Politics

I’m pleding my time to you, hoping you’ll come through too

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Julian Sanchez has some fine posts on the Ninth Circuit Pledge of Allegiance decision the other day. He writes:

In short, getting rid of the Pledge isn’t an act of pettiness perpetrated by atheist bigots. It is the absolutely necessary removal of a subtle but potent kind of religious indoctrination — and a state-supported means of ostracising children with unorthodox beliefs — from our school systems. Hallelujah.

As I wrote in Julian’s comments section, “under God” irrefutably has a religious connotation. Because almost everyone in America believes in God and raises their children to believe in God, it doesn’t receive much attention, but that doesn’t change the facts of the situation. If the pledge said “under God, father of Christ,” or “under Yahweh, protector of his chosen people, the Jews” or “under Vishnu,” people might understand that a little better.

The one part I’m not sure about is whether it’s actually coercive. Any student who doesn’t want to say the pledge is under no obligation to do so. So what we’re left with is this argument that any student who doesn’t say the pledge will feel ostracized by fellow students, teachers and school officials. I’m not sure if that’s a strong enough link to qualify as coercive state establishment of religion.

Anyway, the thing was cooked up by a socialist. Oh, and here’s what Gene Healy has to say:

I think the Pledge is unseemly, collectivist, slavish, and stupid. But not everything that pisses libertarians off is unconstitutional.

He’s the lawyer of the bunch, so take that for what it’s worth.

In the crossfire

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I went to Friday’s taping of “Crossfire” along with a group of students from the Fund (everything’s about the Fund, isn’t it?). As you could see from the transcript, it was a pretty boring show.

It was mildly interesting to see how they film the show and a little bit of the behind the scenes stuff. I still think having a studio audience for a political discussion show is stupid, though. The price of going to one of these “free” tapings is applause. We had to clap about a gazillion times — going into commercial, coming out of commercial, when Tucker “I think that they like the bow tie” Carlson wiped his nose, and on and on.

While Carlson and Begala pretended to fight for most of the evening, they both agreed that the Dubya’s daughters repeated violations of the law should not be reported by the press. They both hammered the Post’s “Reliable Source” columnist Lloyd Grove for reporting that the 20-year-old twins had a gay old time in D.C. drinking Buds and chain-smoking cigarettes.

The funniest part about it is that they did it at a place called Stetson’s, a Texas-themed bar in D.C. Just like daddy, Texas is never far from their minds, even in Washington.

I thought Grove had the best response after Begala and Carlson piled on. “Remember,” he said, “I’m a gossip columnist.” Exactly.

Walter’s weak argument

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

George Mason University economist and syndicated columnist Walter Williams spoke to the Fund’s students last Thursday night. His topic, “The role of government in a free society.” His answer, “Extremely limited.”

Which is the right answer, of course, but his argumentation was a little less than stellar. While Williams made his points in a humorous and engaging fashion, explaining how greed — when placed in a market context — can create good, a surprising amount of his discussion centered on moral rather than economic or utilitarian arguments. Kind of odd, seeing as how he’s an economist and all.

Early on in his talk, he argued that any government transfer is necessarily theft and therefore morally wrong. So I guess that’s the end of the discussion, right? Why bother with all of the evidence for how markets make us better off? Of course he went on, sliding right over how and why he would distinguish between the justified force required to provide a national defense, courts and police (all of which he said were kosher) and the unjustified force involved in creating and maintaining the welfare state. From his argument (or lack thereof), one might think him an anarchist.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being an anarchist, though I’m not, and though I know Williams is not. The problem was with stating this blanket moral proposition and not backing it up or bothering to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate uses of government. It really diminished Williams’ persuasiveness and made it seem like his answer to any possible government intervention was, “No!”

Now, the libertarian answer to almost any government intervention that gets discussed is “No!”, but without giving the audience a sense of how and where he (and, consequently, a libertarian) would draw the line, it made the libertarian or free-market view seem more like dogma than a well-considered, empirically and morally sound worldview.

Free at last?

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

While the Supreme Court decision on vouchers was a great achievement, there’s still a long way to go. I covered a Pew Forum panel discussion on the impact of the court’s decision Friday, and the anti-voucher folks did not just throw up their hands and say, “Well, I guess it’s over then.”

They’re going to fight any voucher plan in the states, arguing that even if it doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution, it violates the state constitution’s establishment clause. They are going to fight school choice on the merits, grasping at any argument — such as the Edison schools fiasco — to prop up thegovernment-school monopoly.

Chuck Karczag makes an excellent point regarding anti-choice rhetoric:

“Ah!” the critics contend, “but 96.6% of parents send their kids to parochial schools.” Therefore the primary effect of this voucher

scheme is to send fresh bodies to parochial schools, thereby aiding Religion, thereby being unconstitional. What a load of crap. Parents send their children to the religious schools for 2 reasons: 1)Religious schools are more affordable and 2) they do a better job.

Now, here’s the interesting part: if vouchers were provided at funding levels anywhere comparable to the per-student government school funding, then private, non-religious schools would flourish. So, if you’re really concerned about tons of poor kids being brainwashed into religous belief, then you would have to conclude that a higher valued voucher would be constitutional. But should we expect to see voucher opponents switch to a “show me the money” approach, demanding reasonably-valued vouchers as a second-best choice to none at all?

Don’t hold your breath.

An argument I heard advanced on Friday a government-school defender was that public schools were being held to strict standards enforced by the federal government and state governments while private schools provided no “accountability.” Huh? Unlike government schools, private schools are directly accountable to parents, who — with the power of a voucher — can leave at any time. The most dissatisfied public-school parents can do is yell at the school board, transfer their child to a magnet school, or move to a different neighborhood. Notice that in each of those scenarios, the student (and therefore, the money) stays in the public-school system.

Perhaps what’s scariest to voucher opponents is the notion that schools — and the money that funds them — won’t be under their control anymore, but controlled directly by the people most impacted by them: parents and their children.

Anti-choicers complain that vouchers take away money from public schools. Well, the Cleveland program doesn’t, but some might.

But so what? They also take away the students those schools are supposed to be serving as well. If the money follows each student, then losing some students is a good thing –smaller class sizes, for example. But my guess is that most of the per-student money doesn’t actually go to serve the student, but pay for bloated bureaucracy and overpaid, underqualified teachers.

When one anti-choice panelist (who argued that vouchers were just a plot to resegregate schools) talked Friday about how he sent his children to private school for several years but felt the obligation to pay for it himself, a distinguished-looking gray-haired black lady in the third row spoke up. I paraphrase:

“Well, you could afford it,” she said. “Excuse me. I have to say something. I am a parent and grandparent raising three children by myself. You see this girl?” she asked, pointing to a cute 7-year-old girl in a floral-print summer dress whose straps were kissed by her shoulder-length, curly black hair.

“When she was 4 years old, she begged me to go to school. Now she’s going into the second grade, and she says she doesn’t want to go anymore. She’s totally turned off by school. And I don’t have the money to take her out and send her someplace else. I cannot wait for schools in the District to get better. My child needs a choice.”

I don’t think I need to add anything to that.

Not so irreconcilable differences

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

As he so often does, Steve Chapman looks beyond the superficial inconsistencies of the court rulings on vouchers and the Pledge of Allegiance to see an underlying logic. He writes:

The two courts were not only both right but were acting on behalf of the same sound constitutional principle.The principle can be summed up in two words: official neutrality. It stipulates that in dealing with religion, the government should be neither ally nor adversary. The 1st Amendment not only protects freedom of religion but forbids government support of religion.

He concludes:

How can we bar public schools from encouraging students to pay homage to God while allowing public money to go to schools whose whole purpose is to pay homage to God? By leaving decisions involving faith to individual conscience. A crazy idea, but it just might work.

Next up, Chapman tries to explain how allowing schools to drug-test marching band members fits into the picture.

A sad story

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

A front-page story by Mary Jordan in today’s Washington Post reminds us how well off women in the United States are, relative to many other parts of the world. “In Mexico, an unpunished crime” examines the astonishingly low rates of prosecution, conviction and punishment for rapists in that country. To wit:

Although the law calls for tough penalties for rape — up to 20 years in prison — only rarely is there an investigation into even the most barbaric of sexual violence. Women’s groups estimate that perhaps 1 percent of rapes are ever punished.

In the pueblos, it gets worse:

Town elders who act as judges in local criminal matters are invariably men. In one village in Guerrero state, elders were recently asked how they punish rape. The six men looked confused, as if they did not know what the term meant. When it was explained to them, they all laughed and said it sounded more like a courting ritual than a crime.

When they stopped laughing, they said a rapist would probably get a few hours in the local jail, or he might have to pay the victim’s family a $10 or $20 fine, but that all would be forgotten if he and the victim got married.

In the case of a cow thief, they said, the robber would be jailed. And, unlike the rapist, a cow thief would be brought before the elders for a lecture about the severity of the crime.

Once again, what could I add?

A few good things

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Tim Lynch on “Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Preserving Our Liberties While Fighting Terrorism.” An excellent overview of the issues. A companion piece to that is Ted Galen Carpenter’s “Protecting Liberty in a Permanent War.”

Michael Lynch is right on in his “Flying Fat” about Southwest’s policy of charging obese folks (like myself) more for spilling over into the next seat. A common misperception is that you’re only paying to get from point A to point B. But part of the fare is for how much space you take up on the plane. Lynch writes:

Passengers are paying for real estate, a well-defined seat bordered by two armrests that is barely sufficient to provide a tolerably comfortable flight. Overweight people have no right to eat off another person’s plate in a restaurant and they have no general right to occupy part of the seat that another person has purchased on an airplane.

Eventually, as more and more people occupy more territory on planes, we may see larger seats in new plane — or perhaps even a fat section.

IPJ’s conservative? Get outta here!

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

So in his column today Howard Kurtz included an item about a fundraising letter Fred Barnes sent out on IPJ’s behalf.

Kurtz incorrectly describes Barnes as director of IPJ (he sits on the Fund for American Studies’ Board of Trustees. But according to Kurtz, Barnes writes in the letter, “We conservative journalists are vastly outnumbered, and we need reinforcements soon!” Of course, those reinforcements are supposed to come in part from IPJ. This was discussed in our ethics class tonight in passing and caused quite a tizzy.

Barnes contradicts himself a little bit. In the letter he says that many of the IPJ students “are bright young conservatives,” but he told Kurtz that in his recent visit, “they didn’t sound like conservatives to me.” And he’s right that there’s no litmus test on IPJ students. The application asks only one very vague essay question.

But it’s no secret that the Fund itself is a conservative organization — heck, I attended an event explicitly intended for young conservatives and libertarians hosted at the Fund’s headquarters — and that IPJ attempts through its classes to impart a conservative point of view. I don’t think it’s an accident that three weeks into classes we’ve yet to hear John Maynard Keynes’ name mentioned in our economics lecture, or for that matter a kind word for government. Take a look at the syllabus for yourself.

Every speaker we’ve had so far has been conservative. All of our speakers, to my knowledge, are conservatives. Our speaker next week is Jessica Gavora, wife of National Review scribe Jonah Goldberg (son of Clinton-hater Lucianne Goldberg) and speechwriter for every civil libertarian‘s favorite whipping boy, Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Now, I’m fine with all of this. I knew that going in. But accusations (that is, accurate descriptions) that IPJ is conservative definitely should not cause a tizzy. I recall asking a couple of non-conservative seeming folks I met my first day here, “Now, you all know this is a right-wing program right?” I received responses I would call equivocal. So I wonder how many people even bothered to check out the program before applying or agreeing to come. I guess since pretty much everyone was accepted regardless, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

In the Federal City, you’ve been blown and shown pity …

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

…  in secret for pieces of change.

Cato’s Ronald D. Rotunda does a fine job of showing how Dick Durbin and Richie Daley are trying to get Congress to sidestep the Constitution and give the go-ahead for Chicago to expand O’Hare Airport. Of course there are the pragmatic arguments against expanding O’Hare, which is largely a sweetheart deal for Daley and his political friends to make more money off big construction projects.

But the constitutional argument is one that hasn’t seen much light, just as it rarely does. Rotunda writes:

The Constitution gives Congress plenty of ways to deal with O’Hare, but they all cost money: Congress can use its spending power to expand the airport; it can give the state money on the condition that it expand the airport; it can order federal officials (the Army Corps of Engineers) to build the O’Hare expansion. But Congress may not simply order or authorize state or city officials to violate state law and act like federal employees.

The proposed federal law dealing with the expansion of O’Hare Airport subjects Illinois to special burdens that are not applicable to other states or to private parties. And it authorizes Chicago, a city created by the state, to do that which Illinois law prohibits.

The deal stinks in a classic Chicago way. And everybody yawns …

Bringing economics to life

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Though I already know much of the material, I’m really enjoying the economics class I’m taking as part of the Institute on Political Journalism, and a big reason for that is the professor, Tom Rustici of George Mason University’s famed economics department.

At times he comes off a little too preachy, repeating points and overstating things in a way that makes me wince. I guess I always get antsy when others are espousing points of view I basically agree with but doing so in a way I find … simplistic, I guess is the word, though I’m not sure. But there are moments when his windy lectures (three hours long, after a full day of work, in a room with uncomfortable chairs) really hit home.

For example, last Thursday night he talked about price controls, including the minimum wage. He told us how during the Great Depression his grandfather used to provide his family with a middle-class lifestyle as an outstanding manual laborer. Then he began to go blind. Once he was 90 percent blind he was laid off and his family was plunged into dire poverty. The family subsisted, in part, on piece work his grandfather used to do from home.

One day, federal bureaucrats showed up at the door to enforce the recently passed minimum wage that was part of the National Recovery Act. They told him he couldn’t do the piece work anymore, though there was no way he could produce enough to earn the minimum wage that had been set by the federal government.

Searching for the NRA link provided above, I found the lyrics to a folk song from the ’30s which, naturally, mourns the death of the “blue eagle,” the mascot of the legislation. Ah, those old lefties crack me up. I’m sure they cracked up Rustici’s granddad too.

Dry clean only

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

As in, you should only have one choice of dry cleaners. At least, you might believe that if you read a sign at the Uptown Valet dry cleaners a few blocks away from where I’m living at Georgetown. I went in there to drop off my sportcoat the other day and after I had completed the transaction I saw a sign posted on the register.

It said, and I paraphrase: “We have not expanded next door. Another dry cleaners has decided to open next door even though you know we offer the best service and the best price. We are very unpleased by this unfair and inappropriate act.”

Hmm … if they offer the best service at the best price, why are they worried about the folks opening up next door? My favorite part is the accusation that it’s “unfair and inappropriate” for another dry cleaners to move in next door. I wonder if McDonald’s says the same thing when a Burger King opens across the street. Needless to say, I’m going to a different place in the future, and it’s closer to home too.

So much to blog, so little time

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

But I’ll try to get in what I can before they kick me out of the library in half an hour. Gene Healy and Eve Tushnet have already summarized more or less what happened at the blog roundtable I attended last night.

Naturally, none of the very perceptive questions Healy asked were answered by any of the panelists, but moderator’s questions are usually ignored in these types of situations. Stan Evans did a great job of bluffing his way through the discussion, since he clearly had no idea what the hell people were talking about half the time. I’d look over in his direction as someone else was talking and he’d have this bemused look on his face.

But he made some very good points that apply across all media, and one thing he said particularly struck home with me. One thing I find attractive about the blogosphere and opinion writing in general is that I love the attitude. I can pick and choose what I agree with, creating a feedback loop that reinforces what I already think in an entertaining and informative way.

However, there is still this real world of supposedly objective, mainstream journalism that libertarians and free-marketeers need to crack. It’s not good enough to just be blogging in reaction to the latest blunder in The New York Times, or writing an opinion column, or publishing in places like Reason. Those things definitely have their place, but I kind of realize two things about myself and my career at this point: The first is that I’m not any better as a writer than the folks who work for Reason or Cato or any of the traditional ideological organs of libertarian and free-market thinking. I’m certainly not any smarter, or even as smart. I’m not needed there, and frankly I’m not wanted there.

But where I can do some good, I think, is at the small suburban paper where I’ll be the one voice asking the tough questions that don’t get asked about zoning laws, taxes to pay for schools and so on. And I don’t mean as a columnist, but as a reporter who is skeptical of government and of politicians and is looking to show how so many government policies lead to bad results. That I think I can do, and there I think can be of some value.

That’s where I stand now, anyway. I could change my mind in five minutes, and ultimately it all depends on who is the first to offer me a job. Will it be you?

One more thing, on personal info on blogs: I love it. But then again, I’m a nosy sort of person. If someone is a good writer and an interesting person, even the very mundane can be entertaining or insightful. If you like a blogger enough to read about his views on politics, then why shouldn’t his views on bank hassles be of equal interest — if he or she delivers them in the same well-written fashion?

By the way, the Fund for American Studies has a sweet place. Very fancy digs. And free drinks and free dinner. Not bad. I’ve got to find more of these things around town. Here I am sitting at home eating macaroni and cheese like a sucker.

How hypocritical can you get?

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I guess that’s a rhetorical question, but I have an answer for you. Take Fred Barnes. Please. He spoke to an IPJ group last Sunday, I think it was, on whatever he wanted to talk about, I guess. There was no topic.

So he rambled on for a bit about what you should read to stay up on the news, that you had to get a fresh angle on stories, and that print was the most influential medium in D.C. Don’t do TV, he said. “Sure, the money’s nice, but it just takes up time you could be using to write.” OK. Then why do I see him on TV three times a day? Why has he made his whole career off peddling second-rate opinion columns but jumping in front of a camera every chance he gets.

Learn to practice what you preach, Fred. Jeez. Yeah, the money’s nice. Just say so, then. Don’t pretend like someone’s twisting your arm, making you do TV when you’d gladly be earning less money and remain completely anonymous like most scribes in the nation’s capital. Ah, well.