Jobs and Education: we need a national debate

View 692 Sunday, September 18, 2011

Summarizing the week: President Obama wants to spend a lot more money. His advisors tell him that the reason TARP and Stimulus failed is that the Recession he inherited from Bush was just a lot worse than everyone thought it was, and the stimulus just wasn’t big enough. Time to top it off with another round of stimulus spending, which will spark an economic recovery.

The Republicans observe that the Democrats claimed the Bush Recession ended over two years ago in June, 2009 and this is the Obama Depression, brought on by Obama’s economic policies following July 2009. Conservatives claim that the problem has always been that government spends too much money while keeping taxes high and multiplying regulations, and more spending will never get us out of an economic hole. The Tea Party repeats that we are Taxed Enough Already, and we have got to stop spending so much money.

I do not believe the Obama American Jobs Act has been introduced into Congress; a Republican from Texas introduced a three page tax cut bill under that name after the Democrats failed to come forward with a specific act. The leaked details of the 153 page Bill that President Obama has shown during some of his speeches indicate that it is a tax and spend bill with no outstanding features, and with some features rejected by the Congress when the Democrats held veto and filibuster proof majorities in both Houses.

The news tonight says that the Obama proposal is now over a trillion dollars in new spending. Stimulus Indeed.

This coming election appears more and more to be on the fundamental question: are we citizens or subjects? Is the primary responsibility for your life yours or your government’s? A long time ago there was a saying about Uncle Sam: “He’s your Uncle, not your Dad.” It was denounced by the left as a right wing extremist notion. We now expect the Federal government to pay our bills for us whether it can afford to or not; and few seem to feel an obligation to take care of themselves or their family. That’s a fine sentiment in good times, but when things go bad, someone else should step forward.

There was a time when local associations did that.

A reminder of Tocqueville’s associations

Reminds me of Tocqueville’s associations. I’d have to call this "doing the work of the angels."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/09/15/cnnheroes.keatley.nutrition/index.html

Gary

But we don’t read Tocqueville in high school, or in college, or indeed anywhere else now. Ask your kids’ teachers how many have read Tocqueville. Many will not even have heard of him. http://www.tocqueville.org/ 

 

There have been several new articles about new handicap diagnoses and education. This raises again the question of the purpose of public education. I suggest that for a start we have a law that reserves at least half the money expended on education for students of average and above intelligence who do not have any handicaps. That might or might not be enough to turn education from a useless entitlement into a meaningful public investment, but it would at least be a step in the right direction.

Is public education an entitlement or an investment? If an entitlement, who is entitled to what? And why is the public obligated to pay for it? If an investment, then allocation of education resources ought to have some resemblance to payoff. If the goal is to educate a flexible job-ready work force, then perhaps there are better investments than paying for home tutorial education for young people unable to go to public schools, either because of physical handicap or because they have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and just can’t bring themselves to go to school classes.

“Investing” in expensive training of those unlikely ever to be in the work force is probably not an optimum investment. If we have the money to spend on making them feel better about having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or Attention Deficit Disorder, or Down’s Syndrome, or muscular dystrophy, then perhaps that is a good thing to do: but it is not an investment. If it be an entitlement, then surely there must be a debate about who is entitled to what, and who is obligated to pay.

The notion that intensive training of an IQ 85 student to enable that student to get a D instead of an F is a good investment of educational resources is certainly not obviously true. The notion that educational resources would be better spent on those of normal and above normal abilities seems quite intuitive.

The result of this entitlement mentality is that anyone who can afford to give their children a Head Start by getting out of the public school system entirely will do so; this makes for a hereditary caste system. Is that what we are investing in?

But of course one can’t say these things. Do we not live in Lake Wobegon, where the men are strong, the women are all good looking, and all the children are above average?

Wave of New Disabilities Swamps School Budgets

Christina Gustavsson says she loves school. But her teachers have had a tough time educating her.

In her freshman year at Kennett High School, 15-year-old Christina racked up five months’ worth of absences and never completed a full day of school. Sometimes, she had difficulty remembering assignments, completing homework or even waking up in time for school. Other times, she didn’t.

Christina has chronic fatigue syndrome, a condition whose symptoms have long confounded many medical professionals and now pose peculiar challenges for educators as more adolescents are diagnosed with it. In a time of tight budgets, public schools must consider how far to go to accommodate students with CFS and a range of so-called hidden disabilities that are difficult to observe, evaluate or understand.

By federal law, public schools are required to provide a "free appropriate public education" in the "least restrictive environment" to children with special needs. Interpreting those terms is a thorny task often left to the courts. But with CFS, there’s an added challenge: "It is very difficult to assess what the need is," said Sharon S. Bennett, director of special education for the Kennett Consolidated School District near Philadelphia. <snip>

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576558730329067142.html 

Why is there a federal law dictating entitlements to eduication resources? Precisely where in the Constitution is there any grant of power over education to Congress?  Of course Congress is sovereign in the District of Columbia and can deal with these problems as it will – as if it were a state. And perhaps Congress can show the rest of us how to set up schools that deal with the situation. But it has no right so far as I can tell to dictate education policy to Tennessee or Texas or California…

Right to Bear Arms

California has had an “open carry” law for a long time. At one time that insured one’s right to carry loaded firearms. In the wake of some demonstrations by the Black Panthers that was changed to the right openly to carry unloaded firearms – pistols, rifles, shotguns, whatever. I was against the change at that time, but many Republicans in those days were more concerned with suppressing the Black Panthers than they were with preserving the right to self defense, and they went along with the change.

There is now a law on Governor Brown’s desk removing the right openly to carry an unloaded firearm. I don’t know if it applies to gun racks in the back of a truck, or to carrying a firearm on your own property. I do know that it is of a piece with the move to convert citizens into subjects. Citizens are armed. Subjects have been disarmed.

Not that the protection was all that good to begin with. Long Beach police some months ago shot a man seated on his friend’s porch because the man aimed a garden hose nozzle at them. The nozzle looked like a firearm. The police had not told him of their presence, and so far as I can see the incident is quite accurately described as “the police snuck up on him, watched him a while, and shot him without warning when he aimed what they thought was a gun in their general direction.” To the best I can tell no one has been charged or even reprimanded, and it isn’t likely that anyone will be. His right to bear arms turns out not to have been very meaningful.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/12/man-killed-by-long-beach-police-was-holding-a-water-nozzle.html

What he was brandishing looked a bit like a gun. The police said he aimed it at them, but it turns out that he was entirely unaware that there were any police – or anyone else – in his immediate vicinity. He was just sitting there playing with a toy gun. Subjects are not permitted to do such things, lest they offend their protectors, whose first concern is self defense.

In any event, California will shortly forbid its subjects from openly carrying even an unloaded weapon. Concealed weapons permits in California vary from easy to get – I had one when we lived in Buena Park because the permit is discretionary with the local Chief of Police and he was very reasonable about such things – to nearly impossible in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Permits are also discretionary with the County Sheriff, which is an elected position in California, and it is said that sufficient campaign contributions plus an arrest-free record will get you a carry permit in Los Angeles; I wouldn’t know how accurate that rumor is.)

Salve, sclave.

It’s ugly in Libya. Qaddaffi has abandoned Tripoli and taken to the desert. He probably took much of his stash of Kruger Rands and other gold coins with him; it is likely that he has enough to pay for a mercenary army capable of holding portions of Libya for years to come. He can hire people to conduct guerrilla warfare including assassinations of rebel leaders, use IED’s to create terror and unrest anywhere he likes, and generally keep Libya in a state of unrest. A Rebel attempt to dislodge him from his latest stronghold were repulsed, and the rebel forces fled in disorganized array to regroup.

The question now is whether the rebels can induce NATO to continue air strikes to aid their war of liberation against area increasingly less willing to be liberated? NATO can break things and kill people. Its UN mandate is to break things and kill people in order to prevent Khadafi from slaughtering civilians. It is not clear that the US or NATO understands how to use air and sea power to prevent a desert-based guerrilla force from terrorists acts. Our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan may be relevant here. Perhaps the SAS, the Foreign Legion, and the Italian special forces will do better in Libya.

Left to themselves, things will probably go on about as they have. Most of Tripolitania has been freed of pro-Khaddaffi organized forces; covert Khaddafi terrorists remain. Do recall that he was able to recruit agents for international terrorist actions before the uprisings began.

Historically the outcome of situations like this has been the rise of a Caesar who will come as the Friend of the People to Restore Order. Or Caesar’s son, or nephew. Or an adopted son. Or anyone who can command the allegiance of the arms bearers.

It’s ugly in Egypt. Egypt was “liberated” by huge crowds in Cairo and smaller demonstrations in the rest of the country, aided by the Egyptian Army which was receptive to the notion that Mubarak should step down without automatic succession by his sons, but is increasingly uncomfortable with the view of their former leader on display helpless on a gurney in a cage. They of all know that the uprising wasn’t a genuine act of the Egyptian people. Many of those camped out in the public squares were there because they could afford to be there – they didn’t have to work. And someone else was feeding them. And while they were there the tourist industry was dead. The bizarre incident of the camel drivers and others mounted on horses attempting to drive the insurgents out of the square was a desperate attempt by the bankrupted tourist workers to end the madness so their livelihood could be restored.

The Lara Logan incident was precursor to the recent sacking of the Israeli Embassy. The Egyptian Army doesn’t want a new war with Israel. It is unknown what most of the Egyptian people want. The Cairo mobs want a war with Israel. The Mamelukes do not, but don’t quite know what to do now. The Israelis are quietly mobilizing while the UN debates the notion of granting statehood to Palestine. Perhaps the US and Britain will veto the notion. Perhaps not. Israel quietly mobilizes, which is prudent.

We live in interesting times.

We have a lot of interesting mail. I’ll see how much of it I can put together. I have been a bit under the weather for the week and I have fallen far behind. Apologies.