Categories
ideological culture

Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles

We in middle-class, muggle America can learn something from Harry Potter.

My daughter got me reading the J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series years ago. I eagerly followed the growth of an 11-year-old to a young man of 18. This “boy who lived” was orphaned as a baby when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the evil, dark Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. For seven books, Voldemort tries to kill Harry. For seven books, Rowling imparts some important lessons.

At the end of the second book, the wise headmaster Dumbledore, tells Harry, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” The fourth outing even made the case for term limits. “You are blinded,” Dumbledore tells a selfish government minister, “by the love of the office you hold.”

So, when the final movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 2, was released last Friday, I was one of those buying tickets . . . at a cheapskate Sunday showing with two of my kids.

Once again, the movie climaxes with a cogent moral.

Continue reading “Another Worthwhile Lesson for Muggles”

Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Johnny Can Be Indoctrinated

Government schools in Frederick County, Maryland, deem the third grade the appropriate time to push a political agenda. Cindy Rose found this out when her daughter came down with the flu and read a textbook, Social Studies Alive! Our Community and Beyond, at home.

Mrs. Rose calls the book “socialistic.”

Judge for yourself. On page 104, it reads: “Child care is important, but it is not free for most people in the United States. Families have to pay for child care. It can be very expensive. In some countries, child care is a public service. For example, in Denmark and Vietnam, child care is free or costs very little. This makes it easier for parents to work. Do you think child care should be a public service in your community?”

Rose took her complaint to the school board, which suggested that the book’s slant might be balanced by other materials — but could point to no evidence it was being balanced. Those defending the textbook insist that it teaches critical thinking, but as one school board member asked, “Do you get much pushback from an 8 or 9-year old?”

Only if the book explained marginal utility and the Thomas Theorem would I put much stock in the “critical thinking” excuse.

“The entire slant of the book,” Cindy Rose argues, “is . . . the idea of government running your life.”

Thankfully, my wife homeschools our children. I can tell you that’s not one of the lessons.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders

Two Initiatives, With Initiative

Josh Sutinen is 17. He can’t vote yet. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t having an effect on the politics of his hometown of Longview, Washington.

After his father’s second valiant if unsuccessful attempt to get into the Evergreen State’s House of Representatives, Josh became fascinated with political change. Conveniently, an issue soon darkened his town: Red light cameras.

Josh organized an initiative campaign to remove the red light cameras. Indeed, visitors to the family business, Sutinen Consulting, will sometimes find Josh manning the front desk — and then bringing another employee up from the back room (where they fix computers and do other technical things beyond my understanding) while he fields calls from major newspapers around the state, even around the country.

The campaign has been difficult; the powers that be in Longview (“The Planned City”) fought back. First they balked at giving the collected signatures to the county, to be counted. Then they even sued the petitioners — Josh Sutinen and Mike Wallin — to prevent the initiative from appearing on the ballot.

So the petitioners are fighting back. Josh is now preparing to gather signatures for an Initiative 2, which would prevent the city from suing citizens who draw up initiatives that challenge city policies.

Joining Josh is initiative guru Tim Eyman. Eyman has worked against red light cameras up north, and is enthusiastic about Longview’s second initiative as well, saying it is “exceptionally good policy and something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

I’ll keep you posted.

This is CommonSense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Bankrupted by Cushy Pension Contracts

Central Falls, Rhode Island, is not a large city. It is a town of under 20,000 people. And its government is broke, facing likely bankruptcy.

Municipal bankruptcies are not common. But they might become so. Why? The blame is easy to place: the proverbial gun-under-the-table contracting foisted on small localities by state governments.

That’s what happened in Central Falls, anyway.

Even the New York Times has an idea of the underlying problem:

The city, just north of Providence, is small and poor, but over the years it has promised police officers and firefighters retirement benefits like those offered in big, rich states like California and New York. These uniformed workers can retire after just 20 years of service, receive free health care in retirement, and qualify for full disability pensions when only partly disabled.

Walter Olson, of the Cato Institute, elaborates on this account: “‘Promised’ is a word of art here, because the city wasn’t really making all of these concessions on a voluntary basis. . . .” The concessions to unions were, instead, forced on the town by “public-sector arbitration” (which has almost nothing to do with private arbitration) that has led to a widespread “crisis in municipal finance,” which, the Times states, has brought one in four Rhode Island municipalities to the brink.

Olson makes the reasonable case that public-sector employee unions are a very bad idea to begin with. The end comes either with serious reform or bankruptcy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers

Another Protected Incumbent

It’s an impasse worthy of Joseph Heller. The author of the comic novel Catch-22 provided us with the perfect term for a specific type of trap. In Heller’s story, you could only get out of the army if you were crazy — but if you asked to get out, that was proof of your sanity. Catch-22!

In Washington State, citizens may recall an elected official, but the recall effort must do two things: Prove to a court that the effort is not frivolous and abide by the state’s campaign finance laws.

Trouble is, for the court hearing you need an attorney. If your effort — like the current effort to recall controversial Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer Dale Washam — is popular enough to get pro bono work from a major law firm, too bad.

Bad? Well, the campaign finance regulation applies to attorneys, too — and, according to some bureaucrats, the campaign finance limit of $800 per person limits not merely citizen contributors, but volunteering lawyers as well. They may not contribute more than $800 worth of labor to the client!

So, a recall is technically possible. But practically, it is not.

Another typical pro-incumbency effect of campaign finance regulation.

In this case, the Institute for Justice has come to the rescue. They’ve sued: Farris et al. v. Seabrook et al. IJ has made it a mission to defend Americans thwarted by misguided campaign finance regulation.

Someone has to fight our Catch-22’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets insider corruption too much government

Medallions “Stink of Tyranny”

Not long ago on Townhall.com I briefly told the tale of two journalists, both arrested for taking pictures at a public meeting. This stunk of tyranny, to me. “Government cameras on citizens? Dangerous. Citizen lenses trained on government? Essential safety devices.”

What I didn’t mention was that the public meeting was for the District of Columbia’s taxi-cab commission. The commission oversees what was once a remarkably free system of taxis, but has become more regulated while also earning a reputation for corruption. Pete Tucker, one of the reporters, was on the scene to cover a breaking story related to that corruption: The commission’s proposal to regulate the industry using the over-used and idiotic “medallion” system, familiar to New Yorkers and far too many other city-dwellers.

Well, Tucker’s work has reached the completion stage, now, with Reason TV’s video about the medallion system up on YouTube. It’s an eye-opener.

The gist of the piece may be familiar: Government regulation helps bigger businesses at the expense of smaller ones . . . as well as consumers. You may have read similar tales from economists such as those in the French Liberal School (Frédéric Bastiat), the Chicago School (Milton Friedman), the Austrian School (Ludwig von Mises), and Public Choice (James Buchanan). Courtesy of the Reason video, now you can see ordinary citizens making the case. One said, “We know tyranny when we smell it.”

The stench is also of corruption, which has driven the politics behind the new regulatory scheme.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Who Should Steer the Bus?

Metropolitan mass transit systems run buses and light rail trains. There’s not much evidence they do it well.

But boy, do they know how to spend money!

Now that the economy has hit the skids, tax revenues are down and metro boards across the country are hurting for money. King County, in Washington State, is no exception. The Metro system there has a multimillion dollar shortfall in funds, and the board threatens to cut services by 17 percent unless more revenue gets raised.

The Metro board suggests a tax hike — what they call a “congestion tax” — on cars.

Tim Eyman, the Evergreen State’s number one tax-hike watchdog, argues that the voters should get to decide whether to increase taxes to fund existing levels of bus service.

Great idea. Consent of the governed and all.

It’s amusing to read accounts of the debate over the proposed tax. Once again, we hear stories of bus after bus running without being anywhere near full.

If metro buses were my business, I’d want to make sure it ran in the black.

But with government, alas — relying on taxes for continuous bailout — that’s not even within the bounds of polite discussion.

And while it might make sense to run some buses on a fixed, reliable schedule, other buses could be supplied to commuters “as needed.” With modern technology this is eminently doable.

But first, let citizens decide how much money they really want to throw at the system.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture too much government U.S. Constitution

The 14th Amendment Escape Clause?

Just as Tea Party representatives begin to bring the Constitution back into vogue, primarily to curb the power and spending of Congress, an innovative interpretation of the 14th Amendment floats around the capital, finding enthusiastic supporters amongst advocates of never-ending debt accumulation.

You see, Congress has limited the debt, by law, since 1917. And has raised that limit umpteen times (ten times this past decade). Now that Tea Party Republicans are using the debt limit to negotiate cuts in spending, the pro-spending forces are becoming frantic.

And clever.

Some of them now argue that Section Four of the 14th Amendment would allow the president to raise the debt limit without Congressional permission. After all, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

At first blush this makes some sense, until one realizes that the 1917 law is, in fact, “the authorization” mentioned in the very clause — at which point the argument collapses faster than the integrity of politicians in closed session.

Still, the idea of the Executive Branch interposing between Congress and the people — like “state nullification” interposed, in James Madison’s very words, between the federal government and the people — is worth thinking about. And Congress could reinstate the president’s power to “impound” funds designated by Congress that he judges not authorized by the Constitution.

But you won’t find pro-spending forces advocating that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Cheaters Never Prosper?

The cheating scandal in the Atlanta Public Schools is ugly — 178 administrators, principals and teachers were caught changing answers on standardized tests. Nearly 80 percent of the schools investigated were found to be guilty.

One school held weekend pizza parties to organize the fraud. Former Superintendent Beverly Hall — named the National Superintendent of Year in 2009 — “is accused of encouraging the cheating.” Hall made hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses for the fraudulent test scores.

Meanwhile, one teacher fearing retaliation if she blew the whistle, declared, “APS is run like the mob.”

Yet much of the media spin is excuse-making:

  • On NBC’s Nightly News, Brian Williams called it “the risk of high-stakes testing.”
  • CBS Evening News informed us that, “Educator Diane Ravitch blames it on a federal law that links funding with test performance.”
  • ABC News reported that, “Many in the community are pointing the finger at No Child Left Behind, the federal policy that made test scores king.”
  • One expert said, “[S]ome educators feel pressured to get the scores they need by hook or by crook.”

I’ve been a consistent critic of No Child Left Behind and deplore the federal micro-managing of schools. But cheating is wrong. And the fault lies with the cheaters — not with those demanding better performance.

Paul Landerman, a former Atlanta teacher fired for reporting the cheating, told NBC, “The greatest value inside that system is loyalty to the system.”

System first. Your kids? Somewhere after that.

That’s the opposite of Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people national politics & policies too much government

What a Deal!

David Brooks, writing in the New York Times on Independence Day, cajoles Republicans to accept the deal that allegedly now faces them: Raise a few taxes (just a few!) in exchange for the Democrats going along with “a debt reduction measure of $3 trillion or even $4 trillion.” After all, he writes,

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred million dollars of revenue increases.

And then Brooks goes off on how unreasonable the Republicans have become, how abnormal.

Well, we can only hope.

There’s good reason for recalcitrance in the Republican party. Our beloved congressfolk do not have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem. They keep increasing spending, year by year, no matter what the revenue actually is.

Increasing revenue — which is still not certain even if marginal tax rates get upped or “loopholes” get closed — does not solve the base problem, which is spendaholic politicians.

Besides, the “trillions” in cuts are in the future, while the taxes would be immediate. We’ve been burned on such deals before, like Lucy and Charlie Brown’s football.

There was a reason the New York Times chose Brooks for its “conservative.” He can always be counted to chatter “kick the ball.”

Don’t fall for it, Charlie Brown.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.