significant point is that private schools are not a solution for what ails public schools. Unless policymakers can show private schools are better, particularly with poorly performing students, programs like vouchers don’t make sense.” How absurd! That’s like finding an article on the Post Office’s own website touting itself and then saying, “See! We don’t really need UPS or FedEx! Let’s outlaw them.”
Here’s a solution. Let’s continue to allow you and others who support and believe in public schools to send their children to them, to fund them with their taxes, etc., but for those who wish to seek other alternatives for their own children—whether for religious, moral, or educational reasons—let them do so without being forced to also pay for the public schools. That way nobody forces anybody to do anything against their will, and we can all amicably agree to disagree.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
I'm shocked--shocked, I say
A state agency wasting money? Who would have guessed? The only thing to do, I suppose, is to extend the scope of its power and increase its budget.
(Another shock: private agencies are doing it better. Boy these things sure are coming out of left field.)
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
In case you're in the area . . .
A blurb from the University of Alabama’s faculty and staff newspaper, Dialogue:
Dr. Jennifer Purvis of the University of Alabama's Department of Women's Studies is hosting a Queer Movie Series this spring semester for WS 440/EN 444, "Feminism and Queer Theory." These films are being screened in media classrooms. Attendance is free and open to interested students and faculty. The first in the series, "You Don't Know Dick" and "XXXY" is scheduled for Wednesday, April 13. For more information, contact the women's studies department at 348–5782.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Students somehow continue to resist our reprogramming
The Faculty Senate at the University of Alabama continues to take a well-deserved thrashing for recommending that the administration adopt a speech code. What is interesting about the thrashing this time, however, is that it is also coming from students. The latest installment is from the University of Virginia’s newspaper, The Cavalier Daily.
Monday, March 7, 2005
This just in: Not Everyone Thinks Just Like Me Yet
Lennard Davis, an English professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, believes that the new Clint Eastwood movie "Million Dollar Baby" points out that we need to make a new addition to our growing list of “studies” at the universities: disability studies.
Read Davis’s article, if you have the stomach for it, and make of it what you will. But here are a few thoughts I have.
First, there is no such thing as a “disability scholar and activist.” This is because you cannot both be a scholar and an activist: to the extent you are an activist, you are no longer a scholar. And indeed this fact is demonstrated by Davis’s argument that we need “disabilities studies” departments so that we can reform—not educate—students. Indoctrination, whatever its other merits, does not constitute education. The latter is what a scholar does, the former is what an activist does.
Second, what a slander on people Davis’s article constitutes. Without knowing me, for example, he claims I cannot speak to a black, Asian, Hispanic, or disabled person without being conscious of the fact that that person is black, Asian, Hispanic, or disabled. What he really means is not just that I am aware of this fact about people, but that I let it negatively affect what I say, do, or believe about them. The continuing efforts of people like Davis to the contrary notwithstanding, however, I actually do my best not to let such things enter into my thoughts or behavior. And I bet I am not the only one.
Third, it strikes me as more than a little absurd to excoriate people for viewing others as members of this or that race or “protected class,” while simultaneously advocating the proliferation of academic disciplines and departments whose sole reason for existence is to trumpet, perpetuate, and set in stone these distinctions and divisions. I can’t help but think that if we didn’t have the incessant drumbeat of race-sex-class-(and now)-disability, people wouldn’t pay nearly as much attention to such things.
One of my six-year-old son’s best friends is a seven-year-old boy with Down’s Syndrome. My son doesn’t know the other boy has Down’s. He just thinks he’s silly and fun, kind of like my son, so they get along famously. One of my eight-year-old son’s best friends is an Asian boy who speaks with a bit of an accent and is good at something no one else in their class is, origami. My eight-year-old doesn’t realize the other boy is Asian. He just thinks he’s cool, and so they have great fun together. And one of my eleven-year-old daughter’s least favorite people is a Chinese girl who lives across the street from us. It isn’t that my daughter cares, or even hardly notices, that she’s Chinese; it’s that they just don’t get along. This kind of sorting according to interests and personalities is perfectly natural; like what happens in markets, this process tends to steer people towards behaviors and relationships that are mutually beneficial.
Alas, however, there are people who do not want that kind of innocent sorting. By the time children get to college (if not earlier), they want young people trained not to see people as individuals but to see them as representatives of specific classes or groups, complete with group characteristics, historical grievances, and special sensitivities to perceived slights. So my kids can’t just see another kid as funny or cool or irritating; they have to be a disabled funny kid, an Asian cool kid, a Chinese irritating kid. Similarly, I can’t view this student merely as a hard worker or that one as a slacker: I have to constantly remind myself that they are members of this or that race or protected class; I have to tell myself that there are many things that are not allowed to be said or done in the presence of such people, and all these prohibitions are class-specific, ever-changing, and beyond dispute; and I have to monitor my speech and actions accordingly. Not much of a chance for a friendly relationship under these circumstances!
So it isn’t just that Davis is advocating yet another political, and thus noneducational, training camp at universities. It isn’t just that he’s trying to justify his own work not by its scholarly or educational value but rather by shaming people who disagree with his view with moral posturing and sermonizing (if you disagree with him, you are immoral and evil). It’s that he is actually contributing mightily to the poisoning of the human relationships he claims to protect.
I don’t like having to view people according to their group identities. And I especially don’t like the claim that my children can’t continue viewing other kids as just individuals with their various unique characteristics. When will these social reformers just mind their own business and leave others alone?
Monday, January 31, 2005
The Future Joe Piscopo Comedian Award
I currently serve on my university's selection committee for its Tier 1 Scholarships—the very highest incoming student scholarship we offer. It includes full tuition remission, a complimentary laptop computer, and even some “walking around” money.
The students in the running for this scholarship are extremely impressive, usually having ACTs 33 or higher, SATs 1450 or higher, and GPAs 3.75 or higher. Schools around the country are trying to land them.
One of the candidates wrote in her application essay that she would like to become a biologist. She discovered her interest in biology when she attended one of the summer classes offered by Duke University for gifted pre-college-age students. She did so well in the class that the instructor awarded her top-student honors. Here’s the incredible part: the award she received was the “Future Rachel Carson Award.”
The Future Rachel Carson Award? Rachel Carson, the author of the now-exploded Silent Spring as a model for future biologists?
Another applicant reports that his high school biology teacher told him that if he’s serious about learning about biology, he needed to read Carson’s book—and the student reports that Carson’s book indeed inspired him to one day become a biologist.
What’s next? The Future Joseph Stalin Statesman Award? Or maybe the Future Karl Marx Economist Award? Or . . . .
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Football and racism, again
A follow-up to my previous post. Here is Tyrone Willingham's own assessment of the "race issue" upon his prompt hiring as head coach of Washington after having been fired at Notre Dame:
"I've laid the right foundation," Willingham said. "I've been respectful to myself and to the programs I've been associated with. Others recognize that and look at the quality of the man. It doesn't matter if he's black, white, brown, yellow or red. You're just a man who does things right."
Hear, hear. As a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, I am a long-time—and, recently, a long-suffering—fan of Fighting Irish football. Since our last national championship in 1987 under Lou Holtz, the Irish have had to suffer several indignities: lots of humiliating losses, especially to great teams like Southern Cal; more humiliating losses, especially to mediocre teams like North Carolina State; and even phasing out of the Leprechaun mascot in his “fighting” stance for pc-reasons.
Now we have been subject to sermonizing about the firing of ineffective Tyrone Willingham as head coach. Since he was black, some people claim that the reason he was fired must therefore be racism, or even “systematic racism.” (For some sillier examples, see here and here.)
I have a hard time believing that racism had anything to do with Willingham’s firing, or with the relative dearth of black coaches in NCAA football generally. The one thing those college football programs want to do is win. They don’t care what color the players, coaches, staff, or anyone else is. In this they are quite unlike college and university administrators’ attitudes about other students—where their color does matter quite a bit. But in big-time football programs, like Notre Dame’s, Oklahoma’s, Alabama’s, Miami’s, and on and on, my suspicion is that if they thought they could win by hiring a particular black coach, they’d do it. Without batting an eye.
Two small points on Long and Horowitz’s arguments about the sex-gap in wages. First, there is also such a thing as employee entrepreneurship: if a woman is being underpaid for what she does or is capable of doing relative to men (or anyone else), she is quite free—and in a free market would have all the incentives to encourage her to do so—to market herself elsewhere. I don’t just mean that she could look for another job; I mean she could market herself: approach other employers, even those not currently looking for new employees, and demonstrate her abilities, advertise what she can do, promote herself, and so on. In other words, she can exploit possible niches that others didn’t realize were there, market opportunities that sex-gaps in wages open up. That’s what entrepreneurs do, and there’s no reason she shouldn’t think of herself as an independent contractor offering, and entrepreneurially capitalizing on, her own services.
Second, there are lots of reasons why husbands and wives might have the particular signature of division of labor they do other than that men are lazy and women put up with it. People are quick to assume that the lazy man won’t shoulder his fair burden of housework and that the hapless longsuffering woman must simply endure it. That probably happens sometimes, but it most certainly is not the case in every situation. Perhaps in some cases the couples in question actually prefer the arrangement. I think that in our zeal to combat evils like sexism we sometimes forget to notice that many of the paths people take they themselves chose. Their decisions have various consequences, not always good; but just because the people making the decisions didn’t endorse or don’t want all of the consequences doesn’t mean that therefore someone else has wronged them—or indeed that any wrong happened at all.
My university has a group that calls itself Safe Zone. According to its description: “The Safe Zone Program is based essentially on the commitment of UA [the University of Alabama] to the value of cultural diversity and the needs of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer students.” Safe Zone also gives “50 Fabulous Ways to Support Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Students on Campus.” Some of these ways I’m not sure I understand, like “Don’t tokenism anyone.” One of the best shows on television today, and certainly one of the most honest, is "Rescue Me", on the FX network. It airs Wednesdays at 10 eastern. It’s about a fire engine company in New York City. It stars, is produced by, and is partly written by Denis Leary, the smoking, drinking Irish Catholic comedian who’s been good in everything he’s ever done. (My favorite line from him: "My father never beat us growing up. No, when we were bad, he'd just get a gun and wave it around--and we got the idea.") This is priceless: Ted Kennedy getting harassed by the TSA as a potential terrorist I got a speeding ticket two weeks ago. Heading home to Alabama from Ohio, a Tennessee state trooper got me on radar six miles from the Alabama border going 87 in a 70. The cost of the ticket: $172. Ten bucks per mile over the speed limit! For my sins I was traveling again this past weekend, and my hotel gave me a copy of my favorite newspaper to mock, USA Today. Lo and behold, however, on the front page—right there next to one of their pretty polychromatic diagrams—was a story of actual interest. Under the title “To Play Sports, Many U. S. Students Must Pay,” the paper reported indeed what I take to be the best educational news since the recalcitrant success of school voucher programs. The “Today Show” on NBC this morning had a long segment on the increasingly partisan nature of American political debates. It featured a couple of professors claiming that America’s two main political parties are increasingly ideological, the Republicans becoming more exclusively “conservative” and the Democrats more exclusively “liberal.” This was proffered as an explanation for the allegedly growing polarization of political discussions in America today.
This is becoming received wisdom. (Here is an article about it from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, but there are lots more out there.) But as Laurence M. Vance pointed out, the latest “Conservative Index” published by The New American presents evidence questioning the received wisdom.
The Index rates congressmen on the basis of “their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, to fiscal responsibility, to national sovereignty, and to a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.” The Index gives each member of the House and the Senate a score between 1 and 100, with 100 representing perfect allegiance to those principles as reflected in their record in several recent votes. One person in the House got a perfect score: Ron Paul (R–TX); the highest-rated person in the Senate was John Ensign (R–NV) with 80.
But here’s the interesting part: the average in the House is 46 and the average in the Senate is 41. Thus with all those allegedly ideologically conservative Republicans, both houses don’t even make it halfway to “conservative.” Tom Delay, the House Majority Leader, scores 41, and Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, scores 43. Their respective Democrat counterparts, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, scored 27 and 30. So the Republican leaders are more “conservative” than the Democrat leaders. But don’t get too excited: that arch-Liberal Ted Kennedy scores 38, only whisker below Delay and Frist.
Vance takes the result to indicate that Republicans aren’t really “conservative” at all, despite what they say and what is commonly said about them. That seems a valid inference, but what strikes me is the credence it lends to the common libertarian complaint that there is no difference of substance between America’s two major parties. And it seems to undermine the idea that the parties are so far apart.
Let me begin by thanking Professor Beito for inviting me to be a contributor to Liberty and Power. It is an excellent forum with commentary worth reading--unusual for a blog. I am honored to be a part of it.
I am a philosophy professor at the University of Alabama. (Professor Beito asked me to introduce myself, but knowing that you won’t be interested in me, but only--possibly--in what I say, that should suffice. E-mail me at jroii@hotmail.com if you would like to know more.) I’m new to blogging, so apologies in advance if I struggle with the art. I’ll get better.
Mortimer Adler said in his classic book How to Read a Book that the purpose of college is to teach students how to read a book; the purpose of graduate school is to learn one book really well. He was thinking of a liberal arts college education, and of graduate training in a humanities field. Still, for being so simple, that is surprisingly insightful. Adler was right that reading a book is a far more difficult and labor-intensive task than it is routinely taken to be, and he was also right—already in the 1940s, when the book was first written—that reading was one of those skills that everybody thought he had but few in fact possessed. Like painting: as Hegel said, anyone can pick up a brush and make strokes on a canvas, but that does not make you a painter. My own observations lead me to believe things have only gotten worse, with people, students in particular, having become even more self-assured that they can read and yet their abilities in fact having declined.
Here’s why I bring it up. I’m currently writing a book outlining and defending the “classical liberal” moral and political tradition and applying that tradition’s principles to moral and political conflicts occupying our attention today. The book is pitched at undergraduates and aims to be a counterweight to books like Peter Singer’s influential and widely used Practical Ethics. My travails associated with writing this book, which lend anecdotal credence to complaints that a certain political bias has a firm grip on the academy, may be the subject of future postings. I bring it up now, however, because one of the criticisms the manuscript has received from reviewers is that it uses too many “big” words that undergraduates cannot be reasonably expected to know.
Here are some of the words singled out as being unreasonable to expect undergraduates to know: vapid, ineluctable, stultiloquence, oafish, fustian, salubrious, and inscrutable. Some of these words are obviously less common, thus harder, than others; and perhaps some of them count as “big.” But each of the words was used in a context that gave strong clues about its meaning. And we are talking about university students here, all of whom are supposed to have had several years of English classes. Is it really unreasonable to expect them to know these words? What is it reasonable to expect them to know, then?
But I would like to question the premise that we should drop use of a word if students aren’t likely to know it. Why? Why shouldn’t we challenge them? Why shouldn’t we expect them to make the effort to look up a word they don’t know? More pointedly, why should we talk down to them rather than expecting them to rise to higher standards? Goodness: consider just how many great works in Western history would have to be excluded on that criterion!
It is not a new argument that if you lower standards, students’ performance will descend accordingly. I think we should raise our sights and expect, even demand, students meet them. Why shouldn’t a college graduate be able to use a word like “inscrutable” or “vapid,” and decipher a word like “salubrious” from the context—or go look it up?
Monday, December 20, 2004
Football and racism
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Men and women, initiative and choices
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I'm "verbally assaulted" too!
But the one I wanted to bring up is this one: “When they [“LGBT students”] are verbally assaulted, make loud, personal statements in public venues condemning such action. Empower others to do the same.”
My office on campus is next to one of the main campus roads, and so it sees a lot of foot and vehicle traffic. This means that I’m regularly verbally assaulted: out of some of the vehicles comes pouring some of the nastiest, filthiest, most offensive language I have ever heard in my life. It’s in the form of music that gets played at very high volumes—so high that I hear it through my closed windows on the second floor.
What kind of language? Well, I want to be sensitive to this open-forum audience, but I regularly hear the f-word in all its variations, including the m-f phrase; I regularly hear women referred to and called shockingly demeaning epithets; I hear explicit descriptions of various sexual acts; and I hear what can only be considered racist language of the coarsest sort, even if it is “reverse” racism.
A few weeks ago an allegedly gay man on my campus was allegedly berated on account of this fact by a student comedian performing on a public stage. My university, Safe Zone, and the Faculty Senate all took swift action to condemn the comedian and to reaffirm its commitment to protecting gay people from any kind of verbal assault. The Faculty Senate even passed a resolution calling for the restriction of speech of students and performers on campus.
Can I get a Safe Zone so that I don’t have to hear the kind of language I’m regularly assaulted with? Can I get the Faculty Senate to pass a resolution condemning “hate music”? Can I get one of the law school professors to write a policy that simultaneously affirms the importance of free speech but at the same time calls on the administration to restrict it?
Thursday, September 23, 2004
The Best Show on Television (Possibly)
What’s amazing about “Rescue Me” is that it is absolutely not politically correct. The firemen use all the language they might really use, they talk about all the things they might really talk about (you can imagine, I’m sure), and they face the problems and pressures men in situations like that really face. On top of that, it’s convincingly acted and the story lines are lively, unpredictable, and interesting.
A recent story line is that the fire house has been forced by the Mayor and the courts to have a woman fire fighter. The men of the firehouse hate the idea and the woman, and they are allowed to express exactly what they would be expressing, and in exactly the terms they would use. When the woman actually shows up on her first day and it turns out she’s beautiful, things get a bit dicey; but their heated objections, her defenses of herself, and the workings out, or attempted workings out, of the dynamics are, as I said, about the most honest thing I’ve ever seen on TV.
I quite frankly don’t know how they get away with it. I recommend watching the show before some PC nazi catches on and shuts it down.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Don't you know who I am?
. I love the comments that if a "powerful" and "important" person like King, I mean Senator Kennedy can get treated this way, imagine what the other peons, I mean citizens are going through! (I've been similarly harassed, but somehow my complaints don't get me taken off the "secret 'no-fly' lists.")
Speeding
Now, maybe going 87 sounds fast to you, but consider: it was a clear day, a big highway (I–65), and there was little traffic; moreover, just about every car made in the last ten years, including mine, can cruise at 80 or 90 (or more) in comfort and ease. So I wasn’t endangering anyone, wasn’t a menace, and wasn’t driving recklessly or under the influence.
So why should I pay $172 to the courthouse in podunk Tennessee? The trooper who got me was hiding on the back side of an overpass, just over a hill. So there was no way to see him until you had passed him--by which time he already got you on radar. I asked him why he had been sitting there like that. “Just to catch speeders?” I asked. “Yep,” he replied. After giving me the ticket, he added the obligatory, “We’re here to keep the highways safe. Now you drive safely.” His grin while uttering that last sentence conveyed his real meaning: thanks for the money, sucker, and come back real soon.
To me it is all but self-evident that speeding tickets issued on highways are for one purpose only: income. They don’t make the highways safer, and they are not issued in the hopes of “making highways safer.” There are lots of ways to prove this, but perhaps these two considertions will suffice. First, there have been numerous studies showing that lower posted speed limits do not, in fact, lead to fewer driver fatalities. (These studies are easy to find; here’s one; here’s an interesting site discussing Canadian data.) Second, if the troopers really wanted drivers to slow down, why not announce that speeding tickets will cost, say, $10,000? Then no one would speed. But then, of course, the states would not get their revenue—which explains why they don’t do that.
It’s the same mentality with the sinisterly symbiotic relationship between states and smoking. They all officially want everyone to stop smoking, but they are far too dependent on the revenue generated by taxes on sales of tobacco to want it to actually stop. Otherwise, again, why not put, say, a $500 tax on every pack of cigarettes? Cigarette sales would plummet to virtually nil, which means states would get virtually no revenue from their sales—which, again, explains why they don’t do that.
Most people drive 10–15 miles over the speed limit. Police know this, and that’s part of the reason they want speed limits where they are and not higher: to protect their profits, in other words. It strikes me as an extortion racket like any other. State troopers across the nation are constantly buying state-of-the-art speed-detection devices, photo cameras, even using traffic helicopters and other aerial means of checking your speed—all to issue more tickets. By all means, stop reckless drivers, people driving under the influence, and so on. But if revenue is what you want, do the honest thing and lobby to get taxes raised. At least that way we citizens might have some say. I for one would tell the cops to go back to fighting actual crime. That might not be as fun (or easy) as getting those dastardly speeders, but it is, after all, what cops are supposed to be doing.
Monday, August 2, 2004
One small step for education, one giant leap . . .
Apparently some school districts are so strapped for cash that they are asking—hold on to your seat now—the people who use certain services to actually pay for the services themselves. This is a bold and new idea to the educational establishment, and for many of the people involved in public schooling, including in particular the students who attend such schools and their parents, the idea is a dangerous one too. For what might it lead to? Requiring people who go to public schools to pay their whole bill? Why, that flies in the face of the venerable American tradition of “free” schooling for all!
Okay, I’ll stop with the sarcasm. The fees that students are being asked to pay by the few but increasing number of school districts is for extracurricular activities like sports and clubs, and the fees themselves range up to several hundred dollars.
Contrary to what the students, parents, teachers, and administrators interviewed unanimously believe, I see this as a great step in the right direction—for two principal reasons. First, it helps to reconnect freedom and responsibility. That is, by connecting, even in this partial way, the decisions people make (like whether to give their kids more schooling or enrol them in sports, clubs, etc.) to the consequences of those decisions (like the costs involved), it will be an incentive for people to investigate what they are actually getting for their money. And any scrutiny brought to bear on the scandalously profligate primary and secondary education industry in this country can only be to the good.
Second, it begins, again even in an admittedly small way, to level the competitive playing field between government schools and private schools. People who send their children to private schools (like me) have to pay for schooling twice: once for the government schools their children do not attend, and then again for the private schools their children do attend. People without children also are made to pay for the government schools regardless of the fact. I consider both of those outright injustices. But purely on consequentialist grounds the subsidy to government schools gives them an enormous competitive price advantage over private schools. Despite the latter’s general superiority in quality, many parents thus choose nevertheless to send their children to the government schools. Charging parents for their children’s participation in government school activities is one small step towards leveling the marketplace competition for students, bringing a much-needed measure of discipline to the government schooling establishment.
Selective implementation of user fees does not by any means solve all the problems with government schooling in America, but I believe it is a step in the right direction, and a hopeful sign for the future.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Increasing ideological polarization?
Monday, July 12, 2004
The inscrutably vapid minds of college students
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