Apr

9

Creative poll interpretation?

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A recent Rasmussen poll seems very odd to me. According to the survey, 53% of Americans think that capitalism is better than socialism. Considering just that tidbit, it seems like America is experiencing a significant ideological shift.

But when you look a little more, only 20% say that socialism is better than capitalism, and 27% “don’t know.” Rasumussen specifically notes that they didn’t define either term, which leads me to think that this poll might be a better indicator of Americans’ economic understanding than their ideological stance. Rasmussen cites another poll in which 70% of respondents prefer “free markets” over some alternative. Rasmussen interprets this as evidence that Americans aren’t convinced that are markets are free. It might just as well mean that people don’t know what capitalism is, and don’t know what free markets are1.

It is also interesting that socialism is far more popular among younger people. Perhaps many of the older generations remember the Cold War better, and because they lived then, have a better handle on the differences between capitalism and socialism. It could also be that older people typically have more “skin in the game” and thus actually care enough about economic policies to know their preferences.

It seems that the headline tries to shock by suggesting that support for capitalism is weak. In fact, the details seem to suggest that economic understanding is weak. A comparison to an earlier poll with the same questions would help, but it looks like Rasmussen might be trying for a shock value without much backup.


  1. The term “free” has a strong emotive appeal in America, and people often will gravitate toward things that are “free” regardless of whether the thing is actually “free”. One wonders how people would respond if the term were “liberal economics.” back↩

Mar

18

A degree in creationism in Texas?

Filed Under Education, Ideas, Politics | Leave a Comment

A recent story on FoxNews describes a Texas legislator’s attempt to allow the Institute for Creation Research to award a Master of Science degree.  It appears that the bill would exempt certain types of non-profit educational institutions from regulation by the state higher education board.

In particular, it seems that ICR is the intended beneficiary of this change, which apparently would allow them to grant the M.S. without state permission or regulation.

Some thoughts:

It is in a sense unfortunate that education has become such a political football. I have absolutely no problem with the state controlling education in a limited sense. It is in the interest of the state to do so. However, the politicization of education means that serious discussions about its goals and procedures will be heavily colored by political rhetoric. Again, the political rhetoric is necessary in the abstract, but modern American political rhetoric is simply too weak to substantively address the weight of a robust educational debate.

I don’t know that I would support this bill. On the one hand, I think it would be a good thing if ICR could issue an M.S. It sounds like much of the opposition is ideological — the education board doesn’t want to condone, or possibly even permit, creationism. But the bill would have far wider consequences. Basically it would allow non-profit, non-government-funded schools to invent and issue whatever degrees they wish. Eugenie Scott, quoted in the FoxNews article, makes this very point, and with good support.

It sounds like ICR is appealing to the state board for the right to issue the degree under the current statute. I think this is the route to take. I’m sure the state representative is well-meaning, but I fear that his approach is likely to further discredit schools like ICR.

In the news article, Scott claims that ICR’s offering is vastly inferior to UT’s or Baylor’s. According to his article, his primary concern is the ICR position that the Earth is only about 10,000 years old. I fail to see how this point is relevant, except in the sense that it treats seriously a view that a fairly decent percentage of Americans actually hold.

I would be curious to see exactly how ICR is pursuing their court appeal with the state board — on what grounds to they claim the right to issue the degree?

So it seems there are actually two issues here. First, ICR claims the right to some sort of equal protection/fairness for their views, religious though they may be. I tend to side with them on this point, at least in a qualified, theoretical sense. Second, the bill at hand proposes to vastly expand the powers non-profit groups to award state-recognized degrees. I tend to oppose this point. It is not in the interest of the state or most of its citizens to devalue degrees. But it looks like several critics of the bill are conflating these two points. They recognize the impact of the bill, but they can’t seem to get away from their instinctive opposition to a creationist perspective. I think the best solution would be for the state to find a way to objectively assess the quality of ICR’s program, without any prejudice for or against a religious position and its implications, and then to grant or deny the degree based on the assessment. The bill is too much

Feb

10

The failed policies of the past

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President Obama seems to be floating a logical contradiction. He derides the Republicans for spending too much in the last 8 years, claiming that they now have no right to accuse him of excessive spending. But if the “policies of the past” have been too much spending, how does more spending become a break with the past? Note below

October 21, 2008 (on TARP)

It’s an economic proposal that does nothing to rebuild our economy, but everything to continue the same failed policies of the past eight years – when speculators gamed the system, regulators looked the other way, and lobbyists bought their way into our government. It’s the same failed politics of decrying greed on Wall Street one minute, and then rewarding that greed the next minute with tax cuts for Wall Street corporations and CEOs.1 It’s the same failed philosophy: give more and more to those with the most and hope prosperity trickles down to everyone else.

Note the shift from October to February. No longer does he decry the “failed policies.” Now he calls them “failed theories.” Nice shift. It lets him ignore what actually happened while attacking the Republicans’ stated philosophy. Thus, since his philosophy is different (so he says), he can claim to be breaking from the past.

Feb 9, 2009 (Press Conference)

“What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested and they have failed. And that’s part of what the election in November was all about. Okay?”

“When I hear that from folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt, then, you know, I just want them to not engage in some revisionist history….when they start characterizing this as pork without acknowledging that there are no earmarks2 in this package — something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years — then you get a feeling that maybe we’re playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people.”

“When it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility, again, it’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks, about this recovery package, after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.”

The Republicans’ lack of discipline is coming back to bite them, but at this point, I suspect the American public is less interested in the errors of the past and more interested in the prospects of economic improvement. Isn’t that what this whole “looking forward” approach is all about?


  1. At least he’s not doing this anymore. Wall Street execs are going to get slammed, even as he decries their greed. back↩
  2. Definition, please? I don’t think many people really believe this line. back↩

Feb

7

Just a word now

Filed Under Ideas, News, Random Thoughts | 1 Comment

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a comical gaffe while arguing for the stimulus/spending/pork bill currently on its way through Congress. She claimed that 500 million Americans would lose their jobs every month until this bill passed (or something like that anyway).

Though the plausibility of her claim is suspect — there are only about 350 million Americans, and not all of them work — it actually illustrates a problem that this kind of bill creates.  At some point, the number becomes just a word. It no longer refers to a concept that people can get their minds around. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, commented this week that if you started on the day Jesus was born and spent 1 million (that’s 1,000,000) dollars each day until now, you still wouldn’t have spent 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) dollars. A trillion dollars is huge, but it’s hard to get your mind around how huge. The graph here tries to illustrate. The blue column represents 1 trillion. The column to the left is 1 billion. You can barely see it. The gray columns are the logarithm of the numbers across the bottom. I think people tend to think of big number more like the gray bars indicate. A trillion is bigger than a billion, but it’s not that much bigger.

How big is a trillion?

How big is a trillion?

Will all of that, it’s easier to understand why Speaker Pelosi was having trouble. She’s throwing around all these numbers all the time, but like most people, she only half-way understand them. They’re just words now, so an extra billion here or there is just another digit. My thought is that we ought to be very cautious when those who want to spend our money aren’t careful to understand what they’re spending. But more than that, we ought to make sure that we understand ourselves, so that we don’t have to depend on politicians to explain what they’re doing.

Dec

6

Does conservatism need religion?

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Kathleen Parker has made herself plenty of enemies on the right during this election cycle. I suspect her column this week isn’t likely to reduce their numbers.

Here’s my question, and the premise of her argument: Does conservatism need religion? In particular, does conservatism need Christianity?

I think there may be several relevant points here, but let me offer some clarifying (to me) observations. First, American conservatism is somewhat different than, say, European conservatism or Islamic conservatism. I don’t think too many people in the West think well of Islamic conservatism–certainly not many in the Republican party. American conservatism is, well, American. It gains much of its ethos from a relatively short history. But that history is profoundly religious–indeed, Christian–for better or worse.

Second, though there are some “conservatives” who claim to be atheistic (e.g. Christopher Hitchens), it’s hard to imagine how they aren’t somewhere being inconsistent. If the conservative “tent” is big enough to house a guy who’s most famous book is “god [sic] is not Great,” I wonder if shrinking the tent might be beneficial. Several commentators have noted that Hitchens–and others like him–are not merely atheistic, they’re anti-theistic.

I’m not sure what Parker is trying to do by marginalizing the Christian aspect of American conservatism. If she’s trying to appeal to those from other religions, fine. But it doesn’t follow that we should write off the Christian side of conservatism to do so.

Her example also doesn’t seem all that strong to me. She cites abortion as a conservative plank that doesn’t require Christianity. To her thinking, you can be an atheist who objects to any arbitrary killing, including killing the unborn. The argument has some merit, but it isn’t clear why arbitrary killing itself is bad. Her example is of a person who thinks of life as continuous in some sense, thereby validating the worth of any living person (?). This is true, but the continuity of life is a pretty vague concept that could be employed to make all sorts of very non-conservative arguments. Christianity offers a very good reason not to kill babies–they’re made in the image of God. But the moral government of God also permits the killing of murderers (by the state), and the ruler-ship of man gives him authority to use the Creation for his purposes since the rest of the world is made “for him.”

My tentative conclusion is that Ms. Parker’s fundamental premise is flawed. I have a number of other reasons for thinking that American conservatism needs religion, and her argument isn’t working as a credible counterargument for me.

Nov

7

Good things (and bad) about Obama’s win

Filed Under Ideas, News, Random Thoughts | 1 Comment

There are a couple of things about Senator Obama’s win that make me happy — or at least optimistic.

1. Race was an issue in the campaign. As much as people try to say otherwise, it mattered. I am genuinely glad for black people that this is so. It affirms what they’ve been trying to say for over a hundred years–that their skin color doesn’t make them less important. But now that we’ve elected a black man into the White House, the “American is racist” argument will lose a lot of its clout. Of course, those who really believe it will find some way to keep it alive, but I don’t think it will be nearly as persuasive.

Further, Obama will ultimately prove the equality of the “races” when he makes a mistake and has to pay the consequences. Just as the media’s treatment of Hillary Clinton during the primaries proved that women have an equal right to criticism, a strong opposition to Obama’s policies will show that black people really do get treated the same way as white people.

2. Campaign finance whining might go away. Obama raised an enormous amount of money. If McCain had raised that much and won, the media would have accused him of buying the presidency (and in a sense, he would have). But they won’t criticize Obama for his financial success. In the future, Republicans should feel free to raise as much as they can (legally), since any media criticism of their success would be obviously disingenuous. I realize that the media’s ability to spin things to fit their narrative will still be powerful, but I think the “buying the election” epithet will lose some of its power.

3. Republicans should know how not to run a campaign. McCain’s campaign was pretty sorry. He survived on people’s hesitancy about Obama and a few spectacular successes — the “surge,” Gov. Palin (a mixed blessing, more below). His response to other issues, e.g. the economic “crisis,” was pretty bad. It took a plumber from Toledo and a slip from Obama to focus the message on the obvious. McCain and Co. were just flopping around, and it hurt them. In fact, McCain and Palin never really explained any of their positions very well.
Voters reminded the GOP that ideas do matter, and if you can’t express them cogently, you won’t win.

4. A young rising star in the GOP got national facetime. Gov. Palin has been a touchstone for the debate within the GOP about the party’s direction. She represents one vision of Republicanism (I think the more conservative side). It was nice that she could be introduced to the country to remind young conservatives that they can actually go places in politics, and that people really do care about conservative values. To be sure, certain aspects of her candidacy were badly handled, and she may not have been ready to be president (I’m not sure that Obama is either). But she could represent a future GOP that a lot of its younger members would like. She may not be a good candidate for president, even in the future, but her success should remind the movers and shakers that they can’t ignore the right.

5. Conservatives aren’t whining. When Democrats lost in 2000 and 2004, there was lots of griping about all the unfair things that happened. Most conservatives are pretty prosaic about this campaign. Many see it as a deserved punishment for a party that has behaved badly. Further, they think it proved that moderate Republicanism doesn’t work very well against “moderate” Democrat-ism. The introspection may be very healthy.

Some not-so-good things and observations:

Read more

Nov

3

America’s Sins and Salvation

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The recent political season, coupled with current economic instability, has revealed that Americans have lost any pretense of righteousness.

Over at least the last two generations, and particularly the last two decades, America has enjoyed, yea championed, the vices of Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Greed. Look at the news stories that tell what Americans are complaining about now. They resent the loss of their luxuries–those things that they had no right to but have pursued to excess. They dislike the fact that excess, combined with laziness, eventually leads to want.

Perhaps I should say “we.”

But now they have a savior. He promises them relief from the loss of their pleasures. He offers ease from the hardship that they have brought on themselves. He claims that they need not suffer for their own sins.

How does he do this? By telling us that our previous sins are not our responsibilty and by calling us to Pride in our own worthiness, Envy of those who have succeeded, and Wrath against people who expect us to take care of ourselves.

In short, he tells us that we have not sinned enough.

This is the job of a “community organizer” (probably better labeled “agitator”). Stanley Kurtz at National Review has documented Senator Obama’s positions and activities. Obama’s MO basically motivates sinning people to sin more so that they can keep sinning. He wants to remove the law of sowing and reaping. Unfortunately, his opponent doesn’t clearly disagree.

Speaking of sowing and reaping, the American public has long elected politicians who have stayed in power by appealing to the basest instincts of their constituents. It works to do so. But the state shapes the people, so as the politicians themselves are vicious, the people become so too. And then the people turn around and elect more vicious politicians. Many polls and news stories suggest that Americans have lost their faith in their government. Considering the kind of government we have, it’s about time they stopped believing.

Government is not our salvation. Usually it tends merely to delay the consequences of vice. Now, more than ever, our government is actively and unashamedly trying to absolve the sins of the people. And the people are poised to elect someone who will add more sins, not remove them.

Salvation requires repentance and faith. With a faithless government that doesn’t demand repentance, it’s hard to imagine how government could do anything but make things worse. But then, that might be a good thing. The sooner people remember the law of sowing and reaping, repent, and put their faith in something more substantial and transcendent, the better off we’ll be.

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