The number of people in the world who take issue with American exceptionalism and American power are many and varied. They seem to come from all walks of life and live in many countries around the world, some even complaining here at home while sleeping safe in their beds because of it. The root of this view seems, in my opinion, to be planted in western Europe- where vast cadres of intellectuals in their walled off libraries and ivory towers write their idiocies while completely protected from the intrusions of reality.
This pisses me off on so many levels I find it hard to enumerate them all.
To understand anything, one must begin by understanding the history and origins of the thing; and American power, with all its wailing and whining enemies in Europe has a very interesting history indeed.
Let's look back to the early 20th century as before that time America, though vast in land and rich in resources, was not a real power to be reckoned with. By mid-century it was a superpower with military influence in every corner of the globe. So what happened?
Short answer? Those European intellectual's forbears happened. In terms of size, the American military was 17th in the world prior to WWII, in terms of size against population and area defended we ranked with around 50th. But in Europe trouble was brewing in the form of a disaffected nation still reeling from the consequences of the aggression it displayed, a nation with a highly educated workforce, keen engineering minds and great and growing anger over the penalties imposed upon it's citizens for the crimes of it's leaders.
Throughout western Europe, there was a general hue and cry, as Hitler's forces swept through the nations, of appeasement- peace at any cost, withdrawal, and general abdication of the responsibilities any powerful nation naturally must shoulder. By the time those intelligentsia were proven idealistic and suicidally naive the last remaining democratic power in Europe was Great Britain.
And still, we stayed away.
We suffered casualties by German U-boats and Japanese ships. Still we stayed out of the war. We sent material aid to Britain, our former enemy, but took no military action.
Only when directly attacked, when the world was on the brink and the free peoples of all nations sounded a cry for aid did we join the war. We turned our industries to war, sent our sons to die for them, created military technologies the world had never seen; not only for our own nation did we go but for the survival of human dignity in the face of an implacable enemy. And together, we won.
And the world took a nap.
Those once mighty nations had grown tired of war, of keeping the peace in far off places, and so they left a vacuum of power the world had not seen since the fall of Rome. The world had a new choice of powers: the totalitarian state of U.S.S.R. or the Republic called America. As abandoned nations cried out for help against the new Soviet onslaught American power, made possible and necessary by European indolence, came to be.
So whine, complain, tear out your hair in frustration all you who believe that Europe has the answer in their lesez faire foreign policy and massive welfare state. Just know that it is because we took up the mantle of responsibility that they shirked that allowed them to become so comfortably insignificant to their former glory.
The day may come, and soon, America too will cast off that heavy load and go quietly into the night. But know that nature abhors a vacuum and ask yourself this: Who would you have take our place?
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
History and Family
Thus far I have kept my posts on topic and I have only written about things of a political nature. But tonight, as I sit here with too much Ambien in my system and too hard a day behind me I feel compelled to speak out about my own life, about what has created the person writing the things you have read thus far.
Once upon a time, I had siblings. My older sister was my constant nemesis through my youth, due to the fact that somehow she grew up honest and forthright whereas I was the one always on the margins and in the dark places. I do not know why we were so very different, coming from the same parentage, and only 2 years apart to boot, but things sometimes work out that way.
My brother was my best friend, a light in the shadows where I had set up my life. He was a constant check on my darker natures- though everyone has them, mine seem particularly strong- He, too was forthright and honest. But in a different and more elegant way. I remember thinking about how to train him, how to make him into a person who could appreciate the differences between people and yet bring them together and except them as they were. In essence, how to create the perfect person; one of great strength and personal honor but with great understanding and acceptance of those who differed from him. He turned out, in spite of all of my teaching, to be exactly that and so much more.
They are both gone now. I speak, and although I believe they listen, I cannot hear their replies. I love my siblings, but they are gone now, their memories the only thing connecting them to my life. I miss them terribly. I ream about them all the time and I cannot sleep for it. It is almost 2 in the morning and I am exhausted yet I know if I go to sleep the dreams will be there waiting for me. And I cannot handle any more of them right now. Better to go for months without sleep than that!
I have a pretty keen political mind, if you couldn't tell that already. But, as with all people, I have enough issues to qualify for a subscription. My issue is loss. Full disclosure time, folks. I suck, really and truly, at loss. Loss of feelings, loss of confidence, loss of those people who share my history and help make me who I am. But contrary to what major media would tell you, a person does NOT have to be perfect in order to have valid ideas, good points, or interesting discussions.
But I miss them. My sister is the latest to go. This winter has been too short a time, though hard and long for me at once. I wish my boys would have known them, the hard righteousness of my sister, the soft, accepting nature of my brother.
But they are gone, relegated to a place I do not know and have little hope of attaining. I am a spiritual man, I believe in a heaven perhaps because I must, because without it I would have no hope of reuniting with them. I remember teaching my brother about balance and good, about accepting the things one has no hope of changing. I remember teaching him letter sounds until he read and teaching him the value of EVERY person, no matter how different.
I am uncertain about if I ever taught my sister a damn thing; though I loved her dearly, especially at the end, she was a better person than me- older and wiser. Perhaps I taught her that the rewards can sometimes outweigh the risks, that taking a chance can be its own reward. Probably not, but I can never know. Leukemia took her from me as a minivan on the ice took my brother away.
Neither one was my fault, but I still can't stop the dreams from coming. After My brother died, I must have killed him a hundred different ways in my sleep. each time thrashing and awakening crying. Every time I sleep nowadays I do the same to my sister. I do not know why. But I would give everything I own to not sleep ever again.
I go to the gym, I punish my body to exhaust it so I can maybe fall into a dreamless and dark sleep. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't. The harder I push the more I have to push the next time so I can sleep at peace. On the upside I am getting into pretty good shape. On the downside I feel sick and exhausted when I do not have a spotter. I need to push as hard as I possibly can EVERY time or I can't sleep through the night. Without a spotter I can't do it. My father is training for a marathon so he cannot help me. I know nobody else who can. And so I stay awake and drugged, till I pass out exhausted. I wish he would stay with me, I need his help but don't know how to ask for it. He is my father and I love him, but he has to deal with his problems in his own way, and for now it seems that running is the answer. Not running away, he is training for a marathon- just to be specific.
I am with my toddler son and my infant son all day every day now. They do not offer the best conversation, but we teach each other quite a bit. I revel in their successes and do all I can to make them self sufficient. But I have no job nor interaction with people of the same interests as I have and I am very lonely all the time in spite of the constant contact. I am rambling an messed up on too many sleeping pills, which my doctor promised would get me to sleep in 15 min. It has been 3 hours and my body is still terrified to sleep.
There is no accounting for pharmaceuticals vs. the human mind and the terrors within it. But if I am to raise my children well I have to swallow the fear and sleep again. Kill my brother and my sister and wake up in cold sweat to read the little critter books to my eldest and to laugh and smile with my youngest though I feel so tired and need rest from my mind. My mother was finally right: I have indeed outsmarted myself.
Once upon a time, I had siblings. My older sister was my constant nemesis through my youth, due to the fact that somehow she grew up honest and forthright whereas I was the one always on the margins and in the dark places. I do not know why we were so very different, coming from the same parentage, and only 2 years apart to boot, but things sometimes work out that way.
My brother was my best friend, a light in the shadows where I had set up my life. He was a constant check on my darker natures- though everyone has them, mine seem particularly strong- He, too was forthright and honest. But in a different and more elegant way. I remember thinking about how to train him, how to make him into a person who could appreciate the differences between people and yet bring them together and except them as they were. In essence, how to create the perfect person; one of great strength and personal honor but with great understanding and acceptance of those who differed from him. He turned out, in spite of all of my teaching, to be exactly that and so much more.
They are both gone now. I speak, and although I believe they listen, I cannot hear their replies. I love my siblings, but they are gone now, their memories the only thing connecting them to my life. I miss them terribly. I ream about them all the time and I cannot sleep for it. It is almost 2 in the morning and I am exhausted yet I know if I go to sleep the dreams will be there waiting for me. And I cannot handle any more of them right now. Better to go for months without sleep than that!
I have a pretty keen political mind, if you couldn't tell that already. But, as with all people, I have enough issues to qualify for a subscription. My issue is loss. Full disclosure time, folks. I suck, really and truly, at loss. Loss of feelings, loss of confidence, loss of those people who share my history and help make me who I am. But contrary to what major media would tell you, a person does NOT have to be perfect in order to have valid ideas, good points, or interesting discussions.
But I miss them. My sister is the latest to go. This winter has been too short a time, though hard and long for me at once. I wish my boys would have known them, the hard righteousness of my sister, the soft, accepting nature of my brother.
But they are gone, relegated to a place I do not know and have little hope of attaining. I am a spiritual man, I believe in a heaven perhaps because I must, because without it I would have no hope of reuniting with them. I remember teaching my brother about balance and good, about accepting the things one has no hope of changing. I remember teaching him letter sounds until he read and teaching him the value of EVERY person, no matter how different.
I am uncertain about if I ever taught my sister a damn thing; though I loved her dearly, especially at the end, she was a better person than me- older and wiser. Perhaps I taught her that the rewards can sometimes outweigh the risks, that taking a chance can be its own reward. Probably not, but I can never know. Leukemia took her from me as a minivan on the ice took my brother away.
Neither one was my fault, but I still can't stop the dreams from coming. After My brother died, I must have killed him a hundred different ways in my sleep. each time thrashing and awakening crying. Every time I sleep nowadays I do the same to my sister. I do not know why. But I would give everything I own to not sleep ever again.
I go to the gym, I punish my body to exhaust it so I can maybe fall into a dreamless and dark sleep. Sometimes it works. Usually it doesn't. The harder I push the more I have to push the next time so I can sleep at peace. On the upside I am getting into pretty good shape. On the downside I feel sick and exhausted when I do not have a spotter. I need to push as hard as I possibly can EVERY time or I can't sleep through the night. Without a spotter I can't do it. My father is training for a marathon so he cannot help me. I know nobody else who can. And so I stay awake and drugged, till I pass out exhausted. I wish he would stay with me, I need his help but don't know how to ask for it. He is my father and I love him, but he has to deal with his problems in his own way, and for now it seems that running is the answer. Not running away, he is training for a marathon- just to be specific.
I am with my toddler son and my infant son all day every day now. They do not offer the best conversation, but we teach each other quite a bit. I revel in their successes and do all I can to make them self sufficient. But I have no job nor interaction with people of the same interests as I have and I am very lonely all the time in spite of the constant contact. I am rambling an messed up on too many sleeping pills, which my doctor promised would get me to sleep in 15 min. It has been 3 hours and my body is still terrified to sleep.
There is no accounting for pharmaceuticals vs. the human mind and the terrors within it. But if I am to raise my children well I have to swallow the fear and sleep again. Kill my brother and my sister and wake up in cold sweat to read the little critter books to my eldest and to laugh and smile with my youngest though I feel so tired and need rest from my mind. My mother was finally right: I have indeed outsmarted myself.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Immigration: The American Promise
Immigration is a touchy subject. Nowadays when you turn on the TV or radio and immigration comes up as a topic it seems as though the only people contributing to the discussion are wing-nuts of both sides, one arguing for no restrictions and full amnesty and another for shooting illegals as they try to gain entry. Both sides fail on every level to provide for America and her people the basic ideals of the nation.
True, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on our systems, taking an incredibly disproportionate amount of social services without contributing. Also true that most people are coming here to try to better their life and pose no real threat to the rest of us natural born citizens.
The problems I see are those of multiculturalism versus the melting pot. The people who come here are fighting to get away- putting everything on the line to escape the life they came from. Yet they are lauded and coddled by the left when they refuse to leave that nation behind them- refusing to learn the language (no law against speaking it at home) or expecting the other citizens of the country to conform to their beliefs. When one comes here it is with the tacit expectation that they will do their level best to fit in, that they will leave their past behind them and start fresh with opportunity limited only by their willingness to work hard and strive for the dream of freedom.
These are the people we want, and need, at all costs. Those who wish to set up little versions of their old countries should stay there and make a go of it. Those who wish to impose their belief systems upon us can stay in the hell-holes from whence they came. Citizenship here needs to be the entire package: the great opportunities and freedoms offset by the agreement that they are Americans now, and will live by our laws and our standards. Case and point: this means you are free to open a Mosque but you cannot expect to bind others to Sharia Law.
Regardless of the color of their skin or the nation they were born in, there are those we want, and those we cannot accept. It has nothing to do with creed or education or wealth, in fact I would venture that the majority of the ones we want are very poor and have little formal schooling. The ones we want are those who are Americans already- the ones who are free in their own hearts and minds without ever having been exposed to what freedom is. They are the ones who strive and dig in and push themselves past the breaking point to be greater than they are; they live the American dream of productive prosperity oftentimes better than those born here by good luck.
The ones we cannot take are those who wish to leech off our freedoms and economy; the indigent and lazy, the elite from another nation have no place here. This is a country founded on the dreams of farmers and blacksmiths and shopkeepers, not mighty lords and kings and aristocracy. We were the first nation to choose the path which might allow ANY person to be an aristocrat with hard work, and the will to develop their mind and manner to be so. Let princes of other nations stay where they are, we will take the people under their boots and be happy in that, because we know what they don't: the power of those individuals is greater than any army in the world, so long as they are free.
The hysterical fit of "multiculturalism" in this nation has turned what has historically been our greatest asset- the ideas and abilities of our immigrants- into a social cancer which threatens everything about our way of life. Yes, the Statue of Liberty says "...give us your huddled masses", but it makes the caveat that they are the ones "yearning to be free".
In order to facilitate the acceptance of those who would be Americans, why don't we open a new policy in immigration: all able bodied men and women seeking citizenship will be granted such after a term of 4 years in the military, preferably a combat unit. You wish to avail yourself of the opportunities here? You have to choose to put everything on the line, right down to your bones. In the military one can learn the lessons one needs to be an American that they may not have learned in the cultures they came from: The English language, modern sanitation standards, rule of American law, the value of freedom and what is costs to gain and protect it.
In the meantime their immediate family members would live on base with them, learning the same things in different ways and becoming, slowly and with care, Americans. Should the soldier be honorably killed in combat the survivors would receive standard military survivor benefits and citizenship after passing their evaluations.
Those who wish to have our opportunities must also obey our laws, and those who enter illegally have shown disdain for those laws and should be given the choice of long, hard labor imprisonment or service for citizenship, with all the familial benefits entailed. Those who hire illegals for pennies on the dollar wages should be prosecuted with prejudice. They take jobs from those who would follow our laws in order to make an underhanded profit and rob us all.
But for those politicians who seek to weaken us as a nation by robbing us of our culture and ideals, by making a mockery of the law- we must have no mercy upon them.
True, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on our systems, taking an incredibly disproportionate amount of social services without contributing. Also true that most people are coming here to try to better their life and pose no real threat to the rest of us natural born citizens.
The problems I see are those of multiculturalism versus the melting pot. The people who come here are fighting to get away- putting everything on the line to escape the life they came from. Yet they are lauded and coddled by the left when they refuse to leave that nation behind them- refusing to learn the language (no law against speaking it at home) or expecting the other citizens of the country to conform to their beliefs. When one comes here it is with the tacit expectation that they will do their level best to fit in, that they will leave their past behind them and start fresh with opportunity limited only by their willingness to work hard and strive for the dream of freedom.
These are the people we want, and need, at all costs. Those who wish to set up little versions of their old countries should stay there and make a go of it. Those who wish to impose their belief systems upon us can stay in the hell-holes from whence they came. Citizenship here needs to be the entire package: the great opportunities and freedoms offset by the agreement that they are Americans now, and will live by our laws and our standards. Case and point: this means you are free to open a Mosque but you cannot expect to bind others to Sharia Law.
Regardless of the color of their skin or the nation they were born in, there are those we want, and those we cannot accept. It has nothing to do with creed or education or wealth, in fact I would venture that the majority of the ones we want are very poor and have little formal schooling. The ones we want are those who are Americans already- the ones who are free in their own hearts and minds without ever having been exposed to what freedom is. They are the ones who strive and dig in and push themselves past the breaking point to be greater than they are; they live the American dream of productive prosperity oftentimes better than those born here by good luck.
The ones we cannot take are those who wish to leech off our freedoms and economy; the indigent and lazy, the elite from another nation have no place here. This is a country founded on the dreams of farmers and blacksmiths and shopkeepers, not mighty lords and kings and aristocracy. We were the first nation to choose the path which might allow ANY person to be an aristocrat with hard work, and the will to develop their mind and manner to be so. Let princes of other nations stay where they are, we will take the people under their boots and be happy in that, because we know what they don't: the power of those individuals is greater than any army in the world, so long as they are free.
The hysterical fit of "multiculturalism" in this nation has turned what has historically been our greatest asset- the ideas and abilities of our immigrants- into a social cancer which threatens everything about our way of life. Yes, the Statue of Liberty says "...give us your huddled masses", but it makes the caveat that they are the ones "yearning to be free".
In order to facilitate the acceptance of those who would be Americans, why don't we open a new policy in immigration: all able bodied men and women seeking citizenship will be granted such after a term of 4 years in the military, preferably a combat unit. You wish to avail yourself of the opportunities here? You have to choose to put everything on the line, right down to your bones. In the military one can learn the lessons one needs to be an American that they may not have learned in the cultures they came from: The English language, modern sanitation standards, rule of American law, the value of freedom and what is costs to gain and protect it.
In the meantime their immediate family members would live on base with them, learning the same things in different ways and becoming, slowly and with care, Americans. Should the soldier be honorably killed in combat the survivors would receive standard military survivor benefits and citizenship after passing their evaluations.
Those who wish to have our opportunities must also obey our laws, and those who enter illegally have shown disdain for those laws and should be given the choice of long, hard labor imprisonment or service for citizenship, with all the familial benefits entailed. Those who hire illegals for pennies on the dollar wages should be prosecuted with prejudice. They take jobs from those who would follow our laws in order to make an underhanded profit and rob us all.
But for those politicians who seek to weaken us as a nation by robbing us of our culture and ideals, by making a mockery of the law- we must have no mercy upon them.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Vestigial Conservatism: The Sanctity of Life
Sorry for the hiatus, busy busy. I had a conversation with my beautiful and intelligent wife the other day (yes, while I should have been blogging, but it got this one going) about health care, government, and religion. We went relatively in-depth about the problems facing us as a culture and tried to come up with a "unified theory" of what the hell has gone wrong in this country. The answer that was reached was not what you think: fear of death and the corruption of the idea of sanctity of life.
Fear of death has been covered in these blogs already, I know, but let me expand on these ideas, and I beg your indulgence of my indulgences.
It has become entirely apparent, as Einstein once said, that our technology has surpassed our humanity; that we have so many bells and whistles going off around us all the time and yet we cannot use them to good effect anymore. These technological marvels like life support, medications, complex surgeries, all of these things are not inherently good, but only good when applied with a view of humanity.
Is it a true good to keep someone on life support who will never wake? It is a true good to pay thousands on a medication that will only prolong your suffering, or undergo an operation that will drain what you would give to your children, grandchildren or a charitable cause so you can live easier for but one more year? I say no, that those who choose such things are not committed to the good of the people nor really the good of themselves. Prolonging suffering, wasting precious resources for small effect and destroying our own legacy is tantamount to lunacy and nothing more. But why, then, do we do it?
It all comes down to fear of death, that unknown equalizer we all MUST face, though we paint our faces an inch thick, though we get a hundred face lifts and botox injections, though we take a thousand drugs or undergo a thousand painful procedures. Once upon a time, and not really that long ago, religion provided the masses of people a way to face that fear, to believe there is something greater and better beyond this life. And so many of us were unafraid to go into that great night with our eyes open and full of hope. There was dignity and grace in the act of dying, of aging. Whatever evils religion has done, it has given us the ultimate tool to destroy the ultimate fear.
No more. We have become an irreligious society, placing our hope in science to take away what we perceive to be the bitter sting of death. And that is really fine, so long as our humanity and will can keep pace with the science we create. Yet we have not. As our technological power has become stronger, we find ourselves unable and unwilling to make the right choices regarding that unknown quantity. We have gone back to the days where all humanity was afraid of the dark. Rather than look upon our marvels and be at peace we have become more troubled and selfish; rather than using our knowledge to create something which will endure beyond us we have chosen to use our great abilities for selfishness and personal vanity.
But where is religion now? What has happened is not simply the fault of science, which is (real science, anyway) unbiased and simply IS, but the fault of religion for forgetting what IT is. The vestigial conservatism in the title of this blog is what is left of the belief in the sanctity of life that religion had given us. As with anything, everything has it's corollary, and in this case, the second half of that belief has been abandoned: the sanctity of life necessitates the dignity of death.
Pulling the plug is not murder, nor is removing the feeding tube of a person who has undergone a horrific tragedy. They are in fact truly celebrations of the sanctity of life. Life is not breathing, it is not simply existing; to a human being it is an amalgamation of hopes and fears and dreams and actions, of nobility and disgrace, of failure and triumph. Life is not sacred because it simply is, but because of the possibilities it gives to us. Many religions have forgotten that part of the equation, choosing to simply state that life must be preserved AT ALL COSTS, even if that cost is our humanity.
Religion, I believe, is mans interpretation of the will of God. And as such it is inherently flawed as all people are flawed. Things useful and necessary can be forgotten, altered, even warped into something it was never intended to be. This doesn't negate the good it has or yet can do, just as the good it has and can do cannot negate the evils it has perpetrated through the years. The same can be said of any human being.
But science, no matter how advanced, cannot advance us morally as a species, only technologically. The answers to when science should be used, and to what effect, cannot be quantified or given any greater value than already exist in our moral sense and, given the state of our world, I would say it is perfectly capable of turning us back on some of our greatest gifts.
We can measure the mass of a single atom, or a smaller particle still, but the greatness and possibility of the human experience is unquantifiable, and more beautiful than any machine that can be built. We as a people must remember what it is to be unafraid, we must look into that great unknown and realize that final thing is what truly gives the rest of our life meaning, and to be glad of it.
Fear of death has been covered in these blogs already, I know, but let me expand on these ideas, and I beg your indulgence of my indulgences.
It has become entirely apparent, as Einstein once said, that our technology has surpassed our humanity; that we have so many bells and whistles going off around us all the time and yet we cannot use them to good effect anymore. These technological marvels like life support, medications, complex surgeries, all of these things are not inherently good, but only good when applied with a view of humanity.
Is it a true good to keep someone on life support who will never wake? It is a true good to pay thousands on a medication that will only prolong your suffering, or undergo an operation that will drain what you would give to your children, grandchildren or a charitable cause so you can live easier for but one more year? I say no, that those who choose such things are not committed to the good of the people nor really the good of themselves. Prolonging suffering, wasting precious resources for small effect and destroying our own legacy is tantamount to lunacy and nothing more. But why, then, do we do it?
It all comes down to fear of death, that unknown equalizer we all MUST face, though we paint our faces an inch thick, though we get a hundred face lifts and botox injections, though we take a thousand drugs or undergo a thousand painful procedures. Once upon a time, and not really that long ago, religion provided the masses of people a way to face that fear, to believe there is something greater and better beyond this life. And so many of us were unafraid to go into that great night with our eyes open and full of hope. There was dignity and grace in the act of dying, of aging. Whatever evils religion has done, it has given us the ultimate tool to destroy the ultimate fear.
No more. We have become an irreligious society, placing our hope in science to take away what we perceive to be the bitter sting of death. And that is really fine, so long as our humanity and will can keep pace with the science we create. Yet we have not. As our technological power has become stronger, we find ourselves unable and unwilling to make the right choices regarding that unknown quantity. We have gone back to the days where all humanity was afraid of the dark. Rather than look upon our marvels and be at peace we have become more troubled and selfish; rather than using our knowledge to create something which will endure beyond us we have chosen to use our great abilities for selfishness and personal vanity.
But where is religion now? What has happened is not simply the fault of science, which is (real science, anyway) unbiased and simply IS, but the fault of religion for forgetting what IT is. The vestigial conservatism in the title of this blog is what is left of the belief in the sanctity of life that religion had given us. As with anything, everything has it's corollary, and in this case, the second half of that belief has been abandoned: the sanctity of life necessitates the dignity of death.
Pulling the plug is not murder, nor is removing the feeding tube of a person who has undergone a horrific tragedy. They are in fact truly celebrations of the sanctity of life. Life is not breathing, it is not simply existing; to a human being it is an amalgamation of hopes and fears and dreams and actions, of nobility and disgrace, of failure and triumph. Life is not sacred because it simply is, but because of the possibilities it gives to us. Many religions have forgotten that part of the equation, choosing to simply state that life must be preserved AT ALL COSTS, even if that cost is our humanity.
Religion, I believe, is mans interpretation of the will of God. And as such it is inherently flawed as all people are flawed. Things useful and necessary can be forgotten, altered, even warped into something it was never intended to be. This doesn't negate the good it has or yet can do, just as the good it has and can do cannot negate the evils it has perpetrated through the years. The same can be said of any human being.
But science, no matter how advanced, cannot advance us morally as a species, only technologically. The answers to when science should be used, and to what effect, cannot be quantified or given any greater value than already exist in our moral sense and, given the state of our world, I would say it is perfectly capable of turning us back on some of our greatest gifts.
We can measure the mass of a single atom, or a smaller particle still, but the greatness and possibility of the human experience is unquantifiable, and more beautiful than any machine that can be built. We as a people must remember what it is to be unafraid, we must look into that great unknown and realize that final thing is what truly gives the rest of our life meaning, and to be glad of it.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Liberals: Obviously Not Math Majors
It has come to my attention that many of the most "fun" statistics for liberal use these days are pretty stretchy. And I don't mean the amount of money in the budget, either. Lets look through a few "progressive" ideas over the next few days and see what the numbers say.
Yes, I know it is so much more fun to have an emotional, visceral reaction to problems, but bear with me, as I have this somewhat crazy idea that Government should be based on what works, rather than what we really, truly, with sugar and spice on top wish would work.
Lets take, for today's example, urban blacks. You will see statistics one after the other about how destitute these poor souls are, how they are victimized by the police (hey, I'm not much of a fan either, just saying), endure higher prices than suburbs, crooked and racist business owners moving the jobs away to where the white folk are, and are generally the victims of heinous things perpetrated upon them by the evil, the greedy, and the hateful.
Problem seems to be, though, that the numbers just don't add up to those conclusions.
To really understand anything you first have to know that nothing happens in a vacuum, that there is a history involved in everything, and to know where things are going, you must know where things have been. You know the effect, urban poverty, and so rather than look at the history of the situation most people just lash out at what they perceive to be the "bad guys".
Do me a favor: look at the employment rates of urban dwellers in the 1930's and 40's. Now look at the 1950's; then go for the 60's, then 70's, and now today. Look at every ethnic group, family cohesion rates (families with 2 parents), income range and the violent crime stats. Now look at today. What you see is a gradual improvement up until the early 1960's, after which the situation for minorities, especially blacks, drastically worsens.
But how can that be? The 60's brought us the civil rights act, numerous laws on equality, robust unionization, the works. How can things have been better BEFORE all those wonderful things and worse AFTER? This is where history comes in handy. During the mid to late 60's all those wonderful things were done, yes, but businesses started moving out before that as crime was already gong up. A few riots thrown in for good measure and most businesses felt (reasonably) like the best way to protect their businesses was to get the hell out of Dodge.
The story the numbers tell is that prior to the unrest of the 60's, the urban minority population was experiencing a robust family life, with decent wages and relatively low crime. But leading up to the early part of that decade, the numbers waver. Not in employment on average but the crime rate and child abandonment rate. Shortly after these numbers began to rise, businesses started to move out. There were then riots in major cities, where urban blacks destroyed millions (hundreds of millions in adjusted money) of dollars of private and business property. More businesses moved for their safety. More rampant crime, more abandonment.
The problem is believed to be external, ie. businesses move so crime goes up. But in actuality the numbers don't support that story, but rather show businesses doing the smart thing to protect their assets when crime rates rise where they are located.
The truth is that the problem isn't external, but internal. The breakdown of civil society is the cause of woe, not someone foisting something upon them. Easy to prove that one too.
When you take into account not merely the "level" of education of blacks versus whites but take into account mean test scores, income is distributed in a funny way. We all know that 2 graduates are not equal just because they are graduates. Say one went to MIT and another went to Kalamazoo college. Or even if both went to MIT but one graduated top of his class with honors and another barely skirts by. So the only way to take into account these variables is to look at test averages and class placement. Here are what the data say: all thing being equal, black men get paid more than white men. Given the same basic measurement stick, black men out-earn white men by just shy of 6 percent. Huh.
What this shows, in stark numbers, is that those who choose to step out of the culture they are mired in have no greater limitations than anyone else, that those who try do, in fact, excel. The problem lay not in people holding others down but in people holding themselves down, people choosing the easy over the right, the quick payoff rather than the reward of the patient.
When the State, or a community organizer, or well meaning liberal steps in talks about "blaming the victim", the burden of proof upon them to show that there is in fact a victim of external abuses. When history and hard fact are in play- rather than platitudes and emotional reaction- it is pretty easy to say that in this case there is none. Oh, and I know some liberals will toss around that old hack about the "legacy of slavery", and I am fully prepared to throw hard data back in their smug and self serving faces.
Modern liberals have for too long held an entire people from their American birthright: to try as hard as anyone else and to go just as far. They have enslaved a people with their false promises and feel-good emotional blame games. They have given a man a fish at a time, rather that even allowing him to learn how to fish, and entire generations have been lost because of it. They have created artificial rifts in our nation by playing up non-existent problems and creating cures worse than the diseases that are in fact there. They have crushed the spirits of innumerable human beings by giving them the out: someone else is holding me down, I am a victim, I have no power, I must be taken care of, I cannot do anything on my own. They have robbed a people of true pride in themselves, the cornerstone of conservative thought, and robbed us all of the future we could have had.
Yes, I know it is so much more fun to have an emotional, visceral reaction to problems, but bear with me, as I have this somewhat crazy idea that Government should be based on what works, rather than what we really, truly, with sugar and spice on top wish would work.
Lets take, for today's example, urban blacks. You will see statistics one after the other about how destitute these poor souls are, how they are victimized by the police (hey, I'm not much of a fan either, just saying), endure higher prices than suburbs, crooked and racist business owners moving the jobs away to where the white folk are, and are generally the victims of heinous things perpetrated upon them by the evil, the greedy, and the hateful.
Problem seems to be, though, that the numbers just don't add up to those conclusions.
To really understand anything you first have to know that nothing happens in a vacuum, that there is a history involved in everything, and to know where things are going, you must know where things have been. You know the effect, urban poverty, and so rather than look at the history of the situation most people just lash out at what they perceive to be the "bad guys".
Do me a favor: look at the employment rates of urban dwellers in the 1930's and 40's. Now look at the 1950's; then go for the 60's, then 70's, and now today. Look at every ethnic group, family cohesion rates (families with 2 parents), income range and the violent crime stats. Now look at today. What you see is a gradual improvement up until the early 1960's, after which the situation for minorities, especially blacks, drastically worsens.
But how can that be? The 60's brought us the civil rights act, numerous laws on equality, robust unionization, the works. How can things have been better BEFORE all those wonderful things and worse AFTER? This is where history comes in handy. During the mid to late 60's all those wonderful things were done, yes, but businesses started moving out before that as crime was already gong up. A few riots thrown in for good measure and most businesses felt (reasonably) like the best way to protect their businesses was to get the hell out of Dodge.
The story the numbers tell is that prior to the unrest of the 60's, the urban minority population was experiencing a robust family life, with decent wages and relatively low crime. But leading up to the early part of that decade, the numbers waver. Not in employment on average but the crime rate and child abandonment rate. Shortly after these numbers began to rise, businesses started to move out. There were then riots in major cities, where urban blacks destroyed millions (hundreds of millions in adjusted money) of dollars of private and business property. More businesses moved for their safety. More rampant crime, more abandonment.
The problem is believed to be external, ie. businesses move so crime goes up. But in actuality the numbers don't support that story, but rather show businesses doing the smart thing to protect their assets when crime rates rise where they are located.
The truth is that the problem isn't external, but internal. The breakdown of civil society is the cause of woe, not someone foisting something upon them. Easy to prove that one too.
When you take into account not merely the "level" of education of blacks versus whites but take into account mean test scores, income is distributed in a funny way. We all know that 2 graduates are not equal just because they are graduates. Say one went to MIT and another went to Kalamazoo college. Or even if both went to MIT but one graduated top of his class with honors and another barely skirts by. So the only way to take into account these variables is to look at test averages and class placement. Here are what the data say: all thing being equal, black men get paid more than white men. Given the same basic measurement stick, black men out-earn white men by just shy of 6 percent. Huh.
What this shows, in stark numbers, is that those who choose to step out of the culture they are mired in have no greater limitations than anyone else, that those who try do, in fact, excel. The problem lay not in people holding others down but in people holding themselves down, people choosing the easy over the right, the quick payoff rather than the reward of the patient.
When the State, or a community organizer, or well meaning liberal steps in talks about "blaming the victim", the burden of proof upon them to show that there is in fact a victim of external abuses. When history and hard fact are in play- rather than platitudes and emotional reaction- it is pretty easy to say that in this case there is none. Oh, and I know some liberals will toss around that old hack about the "legacy of slavery", and I am fully prepared to throw hard data back in their smug and self serving faces.
Modern liberals have for too long held an entire people from their American birthright: to try as hard as anyone else and to go just as far. They have enslaved a people with their false promises and feel-good emotional blame games. They have given a man a fish at a time, rather that even allowing him to learn how to fish, and entire generations have been lost because of it. They have created artificial rifts in our nation by playing up non-existent problems and creating cures worse than the diseases that are in fact there. They have crushed the spirits of innumerable human beings by giving them the out: someone else is holding me down, I am a victim, I have no power, I must be taken care of, I cannot do anything on my own. They have robbed a people of true pride in themselves, the cornerstone of conservative thought, and robbed us all of the future we could have had.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Education: College Part II
In the State of the Union Speech, President Obama laid out a plan to cancel student loan debt after 20 years, or 10 years if they decide to work for the government. Great plan, if you want educational costs to skyrocket in ways you have never seen before and want the economy to crumble to ever finer ashes.
What incentive does paying off loans give to schools or students to try and make it affordable? All they know is that if they charge (or an institution costs) a student $100 or $100,000 a year that the government will be covering it so there is no reason to keep a single cost in line, no reason to be efficient with the money they take in. In fact, a University would be stupid NOT to raise tuition when, after all, a graduate of their institution simply has to work for a few decades, paying the minimum, and poof! all the debt magically disappears.
This is the type of perverse incentive modern liberals offer economies, from the ivy league to the Detroit projects. Why be more efficient if the cost of inefficiency is paid by someone else? To feel good? Bet that money you're raking in feels pretty good too, and with minimal work to get it. It's the New American Dream.
Meanwhile, as tuition- already divorced from any economic principles by government subsidy- goes to ever greater heights, graduates who would otherwise put their value into the private sector and employ more people would be going into government work, where the citizens have to pay for them. It is one of the most egregious liberal fallacies that the government can make the economy better by making government larger. Every single dollar paid to a state employee (who produces nothing and therefore is already a net drain on the economy) is a dollar YOU do not get to spend in the private economy.
Simple math: You make $40,000 a year. You spend about $20,000 on goods produced by other people, keeping them employed and therefore keeping the economy going. The state, though, makes certain you don't take home $40,000 even if that's what you and your employer agreed you would be paid. So really, after average income taxes, you bring home about $28,000. That means that they have robbed the economy of $12,000 to keep people employed, to produce goods to ship overseas and increase the value of our economy and our dollar. And that is just one person- imagine the net theft from our economy by doing this 100,000,000 times. Yet they do, every year.
Government expands by 20% and necessarily they have to take more of your income to keep those people (who produce nothing and are a drain on the economy already, did I mention that?) they hired employed. So now you are left with $26,000, an additional $2,000 out of the hands of those who produce what we need, an additional $2,000 that wont go to wages, making materials, providing health benefits to people working for them.
Now take even more college graduates, especially those with very expensive advanced degrees out of the economy, and pay for them with your money to produce nothing instead of having them out in the private sector where they could produce a net benefit to the country.
For those who don't understand what progressivism is, it is the gradual and progressive encroachment of the government into all facets of our life. But it is, as I said, gradual. And insidious- no huge steps to take away personal rights, just one case at a time, till progressives get the right judges to make the right rulings and presto- the state can now take your house and demolish it so a corporation can use the land instead. Or , even worse, so they can leave the lot empty for "natural space" laws and drive up housing prices by decreasing supply (therefore increasing net property tax revenue for fewer services).
Obama is not a Stupid man, indeed he is very intelligent, and very "progressive". So there is no possible way he has overlooked the long term impact of having the ever more high-end graduates out of the economy and into the government; just as there is no possible way he does not see what the effect a FULL government subsidy will do to tuition rates. If you think he hasn't, who is really the fool?
What incentive does paying off loans give to schools or students to try and make it affordable? All they know is that if they charge (or an institution costs) a student $100 or $100,000 a year that the government will be covering it so there is no reason to keep a single cost in line, no reason to be efficient with the money they take in. In fact, a University would be stupid NOT to raise tuition when, after all, a graduate of their institution simply has to work for a few decades, paying the minimum, and poof! all the debt magically disappears.
This is the type of perverse incentive modern liberals offer economies, from the ivy league to the Detroit projects. Why be more efficient if the cost of inefficiency is paid by someone else? To feel good? Bet that money you're raking in feels pretty good too, and with minimal work to get it. It's the New American Dream.
Meanwhile, as tuition- already divorced from any economic principles by government subsidy- goes to ever greater heights, graduates who would otherwise put their value into the private sector and employ more people would be going into government work, where the citizens have to pay for them. It is one of the most egregious liberal fallacies that the government can make the economy better by making government larger. Every single dollar paid to a state employee (who produces nothing and therefore is already a net drain on the economy) is a dollar YOU do not get to spend in the private economy.
Simple math: You make $40,000 a year. You spend about $20,000 on goods produced by other people, keeping them employed and therefore keeping the economy going. The state, though, makes certain you don't take home $40,000 even if that's what you and your employer agreed you would be paid. So really, after average income taxes, you bring home about $28,000. That means that they have robbed the economy of $12,000 to keep people employed, to produce goods to ship overseas and increase the value of our economy and our dollar. And that is just one person- imagine the net theft from our economy by doing this 100,000,000 times. Yet they do, every year.
Government expands by 20% and necessarily they have to take more of your income to keep those people (who produce nothing and are a drain on the economy already, did I mention that?) they hired employed. So now you are left with $26,000, an additional $2,000 out of the hands of those who produce what we need, an additional $2,000 that wont go to wages, making materials, providing health benefits to people working for them.
Now take even more college graduates, especially those with very expensive advanced degrees out of the economy, and pay for them with your money to produce nothing instead of having them out in the private sector where they could produce a net benefit to the country.
For those who don't understand what progressivism is, it is the gradual and progressive encroachment of the government into all facets of our life. But it is, as I said, gradual. And insidious- no huge steps to take away personal rights, just one case at a time, till progressives get the right judges to make the right rulings and presto- the state can now take your house and demolish it so a corporation can use the land instead. Or , even worse, so they can leave the lot empty for "natural space" laws and drive up housing prices by decreasing supply (therefore increasing net property tax revenue for fewer services).
Obama is not a Stupid man, indeed he is very intelligent, and very "progressive". So there is no possible way he has overlooked the long term impact of having the ever more high-end graduates out of the economy and into the government; just as there is no possible way he does not see what the effect a FULL government subsidy will do to tuition rates. If you think he hasn't, who is really the fool?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Education: How to Make College Cheaper
So it took a few days to do the research on this, but I finally figured out why college is, on average, so expensive and what can be done about it. It is actually pretty easy, and the logic behind it points out one of the major failures of modern liberal ideology. Yes! Two birds, one stone.
Want to make higher education more affordable to the masses? End FAFSA, and rework accreditation standards. Though this may seem counter-intuitive, the economics of it is totally sound.
Imagine you own a business making widgets and whosits, and you want to make those widgets more affordable so more people can buy them and you make more money. How do you do it? You invest in greater efficiencies, economies of scale, and focus on driving down costs of production. Pretty easy, really. Now imagine you have some friends in the government instead of a decent brain. The answer then would be to lobby your buddies to subsidies widget production so more people can afford them. This drives the cost down too, right?
Wrong. The net effect is that costs and prices are now out of line. For you to sell a widget at a straight, non-susidized $30 you could make, say, $10. Now, though, imagine the government gives you $10 a widget. What do you charge? Most liberals would say $20, but those ones are not in charge of businesses, and for good reason. You would, of course, sell widgets for $30 and pocket the subsidy. Now that works until you decide to really push on your whosit production, which is more expensive, but gives your company greater prestige and justifies everyone's salaries. Easiest way to pump more money into that is to go back to the government and tell them that the cost of widgets is going up and they need to pay more in subsidies to cover it.
Then you take the subsidies and profits and split them down the middle into widgets and whosits, and your company becomes even more prestigious for whozits, so you can justify charging more for your widgets and giving yourself and your execs a bigger pay package...Then the cycle begins again.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Universities, where widgets are graduates and whosits are research. You take the subsidy out of the equation and costs have to come into line or widgets will just go to the colleges where whosits are not produced.
But, you may say, even non-research institutions are more expensive every year! And you would be correct. The reason: accreditation agencies. These places actually never take into account the quality of what is produced, just what goes into the machine. So a college that gives laptops to it's students with the entire Library of Congress on the hard drive to research from would not get an accreditation because it doesn't have enough books or libraries. Seriously. Essentially, they are saying you have to have no choice on the outlay for a massive library, all the books therein, and all the upkeep costs, so that your students can have less access to information at a higher cost. I am not kidding or exaggerating in the least.
And the reason they do this is simple: they are too lazy to look at the outcomes, which is difficult, so instead just look at the bells and whistles. Take a look at What happened to the University of Colorado Law School. 92% of their graduates could pass the Bar Exam on the first try, a higher proportion that either Harvard or Yale. But due to the fact they couldn't afford a new, larger library, the American Bar Association (the ones in charge of law school accreditation) threatened to revoke the school's accreditation. So in order to comply with a completely arbitrary wish, one with (obviously, based on Bar Exam pass rates) no bearing on quality of education. They spent over $40 million on a new library, then had to jack up yearly tuition from $6700 to $16,738 a year, and a whopping $30,814 for out of state students. This effectively priced out on of the best schools for under-privileged law students. Guess their dreams don't matter as much as the building does.
You want to know the average amount of time teaching students by a professor at an average university? 12 hours. The rest is filled in by graduate students so the lofty professors can do research and make their tee times. This means that prestigious institutions such as Harvard and Yale can charge exorbitant tuition rates to keep tenured profs on staff while they professors never actually see their students.
Remember that the next time a State University comes around for money and somehow says that tuition rates are to blame for them needing more money. The two are entirely disconnected. When a College President says that tuition doesn't cover the cost of educating a student, don't think for a second they are somehow noble or magnanimous, they are not. It's like Carl Pohlad saying that ticket prices don't cover the cost of the Twins (a nod to Tom Sowell), so he is being noble somehow. The majority of money comes to these places through outside channels such as research grants and contracts, the students are really just how they pay themselves more for just a few hours of work. Icing on the cake, as it were.
So when you hear about budgets coming up and Universities and Colleges start whining about how bad off they are, remember that it is all smoke and mirrors, and that the ones who are to blame for the skyrocketing costs are the same ones with their hands out.
Want to make higher education more affordable to the masses? End FAFSA, and rework accreditation standards. Though this may seem counter-intuitive, the economics of it is totally sound.
Imagine you own a business making widgets and whosits, and you want to make those widgets more affordable so more people can buy them and you make more money. How do you do it? You invest in greater efficiencies, economies of scale, and focus on driving down costs of production. Pretty easy, really. Now imagine you have some friends in the government instead of a decent brain. The answer then would be to lobby your buddies to subsidies widget production so more people can afford them. This drives the cost down too, right?
Wrong. The net effect is that costs and prices are now out of line. For you to sell a widget at a straight, non-susidized $30 you could make, say, $10. Now, though, imagine the government gives you $10 a widget. What do you charge? Most liberals would say $20, but those ones are not in charge of businesses, and for good reason. You would, of course, sell widgets for $30 and pocket the subsidy. Now that works until you decide to really push on your whosit production, which is more expensive, but gives your company greater prestige and justifies everyone's salaries. Easiest way to pump more money into that is to go back to the government and tell them that the cost of widgets is going up and they need to pay more in subsidies to cover it.
Then you take the subsidies and profits and split them down the middle into widgets and whosits, and your company becomes even more prestigious for whozits, so you can justify charging more for your widgets and giving yourself and your execs a bigger pay package...Then the cycle begins again.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Universities, where widgets are graduates and whosits are research. You take the subsidy out of the equation and costs have to come into line or widgets will just go to the colleges where whosits are not produced.
But, you may say, even non-research institutions are more expensive every year! And you would be correct. The reason: accreditation agencies. These places actually never take into account the quality of what is produced, just what goes into the machine. So a college that gives laptops to it's students with the entire Library of Congress on the hard drive to research from would not get an accreditation because it doesn't have enough books or libraries. Seriously. Essentially, they are saying you have to have no choice on the outlay for a massive library, all the books therein, and all the upkeep costs, so that your students can have less access to information at a higher cost. I am not kidding or exaggerating in the least.
And the reason they do this is simple: they are too lazy to look at the outcomes, which is difficult, so instead just look at the bells and whistles. Take a look at What happened to the University of Colorado Law School. 92% of their graduates could pass the Bar Exam on the first try, a higher proportion that either Harvard or Yale. But due to the fact they couldn't afford a new, larger library, the American Bar Association (the ones in charge of law school accreditation) threatened to revoke the school's accreditation. So in order to comply with a completely arbitrary wish, one with (obviously, based on Bar Exam pass rates) no bearing on quality of education. They spent over $40 million on a new library, then had to jack up yearly tuition from $6700 to $16,738 a year, and a whopping $30,814 for out of state students. This effectively priced out on of the best schools for under-privileged law students. Guess their dreams don't matter as much as the building does.
You want to know the average amount of time teaching students by a professor at an average university? 12 hours. The rest is filled in by graduate students so the lofty professors can do research and make their tee times. This means that prestigious institutions such as Harvard and Yale can charge exorbitant tuition rates to keep tenured profs on staff while they professors never actually see their students.
Remember that the next time a State University comes around for money and somehow says that tuition rates are to blame for them needing more money. The two are entirely disconnected. When a College President says that tuition doesn't cover the cost of educating a student, don't think for a second they are somehow noble or magnanimous, they are not. It's like Carl Pohlad saying that ticket prices don't cover the cost of the Twins (a nod to Tom Sowell), so he is being noble somehow. The majority of money comes to these places through outside channels such as research grants and contracts, the students are really just how they pay themselves more for just a few hours of work. Icing on the cake, as it were.
So when you hear about budgets coming up and Universities and Colleges start whining about how bad off they are, remember that it is all smoke and mirrors, and that the ones who are to blame for the skyrocketing costs are the same ones with their hands out.
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