Why Can't (uncle) Sammy Learn?

RealClearPolitics - Why Can't Uncle Sam Learn?

In 1983, three years after Jimmy Carter paid his debt to teachers' unions by creating the Education Department, a national commission declared America "a nation at risk": "If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war." So in 1984, Ronald Reagan decreed improvements.

They did not materialize, so in 1994 Congress decreed that by 2000 the high school graduation rate would be "at least" 90 percent and students would be "first in the world in mathematics and science achievement." Even inflated by "social promotions," the graduation rate in 2000 was about 75 percent (it peaked at 77.1 in 1969), and among 38 nations surveyed, Americans ranked 19th in mathematics, just below Latvians, and 18th in science, just below Bulgarians.

How shocking. Our education system is nearly all government run, yet our test scores continue to get worse and worse. How can that be? We are about to turn our medical system over to the government, yet our education is already firmly in government hands and it is an expensive shambles.

Why can't the Government and the American people learn?:

1. The MSM refuses to repetitively report the facts on the issue
2. We really don't want to believe that we have thrown our money down a hole while giving our children a worse and worse education, squandering our once enviable position in world education to union kickbacks and ideological foolishness.
   

The Left Starts to Worry

My Inflation Nightmare - Magazine - The Atlantic

Kinsley is a liberal in good standing -- writing for the Atlantic these days, formerly the leftward foil for such right wing heavies as none other than William F Buckley himself, and that morose paleoconservative, Patrick Buchanan.

Naturally is is "all Bush and the Republican's fault", but he is a bit concerned about inflation. Golly, can't we just run multi-Trillion dollar deficits forever as long as we have a liberal president? Maybe Kinsley actually doesn't like the idea of 30 or 40 years of life savings suddenly being barely able to buy a decent meal.

Sounds like an alarmist to me -- seems like one ought listen to Paul Krugman, he has a Nobel prize, saw deficits as a severe danger under Bush, but now they are no problem  at all, and in fact we need more. Paul must be on to something -- I imagine the universe is simply ideological. Makes sense to me.

Left and Right, Looking at the Other

RealClearPolitics - In Praise of the Rotation of Power

Gap in world view of Democrats, Republicans

A couple of articles, one from the right and one from the left, trying to find the center. Naturally I think the one from the right has a better plan, but I'd like to make a couple statements in prelude.

1. Both of them pretty much assume that there isn't such a thing as "correct and incorrect" -- there are just different views, largely capable of being aligned along the traditional left-right divides, and truth is "someplace in the middle". I believe that science, religion, philosophy, and our founding fathers would all reject that general concept. The search for truth, beauty, happiness, a better world, and the perfect Scotch are all admirable. The muddy middle will never provide any of those. (lest we settle on blended whiskey!)
   
2. The whole assumption that humans of any sort -- by virtue of a brilliant national system, lots of conversation and study or just blind luck will arrive at something clearly best and agreeable to anything like "all" is at best wishful thinking and most likely simple hubris.

 By faith, we are a fallen race in desperate need of eternal salvation, by science we are momentary side effects of a completely random universe, froth on an unknown sea of probability, by philosophy, it is questionable if either we or what we think is knowledge exists at all.

There is nothing as scary as humans who by their own supposed intelligence, study, insight, breeding or position feel that they have cornered some piece of "truth". Before a set of ideals gets to be taken seriously as "truth", I'd like to see something over a billion people subscribing to it and at least a couple millennia of practice, so we can see how things are working out for it and any other pretenders to the "truth crowd".

If multiple scientists or technologists can do experiments that are repeatable or build machines that work to verify their truths, I'm willing to let them into the technical truth door much quicker.

Let's take the left view of "the problem" first:

Republicans generally assume:

-- Don't do anything that interferes with business; i.e., hands off the free-market system.

-- Health care is a business and must be strictly run as such; health care is thus a privilege that one must earn.

-- Clear incentives must be given to business so that it will offer health care to its employees and will be motivated to operate it as a business.

-- Government is the enemy; for some, it is the devil itself; it must be fought tooth and nail because it can't be trusted to do anything competently and effectively.

These are the sorts of attempts at stating your oppositions opinions that give straw men a bad name.

1. Today's Republicans are at best a tiny fraction less to the big government left than Democrats. There is NO "gulf". For our founding fathers, "left" was "control" of ANY sort -- monarch, dictator, socialist, fascist, communist, etc., Right was "chaos" ... anarchy, no government at all. "Don't do anything" is way off the mark.
2. Healthcare can be a business without it either being a privilege. I'm not sure what their point would be other than contrast, but health care is a PRODUCT / SERVICE and SOMEONE has to pay for it. 
3. I don't think Republicans care so much if a business gives it's employees health coverage. The decision for business ought to be primarily a business decision -- can health benefits be provided at a rate that is going to make them a useful incentive to finding and retaining the kind of employees that we want?
4. As I said in 1, any sort of Republican today is WAY off anything like this position. It is a completely gross overstatement of a position that not even the most libertarian hold. 

In sharp contrast, Democrats generally assume:

-- Business must be strongly regulated because it cannot be trusted to act in the public interest.

-- Health care is not a business because when one is sick, one cannot shop for alternatives. Health care is a fundamental right for all, not a privilege for those who can afford it. Even those with coverage are not treated fairly by for-profit health-insurance companies.

-- Incentives must be offered to not-for-profits so that they will be motivated to enter health care.

-- Big business is the enemy. It is not true that business is always more efficient.

I can see why the liberals are liberals!:

1. Well of course business doesn't explicitly act in the public interest. Adam Smith: "It isnot from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the bakerthat we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Liberals have come to doubt the foundation of the American economy that you can BETTER trust people and business acting in their self interest than you can trust government bureaucrats and elected officials, the former with the most job security outside of the SOTUS, and the latter intent on purchasing their next election with others tax money and contributions from their friends. 
   
2. What is health care, what is insurance, what is emergency surgery, what is elective. There aren't that many "emergency abortions" compared to the total, nor that many emergency prescriptions for Viagra for that matter. We already treat emergency health care as a fundamental right. The fair is in August (in this town). Other than that, I'm afraid that even the most left wing will eventually grow up enough to understand that fact that "life is not fair". "Progressives" apparently find the transfer of 15% of the earning power of even the poorest young person to elderly people that are as a group much more wealthy to be "fair". That does not make it so, any more than the treatment of everyone by insurance companies, the government, the weather, nor life in general can be expected to be "fair".  Welcome to this planet. 
3. Why would "not for profits" react to "incentives" as opposed to people with jobs? Liberals seem to think that they can tax productivity like crazy, and nobody will react to DISincentives. What gives? How many hospitals in the US are connected to churches? Do liberals need "incentives" to do good? I thought they were just naturally good, and conservatives were naturally bad. This is making my head hurt. 
4. Big business certainly is the enemy of most democrats today, but it has little to do with big business. "More efficient than what?" is the operative question. When hiking and attacked by a bear, you don't have to outrun the bear, just the guy you are hiking with -- that is why conservatives never hike alone and are kind to slow friends. If one wants to tax, regulate, demonize, create vast uncertainty in the markets and treat business like a pariah, it is possible to be enemies. Business doesn't have to ALWAYS be more efficient, it just has to USUALLY be more efficient than a giant government with officials buying votes and bureaucrats with cushy lifetime jobs, huge benefits, and very little motivation to do anything. If "not for profits" need incentives, imagine how much of an incentive a government workers are going to need to outdo people in business that might see their stock go up and get paid for performance! Business doesn't need to be "always more efficient", it just has to be more efficient than government on average!

I DO want to give credit where credit is due -- the idea of attempting to get at some of the core differences is the only way forward that I can imagine.

Now on to Charles, whom I'm afraid is way too charitable to liberals, but again, his general direction is good. Please read all of both articles, especially Charles, he is a MUCH better writer than I.

• He points out that BO is following the Bush strategy 100% in Iraq and is in his 2nd attempt at an improvement in Afghanistan and has instituted a "surge". The left is extremely sanguine -- there is no outcry, no talk of not giving money for the surge, no talk of the "costly wars". All is well. The rotation of power has legitimized the wars. I find this to be wishful -- were a Republican to take over as President in '12 and there be a need to deploy troops, I'd assert that the left would yet again become "anti-war". Anyone with a memory could realize that there was no principle involved there other than political gain at the expense of the troops and the safety of the country. Indeed, there was no outcry from the "anti-war" left over Slick Willie sending troops to Kosovo. Charles is magnanimous, the left in this country has demonstrated already more than once, and I'm sure will demonstrate again that partisanship no longer even comes CLOSE to stopping at the waters edge!
• His points on things like the Patriot Act being legitimized like the wars is probably well taken as well. Although again, I'd argue that Democrats will simply change their stripes if power changes again. 
• I find his discussion of the BO attack on Reaganism to be likely disingenuous. Where the standards of the Senate, strongly espoused by the Democrats and the media in '05 during the conflict over appointments, to be followed, the election of Scott Brown would have been the end of BOcare. However, THAT "rotation of power" has now been usurped. As we look at 2005 and listen to what was said both by the Democrats and the MSM at that time, we can see that they are actively attempting yet another coup much like their campaign finance push. For REPUBLICANS anything going through the Senate must take 60 votes, including a presidential appointment. For DEMOCRATS, if you can pass BOcare with 51, you can pass ANYTHING! Same as campaign finance -- Republicans must follow campaign finance rules to the T else the MSM outcry drowns all other activity. Slick Willie and especially BO have completely ignored any regulation at all and raised and spent to their heats content -- including from foreign sources. 

Reading both is an interesting contrast however. The left, even in it's supposed attempt to "look at both sides" is pretty much absolutist, while Charles seems to be bending over backward to see how lefties can completely come to understand reality once they have experienced policy under their own guy. If only it were so. 

Don't Cry For Me "Argentena"

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=1275acd08328d456&mt=application%2Fvnd.ms-powerpoint&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3Da673b014be%26view%3Datt%26th%3D1275acd08328d456%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbRfHX-l27z-hHwLeAcLw4BINuP18w&pli=1

Worth a pass through. 

Lincoln to BO to Roberts

Power Line - A troubling image

Short and pithy. How a statesman talks and acts vs a Luo.

How sad it is to recall that just over a year ago the left thought BO might be "another Lincoln". Was he going to free anyone? or just our pocketbooks?

Rahmbo for President

RealClearPolitics - Maybe Rahm Should Be President

Good summary of the Rahm / Milbank column lefty tempest. I like his last paragraph:

Beyond the disloyalty and all that, the real reason the Milbank column has enraged so many left-wing bloggers and liberal columnists is that Emanuel's understanding of the political landscape puts him in the reality-based community. And that is a community the Obama cult refuses to join.

Wisdom Vs Krugman

Krugman Got It Wrong - Forbes.com

Just read it. I especially liked this "Only if you think that hitting the most productive portions of the population is the right way to instill a sense of national unity would you want to keep this ship afloat.".

Of course, time after time we find out two things:

1). The left does not believe that the folks with the most money are "the most productive". While markets are certainly not perfect, they believe that they are FAR from even close to right and those that have the most money ought to be punished -- in life and in death.

2). Any talk of "unity" is a sham. They absolutely hate the rich -- even if you could 100% scientifically prove to them that letting the top 10% of the income range keep 75%+ of their income, they would want 50, 60, 70 or more % to be taken. The idea that high progressive tax rates are for the purpose of "helping the little man" is a smoke screen.

At least after 1980, it is as clear as anything in the economic universe that LOWER tax rates help EVERYONE -- but don't expect any on the left to be making any changes. Even if the bottom 90% of the income earners DIED as they took 70% of the top 10% income, they would do it because kind of like the old story of the scorpion and the camel**, "that is their nature".

** Scorpion and Camel, Both the scorpion and the camel needed to cross a river. There were difficult rocks that needed to be navigated around, but when the camel swam, he was not able to see well. The scorpion suggested that they team up. The camel was of course concerned about being stung, but the scorpion assured him "that would be foolish, I'd drown". Finally convinced, they set out. 3/4 of the way to the other side, the scorpion stings him. Gasping his last and going down, the camel asks "why did you do that, now you will die too". The scorpion replied "it's my nature".

Moral; you really can deal with someone that is driven by greed, lust for power, etc. What you can't deal with is the equivalent of a suicide bomber -- someone that is willing to die for their "cause" even if it helps nobody. The left in this country has grudging respect for Islamic fascists as they did for Hitler because "they get the job done". They tend to be the reverse of the guy walking on the beach throwing starfish back into the sea. When asked "You don't really think you can help them all do you?", he responds, "I can help that one". If they can't ALL be helped, then NONE will be!!

Many "liberals" would rather that one rich person be "shown the light" of how awful it is to not have money, then have 10K people have 20% more income. The vast majority of "the rich" would likely be happier in poverty than your typical liberal is in plenty, because they long ago figured it out that it wasn't about money anyway.

Different Goals Than Stated

Power Line - Cause and Effect

Good little short segment on BOs attacks against insurance companies and how the "rising rate problem" could be easily fixed. Of course, if it WAS fixed, that would remove the need for BOcare, which is NOT something this president would find useful.

Parable of the Prius

Driver: My Prius took me for a ride - CNN.com

Even though with it's batteries made in 3 countries and the need to replace them to get to 100K miles, the Prius has a 100K mile environmental footprint worse than a Hummer, liberals love it. It became THE "Statement Car". Liberals love "statements" -- the real world, not so much. Hope and change and stuff.

When faced with a problem, the typical liberal answer is "let the government solve it", and indeed in this case it took a lot of officers, cell phone and radio to bring the brilliant liberal statement car to rest. In the end, he finally shut it off.

The tactic worked, and the car slowed to about 50 mph. Sikes said he was able to shut off the car, and it rolled to a stop. The responding officer, Todd Neibert, positioned his patrol car in front of the Prius as a precaution to prevent it from moving again.

How much braying have we listened to about the brilliance of the Prius? How many simple examples does it take before we finallly realize that hubris, wishful thinking and having a hissy fit when things don't go our way is a really poor substitute for a rational appraisal of problems, solutions and taking simple but effective actions?

The answer here is the same as in BOcare, shut the damned thing off in the first place, before it takes the high speed joy ride that is going to hurt 300 million people.

TX beats CA

Michael Barone : Low-Tax Texas Beats Big-Government California - Townhall.com

Good article for the reality based. Unfortunately, don't expect any of the left including the current powers in DC to take any notice!

Republicans Over the Top

 CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time - Blogs from CNN.com

I agree completely, BO as "The Joker", Nancy P as "Cruella" and especially Harry Reid as "Scooby". These innocent cartoon characters never did anything that should cause them to be compared to these vermin! Cruella has both a larger heart and is much better looking, Scooby is twice as smart as Harry, not to mention far more courageous and of course trustworthy.

To compare BO to the Joker? Great actors like Jack and Ledger have played the Joker. The Joker is a character with depth to go with his malevolence, BO is just a smooth tongued villain with a crooked smile. Those are a dime a dozen, he isn't that much more evil than Harry and Nancy. Hopefully Jack will stand up for the Joker, he would make a far better president than BO. More creative, and with a much firmer grasp on reality.

For Want of A Prince

Friedman Aflame by Jonah Goldberg on National Review / Digital

Little bit long, but I think a pretty reasonable discussion of Friedman, a journalist that has slipped the surly bonds of his profession and become a cause celeb. No question that Friedman is very smart, he seems to have gotten to that level of smartness where he believes that he looks at the "little people" and sees that if only this anchor called democracy could be removed, then potentially much greater things could be achieved.

Ah yes, springtime in Munich!

Ten Cents on the Dollar

RealClearPolitics - The Case for High-Deductible Health Insurance

Essentially, we all want to live forever. This makes health care a very desirable good. At the same time, the normal restraints imposed by price are frequently lacking. Today, of every dollar spent on health care in this country, just 13 cents is paid for by the person actually consuming the goods or services. Roughly half is paid for by government, and the remainder is covered by private insurance. And, as long as someone else is paying, consumers have every reason to consume as much health care as is available.

How likely is it that people will make smart purchasing decisions when they are only paying 13 cents on every dollar being spent for a good? What would happen if food bills were covered that way? Bar tabs? Women's clothing? I think we all realize that prices in all those areas would rise rapidly.

So what would make sense for health care? It would seem pretty obvious that an INCREASE in the deductibles, and instituting some form of mandatory health savings accounts would be a superb idea. So what do BO and company want to do? Well, the opposite of course! They are out to make the situation WORSE!

The president actually denounced high-deductible insurance and greater consumer cost sharing as "not real insurance." Both the House and Senate versions of health reform reduce co-payments and all but eliminate policies with high-deductibles. No co-payments at all are allowed for a wide variety of broadly-defined "preventive" services. The consumer share of health spending will actually decline to just ten cents of every dollar by 2019.

This all but guarantees that health care costs and spending will continue their unsustainable path. And that is a path leading to more debt, higher taxes, fewer jobs and a reduced standard of living for all Americans.

Health care reform cannot just be about giving more stuff to more people. It should be about actually "reforming" the system. That means scrapping the current bills, and crafting the type of reform that makes consumers responsible for their health care decisions.

Never Illusioned

RealClearPolitics - Why the Health Care Bill is a Failure

I love Charles summation: "Surprised? You can only be disillusioned if you were once illusioned."

It is the part of conservatism that is actually quite sad, the only antidote that I have ever found is religious faith and hope for a better life to come beyond the grave. Sad because at it's core, conservatism is acceptance that the "human condition" is permanent, and not significantly perfectible. We are terminal, and in even the quite short run in terms of even well understood human history, attempts at improvement are at best mildly palliative, and more commonly disastrous to the point of mass killing (see communism and fascism, final chapters still being written on socialism / liberalism).

Democrat programs are the kind of program that sound a far happier note, with the exception of one small item. As Charles puts it, "the disagreeable  fact of no free lunch". Well, yes, sort of like death, taxes, and too many calories, the "Party of having a party", that agreeable jackass, seems to always forget about the hangover.

Don't read me, go read Charles, he is much better.

Gun Insanity

Supreme Court to address limits of gun control - CNN.com

One definition of insanity is not being in touch with reality.

Chicago passed its ban on handguns in 1982, one of the most restrictive in the U.S. It is that law that is being challenged in the Supreme Court.

A study last year by economist Carl Moody of William & Mary College found that after the ban was imposed, city crime rates rose significantly, almost immediately. The city is more dangerous now than it was before the ban, the study concluded, relative to the 24 largest American cities.

Chicago passed a ban in '82 and crime rates ROSE. GUNS ARE BANNED IN CHICAGO!!!! When guns are banned, criminals have MORE reason to use a gun, it gives them greater leverage. What part of this is hard to understand?

This 53-year-old mother of eight says the city has to do something to stop the fear and pain of the violence. "We have enough guns in our communities already, you know, that we're afraid of, and now we've got to worry about everybody living next door to each other with guns and more guns" if the ban is repealed. "Our children are traumatized by the violence, and it's mostly gun violence."

So, here we have a woman who knows the situation today with guns banned is WORSE than in communities where they are not banned. She knows that there are plenty of guns in Chicago, because if you are a criminal, you do crime -- a "ban" doesn't apply to you, it applies to law abiding citizens. So the criminals have guns and the law abiding citizens do not, unsurprisingly, the criminals increasingly make use of that advantage.

BUT, she believes that removing a ban which made crime worse is going to make crime worse yet again. What will make it better? She doesn't know. Insanity?

BTW, if there is a question on the constitution applying to states, then what about abortion? Roe V Wade at the Federal level ought to have only applied to DC.