Right, Left, or Straight

Posted on 2008-05-29 by David

I think that Lyall is right in suggesting that we are asking the wrong question in the education debate. He identifies the current question as “How can we reform, improve our system of education today?” He believes that the correct question if we are to come to the answers we need is “What is the purpose of education?”

I think the critical distinction between those questions is that the one we are asking publicly is equivalent to a game we used to play in the car as kids called "Right, Left, or Straight." (RLS for short.) In that game we would drive until we got to an intersection and then Mom would call out "Right, left, or straight?" We would then vote (by who yelled the loudest generally) to determine which available path we would take. There was no right answer to the question, but there was also no knowing where we would end up before it was time to return home. The question we should be asking is like sitting down in a family council and asking where we want to vacation this year. Again there is no single right answer, but there are plenty of places you would not want to go where you might find yourself if you just hopped in the car and played RLS for your summer vacation.

The first option can be fun, but not very productive. It is useful in changing course, but not in determining the desirable outcome. Once you have determined the desired destination then there is an innate game of RLS to arrive there (the difference being that there is now a correct answer to the question when you come to an intersection).

My answer to Lyall’s new and improved question was that the purpose of education should be to provide the foundation of basic skills like the three R’s and to teach students how to face challenges and find answers to questions. Lyall contends that there is another part to education that involves (as I interpret it) education regarding right and wrong, fair play, and other generic moral issues.

Who is right? Join the discussion by commenting here or there.

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Federalist Nos. 15 – 16

Posted on 2008-05-27 by David

Federalist Nos. 15 and 16 led me to two conclusions. First, Hamilton is accusing those who oppose the Constitution of hoping for a different result by repeating their previous actions (sounds like our modern politics of perpetual incumbency). Second, the confederacy that Hamilton describes that preceded our current (theoretically) Constitutional government sounds a lot like the United Nations – it lacked sufficient authority to effectively enforce its edicts on its members. This tells me that the U.N. is bound to be ineffective until it disintegrates or is replaced by a stronger version of world government.

I’d hate to think what would happen if the U.N. were given better enforcement powers unless it is done with a very firm limitation on what areas of life the U.N. had authority to regulate (as our federal government had at its inception).

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Living Memorials

Posted on 2008-05-26 by David

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am lousy about any traditional holiday celebration, but Memorial Day just passed me by without making any more impression than any other rainy day. No, I’m not bitter at having my plans ruined by the weather – my plans proceeded without any interruption. It’s not that I dislike any aspect of the holiday – I think Memorial Day is among the better holidays on the calendar.

I guess this grinch just wonders what value there is in one more day for us to have a small ceremony for an hour and then spend the rest of our lives neither thinking about those who paid the price for freedom nor working to ensure that we don’t throw away what they paid so dearly to obtain.

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Changing the System

Posted on 2008-05-24 by David

The Ogden Standard Examiner had a great guest commentary by the chairwoman of the Weber County Democratic Party. LaFray Kelley asks a good question:

Why should the presence or absence of an ex-Massachusetts governor on the ballot for president have any influence on your judgment over how well your local state legislators have done in representing your interests? It’s obvious when you think about it: Who’s on the ballot for president has nothing at all to do with how your state and local elected representatives are doing.

Unfortunately she fails to recognize that there is an answer to her question that is worth considering about our political culture. The presence or absence of an ex-Massachussetts governor may have no bearing on how our local or state elected officials are doing, but because of our high interest in Utah regarding this particular ex-governor his presence or absence does effect our general interest in casting a ballot at all in November. The problem is that our political culture is biased towards the highest levels of government when it comes time to perform our civic duties.

Ms. Kelley quite accurately states that our votes are more likely to affect the outcome of local and state races and that those races have a greater impact on our lives.

The message here is simple: Exercise your right to vote for whomever you want for president, but recognize your votes for state and local candidates are far more important — and have far more impact. These are the votes where you have a civic duty to closely examine the issues and the candidates. It is especially important to find out about nonincumbent candidates, so you understand what your choices are. This admittedly will take extra effort, but that effort is perhaps the most important duty you will exercise as a citizen.

While I fully agree with Ms. Kelley on her conclusions I am forced into skepticism regarding her motives for two reasons. First, the party she represents is the party that most clearly espouses the attitude that promotes the top-down approach to government, especially in social issues. Second, her timing is off. If we really want to change the system we should be starting at the precinct caucus meetings and during the primary season. By putting her commentary out after the state conventions she has assured that there are very few primaries available to consider non-incumbent candidates. For the most part, our only options are for the general election in November and the vast majority of us can choose between an incumbent (not changing the system) who is a Republican, or a non-incumbent (who she has just touted as the avenue for change) who is a Democrat like her.

Such timing undercuts the level application across parties that any argument for change should have because change is not just changing parties, it is changing the political system by examining the candidates and issues before your choices are whittled down to one or two. That truly is “perhaps the most important duty you will exercise as a citizen.”

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Power as an End

Posted on 2008-05-23 by David

Cal Thomas sums up America’s current political situation quite succinctly:

Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. Duncan complains that conservative, pro-life, pro-gun Democrats won three special elections by stealing GOP issues.

“We can’t let the Democrats take our issues,” Duncan told the New York Times. “We can’t let them pretend to be conservatives and co-opt the middle and win these elections. We have to get the attention of our incumbents and candidates and make sure they understand this.”

Democrats didn’t steal your issues, sir. You abandoned them. Your party discarded them.

The current situation is that Democrats as a party have been enough out of power for long enough that the party is more tolerant of a wider range of viewpoints under its banner. Conversely, the Republican party has been in power for so long that being in power has become their primary goal and they have consequently abandoned their principles whenever they felt it was necessary to achieve that goal.

Having two strong parties that espouse different principles so that the people can choose which principles they believe in is not entirely a bad thing. Having two parties that use principles merely as tools to gain and retain power in the government is an entirely different story.

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A Step In The Right Direction

Posted on 2008-05-22 by David

I was disappointed today when I heard news of a hearing in the Texas-FLDS fiasco where a mother was trying to get custody of her nine month old baby. What surprised me was the age of the child since my understanding was that mothers of children under 1 year had been allowed to stay with their children. Thankfully it was only a short time later that I stumbled upon the best news I have yet heard in this case – an appeals court overturned the ruling that put all those children in state custody. The news was:

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were ”legally and factually insufficient” under Texas law. . . . The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.

This was exciting news for two reasons – first, a bad ruling was overturned; second, this ruling indicates that children are not to be taken from their homes without a court hearing unless they are in immediate danger. That standard of immediate danger is perfectly reasonable and it’s good to see a court recognize that the legal standard was not met in this case of abduction. (Anyone who argues that this was not an abduction had better go look up the word because unlike the CPS argument of immediate danger this case perfectly matches the definition of abduction.)

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Federalist Nos. 13 – 14

Posted on 2008-05-21 by David

Federalist No. 13 left me with imagining one of two conclusions based on the following statement:

Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole.

The two conclusions that I can draw from this – one of which must be true – are that Hamilton could not conceive (or did not consider) the incredible waste that could be perpetrated by a central government or else we are extremely lucky not to have the amount of waste we are paying for be multiplied by a number of regional confederacies with independent central governments.

Federalist No. 14 attempts to draw a clear distinction which many people today still do not understand. It is a distinction which is vital to having our government function properly.

The error which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy, applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true distinction between these forms . . . is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents.

The confusion around this issue is evidence of the fact that Americans must be made – being born in this nation is no guarantee of understanding and promoting the ideas of liberty and limited representative government that brought our nation to its greatness.

What I had never realized before was the fact that there was apparently widespread confusion back in the 18th century concerning the difference between a republic and a democracy. Today we suffer from two problems in our country regarding government. One, many people mistakenly believe that we are a democracy and try to treat government function as such. Two, some people properly recognize the republican form of our government and mistake or ignore the fact that some issues should be decided in a democratic manner by the people rather than placing more expansive powers in the hands of their elected representatives. This is especially true on issues such as congressional pay where there is an inherent conflict of interest on the part of those representatives.

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What Is A Billion

Posted on 2008-05-20 by David

I got a forwarded email about putting some perspective on what “a Billion” is and how easily politicians throw around numbers on that order of magnitude. Here’s a summary from the email that attempts to put some perspective on the “one billion” figure:

    • A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
    • A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
    • A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
    • A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
    • A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let’s take a look at New Orleans It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division. Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean?

    • Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.
    • Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.
    • Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

The first two numbers got me thinking because if it was 1959 a billion seconds ago then it was 1000 B.C. a billion minutes ago. It turns out that a billion seconds is 31.7 years (so 1976) and a billion minutes is 1901 years (107 A.D.). If those numbers were calculated in 1992 then the 1959 number would be correct for a billion seconds and the billion minutes would have been nearly 60 years after Jesus died.

Despite that discrepancy, the value of $250 Billion dollars for New Orleans should open our eyes to the sloppy and generous spending practices of Washington. $250 Billion is nearly $1000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. Our government thinks that it can stimulate the entire national economy for less than it would take to rebuild New Orleans ($165 Billion vs $250 Billion). With numbers like that anyone should start being interested in making our government more fiscally conservative.

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Increasing City Council Pay

Posted on 2008-05-19 by David

The news that our mayor asked city council to raise his pay and theirs got me thinking about this issue more closely than I’ve ever thought about it before. It makes sense that it would be a sensitive issue, but even in the private sector I’m a bit leery of giving someone the power to set their own level of compensation with money from other people. Congress is a good example of the abuse of this power as they have set a system of automatic pay increases (every year as I recall) unless they take action to prevent the pay increase.

I’m not accusing our city council of anything even remotely like that but I wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts or experience with this type of issue that might help shape my position. I’m trying to balance fair compensation with maintaining the integrity of the public service aspect of serving in city government as an elected officer. I’ll share my position after I firm it up a bit. I plan to be talking with Johnny Revill (a member of our city council) about the issue since he lives near me.

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Federalist Nos. 11 – 12

Posted on 2008-05-16 by David

Federalist Nos. 11 – 12 follow the same overarching argument that many of their predecessors followed. It can be boiled down to the truths concerning economies of scale. A larger union has great advantages over a smaller nation in many aspects of government. Number 12, which deals with government revenue, reminded me of a few issues related to taxes that I had not remembered and a few that I had never considered.

One of the things that has always been a pet peeve of mine is the incessant focus on the necessity of an ever expanding economy. I was reminded of why that would be when I read:

The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity (speed) with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury.

Money is only valuable because of the fact that it acts as a lubricant in the mechanisms of commerce. Because of our ever expanding demands for government services and intervention the government has an ever increasing need to generate more and more revenue through taxation and that is best done by faster and faster monetary circulation – although they are not above inserting more otherwise worthless paper into the system to increase their revenue when they feel it is necessary.

What I had never considered was the following:

It is evident from the state of the country, from the habits of the people, from the experience we have had on the point itself, that it is impracticable to raise any very considerable sums by direct taxation. Tax laws have in vain been multiplied; new methods to enforce the collection have in vain been tried; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed, and the treasuries of the States have remained empty. . . . No person acquainted with what happens in other countries will be surprised at this circumstance. In so opulent a nation as that of Britain, where direct taxes from superior wealth must be much more tolerable, and, from the vigor of the government, much more practicable, than in America, far the greatest part of the national revenue is derived from taxes of the indirect kind, from imposts, and from excises.

It is that understanding about the difficulty of collecting direct taxes (such as income tax) that led our founders to codify in the constitution that the federal government should not have the power to levy an income tax. Indeed, reading that statement makes the FairTax proposal look all the more enticing since it rests on indirect taxation.

If anyone doubts the reality of the assertion that direct taxes are harder to collect consider the amount of money and time that Americans spend each year in tax preparation in an effort to pay as little income tax as they can and then combine that with the amount of money and time the IRS spends trying to ensure that nobody failed to pay their allotted share of income tax. Now compare that vast sum with the amount of time and money that people spend trying to avoid indirect taxes like a sales tax.

That explains why the only patriotic thing to do with our stimulus checks is to spend them the day we get them if not before.

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