Old Geezers Should Communicate with Young Folks

[from billlifka, posted with his prior permission]

A few days ago, I heard an excellent talk by a local political guru of the Conservative persuasion. He was offering ideas how ordinary folks of his political persuasion might help the Republican Party do better in the coming election. The bottom line was that he recommended the old geezers in the audience should start communicating with young folks between the ages of fifteen and thirty.

His principal argument was that, beyond the age of thirty, people tend not to change much from what they have become and what they believe in at that point in their lives. Also, he argued that people in the target age range were open to considering new ideas, perhaps even eager to try new things. He cautioned that these strange young folks should be approached cautiously, even deviously, because if they knew an exchange of political ideas was the goal, they’d be turned off immediately.

I suspect he was right in all respects, at least for the majority of young adults. I’ve been following his recommended practice for a number of years, at least the basic idea. One of the great joys of my life is being able to learn new things that change my life even as I approach the end of life. I hope it will be the same for you.

As to a devious approach, it’s not like me not to say (or write) just what’s on my mind. Most folks who read what I write would judge it to be political, yet I argue that it may seem so to them but I am really writing about good governance, good goals and good process. If it turns out that the same people in office keep governing poorly, have troublesome objectives and use questionable means to achieve those objectives, it’s to be expected they will come off poorly in my writings.

Long before now you should have recognized that I prefer to focus on national issues I believe to be of greatest importance to the nation’s well-being, the elements of those issues, what history (should have) taught us about optional ways of addressing those issues and, usually, suggesting what I believe to be the best options.

As I do this, some people stand out as bad guys and, of late, these have all belonged to the left wing of the Democratic Party. I’m sorry about that because I really want our leaders to be outstanding leaders no matter which political party they call home. If they are not, then I am going to be against that party until they start running competent men and women for office who focus on the critical issues with honesty, coherence and perseverance.

I’ve never wanted anyone to vote for my preferred candidates just because they were my choice. What I want is for the overwhelming majority of voters to know the truth about main issues and how opposing candidates stand on those issues. I’ll never get what I want because the majority of voters don’t take time to become knowledgeable and the majority of politicians do their best to mislead the voters.

I pointed out precarious national and international conditions and the critical importance of competent leaders being elected. I emphasized that the vote of the young adults would determine the outcome. I was correct. 2014 is another critical election year. By now you should know how much your future has been adversely affected by the outcomes of elections for which you’ve been eligible voters.

For the record, I'm a registered Republican but, under that umbrella, a Conservative with a few Libertarian tendencies. I was a “cradle Democrat” and remained so until the current age of my oldest grandchild. I was an ardent fan of the Chicago Cubs who did manage to capture two pennants before they forgot how to play the game.

These days, rooting for the Republicans seems like rooting for the Cubs. Both teams have talented players, know the principles of the sport, play like gentlemen but seem not to understand the objective is to beat the opponents. It may be the absence of a good manager and an ossified front office. Maybe the players should mutiny.

Currently, 31% of the voting population considers itself to be Democratic, 25% considers itself Republican and 42% considers itself Independent. The Republican % is the lowest it’s been in modern times. It’s no wonder that Democratic political tactics are designed to solidify its base and to infuriate Republicans.

Rather than fighting the “enemy”, prominent Republicans yell at each other while elbowing members of their own team into less desirable vantage points from which to launch a campaign for the big enchilada. Tea partiers are similar to Republicans in many ways except they are mouthier and more fed up, but still mostly nice people. They have no effective central control which is another thing they’ve in common with Republicans.

Independents are growing in number, mostly cutting into the Republican fan base. The not-at-all independent media blames this on Republican ineptitude but a goodly part comes from people being tired of much political talk and little effective political results. While the Democrats are more guilty of that, their fan base expects them to be obnoxious and ineffective at governing; it’s part of their appeal.

It’s bad enough for Republicans to lose those Independents who used to show up for their bigger games but now many Republican fans avoid the big ones and hardly any buy season tickets. As for the younger fans, forget it; they enjoy the raucous Democratic play and can’t understand the headier Republican approach to the game.

Republicans needn’t play Democratic ball to win. It’s not necessary to throw at the batter’s head or slide into second with spikes high. However, barreling over a catcher blocking home plate is admirable; the runner has a right to the baseline. Forget longing for a star hitter with 50 HR’s a season and 500 K’s. They need single hitters with high batting averages, fielders who hit the cut-off man, pitchers who credit the fielding for their low ERA’s and runners who follow the coaching signs. It’s a team game, dummies, not a boxing match to determine a single champion!

This might be amusing if not for the serious matter of America’s heading for a cliff without a capable government. There’s a World Series each year but an America only once in 8,000 years of history Mike Huckabee is a good guy and was a viable candidate in 2008. He made the same main point as this essay, but with less colorful imagery. Unfortunately, he played to the stands allowing partisan “sportwriters” a chance for another “war on women” tirade. His lesser point could have been made by citing the Justice Dept’s war on the Little Sisters of the Poor; he would have been playing a winning game. There are Republicans who can do that.

billlifka

Big Government and K-12 Education

[from Bob Alm]

Re: Big Government. [see http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-adults-score-below-average-worldwide-test for the Associated Press story that is the source of the above image]

 

Big Government has been involved in education for fifty years while results have deteriorated.  The Department OF Education is just one of fifty or one hundred departments that have expanded our federal government and caused our spending to grow completely out of control.  It’s not only the day to day cost – hundreds of thousands of employees have been promised retirement benefits that appear only as unfunded liabilities that exceed $90 trillion dollars.  Staggering! 

 

What is worse, our electorate is now made up of millions of poorly educated citizens

who want more and more benefits from this Big Government. Our poorly educated work force can not keep us competitive in the world wide market place ergo our economy suffers.  High corporate taxes – Big Governments’ income, is another significant factor.

 

Now, we have a charismatic president, capable of delivering stirring rhetoric, but ill prepared to govern this massive government.  

 

Big Governments’ answer to our education problem is the same answer it has for every problem – THROW MORE MONEY AT IT!

 

After eight years of night school and forty years in business, one thing I have learned is, decisions are best made at the source of the activities.  Education is a typical example.

 

Local government and local school boards produced a good school system years ago, before the government became involved. Yes, the situation is different today – the internet should be a part of the education system, but make the decisions locally – please, don’t have Big Government mess it up.

 

Bob Alm 

War and Peace in Educational Philosophy

As can be seen from the last post, we degenerated into partisanship. It has always been amazing to me how cleanly a supposedly non-partisan subject divides into liberal and conservative views. I was involved in public education policy and curriculum in Hawaii for almost all of the thirty years I lived there. Views divide along many lines. The parents wanted what I'll call a classical education, while the educational authority favored progressive education. The republicans wanted what was best for their children as individuals, while the democrats wanted what they thought was best for society as a whole. Most of the voters sent their kids to public schools, while the politicians that set policy sent their kids to private schools. The conservatives favored a bottom-up, reading-writing-'rithmetic approach, while the liberals favored a top-down, whole language-set theory approach. The parents favored a local "get 'er done" approach, while the educational authorities denied responsibility and shifted the blame to Washington.

Considering the profound divide that exists in education, it may be time to negotiate a peace settlement rather than debate the issues to death. Neither side can have a definitive victory and impose its will permanently. The war has see-sawed back and forth many times and the wheel has been reinvented many times. Arbitrarily assigning territory is an approach that has been used in world disputes, why not in educational policy? Whether the assignment is by grade level or subject area or by time of day, anything is better than the constant war that has existed for at least 50 years.

Are we losing our minds?

Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, the world's largest chip maker, recently explained, "As a global employer, I have the luxury of hiring the best engineers anywhere on earth. If I can't get them from MIT, I'll get them from Tsing Hua."

In fact, MIT is also getting some good students from Tsing Hua. Americans are not facing the fact that our economic recovery and our military superiority depend on maintaining our scientific and intellectual leadership. Presently, our average students in math and science rank very low compared to most of the developed nations. For years we have tried to cure this problem by imposing standards, testing, eliminating unions, and spending money. So far these attempts have been ineffective. Why is this?

I have some opinions about this that agree with the conservative David Brooks, but before pursuing this topic I would like to know if you conservatives think this is a serious topic. Many conservatives consider this issue as liberal hand-wringing, and blame the problem on these "self-proclaimed intellectuals" (Palin) themselves.

State Sponsored Education

[from Joel] You may have seen a public service ad on TV recently, encouraging young people to visit a site called GetGoodKarma.com. The ad sends a comical message that terrible things happen to people who don't have good karma. The advertisement is sponsored by The Ad Council and the Federal Voting Assistance Program. I visited the website and found this on the site under the definition of karma.

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND ALL THE STUFF IN IT.

Karma is the universe's system of checks and balances. Wherein everything you do has a corresponding effect. It's pretty simple really. Do good things, earn some karma points and raise your chances of good things happening for you. Do bad things and the cosmos may just send a swarm of locusts your way. Or open a black hole above your front yard. Or something similarly unpleasant. Maybe. Possibly. Better to keep things straight.

I'm a little disconcerted that a government agency would sponsor a blatant appeal to a specific religious belief. You may or may not believe in the concept of karma. Like Christmas symbols, it's possible to water them down for public consumption so that they lose their religious significance and thereby are allowable under the Constitution. I don't see how this is good for either religion or the State. The young people at whom the ad is aimed are often enamored by the Dalai Lama and Eastern religions, so this is not just a figurative use of the concept. I think that the parents of these young people (and Thomas Jefferson) would be right to be outraged by the governmental intrusion supported by their tax dollars.

Based upon my experience in first-grade classrooms in recent years, the broader philosophical question is this. To what extent should taxpayer dollars be used to support propagandizing children in a "good" cause? We probably all recall as children participating in fire prevention programs, not skating where the ice is thin, and being kind to one's neighbor. None of these are related to reading, writing and 'rithmetic, but were deemed non-partisan safety or character building issues. Now one sees non-smoking, anti-meat, and environmentalism creeping into the curriculum from kindergarten on. Are we at a tipping point? At what point is the state just doing its job and at what point are they operating as a state propaganda machine, using the power and resources of the state to force a belief upon children. Is there a bright line somewhere?