Quick Roundup 408

Leadership in General

The best way to inspire hope in another is to show how the use of his or her own mind is efficacious, powerful and valuable. True leaders inspire individualism, not dependence. The kind of leaders to avoid are the ones who promise to make things all better for you. This is almost always a lie or, worse, a pretense at benevolence masking a desire for control. You're better off alone and not knowing what to do than under the "care" of someone who wants to control you, and whose sense of "self" arises from others being dependent on him.

-- Dr. Michael Hurd

(Poor) Leadership in Particular

Why does Obama preach gloom and doom? Because he is so anxious to cram through every last spending bill, tax increase on the so-called rich, new government regulation, and expansion of healthcare entitlement that he must preserve the atmosphere of crisis as a political necessity. Only by keeping us in a state of panic can he induce us to vote for trillion-dollar deficits and spending packages that send our national debt soaring.

-- Dick Morris

Morris complains that Obama wants to "move us a bit further to the left before his political capital dwindles," and he starts off by saying that, "all recessions and depressions resolve themselves into crises of confidence." But confidence in what? Might there be something going on that is actually gumming up the economy. If I have no confidence in my car, that's not breaking my engine. I have no confidence in my car because the engine's on the fritz.

And what does he mean by "mov[ing] us ... further to the left?" Obama might be able to force us to "live" like a little bit more like communists, but he cannot force us to agree with him. That said, does not moving us leftward have real-world, economy-harming consequences? And does not dependency breed poor confidence, and the poor economy artificially make the able less so? Does not robbing Joe to pay Bill harm both, in more ways than one?

Morris understands what Obama is doing on a psychological level, but he seems not to grasp the real causes of the current crisis, which ultimately boil down to our government's total debasement of our currency (and why it does so). So long as philosophical and political ideas are regarded as indulgences in whim, their coupling to reality (via the way they influence our actions) missed or ignored, constructive debate on how to get out of our mess is stillborn.

Yes, Obama sows panic. But his ability to do so would be far less than it is now if people could (a) discuss the crisis in terms of objectively discovered principles, and (b) evaluate political theories beyond essentially relegating them, incorrectly, to matters of personal taste. These are opposite sides of the same coin.

Obama is not just an opportunist, and his policies are not merely offensive to non-leftists. He is a demonstrable threat to our prosperity.

Ranking Them

For some mental relief from President Obama, stop by Powell History Recommends for his kicking-off of an effort to rank all of America's Presidents, save for Obama, who must imagine the number "trillion" written with multiple images of the "big O" from his campaign stickers.


At least, that's how it should be written, but not because spending trillions of dollars of other people's money at a time will help anyone.

Theory Thread

Via HBL, I learned about physics professor Travis Norsen's review of Lewis Little's The Theory of Elementary Waves. I read the review last night and highly recommend it.

It is very curious, and was certainly a surprise to me when the book arrived, that Little has chosen to present his allegedly revolutionary new theory of physics to a lay audience. There is, of course, nothing wrong with that in principle. But if Little genuinely thought his ideas were correct and wanted to convince others of this fact, he should write for people who are at least capable of having a legitimate opinion about these matters, i.e., for an audience with at least some minimal training in physics. That he has chosen not to do so is very revealing.

...

Note also here that physics is relevantly different from philosophy. The subject matter of philosophy is, by definition, that which is accessible to any person in any era. No special training is required to understand philosophical issues and judge the veracity of philosophical theories. So it could be entirely reasonable and appropriate for someone with a revolutionary new approach to philosophy to address him- (or her-) self primary to an audience of non-professional-philosophers. This is not true for physics.

And for those of you with more interest (and expertise) in physics than myself, Norsen is taking questions on the review.

One Mind on Strike

On more than one occasion, I have sharply rebuked commenters for blithely saying something to the effect that we should all just "go on strike" as did the heroes of Atlas Shrugged. I have done this for two reasons. First, I do not think that things are so far gone that doing this is generally warranted. Second, making such a decision should not be taken lightly, for many reasons, a huge one being that a civilizational collapse would be much harder to recover from (if that is realistically possible) than many people who broach the subject seem to think.

This does not mean, as Jim Woods indicates (HT: C. August) in his post (And see also C. August's comment there.) that it is universally wrong to go on strike. What if your very livelihood, although legitimate, has been made impossible? And what will you do instead? These are difficult, very personal questions. I am still considering the various issues Woods raises. His post is that thought-provoking.

-- CAV

Obama's Declaration of War

Fidelity's Ned Johnson has likened the proposals Barack Obama floated in his recent address to Congress to FDR's New Deal. The phrase "New Deal II" was not intended as a compliment, but the comparison is problematic for many reasons. Not least among them is the fact that too many dispute the damage wrought by the New Deal to the American recovery. One need look no further than the end of the article in the Boston Herald to see another banking executive, William Cheney of John Hancock Financial, claim that the only flaw with the New Deal is that FDR attempted at some point to reduce government spending.

I say "problematic" of the comparison, but I can't say it's so bad one can't use it. For one thing, the comparison is inevitable, and for another, the premises behind the New Deal, and the commonplace that it brought America out of the Depression must both be challenged. Indeed, this aspect of the "problem" looks like an argument in favor of making the comparison -- if one can elaborate. Johnson seems to know this.

"During the '30s, Congress - with guidance from the president and the same kind of good intentions - shifted the country's cash flow away from productive businesses to government make-work projects, which most likely prolonged the Great Depression," wrote Johnson, arguably Boston's most powerful business executive.

As for the financial-system crisis, Johnson also took a somewhat anti-government conservative view toward its causes, saying "this climate was caused by many well-intentioned policies - stimulated by individuals at high levels in government and sanctioned by regulatory structures."

Those policies helped make "money ridiculously easy to obtain and business people eager to comply with the policies," Johnson wrote.

The good news is that this is now "out there". The bad news is that, as the Boston Herald puts it, "Not surprisingly, others’ views on Johnson’s views depended on their interpretation of economic history."

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that, in a newspaper article, the two quotes that follow consist of the worst kind of appeasement imaginable -- well-intentioned and coming from a supposed ally in the fight for capitalism -- and a rebuttal of Johnson's excellent points premised on conventional wisdom and coming from another top financial executive.

I'll note the first rebuttal and move on.

Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, said Johnson's remarks were on the "right path," though he said they might be "kind of risky" if they anger government policymakers.

So it's "risky" to leave unchallenged the premise behind a government power-grab? Why? Because the government might order you around if you do?

I beg to differ with this. While deliberately antagonizing someone with a gun pointed to your head -- I mean, "government policymakers" -- is not a good idea, we are in heap big trouble -- and need to know that -- if merely exercising one's freedom of speech is all it takes to do that. How else can one fight back against such a power grab, or at least lay the groundwork for fighting back?

Calling well-grounded criticism of a government proposal "risky" is a shameful confession of cowardice stemming directly from a failure to understand the importance of philosophical ideas and freedom of speech.

The title gives my preferred metaphor for Obama's speech, but it wouldn't make the issue of "what about FDR?" go away.

-- CAV

PS: A secular conservative commentator sees Obama turning out to be another FDR rather than another Carter, despite the fact that, as Myrhaf puts it, "We now live in an America in which Atlas Shrugged was published over 50 years ago." Whatever Obama does achieve, it will be because he has Republican help.

Consider that, in reacting to a speech in which Obama has declared a desire to socialize medicine (among many other bad things), Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said that, "With few exceptions, it was a speech I could have given...." I would not expect much in the way of substantive opposition to Obama from the Republicans:

Boehner said Republicans are not in the "legislative business" and will be more effective voicing "better solutions" and communicating them to the American people rather than producing a specific legislative agenda.

So, what would I do in his shoes?

I'd study up on Brian Phillips' virtual candidacy for Mayor of Houston, adopt a pro-individual rights platform (adapted to national concerns), and start making one pro-freedom proposal after another.

If not adopted, such proposals would (a) create a clear track record of the Democrats' opposition to individual rights, (b) differentiate the Republicans from the Democrats, and (c) demonstrate that the Republicans are no longer just "the other big-government party". If, miraculously, any were adopted, the Republicans would get credit for actually aiding the recovery.

It is for the day when we can see such opposition that I work today.

Quick Roundup 407

Lightning Links

So I'm headed out of town again and fell asleep last night when I should have been packing.

"This'll have to be fast," I'm thinking.

"Might as well call 'em 'lightning links,' I reply to myself.

"Damn! I kinda like that! Why didn't I come up with that, oh, about 407 installments ago?"

Bushtalgia -- or Wamnesia?

I spotted a link to this post by the Anchoress, "Yep, I miss Bush," over at Instapundit the other day, but didn't get around to it until this morning.

I'm no fan of Obama, but I can't get enough past the cries of hypocrisy (regarding the leftists who are now admitting to being enamored of Bush's policies) -- or the dropping of the bar to the ground that is necessary to make Bush look good -- to read through all of it at once.

The fact that welfare statists want to continue Bush's policies is no admission on their part of Dubya's superior wisdom. To the contrary, it is usually a sign that what Bush did wasn't really so hot.

On top of that we are necessarily not privy to the alternative to Obama, namely John McCain enacting policies substantially the same as his.

For the conservative movement to become a true alternative to the left, the concern must be that whoever is in power be a champion of individual rights. Bush was not, and McCain wouldn't have been. I want better than to take false solace in the President being "our guy" (which, as a welfare statist, he can't be, anyway, at least for me).

Amit Ghate provides an executive summary at his blog of what the Republicans ought to consider.

Hsieh's on a Huge Roll

Wow! Another big op-ed and a couple of good LTEs by Paul Hsieh.

Here's one of the LTEs.

When the economy is bad, welfare statists say, "We must expand government programs because everyone is hurting." When the economy is good, they say, "We must expand them because we can finally afford it."

If I didn't know better, I'd think that they wanted to increase people's dependency on government programs regardless of the reason.

Quote of the day, there!

Objectivist Roundup

Heh! I finally remembered to submit something again. Yes. I'm stretched that thin.

All indications are that it will appear at Making Progress later today. I'll update with a permalink when I can, but that may be as late as tomorrow morning.

Fashion Predictions, circa 1930

Quoth Karl Martin Mertens, "Actually, pretty bang on."

More Podcasts!

Stephen Bourque lists the last four Leonard Peikoff podcasts with teasers. I like to listen to them in small bunches, and I see that I have a set of four new ones to enjoy.

-- CAV

Updates

2-26-09: Added direct link to Objectivist Roundup.

Welfare and Borderline Cases

The city of Houston is both taking a cue from the Obama administration and attempting to make its own proposed intrusion into the economy sound palatable to Texans, who generally favor private property and capitalism.

Houston taxpayers could start footing the bill to help first-time homebuyers pay off debts and improve their credit scores, under a proposal before City Council this week.

The "Credit Score Enhancement Program" will give up to $3,000 in grants to individuals who are trying to qualify for mortgages through the city's homebuyers assistance program. City officials say some applicants fall short of eligibility by only 10 or 20 points on their credit scores, and paying off some debt balances can quickly improve their numbers.

First off, credit the Houston Chronicle for actually cutting to the chase with the injustice of this proposal, which mirrors the philosophy of the Obama Administration. Although it is still not the principled opposition to all government intrusion into the economy that I think Americans must ultimately discover before things will fundamentally improve, it is a start.

The lede is also an indication of how the Obama Administration and its emboldened imitators across America may ultimately benefit America: by proposing and enacting policies that make it crystal clear what is wrong with such government intervention. All forms of redistribution of wealth, being violations of property rights, are ipso facto, unjust. Clear examples like this can only make the heavy lifting of principled advocates of individual rights easier.

What is interesting to me here is how the proposal is being sold to the public as fiscally "conservative" by virtue of the fact that only people who just barely fail to qualify for mortgages will have some credit card debt wiped out. After all, we can probably all see ourselves in such a situation. This tactic has been the stock in trade of altruists and collectivists since time immemorial: Draw attention to the common humanity of donor and proposed recipient long enough to distract the donor from the issue at hand, and then take advantage of his good will.

Certainly, if I had the resources to help, a loved one was a few thousand short of qualifying for a mortgage, and this was not because of poor judgement or character, I'd consider helping. But this is not the same thing. We're talking about strangers. I am not privy to why they have fallen short. And, most importantly in a political context, the money being used to help has been stolen from its rightful owners. The fact that this proposal entails the passing around of loot makes it wrong no matter who is on the receiving end.

Thus we see a borderline case in the realm of lending standards -- which exist for a reason and are being subverted, by the way -- being used to obliterate a black-and-white moral objection to a government policy of theft and passing out stolen goods.

The icing on the cake is invisible, though, just as Frederic Bastiat pointed out over a century and a half ago. That icing is the fact that, for all this feel-gooding about potentially helping borderline cases -- presumably people who are otherwise upstanding and responsible -- it would actually do exactly the opposite of what its supporters claim to intend.

What of all the taxpayers who could afford to pay off their expenses, like credit card bills, but for the fact that they have had their money stolen from them? How many of them have had to put off buying a home, forgo a vacation or a new car, or simply do without something because of the high cost of the welfare state?

They go completely unmentioned, even by officials nominally opposed to this idea. The problem with this idea is not that it is "well intentioned but ... would go too far." The problem is that stealing even one cent from someone else, no matter what the purpose, is immoral.

The backers of this proposal favor government theft, pure and simple. I'll be damned if I'm going to cast a smile their way and pretend that giving the loot to someone I might, conceivably consider helping on my own somehow absolves them of that fact. When the city collected the taxes of the people who would foot the bill for this -- regardless, by the way, of whether it made them unable to buy a home -- it "went too far."

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 406

America's Bloated Tick: Washington, D.C.

Just as I was about to check my Yahoo! email account Saturday, I ran across a news article about how one of America's largest metropolitan areas is apparently -- at least in the eyes of our journalists -- "unscathed" by the financial crisis:

As the nation's most populous metro area feels Wall Street's pain, the fourth-largest -- Washington -- is barely sensing the recession. In fact, Moody's Economy.com estimates that metro Washington's economy will actually grow 2.5% from mid-2008 through mid-2010. New York's economy is expected to shrink 4.2%.

It wouldn't be the first time that Washington benefited from a national crisis. Back in 1930 the District of Columbia was a quiet Southern town, scoffed at by New York sophisticates. But as the federal government ramped up to fight first the Great Depression and then World War II, its population grew 65% in two decades, vs. just 14% for New York City.

On second thought, forget the tick metaphor -- except as the nickname that Washington truly deserves.

This story reads almost like a scene from a modern-day horror story about vampires, where the man whom we're led to believe might save the day by hunting down and killing the bloodsuckers is, unfortunately, "guided" by the philosophy of pragmatism. At some pivotal point, he decides that everyone around him is too weak and anemic to make a good ally -- except for one man, who seems healthier than ever. In principle, this would make him a prime suspect, but principles are inconvenient, and our "hero" "chucked" them about page two.

"Now Vlad over there, them vampires ain't gettin' to him. He's still strong. I'll go huntin' with him tonight. He'll watch my back."

For the millionth time, the government acting as economic "planner", not capitalism, is the cause of this crisis. The less of our national lifeblood we give to the government in that capacity, the better. Washington, as a center of government, can run only off wealth produced by others. The degree of its "prosperity" in the present circumstances is unfortunately related to the degree that it is making prosperity in general impossible for America.

When the Shit Hits the Fan

Paul Hsieh, posting at Noodlefood, discusses a recent Glenn Beck episode dealing with worst-case scenarios for the financial crisis. (One guest was Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute.)

Hsieh doubts -- as do I -- that we are headed for an Argentina-style meltdown, but nevertheless points to an article by one of its survivors as food for thought for other more likely emergency scenarios: depressing and frightening, but well worth reading and thinking about.

Distance learning is software.

I will occasionally note that it is mistaken to think that the economics truism, "Controls breed controls," applies only narrowly to economics. Government intrusions on the economy are acts of force that violate man's rights, forcing individuals to act in ways that they would not, if left to their own devices. Just as economics is a system of abstractions drawn from the totality of our existence, so do economic decisions affect other areas of our lives. Freedom is of a piece, and attacks on freedom do not confine themselves to any one area of life.

And why should the desire to dominate our lives not seep down even into language? The magic formulae used by the government to legally extort money from those its officials are sworn to protect consist of words, and when the words of the statutes on the books aren't extracting enough money, should it be any surprise that the government gives them new, Orwellian, meanings?

While it does not carry the weight of law, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance's January 29 opinion has potentially far-reaching implications, given the state's role as a trend setter for other states. The department asserts that an e-course offered by SkillSoft Corporation, a New Hampshire-based company, should be subject to sales tax as "software" purchased by the student. In so ruling, the department has justified an unprecedented tax on educational services, according to a tax consultant familiar with the case.

"State governments are strapped for money, and this represents an administrative ruling that appears to me to broaden the tax base," said Melanie Hill, a tax specialist with Dow Lohnes Price Tax Consulting Group LLC. [bold added]

Skillsoft's students do not even get copies of software when they take such courses!

Thievery Corporation

Somewhat in keeping with the general theme of this post, I'll mention some music I've been enjoying lately during commuting time: The Mirror Conspiracy, an album released in 2000 by The Thievery Corporation, and part of a recent raft of goodies sent me by my good friend, Adrian Hester.

My favorite tracks are "Shadows of Ourselves" and "Lebanese Blonde". Links go to YouTube videos.

Wikipedia says that, "Their music style mixes elements of dub, acid jazz, Indian classical and Brazilian (such as bossa nova) with a lounge aesthetic." Based on my limited knowledge, the group seems left-wing enough that I might buy other music of theirs used....

At any rate, enjoy!

-- CAV

A fast one? If so, why?

One way I save time for blogging has been to note interesting links from lunchtime browsing at work so that I need not forage for material during blogging time the following morning.

Yesterday, I stopped by The Drudge Report and found the following interesting headline from the Phoenix area's East Valley Tribune: "Dobson Students Question Obama's Plan." I read it, found that, while the headline was music to my ears, the students, their participation in an advanced placement government class notwithstanding, were really just nitpicking about details at best. Far from being a story about independent thinking among America's youth, it was a snapshot of the very pathology that has gotten her to this point.

So I sat down this morning with the intention of dashing off a quick indictment of our concrete-bound, principle-poor, state-run, "progressive" educational establishment. I was going to throw in a zinger along the lines of, "What difference does criticism about the trains not running on time make, if the trains are all headed to the gulag?"

Instead, when I was about to start writing, I followed the link, only to be surprised by the fact that everything but the URL and the headline had been changed. [There is one exception. See story reproduced below.] Even the author's name was different. Now, instead of a story about a bunch of kids watching an Obama speech and saying "uh-oh", we have a puff piece about a class favorite getting to meet the President and spend "a boatload of time talking about basketball."

I have seen things a tiny bit like this on breaking news stories before. Personally, I'd put out a new URL for each update and link to previous versions, noting retractions if necessary. Up to a point, I can see why a developing story might need editing or updates as relevant facts come to light.

But even that for a mere Presidential photo-op? We're not talking about shifting winds and a wildfire here. And yet, far beyond a few updates, we see an entire story gutted and replaced by something completely different.

Your guess as to why the story -- but not its provocative headline -- got completely changed is as good as mine: especially considering that my point was going to be that the AP Government students did not really substantively disagree with Obama.

Below my initials are the two versions of the story I am speaking about. I do not normally quote entire news stories here, but under the circumstances, I must. I note that what I call the "original version" could differ in some details from what I read, but it is substantially the same.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: John Drake reports that, "[T]he original article seems to be back with a note attached: 'To our readers: Due to a technical error, this story was temporarily removed from our Web site. We apologize for the inconvenience.'"

== Original Version =====

[obtained this morning via Technorati from The Wave, all formatting except first hyperlink stripped]

STUDENTS QUESTION OBAMA'S PLAN
Thu Feb 19 2009 09:46:55 ET

EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE
Tim Hacker

A Dobson High School Advanced Placement government class with strong opinions about Barack Obama watched the president's speech Wednesday on a small, grainy TV in the corner of their classroom.

Some of the students attentively watched the speech, giving questioning looks and comments, shaking their heads and laughing at some of Obama's words. Other students listened, occasionally glancing up to watch, while texting on their cell phones, reading a book or finishing school work.

The gymnasium's events were shown simultaneously in rooms throughout the Mesa school, and teachers were given discretion on whether to show the speech, the students said. The students in the class were hopeful things will work out but questioned whether Obama's plan would actually work to dig the country out of its economic woes. They also expected a longer speech.

Senior Syna Daudfar took some notes during the speech and was among the most vocally opposed to Obama's words.

At one point, when he talked about the costs of his stimulus plan, senior Maaike Albach and Daudfar looked at each other and said, "uh-oh."

"Overall I think it's a good idea, but he's not addressing the issues of the economic crisis," said Daudfar, a John McCain supporter who added he leans more toward being a moderate conservative. "The spending bill he just passed is just progressing the Democratic agenda rather than addressing the economic issues in the country."

Daudfar thinks Obama's plan is backward and deals with the "less important stuff" first. "Bailing out businesses" and "providing better regulatory systems for giving out money to businesses" should have been first, he said.

"If businesses can't afford to hire people, then people won't be able to work and pay off their mortgages," he said. "It's kind of like putting money into a funnel." Albach, who is also a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good but questioned how Obama can want to rely on "people's responsibility" when that is "what got us in this economic crisis in the first place."

"This puts us more into debt," said Albach, 18. "It's a horrible situation we're in."

Senior Brandon Miller wore a shirt with the words, "Hitler gave great speeches, too" above a picture of Obama.

Miller said he had been an Obama supporter "because of his speeches," but after debating the issues in this class and looking more into Obama's policies, his vote was swayed toward McCain.

He showed a video on his camera he had just taken of the president's minutelong motorcade and talked about what a "great experience" it was to watch it. Miller had also spent a couple of hours in front of the school, hanging out and watching the protesters.

"Even though I don't support him, I think it's cool he's here," said Miller, 18. "I just don't believe all the things he's telling us. His goal is just too big and broad."

Miller wanted to hear more about the costs and guidelines the stimulus bill entails.

Senior Katelyn Meyer, who also leans more toward being a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good, "but it's easier said than done."

"I like the refinancing part, and I like the part about mortgages, but I'm afraid we're going to put the money in but won't see any effect," said Meyer, 18, who still thought it was "cool" to say the president was at her school, even though she didn't get to see him live.

The students also questioned why Obama chose their school for his speech since he wasn't talking about education and wondered how much money the district spent on beautifying the campus while district positions and services are being cut.

District officials noted this week that the landscaping project completed over the weekend at Dobson was already in the works and was just expedited by the president's visit. Funding came from voter-approved bonds.

New sod was laid in front of the school Tuesday, and Daudfar said, "The joke at the school is they're going to take it away when he (Obama) leaves."

AP government teacher Jeff Sherrer said his students "feel very strongly about the issues, maybe more than the general population." He thought at least one of his students was outside protesting, and he had planned to take his students outside as a class project to show them what was going on but didn't get the chance.

"These kinds of kids really get into it," Sherrer said. "During the election we had lots of debates on the issues."

== This Morning's Version =====

[obtained by following the URL above, all formatting and images stripped, "smart" punctuation replaced]

Dobson students question Obama's plan
Comments 54 | Recommend 46

Hayley Ringle, Tribune

February 18, 2009 - 2:59PM

Digg| Save| License| Print| E-mail| Decrease text size Reset text size Increase text size

Students inside Jeff Sherrer's advanced placement government class view President Barack Obama's address via closed circuit television on the campus of Dobson High School in Mesa. Feb. 18, 2009.

[Begin photo cation: This photo caption is all that remains of the "original version" above. --ed] Students inside Jeff Sherrer's advanced placement government class view President Barack Obama's address via closed circuit television on the campus of Dobson High School in Mesa. Feb. 18, 2009.
Tim Hacker, Tribune [End photo caption. --ed]

Matt Gehrman looked -- and sounded -- like a proud papa after President Barack Obama's speech at Mesa Dobson High School Wednesday morning.

When asked about the students' response to the president's visit, the principal paused, the grin on his face growing.

[Links to related stories omitted. --ed]

"My kids are awesome," he shouted, and pumped his fist. "From the kids in the press to the kids on stage singing to volunteers, every step of the way the kids represented us the way I want people to view teenagers."

Gehrman was with a small group of school officials -- including Mesa Unified School District Superintendent Debra Duvall -- who got to meet with the president before his speech. For being an "all-around good guy," Gehrman brought with him 17-year-old Casey Benford, a member of Dobson's varsity swimming, baseball and basketball teams, to meet Obama.

"It was an amazing experience," the high school senior said afterward. "I can't tell Mr. Gehrman thank you enough for letting me accompany him."

The teenager said that after introductions, he and Obama talked about school sports, with Obama offering to "find a ball and play a game of H-o-r-s-e."

"It's nice to know such an important figure in our lives can joke around with a 17-year-old from Mesa, Arizona," Benford said. "I was in awe. It's so weird seeing him in real life, shaking his hand."

The buzz was still going Thursday, Benford said.

"I know in my government class that's all we talked about today. We talked about what we thought about his speech in general, his visit," Benford said. In fact, the students talked about the visit in most of his classes, Benford said. "It's still a huge buzz."

Benford didn't tell many people about getting the chance to meet the president before Wednesday, he said. But several on Thursday came up to talk to him about it when lessons were done in classes.

Soon, he may have a picture to share as well.

Gehrman said Obama suggested a group photo, shot by a White House photographer before the speech.

"It was interesting. We met him outside the boys' locker rooms, of all places on our beautiful campus we could have been," Gehrman said. "Then there were all the processes and all the rules. It's very protective. Then he comes around and he's so warm and gracious and wanted to take the time to talk to us."

"We spent a boatload of time talking about basketball" with Benford, Gehrman said after Wednesday's event.

Obama is known to relax with a game of hoops with friends.

Benford said even his girlfriend pointed out that the experience is something he'll one day be able to share with his own kids.

"Some of my friends were giving me a hard time, 'why you?' But I guess I expected it. A lot of it is 'Casey you're so lucky,'" Benford said. "I'm just really grateful for it. I guess I didn't think about it. ... Now I get to have a story like that for the rest of my life."

High school senior Katelyn Wiley, 17, was also in awe. She got a call Tuesday night from the principal that she would be able to join the press corps at the event. She is student manager of the school's newspaper, The Mustang Roundup.

Standing up against the metal gates about 30 feet from Obama, Wiley snapped photos of the crowd, the president during his speech, and folks reaching out to shake Obama's hand afterward. She even got to interview Gov. Jan Brewer before Obama spoke.

"I asked her what she was expecting to hear, but I don’t know what she said. I was too nervous," Wiley said. "It was such a whirlwind. It went by way too fast. I just took pictures and stood in awe of being in such close proximity to essentially the most powerful man in the world."

Dobson student Najja Porter, 17, was one of those students who rushed up to shake Obama's hand.

"I'm really excited. I thought it was really fun," he said.

While some students waited in line for tickets to the event, others received tickets unexpectedly.

Hannah Minard, 17, a senior, said she received a phone call Tuesday afternoon that her marine biology class of 16 students got randomly selected for tickets.

"It was so amazing to see the president," Minard said, after the event.

Isaac Martin, 10, missed classes Wednesday morning at St. John Bosco, a private Catholic school in Ahwatukee Foothills, but said it was worth it. At the speech with his dad, Isaac also got to shake the president's hand.

"It was really cool. I shook his hand. It was really awesome," Isaac said.

His dad, David Martin, said it was a "good civics lesson" for his son.

== End This Morning's Version =====

Quick Roundup 405

Up late. Morning meeting. Taking my beautiful wife to the airport beforehand.

Living in the Future, Today

Whether you're local to Houston and feeling a touch of morbid curiosity about possible candidates in the upcoming mayoral elections, or generally sick of mixed-economy politics, you'll want to stop by Live Oaks. There, you can see what political positions a candidate who actually values freedom might take, were he to run today. Brian Phillips has declared his virtual candidacy for mayor and made a statement of -- What did he call those again? Oh yeah. -- principles.

"Our goal is to increase individual freedom. Our goal is to allow Houstonians greater control over their lives." We owe this virtual candidate the real support of stopping by to see why he has become a virtual candidate, and acting accordingly. The latter would entail thinking about the issue of increasing freedom, and urging others to do so.

As someone known to make a big fuss over principles once put it, "Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today." Your virtual candidate has just invited you to try out life in a better tomorrow.

The Mother as Wiley General

With the wife and me contemplating parenthood after her first year of residency is over, I was intrigued by this entertaining, wide-ranging, and thought-provoking post by Rational Jenn: "The Art of War for Parents." No excerpt or short capsule will do it justice, but a pair of short quotes might give you an idea of what to expect. Here's the overarching strategy:

Children are human beings, but their brains are in the process of growing and developing. They are not fully rational . . . not yet. But one day (we hope), they will be rational. So when attempting to get the child to do something she might otherwise not want to do, I think it's right (and worth it!) to go the Reason Route first.

And here's a short bit of advice, given "Art of War" style:

Extricate yourself from pointless confrontations.

First, make sure you're not the one unnecessarily dragging things on. :o) Sometimes the child prolongs the confrontation beyond the point of all tolerance. I find that saying, "I know you're upset, but I'm all done talking about this now" very useful.

Say "Hmmmmm." Sometimes a kid needs to vent a bit. A well-timed "Hmmmmm...." allows you to acknowledge them while not engaging in the battle. (It also works for when they say something hilarious and you ought to respond but are afraid you might laugh.)

Good stuff!

Version 2.0 of todo.txt

A few months ago, I ran across a command-line program for managing GTD-style to-do lists, tried it out, and ended up adopting it. (I also use it to simplify making grocery lists.)

I thought work on the program had died down, but it was adequate for my purposes, and I figured I might tweak it myself if I ever really needed to. Fortunately, development was merely on hiatus: Version 2.0 is out, and I am happy to see that it allows for easier management of multiple lists, now!

If you like the command line, like multi-platform portability/hate vendor lock-in, and appreciate simple, effective programs, you should take a look.

I was being too kind, yesterday.

The Republicans aren't merely the "party of George W. Bush." They're also the party of Alan Greenspan. (HT: Andrew Dalton)

The US government may have to nationalise some banks on a temporary basis to fix the financial system and restore the flow of credit, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, has told the Financial Times.

In an interview, Mr Greenspan, who for decades was regarded as the high priest of laisser-faire [sic] capitalism, said nationalisation could be the least bad option left for policymakers.

First, being "regarded as the high priest" of something often means you've fooled a lot of people. Second, at least Bush has the excuse that he never really knew what capitalism actually is.

Hmmm. On second thought, neither did many of the Republicans.

Quote of the Day

Encountered somewhat randomly, ...

If I were to say that many women [who] voted for Obama are irrational, politically ignorant, flighty, and confuse the tingling in their genitals with the kinds of political thoughts that actual grown-ups have, I'd be called a misogynist.

So I won't say it.

…I'll let the women in question say it for me. [bold added]

TJIC then proceeds to quote an account from a blogger for The New York Times. All I would add is that the issue here isn't strictly adulthood, not that this isn't juvenile.

-- CAV

This post was composed in advance and scheduled for publication at 5:00 A.M. on February 19, 2009.

Embracing the N-Word

News from The Financial Times has it that the Republicans have taken a shine to the word, "nationalization" lately:

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator for South Carolina, says that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agree with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be "on the table".

Mr Graham says that people across the US accept his argument that it is untenable to keep throwing good money after bad into institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, which now have a lower net value than the amount of public funds they have received.

"You should not get caught up on a word [nationalisation]," he told the Financial Times in an interview. "I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn't matter what you call it, but we can't keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That's what the Japanese did." [bold added]

The Financial Times goes on to claim that the Obama administration is "opposed to federal control" and "has tried to avoid panicking ... markets by entertaining the idea," but this is an illusion deliberately generated by a party of pragmatists and "Orwellian brainstormers", as Doug Reich recently put it.

What is going on here? Why aren't the Republicans at least mouthing objections to government control of the economy? Certainly, at least part of the answer lies with a fact I have mentioned here too many times to count. Namely, the Republicans fundamentally agree with the Democrats that altruism is the proper morality and that the state exists to serve the collective, rather than to protect individual rights. They differ only on some details of how to implement state control over the individual, and specific goals. The Bush administration, which was bad enough before it started the current orgy of chaining future generations with debt and government control, demonstrated this in spades.

But there's something else happening, too. Reich noted the deliberate attempts by the Democrats to at least conceal what they are doing. Why would they? Because political power still rests in the hands of the American people, who are, at least in some measure, still rightly suspicious of the government running their lives.

The Democrats -- who will avoid debating things at all when they can get away with it -- still feel it necessary to hide the true nature of what they are doing from the American people. The Republicans, who favor a theocratic version of the welfare state, once similarly felt the need to pose as defenders of capitalism, but apparently, they don't anymore.

Just as President Bush has set the stage for the Republicans to become an openly statist party in deed with his de facto nationalization of large swaths of the financial sector, so has he set the stage with his words. The above follows inexorably from Bush's own "chucking" of the pretense of having "free market principles". Back then, I said the following:

In his folksy boast, Bush has -- as usual -- conceded much more than he realizes, as men who attempt to go through life without thinking are wont to do: He has admitted that he never really held "free market principles".

Bush, not really appreciating the practical value of principles, sees them as a luxury (or, at best, as something it may be politically expedient to profess). To Bush, and, apparently, to too many other politicians from Obama's "opposition" party today, free market principles are "impractical", and, more, they think (rightly or not) that the American people see it this way, too.

(Otherwise, if the Republicans did really favor free markets or even wanted to pretend to, they would oppose all the bailouts, or at least explain why some were necessary to avoid complete calamity, as well as how they would be rolled back. This is far different from brandishing the word, "nationalization" as if it were the name of a new miracle drug.)

Remember. These are politicians, not profound political philosophers. Ideas guide them, as they do all men, but much of their thinking consists of second-handed guesstimates of what they can get away with before the next election. The Republicans, woozy from pragmatism and seduced by cries of "do something" from every direction, have chosen to pose as men of action, still somewhat in keeping with their "defenses" of capitalism as practical, but now free from such pesky constraints as freedom and property rights.

They never really believed what they said about capitalism, anyway, and they need a new mask. They can't compete directly for moral turf with fellow altruists, especially the religious Obama, so they will strike a pose of brutal honesty (and all that that thoroughly modern phrase implies) and "hard-nosed" practicality. They won't mind the Bush-Obama plan failing, so long as they can pin the blame on the "idealistic", impractical Democrats. Never mind that they can't solve the crisis, either. That's not what's really at stake, or so they like to imagine.

In other words, the Republicans, by all indications, will pretend that not thinking is both moral and practical. This has truly become the party of George W. Bush.

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 404

Submarine Collision

Below is a mini-roundup of submariner blogging related to the recent collision of two nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, one French and one British.

• French, British Boomers Collide -- by Bubblehead
• How First Reports Are Usually Wrong (And Often Believed) -- by Chap, who has a slightly different version of same posted at his own blog
• Vanguard & Triomphant Collide! -- by Willy Shake
• HMS Vanguard, "Container" Sub Theory -- by Vigilis

Chap supplies the most apt comment regarding the always-sensationalized media coverage of such events:

It's worth watching news stories like this just to see how the narrative frame is built, how the information presented changes, and what lasting impressions come from the trail of reports even if some reports are factually wrong.

But Vigilis steals the show with his quip about an initial report from the French, who publicly speculated on whether Le Triomphant had hit a shipping container: "[I]n naval (military) etiquette container exceeds rust bucket in degree of insult."

Oof!

[Update, via Matt Drudge, as I write: "France: Sub crews didn't realise they hit each other..."]

Update Also, be sure to stop by The Sub Report for more in-depth coverage.

Depending on the target demographic, ...

... Andrew Dalton may have hit the nail on the head when he notes of Muzzammil Hassan, that he is "doing it wrong. "Hassan, who founded a television station to "portray Muslims in a more positive light," has been charged with beheading his wife, who had filed for divorce.

Obviously, I'm in a silly mood, ...

... and this link probably won't help LB escape top Google ranking for the phrase, "Scottish terrier pees at WKC show, 2009".

Bwahaha!

(In my defense, I have just recovered from a horrendous head cold that had me sitting around in a daze all weekend, culminating with my head exploding in agony from sinus pressure every time I coughed Sunday night.)

"Quality of Life" vs. Life

In a series of posts pursuant to a local busybody dropping dead, Brian Phillips manages to reclaim some value from the life of Eleanor Tinsley.

The phrase, "quality of life," kept popping up as the banner under which Tinsley crusaded for her particular preferences to be enforced at the point of a government gun -- and at the expense of the government fulfilling its actual purpose, the protection of individual rights. From the last of his posts, he quotes the Nanny State Ninny gloating about enacting a smoking ban in Houston (of all places):

You know, people felt like they had a God-given right to smoke. We were taking away from their legal right. It was very difficult to pass. People felt very strongly about it and loved or hated me as a result.

People do, in fact, have the right to smoke. All Tinsley did was remove government protection of that right. Brian discusses this in more detail at his blog, Live Oaks.

And thanks to his efforts, I am now explicitly aware of yet another phrase to watch out for when questions of public policy come up for debate.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added link to The Sub Report.

Well, Something's Wrong!

Writing almost entirely in the passive voice for Inside Higher Ed, Peter Katopes argues against what he calls "the business model" -- which is to say, a caricature of capitalism -- as a means of restoring (bringing?) accountability to higher education.

Almost predictably, he starts off sarcastically damning "the business model" for imposing the tyranny of the lowest common denominator on academia:

The business model is imposed, for example, when otherwise worthy academic programs are eliminated based on low enrollment alone since they couldn't possibly be academically valuable if they don't attract throngs; when professors are evaluated more on their popularity with students than on their teaching abilities ... or when institutions shun teaching high-risk students who might require more time and attention to graduate.

However, the business model, which prizes "customer satisfaction" or "efficiency" above all else, has led in higher education to an imbalance in the relation between student and institution, has led to a culture of entitlement and instant gratification, and has causal ties to the current fiscal crisis.

Set aside the sarcasm and lack of imagination of that first independent clause for a moment.

(I and about fifty other students are paying good money to take a class over the Internet that might never have been offered in the first place at an ordinary institution of higher learning. And then there's the matter of teacher evaluations. Who's to say that in a truly capitalistic system that this would be left entirely up to students? Would not the earning potential of a school's graduates, among other things, offer some sort of reality check?)

And let's also set aside the fact that government subsidies and loan programs are distorting the educational marketplace by artificially increasing demand for higher education, including bringing many people into our colleges who really have no business being there. There is an issue that Katopes is bringing up here. It is a legitimate issue, but he brings it up for illegitimate reasons.

That issue is the fitness of the customers of higher education -- increasingly infantilized students and their parents -- to judge what they are getting for their money. Katopes minces no words when he addresses this concern, but he is using this concern to insist that freedom in education would be a bad thing.

... Driven by the desire to satisfy external agencies regarding "accountability," many colleges for some 30 years have effectively altered the relationship between student and institution by defining students as "consumers" who are asked to evaluate instruction in much the same way as banks ask their depositors to rate their services. Driven by the student "revolutions" of the 1960s, colleges have effectively placed the responsibility for determining the quality of instruction and curriculum in the control of those -- the students -- who are least competent to judge. This is not to say that students should have no input regarding the instruction they receive, but is rather a criticism of student evaluation instruments that often are poorly constructed and which often hold faculty hostage to student opinion. ...

...

While it is true that 18-year olds have been awarded certain rights and privileges -- the vote, for instance -- which an earlier era restricted, American society has a very ambiguous understanding of what adulthood is. The extension of childhood well into a person's 20s has been a growing and generally accepted trend. The identification of "helicopter parents," that is, parents of college-age children who hover neurotically over their offspring even as they "send" them off to college, is becoming the bane of many college administrations. [bold added]

There is more than a faint whiff of plausibility to the idea that a business that caters to the whims of children and their doting parents -- who were (?) once children themselves -- might end up delivering inferior goods.

But is that the fault of capitalism, or does the cause lie deeper than that? Katopes helpfully provides a quick glimpse at the answer for those who learned how to read and comprehend, perhaps despite the enthusiasms of "progressive" education that the state educational monopoly has entrenched for several generations:

In the first 18-22 years of life, huge numbers of American citizens spend anywhere from 6 to 10 hours a day in some sort of school environment.

Public education is about as far from operating on a "business model" as one can get. So why, Dr. Katopes, if "the business model" is wrong, would someone, at nearly twenty years of age, be "least competent to judge" the product he is purchasing? Why would his parents? Might it be that the mission of progressive education, to "socialize" children -- or, as Ayn Rand once put it, to "breed ... helplessness and resignation" -- is being accomplished?

One cannot misapply a few trappings of capitalism -- like customer surveys -- to a largely socialist educational system and then point to capitalism as the culprit for its many ills. And one cannot expect a system based on individuals accurately gaging their own self-interest to function particularly well when they have had the whole idea of self systematically attacked by their own education. It is education -- the ideas and the method of thinking that children are being taught -- that needs fixing first. Capitalism will emerge and hasten the process of improvement once that has been accomplished.

As I once mentioned, commenting on a blog post about cheating, I realized even in high school what the purpose of an education was well enough that I did not find cheating "tempting" at all. Indeed, I even signed up for a whole slate of classes I was told would be "tough." To have picked a college based on how much like a cruise liner life there would have been would have struck me as particularly ludicrous. (In fact, I tended to look askance at places with reputations as "party schools".)

But then, my parents had not gone to college, and I was fortunate enough to be sent to private schools, where the development of my cognitive skills -- not "socialization" -- was the goal. My family and I, being from a "backward" state, had largely missed out on "progressive" education. Perhaps that's why I am not convinced that "the business model" is "wrong".

-- CAV

Quick Roundup 403

Bill out of Atlas Shrugged almost as long as Atlas Shrugged.

The final version of the so-called stimulus bill, which will make economic news continue to sound like it was cribbed from Atlas Shrugged, clocks in at 1,071 pages long (up from 424 pages long when first written). This is just 121 pages shorter than that prophetic work. Rich irony was just a back-room deal away!

Congress is admittedly poised to pass it without having read either tome. Were I a conservative, I'd propose a law that Congress would not be allowed to vote for any bill during a "cooling-off" period of a length of time it would take an average person to read the bill.

But I am not, and such a measure would be a mere band-aid. The way to fix this grotesquely wrong situation is for a substantial number of Americans to demand that the government do its actual job, which is protecting individual rights, and nothing else. If enough people read Atlas Shrugged, and began voting (and persuading other voters) accordingly, we wouldn't have to worry about what a bunch of little dictators are happily passing, unread.

WSJ: Bring Back Gold

Via HBL, I heard of an excellent article arguing for a return to sound money, and chronicling some baby steps in that very direction.

If capitalism is to be preserved, it can't be through the con game of diluting the value of money. People see through such tactics; they recognize the signs of impending inflation. When we see Congress getting ready to pay for 40% of 2009 federal budget expenditures with money created from thin air, there's no getting around it. Our money will lose its capacity to serve as an honest measure, a meaningful unit of account. Our paper currency cannot provide a reliable store of value.

At least some people are out there making arguments like this....

Objectivist Roundup

Stop by Titanic Deck Chairs to read it, if you haven't done so already.

My Take on the All-Ett

Before Christmas, I talked about wanting to try the "All-Ett", an ultra-thin wallet made of rip-stop nylon. I ended up ordering one myself and have been using it instead of my usual leather tri-fold for about a month.

I'm sticking with the All-Ett, but have to give it a mixed review. I went with the European Leather version, because I wanted something small and "sophisticated", as the product description bills its leather exterior. I wanted to try a thin wallet, but not so badly as to carry around something that would be embarrassing to take out of my pocket in public.

First, let's get the bad out of the way. The All-Ett is just barely passable as far as the fashion department goes. It is leather, but there is a prominent seam in the middle that runs the entire length of the outside of the wallet, and the brand name is stamped on the outside. Perhaps the latter won't bother most, but I personally hate my clothing and accessories to carry advertising.

The interior takes getting used to. The fabric that makes the All-Ett so thin is crinkly, and will make a racket when you add or remove bills. I have either gotten used to that or have since learned how to do this more quietly. Also, cards slide in and out easily. If you are, as I am, someone who can easily automate standing orders like, "Be careful opening your wallet, and always straighten out your cards before closing it," this won't be a problem. If not, it might be. There is nowhere to place photos. I may add plastic sleeves for this purpose later on.

Now, for the good. The thickness of my new wallet is less than half of what it was for the old. In fact, I now rarely notice my wallet when sitting down. That used to be especially annoying -- as in sleep-inducing to my leg -- when I wore jeans and drove. For trips of more than about fifteen minutes, I'd just take my wallet out of my pocket. Now, I can leave it in. And, if you want my wife's opinion (the one that really counts!), this image over at Life Hacker will give you an idea. She really dislikes the exterior of the wallet, but she's not exactly nagging me to get rid of it, either!

-- CAV

An Antidote to "Austerity Chic"

Over at Spiked Online is a fascinating book review by Neil Davenport of Austerity Britain: 1945-51, by David Kynaston. The last paragraph should be enough to show you why I recommend it:

The best thing about Austerity Britain is that Kynaston provides the winning arguments for having the exact opposite of austerity. By exposing the suffering, the degradation and the desperation of the majority of people in the mid- to-late 1940s, Kynaston also helps to expose the poisonous mindset of today’s austerity cheerleaders. Who in his right mind would want anyone to return to ration-era Britain? As Kynaston reminds us: ‘Britain in 1945. No supermarkets, no motorways, no teabags, no sliced bread, no frozen food, no flavoured crisps, no vinyl, no CDs, no computers, no mobile phones, no Pill, no trainers, no Starbucks.’ If they had their way, environmentalists and well-to-do commentators would make sure that the vast majority of people didn’t enjoy access to any of these comforts, either. This is why, as millions of people fear for their jobs and livelihoods, they are hoping that the worst recession in 30 years will do that job for them. If you want to know why they are wrong, and morally warped, read this book about the last time austerity ruled Britain, when it did not liberate us or make us more spiritual, but rather punished, degraded and alienated working people across the country. [bold added]

Read the whole thing, and remember it the next time some you hear some hippie or some fundie -- or some fundie hippie -- gushing about how "good" our economic crisis could be for everyone.

-- CAV

This post was composed in advance and scheduled for publication at 5:00 A.M. on February 12, 2009.

Quick Roundup 402

Gus Van Horn, Post-It Boy?

Via Karl Martin Mertens comes the latest silly quiz, "What Office Supply Are You?" Here are my results.

You Are a Post-It.

You have a good memory. You're memory is so good, in fact, that it can be down right annoying at times.

You don't mean to nag, but you like to remind people what they're supposed to be doing.

You may be a bit of a pest, but you're awfully cute. So no one minds it all too much when you pop up.

You would make a good manger, salesperson or attorney. You can cram a lot of info into that head of yours.

If writing everything down counts as having a good memory, then I plead guilty as charged!

Martin Lindeskog Gets Things Done

And speaking of writing everything down, or "distributed cognition," Martin Lindeskog has compiled a list of GTD-related things he wishes to explore. The books look intriguing to me, so I'll list them here and ask a question.

• Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life by David Allen.
• Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy.
• Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love by Jonathan Fields.

Has anyone read any of these? If so, what are your thoughts? And if you've read all three, but had to recommend only one, which would it be?

"GTD with Brains"

A while back, took the free "Jump Start" introduction to Jean Moroney's "Thinking Directions" workshops and found that I wanted to recommend it to others. She's offering another on March 26, and will soon be presenting her all-day seminar in New York on February 23 and, possibly, again in Boston on July 2.

One thought I had after taking the Jump Start course was that, as one who uses many of David Allen's productivity techniques, this "gives a brain" to his approach, which certainly helps one implement goals, but not necessarily to set or clarify them.

Honesty is the best policy.

David Veksler writes, in "The One Minute Case against Cheating," that:

The lesson that students need to learn is that the choice between the practical and the moral is a false dichotomy. Morality is the means to a successful life, not an impediment. Teaching the practical, selfish value of honesty is the best way to discourage cheating.

The primary purpose of an education is to provide the practical knowledge and thinking skills that allow success in life and career. Cheating erodes both those goals. In a career, success of failure has material consequences on one's work and the people it affects. A grade on a biology exam is just a number, but a doctor who takes shortcuts with patients, or a construction engineer who takes shortcuts with buildings endangers both his career and other people’s lives. The ultimate goal of education is not a piece of paper, but practical skills and knowledge, and cheating deprives oneself of that knowledge. Whatever immediate benefit cheating provides is outweighed by the long-term harm. Educators need to stress the practical value of their lessons, and the harm students do to themselves when they forfeit their education.

Back in high school, I always wondered why some of my classmates cheated for this very reason, probably in large part because I was lucky enough to have parents who stressed what my education was for.

In fact, I would have found the idea of being "tempted" to cheat ludicrous.

-- CAV

Updates

2-14-09: Corrected a hyperlink.
8-4-09: Corrected a hypertext anchor.

Obama Planner Hails Hopelessness

Via Matt Drudge comes an article by Betsy McCaughey, a former Lieutenant Governor of New York, on an aspect of the "stimulus" bill that needs closer scrutiny: how it will affect the medical sector. Among many other very bad things is the following:

In [Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis], Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the "tough" decisions [i.e., rationing --ed] elected politicians won't make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle's book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept "hopeless diagnoses" and "forgo experimental treatments," and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Tom "Details Kill" Daschle, who supported socialized medicine during Bill Clinton's term, is behind many of these provisions.

This is two days in a row now that I have seen the Left calling for the government to force people to accept less freedom because some activity the government should have nothing to do with is costing -- whom? -- "too much".

And to think this administration is not yet a month old! Let everyone you can think of who might care know about this.

-- CAV

"Cornered" by Cultural Trends?

Glenn Reynolds, calling it a "sad indictment of contemporary culture," quotes the following from The Corner, the blog presence of National Review:

"Compared to most of the talk shows these days, the old Donahue show was the School of Athens."

The above comment, by Jonah Goldberg, followed a comparison made by a reader responding to a video posted in an earlier blog entry, which showed a brief exchange between Phil Donahue and Milton Friedman.

As far as the comparison between Jon Stewart and Phil Donahue went, I would agree that Phil Donahue is the better interviewer, but we could do better in the vein of examining cultural trends. If you watch the video of Friedman, you will see that he does not even attempt to take or defend what rightfully belongs to capitalism, which he is allegedly defending: the moral high ground. He simply concedes the premise that greed is bad, while pleading that it's "practical". Worse, he implies that the whole world operates on "greed" (i.e., selfishness), which it doesn't, and equates "virtue" with altruism throughout his response.

With "defenders" like this, Phil Donahue, as a fellow opponent of capitalism with Stewart, does better in that way, too -- by handing Friedman the rope and letting him hang himself, which he does. So long as nobody raises a moral defense of capitalism, it is doomed, because when people who subscribe to irrational moral codes sense a conflict between the moral and the practical, they will, unless they are hypocrites, go with the moral. What people need is not an excuse to do what is right anyway: They need to know that there is a moral alternative to altruism, and that it provides the moral justification for capitalism. The fact that the GOP shares Phil Donahue's moral code is why the Republican Revolution of 1994 failed to dismantle the welfare state and devolved into compassionate conservatism instead.

And it is why, I suspect, that the same publication that regularly savages Ayn Rand, who defends capitalism on moral grounds, would heap praise on such a weak-kneed performance as Friedman's when far better alternatives are easily available and deserving of more publicity. At least "Uncle Milt" doesn't demand too much in the way of critical self-examination: The conservatives can continue going on thinking that they can have the fruits of the tree of selfishness while continuing to suck the sap from its roots.

Our cultural decline is a direct result of the irrational and impractical -- in sum, the self-sacrificial -- moral ideals that guide the majority of the members of our society.

Fortunately, while the conservatives are looking at the liberals, or the past, or at anything that will allow themselves to claim, "I'm not so bad," Objectivists are working to reverse the tide. When Ayn Rand appeared on Donahue, she was known primarily as a best-selling novelist; the intellectual movement she started was still very small. Now, it is common for educated people to know her philosophy by name, and have some inkling of what it is. (See Note 1.) The Ayn Rand Institute now runs a policy think tank in Washington, and, I am happy to see, has joined the blogging fray (HT: Diana Hsieh). That last is another small step in the right -- I mean correct -- direction!

The conservative movement -- as exemplified by the likes of "Uncle Milt" -- is incapable of filling today's intellectual vacuum. Fortunately, the real opponents of statism are!

-- CAV

Note 1: For example, when I recently mentioned getting published in The Objective Standard to a free-lance journalist I met at a networking event, he asked whether that journal came from a "Randian or libertarian or 'right-of-center'" angle. He added that he was no fan of hers, but still, he made the connection with no help from me.

Quick Roundup 401

The Communal Womb

It is a toss-up to me whether the speed with which the following came out after the birth of Nadya Suleman's litter or its level of presumption is the more surprising.

After years of railing against abortion laws -- reproductive rights -- of saying its my womb and I'll do what I want with it -- Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman is now calling for the regulation of reproduction.

In a column today, she wrote: "Does anyone have a right to tell anyone else how many kids to have? Can only people who can afford them bear children? Do you need a husband to have a baby? These are questions that make us feel queasy when we are talking about old-fashioned families. But they take on a new flavor in the unregulated wild west of fertility technology." [bold added]

The linchpin of Ellen Goodman's argument, which assumes that the state must pay for everything as if that were some immutable law of nature, is that people like Suleman are breaking the bank of the welfare state.

As I said before, the solution isn't to violate reproductive rights, but to protect the individual rights of all. This would entail two things: (1) The protection of property rights by dismantling the welfare state so people like Suleman cannot steal from others in the process of creating families they cannot support, and (2) the protection of the rights of children from neglectful or abusive parents.

Superficially (and unfortunately), left and right appear to have switched sides in this latest twist in the debate over reproductive rights. The inhumanity of the left on full display as it is -- especially from enivironmentalists who see this issue entirely in terms of how much carbon dioxide exhaust each new baby spews out -- is bait too enticing for the right to pass up. Predictably, stands like Goodman's are being savaged, but sloppily (at best).

Take Don Surber's reaction:

So kids, there you have it. Goodman has abandoned "reproductive rights" in favor of the government dictating the size of families.

And she has abandoned the call for universal health care because, gee, it is so expensive.

Liberals used to have principles. I think.

Me? I like babies. The more the merrier.

Let's assume that Surber is not attacking abortion though the use of scare quotes around "reproductive rights". His response makes it appear that he supports socialized medicine.

Does Surber really support socialized medicine, or is he just failing to notice that he has made our choice look like "happy babies and socialized medicine vs. dictatorship"? Your guess is a s good as mine, but that is a false alternative. Our only choice is freedom and prosperity -- or tyranny and misery. Mixtures, like those supported by the left and the right, all move towards tyranny when contradictions crop up, like "reproductive freedom at 'taxpayer' expense."

The Geek Press Guide to Highway Survival

My initial impulse to the question of how one survives a skydiving accident is to say, "Ummm. By not skydiving in the first place?" I was nevertheless intrigued enough to read the article Paul Hsieh pointed to, and found it to be more generally applicable:

... [S]ituational awareness can mean the difference between life and death, whether you're hurtling toward earth at terminal velocity or driving 75 miles an hour on the interstate. Third, never give up. Many parachuting deaths could have been prevented if sky divers kept working on their problems. Human and mechanical errors might be fixable, but you'll never find out if you give up.

Skydiving isn't just a spectator sport: It's jam-packed with lessons for the rest of us!

And -- also from Geek Press -- if you have an iPhone and get pulled over by a cop while doing 75, you might be able to get out of (part of) a ticket!

Mental Clutter

Some time ago, Unclutterer, a blog about organization, came to my attention and I bookmarked it, presumably because I was going to blog something from it. (I rarely use bookmarks otherwise.) Curious, I followed the link and found a list of posts from 2008, among which was the following:

More reasons to purge disposable plastic bags and try reusable bags
With more stores and municipalities requiring patrons to use their own bags, we've compiled a more extensive list of reusable bag options -- all of which collapse. [bold added]

No! With more municipalities violating our property rights, it's time to stand up for those rights.

I've seen bags like these before, and they invariably are plastered with environmentalist propaganda. If I were forced to use these, I'd turn them wrong-side out until I could have some made with something like the logo at right imprinted on them. (And then, from where that logo came from, there are tee shirts and mugs....)

Ted Kennedy, Distraction?

C. August has an interesting thought concerning some of Ted Kennedy's recent public appearances:

Now I wonder if Kennedy is playing his part as a distraction--collapsing at an inaugural lunch, riding into Congress on a white horse to standing ovations and tearful accolades, all the while dramatically vowing to fight for the government takeover of health care--while the rest of Congress passes nationalization bills in the dark of night.

Read it all. We're in danger of getting health "care" that isn't from a "stimulus" bill that won't stimulate.

Trust Slug Nation

Stephen Bourque has a good discussion of the latest silly (but dangerous) idea to come down the pike: the idea that every baby should be a "trust fund baby".

-- CAV