There are some who call World War II the last 'good war.' I don't know who those people are, nor do I believe that any war can be judged to be 'good.' But I think I understand the comment.
In WWII, the enemy troops wore uniforms, used well-labeled equipment, and held defined positions of geography. There was 'friendly territory' and 'enemy territory.' The war ended when the leaders of the enemy government surrendered, after which their troops laid down their arms and ceased hostility.
Then came the wars in Korea and Vietnam. While the American troops were in uniform, the enemy might be a uniformed soldier, or he might be the teenager who stops by the post every day to mooch a cold soda. The definition of 'friendly territory' became a little more transient as the fighting moved from the battlefield to the village. An American Army or Marine unit could sweep through a village and drive out all the bad guys, but the Americans didn't stay to occupy and defend the village, and the bad guys just moved back in. In fact, the villagers might not have been good guys in the first place.
Or they might be folks who are just trying to survive. While some of the civilians might be fervent followers of whatever revolutionary movement is seeking control, most are just trying to get along without getting killed. The trouble is, it's hard to tell the revolutionaries from those who just want the fighting to stop. American policy has alway been to give the benefit of the doubt to the people, assuming them to be good guys unless they are actually observed trying to do harm. And so, American soldiers and Marines got regularly killed by bad guys hiding in plain sight.
Eventually, our guys get tired of getting picked off this way. After seeing a few of their buddies turned into goo by people they thought they were helping, the fuse finally blows and our guys kill everyone and everything not in an American uniform. And then they get called murderers.
The crime is in putting our troops in this position in the first place. If we can't tell who the enemy is by looking at them, then our troops don't belong there. If the mission isn't to drive invaders from our soil or that of our allies, we shouldn't go. Anything else is a pre-emptive invasion on our part -- and few Americans feel good about being invaders.
WWII wasn't the last 'good war,' if you accept my definition that a 'good war' is one in which our troops can have confidence who is a good guy and who is a bad guy, and that their objective is to get the enemy to surrender by taking away their battlefield positions and destroying their logistics capability.
That distinction goes to Desert Storm -- the operation to kick the Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait. We got to do all the stuff we're good at -- bring all of our technology and organization to bear on a uniformed enemy in defined positions. It was over when the bad guys were driven off our ally's land, and we could declare the mission to truly be accomplished. Admittedly, fighting Iraq isn't like fighting the Soviet Union or China, so it doesn't carry the magnitude of accomplishment of winning WWII. But it was the real deal.
In any war, we ask the young men of our country to point deadly weapons at other human beings and, with little analysis, take the lives of those they have been trained to identify as our enemy. Once they pull the trigger, they will have committed an act that otherwise in our society would been considered one of the worst crimes, punishable by a life in prison or even execution. If we are going to ask them to violate that standard of morality, we need to be sure the identity of the enemy is unambiguous and the mission is just. Otherwise we risk putting them in a situation where they have to quickly evaluate whether the 'civilians' around them are good guys or bad guys, and then act decisively. We doom them to live forever with those decisions.
Iraq is Vietnam all over again. Our mission can't be to drive the invaders out, because the revolutionaries are citizens of that same country. We can't take territory because we are already in the country we're trying to 'free.' Note that I'm not saying that this is a bad thing to do. Helping a country move from dictatorship to democracy is a good thing. But it's not a mission our military forces are built to carry out.
Big wars are won with strategy, tactics, training, leadership and execution. To that you add heroism and a little luck. But it also takes massive manufacturing and logistics capability. To fight a sustained battle, and to win a war, an army needs a constant and massive supply of weapons, ammunition, food and medical supplies. We're pretty good at that, and it's one of the reasons we did so well in Desert Storm.
But when the winning move for the revolutionaries is simply to get the outside power to tire of the pain and leave, you don't need to have, or even want to have, big engagements on the battlefield. This is how the American revolutionaries drove the British from the American colonies. Think about the American Revolution from the perspective of the British sometime. The first battle of the American Revolution took place because the British sent a company of soldiers from Boston to Concord to destroy a weapons cache (I suppose it was the 18th century version of the search for WMDs). The colonists drove the British out of Concord not by lining up and fighting in the civilized manner, but rather by picking them off from the woods. There were a couple of big battles in the Revolutionary War, but we never really defeated the British -- we just made it more painful (and expensive) than they cared to endure. After all, the outcome of the American Revolution was not to have the Americans gain control of the British Isles. We just got them to leave here.
Taking sides in a civil war, or a revolutionary war, is not something we Americans have the stomach to do. Our own Civil War remains the bloodiest conflict we ever engaged in. That's just the way civil wars go -- fighting between brothers always gets nasty. If you want to take sides and win in a civil war, you have to be willing to fight nasty, and we don't like our soldiers and Marines to do that.
It's immoral to send our troops to fight in a nasty war but not let them fight nasty. Let's bring them home before we destroy the minds and attitudes of another generation of our young people.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
The Price of Gas
The price of gas has gone up 100% in the last year. Whose fault is it?
You know, it's the question which is the problem, and the symptom of the state of affairs in the United States today. Our country has become so huge and so complex that it is all but impossible to manage. Even at the township level, where I am most directly involved, the rhetoric is not about what is good for our community, but rather what is good for particular individuals.
Maybe things have always been this way in politics, and I'm just finally getting old enough to recognize the reality. That reality is that we have a shadow government which is "owned" by a small set of greedy and ambitious individuals, and the elected officials are pretty much their hand-picked pawns. As I commented in another blog entry, the difference between Democrats and Repblicans is negligible, and the struggle over who is in control of the White House and Congress isn't about ideology, but rather which set of puppetmasters get the keys to the kingdom for the next term. Of course, many of the puppetmasters play both sides.
So gas prices might be where they are because the puppetmasters have decided that this is the price the economy can withstand, in the same way drug pushers have to figure out how much their addict-customers can afford to pay. The pushers don't care whether the addicts thrive, only that they survive to buy drugs another day. Maybe that's exactly what the puppetmasters are thinking, and they'll keep pushing up the gas prices a little at a time, forever.
But it could be that gas prices are what they because of purely market-driven supply-and-demand microeconomic forces. Why is it not okay for the oil companies to push up gas prices until they see demand soften?
We have to be assured that the oil companies aren't engaging in price fixing -- where they get together and conspire to raise prices. But let's for a moment believe that they aren't. Why isn't it okay for them to keep raising prices until they see a decrease in demand? It's not like there is some law that says gas has to be cheap. Gasoline is not the easiest stuff in the world to make and distribute after all. First you have to find the crude oil (expensive), then you have to get it out of the ground (expensive), then you have to transport it (expensive), then you need to refine it into gasoline (expensive), then you have to transport it to market (expensive), and then you have to sell it at carefully engineered and operated gas stations (expensive). And we get to buy it for less than $3.00 gallon.
Compare that to the cost of soft drinks. Those are made from water (available pretty much everywhere), corn syrup (the grain elevators are stuffed and there's another crop on the way), and a few chemicals for color and taste. The manufacturing step is pretty straightforward compared to gasoline, and the logistics chain is much simpler. Nonetheless, we consider $4.50 for eight 20oz bottles of Gatorade to be a good price (per the current Kroger ad). That works out to $3.60 per gallon by the way.
Many folks note that the oil companies are making record profits with the gas prices so high, and think it is immoral. But don't we, the buyers, make the choice whether or not to pay that price? Our memories are so short. Back in the 1970s, we were all driving those big gas-guzzling Detroit battleships when gas was 50cents/gallon. Then the oil crisis hit, and Americans flocked to little American cars like the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega -- and to Hondas, Datsuns and Toyotas.
But then the oil prices stuck around $1 per gallon for the 90s, and we bought SUVs by the millions and continued moving further and further into the suburbs. It only took us a decade to forget the pain of high gas prices and go right back to gas gluttony. So now we start another changeover, with the early adopters buying up all the hybrid vehicles while SUVs are sitting unsold at the dealerships.
From a pure economic standpoint, it's entirely understandable that the oil companies should test the price elasticity of their product. Elasticity is the relationship between changes in price and changes in demand. The price/demand relationship is said to be elastic if raising prices lowers demand (and lowering prices increases demand), and inelastic if changes in the price don't have much effect on demand. The price/demand relationship for gasoline seems to be completely inelastic right now: regardless of the change in price, our demand stays the same. If I were the oil companies, I would keep pushing up the price until some weakness in demand is created, and then would try to figure out which combination of price and demand yield the maximum profit. That's what every other enterprise tries to do -- why is it inappropriate for the oil companies to do the same?
But you really have to be sure the oil companies are actually competing with each other. Many industries will have a 'price leader' who is big enough to set a price point for their product. Everyone else can be expected to cluster around whatever price that leader set. But some will sell for less and try to snag a little bit of the market on price alone. Others might try to charge more than the price leader by adding features or services to the product. Sometimes the little corner vendor grows up to be Wal-Mart, taking the market away from the leaders (when is the last time you shopped at Montgomery Ward?).
I guess I believe the big oil companies are still competing with each other, in the same way Coca-Cola competes with Pepsi. Coke and Pepsi spend millions on advertising to convince us that there is a really difference in between two products which are about 99% the same (water, sugar, food coloring), and they do so because taking away one point of market share from the other is worth a great deal of money. The gas companies also spend a vast amount of money on advertising? If they aren't competing with each other, why advertise at all?
I also think it's appropriate for the oil companies to make decent profits because it will give them capital to find more oil, and maybe even develop new energy sources. I heard it once said that if the railroads understood themselves to be in the transportation business, we would now be flying New York Central Airlines. But they viewed the airplane as a fad and not the future of transportation (Western Union made the same mistake with the telephone). I hope the railroads are figuring out that passenger rail travel may come back in vogue, and are investing in appropriate equipment, personnel and facilities to catch an increase in demand.
In the same way, I hope the oil companies are viewing themselves as energy companies, and are using a lot of that profit to develop better ways of making and distributing ethanol and hydrogen. They should also be the largest researchers in areas such as batteries and fuel cells. Otherwise, they should pay out some huge dividends to release capital to investors who can put it back into companies who are investing for the future. Either way, they should not be ashamed about making a profit. It's those profits which fund growth and innovation. Even if you tend to left-wing politics, you need profitable businesses to pay corporate taxes to fund your programs. Robin Hood is unemployed if there aren't any rich folks...
Bottom line, if you don't like the gas prices, get a cheaper car, use public transportation, ride your bike to work, or find some other solution. The oil companies don't owe you a cheaper price. Isn't our economy healthier in the long run if we let these high prices be the impetus to lessen our addiction to oil?
You know, it's the question which is the problem, and the symptom of the state of affairs in the United States today. Our country has become so huge and so complex that it is all but impossible to manage. Even at the township level, where I am most directly involved, the rhetoric is not about what is good for our community, but rather what is good for particular individuals.
Maybe things have always been this way in politics, and I'm just finally getting old enough to recognize the reality. That reality is that we have a shadow government which is "owned" by a small set of greedy and ambitious individuals, and the elected officials are pretty much their hand-picked pawns. As I commented in another blog entry, the difference between Democrats and Repblicans is negligible, and the struggle over who is in control of the White House and Congress isn't about ideology, but rather which set of puppetmasters get the keys to the kingdom for the next term. Of course, many of the puppetmasters play both sides.
So gas prices might be where they are because the puppetmasters have decided that this is the price the economy can withstand, in the same way drug pushers have to figure out how much their addict-customers can afford to pay. The pushers don't care whether the addicts thrive, only that they survive to buy drugs another day. Maybe that's exactly what the puppetmasters are thinking, and they'll keep pushing up the gas prices a little at a time, forever.
But it could be that gas prices are what they because of purely market-driven supply-and-demand microeconomic forces. Why is it not okay for the oil companies to push up gas prices until they see demand soften?
We have to be assured that the oil companies aren't engaging in price fixing -- where they get together and conspire to raise prices. But let's for a moment believe that they aren't. Why isn't it okay for them to keep raising prices until they see a decrease in demand? It's not like there is some law that says gas has to be cheap. Gasoline is not the easiest stuff in the world to make and distribute after all. First you have to find the crude oil (expensive), then you have to get it out of the ground (expensive), then you have to transport it (expensive), then you need to refine it into gasoline (expensive), then you have to transport it to market (expensive), and then you have to sell it at carefully engineered and operated gas stations (expensive). And we get to buy it for less than $3.00 gallon.
Compare that to the cost of soft drinks. Those are made from water (available pretty much everywhere), corn syrup (the grain elevators are stuffed and there's another crop on the way), and a few chemicals for color and taste. The manufacturing step is pretty straightforward compared to gasoline, and the logistics chain is much simpler. Nonetheless, we consider $4.50 for eight 20oz bottles of Gatorade to be a good price (per the current Kroger ad). That works out to $3.60 per gallon by the way.
Many folks note that the oil companies are making record profits with the gas prices so high, and think it is immoral. But don't we, the buyers, make the choice whether or not to pay that price? Our memories are so short. Back in the 1970s, we were all driving those big gas-guzzling Detroit battleships when gas was 50cents/gallon. Then the oil crisis hit, and Americans flocked to little American cars like the Ford Pinto and the Chevy Vega -- and to Hondas, Datsuns and Toyotas.
But then the oil prices stuck around $1 per gallon for the 90s, and we bought SUVs by the millions and continued moving further and further into the suburbs. It only took us a decade to forget the pain of high gas prices and go right back to gas gluttony. So now we start another changeover, with the early adopters buying up all the hybrid vehicles while SUVs are sitting unsold at the dealerships.
From a pure economic standpoint, it's entirely understandable that the oil companies should test the price elasticity of their product. Elasticity is the relationship between changes in price and changes in demand. The price/demand relationship is said to be elastic if raising prices lowers demand (and lowering prices increases demand), and inelastic if changes in the price don't have much effect on demand. The price/demand relationship for gasoline seems to be completely inelastic right now: regardless of the change in price, our demand stays the same. If I were the oil companies, I would keep pushing up the price until some weakness in demand is created, and then would try to figure out which combination of price and demand yield the maximum profit. That's what every other enterprise tries to do -- why is it inappropriate for the oil companies to do the same?
But you really have to be sure the oil companies are actually competing with each other. Many industries will have a 'price leader' who is big enough to set a price point for their product. Everyone else can be expected to cluster around whatever price that leader set. But some will sell for less and try to snag a little bit of the market on price alone. Others might try to charge more than the price leader by adding features or services to the product. Sometimes the little corner vendor grows up to be Wal-Mart, taking the market away from the leaders (when is the last time you shopped at Montgomery Ward?).
I guess I believe the big oil companies are still competing with each other, in the same way Coca-Cola competes with Pepsi. Coke and Pepsi spend millions on advertising to convince us that there is a really difference in between two products which are about 99% the same (water, sugar, food coloring), and they do so because taking away one point of market share from the other is worth a great deal of money. The gas companies also spend a vast amount of money on advertising? If they aren't competing with each other, why advertise at all?
I also think it's appropriate for the oil companies to make decent profits because it will give them capital to find more oil, and maybe even develop new energy sources. I heard it once said that if the railroads understood themselves to be in the transportation business, we would now be flying New York Central Airlines. But they viewed the airplane as a fad and not the future of transportation (Western Union made the same mistake with the telephone). I hope the railroads are figuring out that passenger rail travel may come back in vogue, and are investing in appropriate equipment, personnel and facilities to catch an increase in demand.
In the same way, I hope the oil companies are viewing themselves as energy companies, and are using a lot of that profit to develop better ways of making and distributing ethanol and hydrogen. They should also be the largest researchers in areas such as batteries and fuel cells. Otherwise, they should pay out some huge dividends to release capital to investors who can put it back into companies who are investing for the future. Either way, they should not be ashamed about making a profit. It's those profits which fund growth and innovation. Even if you tend to left-wing politics, you need profitable businesses to pay corporate taxes to fund your programs. Robin Hood is unemployed if there aren't any rich folks...
Bottom line, if you don't like the gas prices, get a cheaper car, use public transportation, ride your bike to work, or find some other solution. The oil companies don't owe you a cheaper price. Isn't our economy healthier in the long run if we let these high prices be the impetus to lessen our addiction to oil?
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Illegal Aliens
Here's what I believe:
- If you are inside the borders of the United States of America, you had better be a citizen or a registered guest. You can't just sneak through the back door and think we don't care. The first time you get caught, we'll ship you home. The second time we'll throw you in jail for a while, then ship you home anyway. The third time, we'll throw you in jail for life.
- We don't owe illegal aliens free healthcare, or free schooling, or free anything else. It shouldn't even be a question. See the first point.
- I don't believe we need immigrant workers in the US because they will do jobs Americans refuse to do. We Americans do some pretty crappy jobs (just watch "Dirty Jobs" on TV). How about the guy who squishes cow manure in his bare hands to figure out if the feed mix needs to be adjusted? Or how about the guy who sucks the stuff out of the Port-A-Johns?The truth of the matter is that employers can hire illegal aliens to do these kinds of jobs for a fraction of the pay that most Americans would demand. If you offered me $200,000/yr to clean out Port-A-Johns with a toothbrush, I might consider it. The point is that if we cut off the supply of illegal aliens to employers, the employers would have to bid up the pay scale until workers accept the jobs.However, there are also many cases of jobs that had been filled by Americans who get replaced by illegal alients who will do the job for less. Around where I live, most every American framing carpenter and drywaller has been replaced by a Mexican crew. Those aren't crappy jobs that Americans won't do! Some will argue that if we have to pay more for labor, the prices of goods and services will go up. Yes, that's probably true. But we're paying for it anyway through our taxes, to pay for free healthcare, and free schools, and all that stuff. Reread the prior two points. I'd rather let the free market forces figure out what labor is worth, and what products and services are worth, than have a system based on government subsidy -- which is what we have now.
- If you come in legally to work for a little while, then go back home, you are a welcome guest. It enrichens both of us to have that kind of cultural interaction. I hope I am as welcome to be a guest worker in your country as you are here.
- If you are here as our guest, and don't intend to ever go home, then in some ways, you are insulting us. You want all the benefits of citizenship without the obligations. Maybe your spouse is American, and you both decided that you wanted to live here. I guess I understand loyalty to the home country. But it seems like you are saying "I want to live in America, I just don't want to be one." That's the insult.
- If you have have come to America as a legal guest, with the dream of becoming an American citizen, then I look forward to the day you take the oath of citizenship. Welcome to your new country!
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said one of my favorite things recently when he was getting pummeled by his countrymen for his support of the US: He said it still seemed like more people were trying to get in than to get out...
Amen.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Trust
I was thinking about the concept of trust the other day.
There's a version of trust that has to do with whether I think you will do me any harm. I like to be able to walk around in a mall or a park any time of the day without worrying that someone will mug me. I certainly feel that way in my little town, even if I don't really know all the folks around me. But if I drive into the city, my level of trust towards strangers drops a little because I'm not quite so confident that there isn't a 'bad guy' in the crowd, or in the shadows.
There are places in the city where I'm quite sure my chances of walking around unscathed late at night are about nil. I would feel that no one automatically gets my trust in that situation - everyone is a potential threat. So this kind of 'trust' is about perceived risk of danger. Fortunately, I can almost always control this risk by making the choice whether or not to be someplace.
There's a non-violent form of this trust as well. For example, one wants to be able to trust friends and co-workers not cause unsolicited harm. It would be horrible to work in an environment where you felt at risk from malicious co-workers who could make life miserable, or even get you fired. But it happens. A lot.
Then there is the kind of trust that comes from what you could call Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). I first heard this phrase in connection with the Cold War when I was a kid. The theory is that neither the US nor the USSR would start a war because the other side had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world thousands of times over. It turns out that it worked. Some even feel the world is less stable today than it was during the Cold War because it was clear who the 'enemy' was, and you could feel fairly confident that no one was going to start anything, despite a lot of posturing and even a little pushing and shoving.
This is the same kind of trust you have when cops are patrolling a tough urban neighborhood. The bad guys have guns, and the cops have guns. In general it's better for everyone to not elevate a situation to gunfire.
Siblings often engage in MAD when they are young. "You tell on me and I'll tell on you" or something similar signifies an agreement to not engage their common enemy -- the parents.
Then there is the trust that one can nuture though what I call the Trust Spiral. It starts when one person make a commitment to another, then follows through on the commitment, and finally, ensures that both parties know the commitment was fulfilled. It usually starts off with something small, and each time a trust cycle is completed, the more risk the parties are willing to take (hence the spiral imagery, or even better, an ascending helix).
This is a very positive kind of trust. Parents figure out how much they can trust their kids with responsibility and kids figure out if the parents really do what they say. I think the depth and quality of the relationship between parents and kids is a function of how often they go around the Trust Spiral. Some kids and parents get alienated from each other because they quit making commitments and doing what it takes to follow through. Kids who don't develop that kind of relationship with their parents often find someone else to trust. Or they just 'drop out' and disconnect from society. These are the kids who go into a school with a gun and blow their classmates away.
The best kind of trust of all is when you know you have a friend who will protect you from harm. You grow up counting on your parents to behave this way. In the military, bonds often become so strong that one soldier will sacrifice himself to save his buddies. This goes way beyond the first case -- the "don't worry, I won't hurt you" kind of trust. This is "don't worry, I will protect you with my life." Even when you screw up. Over and over.
Amen.
There's a version of trust that has to do with whether I think you will do me any harm. I like to be able to walk around in a mall or a park any time of the day without worrying that someone will mug me. I certainly feel that way in my little town, even if I don't really know all the folks around me. But if I drive into the city, my level of trust towards strangers drops a little because I'm not quite so confident that there isn't a 'bad guy' in the crowd, or in the shadows.
There are places in the city where I'm quite sure my chances of walking around unscathed late at night are about nil. I would feel that no one automatically gets my trust in that situation - everyone is a potential threat. So this kind of 'trust' is about perceived risk of danger. Fortunately, I can almost always control this risk by making the choice whether or not to be someplace.
There's a non-violent form of this trust as well. For example, one wants to be able to trust friends and co-workers not cause unsolicited harm. It would be horrible to work in an environment where you felt at risk from malicious co-workers who could make life miserable, or even get you fired. But it happens. A lot.
Then there is the kind of trust that comes from what you could call Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). I first heard this phrase in connection with the Cold War when I was a kid. The theory is that neither the US nor the USSR would start a war because the other side had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world thousands of times over. It turns out that it worked. Some even feel the world is less stable today than it was during the Cold War because it was clear who the 'enemy' was, and you could feel fairly confident that no one was going to start anything, despite a lot of posturing and even a little pushing and shoving.
This is the same kind of trust you have when cops are patrolling a tough urban neighborhood. The bad guys have guns, and the cops have guns. In general it's better for everyone to not elevate a situation to gunfire.
Siblings often engage in MAD when they are young. "You tell on me and I'll tell on you" or something similar signifies an agreement to not engage their common enemy -- the parents.
Then there is the trust that one can nuture though what I call the Trust Spiral. It starts when one person make a commitment to another, then follows through on the commitment, and finally, ensures that both parties know the commitment was fulfilled. It usually starts off with something small, and each time a trust cycle is completed, the more risk the parties are willing to take (hence the spiral imagery, or even better, an ascending helix).
This is a very positive kind of trust. Parents figure out how much they can trust their kids with responsibility and kids figure out if the parents really do what they say. I think the depth and quality of the relationship between parents and kids is a function of how often they go around the Trust Spiral. Some kids and parents get alienated from each other because they quit making commitments and doing what it takes to follow through. Kids who don't develop that kind of relationship with their parents often find someone else to trust. Or they just 'drop out' and disconnect from society. These are the kids who go into a school with a gun and blow their classmates away.
The best kind of trust of all is when you know you have a friend who will protect you from harm. You grow up counting on your parents to behave this way. In the military, bonds often become so strong that one soldier will sacrifice himself to save his buddies. This goes way beyond the first case -- the "don't worry, I won't hurt you" kind of trust. This is "don't worry, I will protect you with my life." Even when you screw up. Over and over.
Amen.
Friday, January 27, 2006
Intelligent Design -- Liberal Style
I've finally figured it out...
... The Liberals actually believe in Intelligent Design while Conservatives believe in evolution. Sounds backwards, right? But hear me out:
A key characteristic of Conservative thought is that there should be minimal interference from government, allowing individuals to seek their own potential, with the opportunity to both excel and fail. This is exactly the way natural selection, or evolution if your prefer, works.
On the other hand, Liberals feel that the economic system needs to be managed and controlled. In their opinion, a purely market-driven, free-choice economy will fail to invest in the "right" things, therefore the government has a responsibility to substitute its will upon the public. In other words, Liberals don't really believe in allowing natural selection to take place without outside influence. They believe in Intelligent Design alright, and furthermore believe they play the role of the Designer.
I entered into this line of thinking while shaking my head at our Governor's announcement that starting with the high school Class of 2011, students in Ohio would have to show proficiency in Algebra 2, Chemistry and Physics in addition to all the current standards.
The public education system in this country is one of the greatest examples of liberal thinking -- the government knows what's best for everyone. The government mandates the existence of public schools, requires taxes to be paid to support them, and sets standards for student proficiency.
Meanwhile our economy is a train wreck in progress. The Governor's pronouncement is a bad idea because it will take resources away from the brightest students and redirect it to students who have neither the aptitude or desire to learn about math, chemistry, and physics.
He cites the increasing global competition for labor, and says that by having better trained high school graduates in Ohio, our state will be able to compete for new jobs more successfully. He forgets that the problem isn't that our workers are undereducated compared to other countries. In fact, the probability is that the skills of our workers versus those in other regions of the US and other countries compare favorably. The issue is that our cost of labor is much higher than the rest of the world. That is the legacy of 100 years of unions and government expansion, not a problem with how much education our residents acquire in high school. If you are going to add any subject matter to the high school curriculum, how about Economics?
The governor's plan will be expensive. It will cause either an incremental funding load to pay for the additional teachers required to teach everyone these subjects, or it will take away resources from "optional" programs in the school systems (e.g. programs for gifted students). He may be a Republican, but he's thinking like a Democrat in this case. I'm glad he's out of office this year.
If we want to fix our schools, we need to allow the kids and parents to have a choice where they go to school. I'm okay with a national policy which says every kid should have a chance to go to school, and would support vouchers as a way to make sure every kid has the money to do so. Schools that deliver the results the customer wants (ie - the parents & students) will attract kids and money, and those who fail to deliver will starve and die. Kids who have aptitude and desire will seek out the schools that will actually give them an education in their chosen field. The rest can be trained in a trade, or join the military, or be free to starve to death. America is the land of opportunity, not the land of guarantees.
Liberals: you support evolution -- this is how it works. Quit playing Intelligent Designer.
... The Liberals actually believe in Intelligent Design while Conservatives believe in evolution. Sounds backwards, right? But hear me out:
A key characteristic of Conservative thought is that there should be minimal interference from government, allowing individuals to seek their own potential, with the opportunity to both excel and fail. This is exactly the way natural selection, or evolution if your prefer, works.
On the other hand, Liberals feel that the economic system needs to be managed and controlled. In their opinion, a purely market-driven, free-choice economy will fail to invest in the "right" things, therefore the government has a responsibility to substitute its will upon the public. In other words, Liberals don't really believe in allowing natural selection to take place without outside influence. They believe in Intelligent Design alright, and furthermore believe they play the role of the Designer.
I entered into this line of thinking while shaking my head at our Governor's announcement that starting with the high school Class of 2011, students in Ohio would have to show proficiency in Algebra 2, Chemistry and Physics in addition to all the current standards.
The public education system in this country is one of the greatest examples of liberal thinking -- the government knows what's best for everyone. The government mandates the existence of public schools, requires taxes to be paid to support them, and sets standards for student proficiency.
Meanwhile our economy is a train wreck in progress. The Governor's pronouncement is a bad idea because it will take resources away from the brightest students and redirect it to students who have neither the aptitude or desire to learn about math, chemistry, and physics.
He cites the increasing global competition for labor, and says that by having better trained high school graduates in Ohio, our state will be able to compete for new jobs more successfully. He forgets that the problem isn't that our workers are undereducated compared to other countries. In fact, the probability is that the skills of our workers versus those in other regions of the US and other countries compare favorably. The issue is that our cost of labor is much higher than the rest of the world. That is the legacy of 100 years of unions and government expansion, not a problem with how much education our residents acquire in high school. If you are going to add any subject matter to the high school curriculum, how about Economics?
The governor's plan will be expensive. It will cause either an incremental funding load to pay for the additional teachers required to teach everyone these subjects, or it will take away resources from "optional" programs in the school systems (e.g. programs for gifted students). He may be a Republican, but he's thinking like a Democrat in this case. I'm glad he's out of office this year.
If we want to fix our schools, we need to allow the kids and parents to have a choice where they go to school. I'm okay with a national policy which says every kid should have a chance to go to school, and would support vouchers as a way to make sure every kid has the money to do so. Schools that deliver the results the customer wants (ie - the parents & students) will attract kids and money, and those who fail to deliver will starve and die. Kids who have aptitude and desire will seek out the schools that will actually give them an education in their chosen field. The rest can be trained in a trade, or join the military, or be free to starve to death. America is the land of opportunity, not the land of guarantees.
Liberals: you support evolution -- this is how it works. Quit playing Intelligent Designer.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
E=mc2 for everyone
From the Columbus Dispatch, January 26, 2006:
Bad idea Governor.
I'm okay with the notion that there is are a core set of subjects in which every high school graduate should be able to demostrate proficiency. But I don't see the sense of including Algebra 2, Physics and Chemistry in that set. Other nations take a more pragmatic view of school: sort the kids out by skill, potential and motivation before they get to high school. Some will go to schools which focus on science and mathematics. Others go to arts academies. Some go to learn a skilled trade.
The countries recognize that resources aren't limitless, and that an effort to raise the knowledge level for all students takes away resources from that fraction that can really make a difference. Our country thrived when it was contribute or starve. Only now are we seeing the harm of expending ever-increasing resources on protecting the weakest in our society -- creating a tax burden drag and preventing resources from being used to nurture our most promising young people.
Another thing most of those countries have -- compulsary military service. Most serve as enlisted personnel where they learn a skill, then those who wish can attend college. Some will attend college first, deferring their service until they graduate, and then serve as officers. Rich or poor, everyone serves -- notice that Prince William, the future King of England, is just beginning his military service.
You can't make Ohio a better place for business with this approach. Ohio was an economic powerhouse in the past century because: a) heavy industry grew around the Great Lakes; and, b) immigrant labor was cheap. Today, the major economic regions of the US are on the coasts -- east, west and south -- because state governments and unions in the Great Lakes region got greedy and ran industry out.
Major corporations have very little geographic or national loyalty. They move their production facilities to wherever their total costs are minimized. That includes cost of raw materials (including transportation), production labor costs, tax burden, and the cost of distribution. Once upon a time that meant the Great Lakes. Today it means Asia.
We've made it very hard for heavy industry to survive in the US. If we are going to participate in a global economy, then the steel workers in Cleveland are going to have to work for the same wages as the steelworkers in China. The information industry workers in Columbus are going to need to compete with the talented folks in India. The auto workers in Toledo need to work for the same wages as their opposite numbers in Korea. And the state government needs to get out of the entitlement business.
In which class will you teach our kids that they'll never have it as good as their grandparents? That's a new thing in the history of America...
To better prepare Ohio’s high-school
graduates for college or work, Gov. Bob Taft proposed a bold new plan yesterday
during his final State of the State address that would require all students to
take more math, science and foreign-language courses.
Starting with students who graduate in 2011, a new core set of courses
would be required, including Algebra 2, physics and chemistry.
The new requirements would apply to all high-school students whether
they plan to attend college or not, although parents could sign a waiver opting
out of the courses and accepting the consequences.
For example, students
opting out wouldn’t be able to attend a state university under Taft’s
plan.
Bad idea Governor.
I'm okay with the notion that there is are a core set of subjects in which every high school graduate should be able to demostrate proficiency. But I don't see the sense of including Algebra 2, Physics and Chemistry in that set. Other nations take a more pragmatic view of school: sort the kids out by skill, potential and motivation before they get to high school. Some will go to schools which focus on science and mathematics. Others go to arts academies. Some go to learn a skilled trade.
The countries recognize that resources aren't limitless, and that an effort to raise the knowledge level for all students takes away resources from that fraction that can really make a difference. Our country thrived when it was contribute or starve. Only now are we seeing the harm of expending ever-increasing resources on protecting the weakest in our society -- creating a tax burden drag and preventing resources from being used to nurture our most promising young people.
Another thing most of those countries have -- compulsary military service. Most serve as enlisted personnel where they learn a skill, then those who wish can attend college. Some will attend college first, deferring their service until they graduate, and then serve as officers. Rich or poor, everyone serves -- notice that Prince William, the future King of England, is just beginning his military service.
You can't make Ohio a better place for business with this approach. Ohio was an economic powerhouse in the past century because: a) heavy industry grew around the Great Lakes; and, b) immigrant labor was cheap. Today, the major economic regions of the US are on the coasts -- east, west and south -- because state governments and unions in the Great Lakes region got greedy and ran industry out.
Major corporations have very little geographic or national loyalty. They move their production facilities to wherever their total costs are minimized. That includes cost of raw materials (including transportation), production labor costs, tax burden, and the cost of distribution. Once upon a time that meant the Great Lakes. Today it means Asia.
We've made it very hard for heavy industry to survive in the US. If we are going to participate in a global economy, then the steel workers in Cleveland are going to have to work for the same wages as the steelworkers in China. The information industry workers in Columbus are going to need to compete with the talented folks in India. The auto workers in Toledo need to work for the same wages as their opposite numbers in Korea. And the state government needs to get out of the entitlement business.
In which class will you teach our kids that they'll never have it as good as their grandparents? That's a new thing in the history of America...
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Wow -- this is what a charter school should be
The following was announced today in the Columbus Dispatch. For readers outside our community, Battelle Memorial Institute is one of the largest and most respected private research organizations in the country. Some of the more famous examples of their work: a) invented xerographic photocopying, which they spun off as a little company called Xerox; b) the candy coating on M&Ms; c) key technologies required for the Manhattan Project in WWII (they still operate the DOE Labs in Hanford WA); d) the lifting mechanism installed in the Glomar Explorer used to retrieve a sunken Soviet submarine. The list is massive. The Ohio State University is the second largest university in the country (behind the University of Texas), and it operates a vast research program. Battelle and Ohio State have been closely linked for years, and the two campuses are side by side.
I pray this experiment will be overwhelmingly successful, encouraging other pairings of universities and successful businesses to operate schools for science, leadership, public service, business and a myriad of other fields. It's high time American businesses quit sitting back and hoping our failing pubilc schools would produce their future leaders and contributors!
I pray this experiment will be overwhelmingly successful, encouraging other pairings of universities and successful businesses to operate schools for science, leadership, public service, business and a myriad of other fields. It's high time American businesses quit sitting back and hoping our failing pubilc schools would produce their future leaders and contributors!
From the Columbus Dispatch: 18 Jan 2006:
A new high school? Big deal.But this high school has the backing of Battelle and Ohio State University, behemoths that will put muscle behind its math and science focus. It will be small, free and open to students in the 16 Franklin County public school districts.
And there’s nothing like it in Ohio, and few if any comparisons in the country.
The Metro School will open this fall to ninth-graders and add a grade each of the next three years. Only 100 students will be admitted in each grade.
"It’s an unprecedented partnership," said Brad Mitchell, CEO of the Educational Council, a consortium of the Franklin County school districts. "It’s a unique public-private partnership. This will help make high school more relevant, successful, rigorous."
Education leaders nationally and in Ohio have said schools need to produce more students skilled in science, technology, engineering and math — the socalled STEM disciplines, which are viewed as being important job-generating fields. "In the 21 st century, science, technology, engineering and mathematics are too important" to ignore in schools, said Ohio Department of Education spokesman J.C. Benton. More schools with similar focuses are in the pipeline, he said. The partnership, which will be officially announced today, along with the Metro School’s location, goes beyond the ties many schools have with private business — tutoring and mentoring. The university and Battelle — together, worth billions of dollars — will maintain an intimate relationship with the school and its students.
In addition to the $1.2 million donated by Ohio State for building leases, university faculty members will be involved in training teachers at the school. It’ll be a learning lab of sorts, testing new methods of teaching math and science.
Battelle, a science and technology company based in Columbus, donated more than $500,000 for startup costs and also will help students discover math, science and engineering. "By investing in this new school, we’re investing in the future of our community," said Carl F. Kohrt, president
and CEO of Battelle. Here’s how the school is planned to work: Slots will be allotted to each district based on its size. Columbus Public Schools, with almost 60,000 students, would get the most slots at about 140. Students interested in college hoping for a nontraditional high-school experience may
apply, write a letter of interest and interview with school staff. The staff will select the "best fits," then allow the school district to select from the list of candidates. Metro School students won’t all be the best and brightest, officials say, but a mix of different abilities.If students want football, band or drama, they’ll get it at their home high schools. "We’re looking for a student who is motivated, wants to go to college, but needs a little extra help," Mitchell said. "Every district has students like this, and a big, comprehensive high school can only do so much."
There will be diversity requirements. Teachers, who haven’t been hired yet, will come from the
school districts. They won’t stay at the school permanently but will learn new teaching methods there and take those methods back to their home schools and pass them on to other educators. State funding will follow the students who attend the Metro School — much like it does when students leave districts for charter schools — but additional costs will be funded through grants and support from the university and Battelle. In time, the school hopes to be self-sufficient. Officials yesterday wouldn’t say how much it will cost to run.
Students’ ninth- and 10 th-grade years will be spent doing required coursework and preparing for the Ohio Graduation Test, which sophomores take. Upperclassmen will spend most of their time getting work and internship experience. "The school’s unique academic focus and learning opportunities
will help put Columbus and the state of Ohio at the cutting edge, enhancing math
and science education for students and educators alike," said Ohio State President Karen A. Holbrook. The school will be led by Marcy Raymond, a former Reynoldsburg High School administrator who has school-reform experience, said Reynoldsburg Superintendent Richard Ross. School districts say they’re pleased to have another option for kids with interest in math and science. There
are few local options now, save Horizon Science Academy, a charter school. "Reynoldsburg is always positive about choices for kids and families," Ross said. "We see this as another opportunity for our kids and parents to choose."
The Metro School also is designed to make traditional public schools more competitive with charter schools and private schools, which will be eligible this fall for students using state tuition vouchers.
"We’re living in an education market where public schools have to be as adept and responsive as
they’ve ever been. We want to make public education in Franklin County the first and best choice," Mitchell said.
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