Tag: NPR

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culture Education thoughts

Use the Proper Tool

I have written before about our national propensity to use government when it is not the proper tool for the job. Scott summed my point up very succinctly in a recent post:

There is a proper tool for every job. Use of the wrong tool often produces substandard results. Sometimes it is necessary to make do with what you have. That’s called innovation. But regularly using the wrong tool when the right tool is available is just plain stupid.

One of the basic tenets of classical liberalism is to regard government as a tool to be used only where it is most appropriate; the chief role of government being to safeguard and expand liberty. Many people (from all over the political spectrum) view government as a big stick to be employed in forcing others to conform to their particular view of good.

Government is not the only tool that we often use inappropriately, and sometimes the wrong tool is employed not because it is the tool of choice, but because we refuse to use the proper tool. Such is the often the case with regard to schools disciplining children.

A large number of schools use potentially dangerous methods to discipline children, particularly those with disabilities in special education classes, a report from Congress’ investigative arm finds.

In some cases, the Government Accountability Office report notes, children have died or been injured when they have been tied, taped, handcuffed or pinned down by adults or locked in secluded rooms, often to be left for hours at a time.

Some people would be quick to blame the authoritarian, impersonal schools for their outrageous methods of discipline and while I am far from a believer in the infallibility of schools I think that such blame is misplaced in the vast majority of cases.

The real blame lies in the fact that many parents fail to enforce discipline in their homes and even among those who do enforce discipline in their homes all too many make themselves unavailable to take on that responsibility when their children require more discipline than can reasonably be applied by a teacher in charge of more than a dozen students. What’s worse, is that we cannot even safely place the blame fully on the shoulders of the individual parents. Too many of them are forced into situations where they cannot devote themselves to parenting full-time. (Sometimes they just feel forced into those situations.)

As a society we have set too low a value on the role of parenting – placing it completely secondary to economic productivity. We have set expectations too high for our material and economic standard of living – where the luxuries of yesterday must necessarily be necessities today. Consider cell phones for every family member over the age of 10, cars for everyone over 16, cable TV, computers, game consoles, television sets in every room, dance-lessons, sports, and hobbies for each day of the week.

None of these things is intrinsically bad, but together they form unreasonable and unsustainable expectations and they destroy the possibility for most stable families to keep at least one parent available to take care of their children when needs arise.

Not only that, but we expect the schools to provide many of those hobbies through requiring gym, art, and music classes as well as extracurricular sports. The result is that even where there are parents at home and available the children often spend too many hours under the care of their teachers and not enough under the influence of their parents. This serves to lessen the parental influence and offers incentive for parents who would otherwise be available to commit themselves to other activities lest they feel they are wasting their time.

The problems are complex and interwoven so that any hope of identifying the solutions is dependent on our recognition of how and when any given tool can be used and insisting on using each tool in its proper place rather than finding favorite tools and trying to make this reduced tool set suitable for all our needs.

Cross Posted at Pursuit of Liberty

Categories
National politics

The Best Day to Vote

As a perpetual proponent of incresing voter turnout, I enjoyed considering the story on NPR about Rethinking The Tuesday Vote. I’m not sure when voters would be noticable less busy than Tuesday – especially considering that we would not want the vote to be on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday as each of those days is sacred to one major religion or another. If we ever find an easy way to increase voter turnout that would not cost lots of money we should do it. (I thinkthat changing the day of the week would be easy to implement so long as there is advanced warning.)

Categories
culture politics State

Embracing Broad Perspectives

I was listening to a story on NPR about young Indians abroad returning to help their country. One statement that caught my attention was the assertion that Indians who have lived in Western cultures have experienced the problems and some of the attempts to fix problems that the West has been dealing with for decades and which the Indian culture and economy are just beginning to experience as the economy there expands. Because of their perspectives from other nations they have a unique ability to help India avoid some pitfalls that the West has seen – if enough people will listen to them.

Later I was having a conversation about transportation issues in Utah and it occurred to me that the same phenomenon applies here. People in Utah who have spent appreciable time back East in areas of higher population density are much more likely to be supportive of mass transit options, tolling, and other transportation options that are often distasteful to those who have lived in the sprawling west all their lives. If those with the perspective of having lived back East are heard we might be able, as Utah continues in its rapid population growth, to avoid some pitfalls such as becoming another concrete urban jungle like Los Angeles. Only if we start making better use of transportation infrastructure options besides increasing amounts of asphalt.

Trax is good, FrontRunner is good, but lets try to make sure that such transportation options are part of the fabric of the area, not just an anomaly that feeds people into the downtown Salt lake City area.

Categories
politics State

Myth Perpetuation

Just as our Task Force is getting started, NPR has a story on John McCain’s perspective on the issue. They outline his preferred approach – which seems generally right, and then they perpetuate one of the myths that might sink any meaningful reform.

“The problem is not that most Americans lack adequate health insurance — the vast majority of Americans have private insurance, and our government spends billions each year to provide even more,” McCain has said. “The biggest problem with the American health care system is that it costs too much.”

McCain wants to get people to buy their own insurance, rather than get it through their jobs. NPR’s Julie Rovner reports that McCain would accomplish this in a variety of ways: giving people tax credits, encouraging more people to set up tax-advantaged health savings accounts, and letting them buy insurance policies across state lines.

And no mandates for McCain. If you don’t want health insurance, you don’t have to get it.

What do you think of this plan? Would tax breaks encourage you to buy your own insurance? Is a mandate to have health care a good or bad idea? (emphasis added)

A mandate that everyone be insured is not a mandate that they have good health care (it would be impossible to mandate that everyone have good health care). Health Insurance ≠ Health Care. So long as we confuse the two the insurance industry will sway the debate in their own favor. Giving everyone insurance, no matter what method you use, will not guarantee that they have good health care.

As our Utah task force held their first meeting (which I could not attend) I was worried that they would not actively try to include consumers among their stakeholders, leaving the influence to industry professionals and lobbyists. I was very encouraged as I listened to the audio of the meeting when Senator Killpack listed consumers among the five major stakeholders for the task they are tackling.

Categories
National politics

The Irony of Supressing Votes

I find it rather funny that we have such a fuss being raised about laws requiring voters to show ID at the polls that a case has to be heard by the Supreme Court on the issue. What strikes me is that:

  1. if we had more voters voting, whatever fraud the voter ID laws are meant to combat would have less effect in a larger pool of ballots
  2. the plantiffs have not demonstrated that this law has prevented anyone from voting
  3. voting fraud is more rare at the polling place than it is in absentee voting where no ID is required

This seems like another case of the law being used to address minutia

Categories
culture

Julie Beck Knows

Let me start off by saying that I absolutely loved Sister Beck’s talk. I was almost as excited about it as Laura was about President Eyring in the First Presidency (she cheered out loud at that announcement). I don’t try to push my thoughts on those subjects here but I heard about a RadioWest show discussing the talk and I had to comment.

My basic impression of the show was that it was the typical dithering that we find whenever we try to tackle a spiritual topic from a secular viewpoint. The discussion rings hollow in many places. My favorite comment from the participants came from Julie Smith who pointed out that this talk was pointed specifically at mothers and that despite all the emphasis in the church on being mothers there is very little counsel directed specifically at mothers. On the other hand there was commentary such as the statement by Marie Cornwall (sp?) that the option to stay at home is not an economic reality for most people. She states that in Utah a family must have a minimum household income of $70,000 to purchase a median home. This is blatantly untrue. It is based on some economic assumptions that run counter to the counsel that has been given repeatedly to church members so those who live in that economic reality are undermining their own ability to follow this counsel being given now. The fact is that I purchased a very decent house less than 2 years ago and I could afford this house on just over half of the income that she cited. (To afford my house now with my current debt would require more than that, but I could still afford it at it’s current value on much less than $70K.)

The last caller, Reina (sp?) from Pocatello, expressed the same sentiments that I have and that Laura has as someone who has chosen to stay at home that the talk was right on. She nailed the truth with “if the talk is taken in the spirit that she delivered it there is no way that anyone can be offended mom or not, stay-at-home mom or working mom.”

I not only listened to the show, but I tracked down some of the blogosphere discussion that was referenced in the show (Julie Smith, Kristine, TftCarrie, fMhLisa). I found that most discussion seemed to miss the point of the talk that our focus in parenting (mothering specifically) needs to change. There was plenty of discussion about how the high standards illustrated in the talk make some people feel guilty. I have long been concerned as I looked at the mothers in my neighborhood that even those who are following all the counsel of staying at home to raise their children are doing too much. They engage in so many activities that their children do not get the highest level of mother’s attention that they need. Those who have tried to avoid the pull of a society that tells the lie that you can do everything found this talk very validating because it made it much easier to let go of the pull of the world that wants us to tear ourselves apart having it all.

Sister Beck was telling us to make a choice and quit trying to be everything to everyone all the time. We have to accept that a woman can’t be a great employee, and a great mother, and a great community activist, and everything else which she might want to do well all at the same time. (In the same vein a father can’t be a great father, and a great breadwinner, and a great activist, and a pursue every hobby to which he is inclined at the same time.) I believe that women can “have it all” if they choose, but not all at once nor should they feel pressured into choosing to “have it all.” My mother-in-law is a great example of this. She chose to postpone her education when she started having children. She eventually finished her college degree after three of her children had finished theirs and she now works because she feels the desire to work. I guarantee that she is happier to have raised her children by giving them her undivided attention than she would have been if she had tried to do all of that at once.

Categories
culture politics

Glancing at Immigration

I picked up my car from the shop and happened to catch part of RadioWest. Doug was talking to a writer about immigration and the contradictions in our human nature, wanting to help people in need and trying to secure our borders. I didn’t catch the whole show so I don’t know if that perspective is representative of the entire hour, but it got me thinking about my views on immigration which eventually boil down to this – I think we’re asking the wrong question.

Our political discussion of the issue is how to deal with illegal immigrants. I don’t think we can approach that question until we have taken the time to ask – how did we get in our current position? That includes the role of immigration in our history and the history of our immigration laws. It also includes the reasons that people cross our borders illegally. Until we have that background I think that any grand compromise (which seems to be the only kind of laws we have been getting lately) is like trying to catch a fish for dinner by shooting a slingshot into a stream in the dark.

As a start, our legal limits on immigration basically stem from the Immigration Act of 1924. Though some adjustments have been made in the 83 years since, nothing has fundamentally changed in our law. Prior to 1924 we never had a comprehensive immigration restriction except that we tried to prevent people with significant criminal records or contagious disease enter the country. Now I ask the question – are we better off since we decided to stem the flow of immigration? I don’t think we are. Not only that, but I am a bit suspicious of why we chose to enact that law in 1924. None of the great advances of the past century can be even remotely tied to limiting the flow of immigrants. If we were to open our borders completely (except for cases of contagious disease or criminal record) would we be any worse off than we are now? I doubt it since we have a tidal wave of people coming in despite our laws.

I’m not arguing for amnesty, I am arguing that we need to start making an informed decision on where we stand on the issue of immigration. If we decide that it is necessary to limit immigration then we need to close the door. Until we decide what we believe about immigration there’s really no point in discussing amnesty (or lack of amnesty).

Categories
culture life politics

Non-Binding Resolutions

While listening to NPR today I heard a senator talking about many agreements we have made with the Iraqi government where the Iraqi’s failed to do what they promised. He attributed that failure to the fact that “the agreements [had] no teeth.” That got me thinking. We don’t have to look outside our country to see ineffective government posturing related to agreements without teeth. Just look at any non-binding resolution ever passed by a legislative body. For that matter we can look at any legislation that gets passed without funds to carry it out. In case anyone is wondering – legal teeth start like this “$” and end like this “.00” and each digit that comes between that beginning and that end constitutes a tooth. For private citizens three teeth is generally enough to encourage compliance, but once we start dealing with governments and corporations it takes a lot more teeth to be convincing.

I think that wherever government passes any measure to redistribute wealth there must be teeth to ensure compliance with the law, and great care that the law be written to discourage abuse of any such program. I believe that government should generally avoid such laws because bureaucratic programs tend to be magnets for abuse, especially where money can be gained, but when they do legislate those things they need to put teeth into the law.

That lead my train of though onto a new track – we have our share of non-binding resolutions at home with the kids. As I think about it there are times (at least times in the home) when laws without teeth are a good thing. The children should learn to obey because it is the right thing, or because they trust us, not merely because they will lose some privilege.

So my question is, when do you think teeth are necessary? When do you think that they are unnecessary? I ask this not just with regard to government, but also to home and community situations.

Categories
Local politics

Regional Transportation Plans

Yesterday on Radio West the show was discussing the 2030 Transportation Plan. The 2030 transportation plan is focused on the Salt Lake Valley, but it includes the Mountain View Corridor and the Mountainland Association of Governments has a plan with a similar scope. I listened to the program with interest as many callers expressed concerns similar to mine that too much reliance on roads brings more congestion in the longterm.

One concern the planners had with putting in transit options is that they are inefficient where there is significant open space between residential areas. Considering that these plans are focused on transportation through areas that are sparsely populated right now, that sounds like a valid concern. In response to that, Marc Heileson from the Sierra Club made two compelling observations: that people cannot choose to use transit if it is not available; and that a good transit system is more than just a transit option.

A good transit system makes it easy to get between places that you need to go so that the advantages of a car are not significant when compared to the transit system. Mr. Heileson also noted that transit systems are less sensitive to changes in volume of use than roads are. Based on discussions with some of my family members who live north of Salt Lake and are affected by the changes in the transit system that are being implemented there I feel safe in concluding that it is easier to plan a good transit system in advance than it is to build or modify a transit system in established areas.

Another thought that was briefly covered in the program was the idea that transportation planning could help to shape growth and traffic patterns, and not just react to the existing and projected patterns.

Virtually absent from the discussion is the fact that transportation plans can react to poorly planned development, but they cannot truly overcome that development. Transit alone is not enough in order to have the high quality living conditions in a growing region like ours. Equally important, if not more so, is the planning for commercial and industrial development. This is important so that cities have a commercial tax base and also so that residents have employment options without being forced into long commutes. This is one area where Lehi, and the northern end of Utah County in general have not traditionally done very well. Based on the plans I have seen from the city of Lehi I am hopeful that this situation will be remedied in the coming years.

I was planning to give a detailed breakdown of the Mountainland Association of Governments’ regional transportation plan, but I think this post is too long already so I’ll save that for another day.

Categories
culture

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

I enjoyed reading Scott’s It’s Worse, but It’s Also Better and then I was surprised to hear on NPR a piece on how our society is Going Ghetto. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that our culture is going downhill fast which is why it was so refreshing to read Scott’s take that there are some very positive things happening if we will look for them. I think that Amazing Grace is a good example of that.

On the other hand there is much that we accept and even promote which should be decried. That is what the Ghetto Nation is all about. I found it interesting that some people commented on the slightly racist connotations of the word ghetto as a failing of the argument being made. It is unfortunate if that charge of racism serves to dilute the power of the message being sent. Personally I would have used the word grunge – my grandma would have said “slouchy” – but regardless of the term being used, the argument is sound. We are shamelessly promoting some things which we should be rejecting or improving. When we would speak out against them we are told things like:

It seems to me that this demonization of everything ‘ghetto’ is representative of an underlying societal racism, equal to the way jazz and blues were demonized throughout the first half of the 20th century. (Comment by Katherine Ogilvie on the Blog of the Nation post)

While societal racism has no rightful place among us, I think she’s wrong (about ghetto, not about jazz and blues). It is not racist to speak out against something that is bad even if that something is often associated with a particular race. The arguments against all things ghetto are fairly applied regardless of race. The argument and the term are about a mindset which is unhealthy at the least and downright destructive at the worst.