When the World Is Led by a Child

Comment to New York Times article by David Brooks (note: Brooks is considered a conservative)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/opinion/trump-classified-data.html?comments#permid=22518785

George Washington warned about the abject support of Trump by the Republicans:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”

Every year on Washington's birthday, a member of the Senate reads Washington's "Farewell Address". And every year the Senate ignores his advice by dividing itself along party lines. We now see almost lockstep support of Trump by Republicans and lockstep opposition to Trump by Democrats.

Maybe someday the the voters will grow up and elect grown-ups to political office.

There never can be a free market in health care

I submitted the following comment to David Brooks “The Trump Elite. Like the Old Elite, but Worse”, New York Times, 2014-03-24, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/opinion/the-trump-elite-like-the-old-elite-but-worse.html?comments#permid=21912241. (Warning, my comment is buried among several others.)

There never can be a "free market" in health care.  Sure the sellers are free to leave the market, but few of the buyers are free to leave the market.

Let's hope it doesn't happen to you, but suppose you are in a car crash on a rural road.  First responders find you unconscious and decide to send you to a big city hospital rather than the nearest small town hospital.  Depending on the severity of your injuries, they call an ambulance (very expensive) or a helicopter (really expensive).  Oh yes, there is no free market in either because there are not many sellers of either, not many being only one.

There can be a free market in insurance providers, but how free a market is there when only five or six providers in your market?

The crime of war

"That’s because war — no matter how justified or unjustified, noble or ignoble — is always a crime."

David Brooks, "The Moral Injury", New York Times, 2015-02-17

The victims of war are not only those who are killed or maimed, but those who were put in a position of killing.

Insecure believers and non-believers

"Insecure believers sometimes cling to a rigid and simplistic faith."
- David Brooks, "The Subtle Sensations of Faith", New York Times, 2014-12-23

The insecure believers make the headlines or the history books.  Think of all the "Islamists" who want to kill anyone who does not believe as they do.  Think of the Ku Klux Klan, the Protestants and Catholic gunmen of Northern Ireland, the Communists of North Korea, and many more "true believers".

We also have so-called non-believers who have to attack those who claim to believe.

Maybe I'm being a hypocrite here because I have questioned the texts that many base their beliefs on.  However, it is only the texts I question, not the belief in something greater than oneself.  But I have no problem with people who believe in something I don't believe in.  My problem is with those who want to "prove" that they are right because of something somebody long ago wrote as "fact".

For example, did Adam and Eve really exist?  Or are they metaphor for our hubris that we "know better than God"?

What we really should consider is "moral truth" over "mythical truth".  For example, was God really tempted by Satan to severely test Job, or is the Book of Job an exploration of why bad things happen to good people?

Republican Party and community

In 2009, David Brooks chided the Republican Party for learning the wrong lessons from Hollywood Westerns.

"Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order."
"The Long Voyage Home", New York Times, 2009-05-04.

It seems with their obsession with gun ownership and worship of large corporations, they haven't heeded David Brooks who is called a conservative by many.

On how movie Westerns are not a reflection of life in many western communities, see "How the Gunfighter Killed Bourgeois America" by Ryan McMaken.

Quote of the day: Governance

"The big difference is that the protesters don’t believe in governance."  "The Possum Republicans", David Brooks, New York Times, 2012-02-29.

Brooks wrote that the protesters of the Tea Party and the professionals may agree on the issues, but that the protesters would rather make a statement of belief than get any legislation passed.  He has many more right-on observations in this column on the polarizations within the party creating legislative polarizations.

Let's stop letting ideologues drive the debate

Two of the great mantras of our time are the need to improve test scores and the need for performance pay to satisfy the first.

One article that seemed to make sense was "The Uncertain Impact of Merit Pay for Teachers", Edwin Glaeser, New York Times, 2010-06-08.   Even though some studies were not solid on merit pay, Prof. Glaeser still supported merit pay for teachers.

In trying to retrieve this article, I stumbled on "Let's Have Merit Pay for Economists Who Muck Around in Education Issues",  Jim Horn, School Matters, 2010-06-08.  Horn counters with other studies that showed performance pay doesn't work, including a study presented at the conference that Glaeser wrote about.

See also Horn's "More Research on Teacher Performance Pay for Duncan to Ignore".

What all this clamor for performance pay misses is that schools aren't really about test taking and getting good scores.  They are about learning to learn and learning to be creative.  I read that East Asian kids may be much better at passing tests than American kids, but they don't seem to have the innovative skills that are far more abundant in the U.S.

A refreshing antidote is "History for Dollars", David Brooks, New York Times, 2010-06-07.  He wrote that many students are opting for college degrees in "practical matters" like accounting and that the portion of humanities majors has dropped as much as 50 percent in a generation.  He argues that humanities gives communication skills, "a wealth of analogies", and the ability to think in different ways.

Ah!  Think in different ways!  That certainly beats thinking in differing ways.

Has a new, moderate party gotten closer?

David Brooks speculates in "The Story of an Angry Voter", New York Times, 2010-05-21, that given the extremes that both parties seem to be moving to, the pragmatists in government will have no choice but to start a new party.  Although he doesn't see it happening in the near future, I hope that he keeps writing about the possibility.

More on the changing economy

David Brooks wrote an interesting column on how we are changing from making stuff to creating ideas or protocols, ways of doing things. See "The Protocol Society", New York Times, 2009-12-22.

I checked on the local availability of the books Brooks recommended: "From Poverty to Prosperity" and "Smart World". Neither the Duluth Public Library nor the UMD Library has either book.

Are we changing fast enough? Are we too concerned about jobs for doing the same old things few want to pay for? Shouldn't we be more concerned about opportunities to bring forth new ideas? Is "No Child Left Behind" more about training kids to make stuff rather than to create ideas? Are our politicians more interested about protecting companies and industries that make stuff rather than encouraging companies and industries that make protocols?

Sometimes I think we have more of the prerequisites than any other country to move to a protocol society, and sometimes I think by we are going to let other countries get there first.

Real values from a real conservative

I enjoy reading David Brooks columns in the New York Times because he often makes sense out of all the conflicting ideas. He is conservative in the non-ideological sense; he doesn't take automatic positions because those are the currently popular "conservative" "values". He looks at ideas from several perspectives; he weighs the good and bad of proposals both now and on a longer time scale.

A good example is his column "The Values Question", New York Times, 2009-11-24.

The values in question are caring for the vulnerable in our society. If we care for the vulnerable, then we may not have resources to invest in other things we as a society want. On the other hand, do we want to live in a society that does not care for the vulnerable?

To me, this is real conservatism, even compassionate conservatism.

His apostasies from "true conservatism" include that to pay for the costs of some of these programs "the Democrats have admirably agreed to raise taxes."

Is a moderate major party coming soon?

David Brooks doesn't suggest a coming party realignment in "The Long Voyage Home", New York Times, 2009-05-05, as much as he gives a prescription for how the Republican Party can get back to its own basic message of people working together. He complains that the Republicans have become too much the party of individualism and freedom and have lost sight that most people live in communities that they want to see work. The Republicans have also elevated means like capitalism and tax cuts to holy principles and ends in themselves.

What is interesting is some of the comments that the editors selected for separate listing. Most were thoughtful on the idea of our need to build community and work more at the local level than have the federal government solve everything.

Will this reasoned view of possibilities lead to the formation of a more pragmatic party as a counter to the two parties that are controlled more by ideology than making things work?

Religion in politics

I recently read three interesting columns on religion in politics and politicians who try to show how religious they are.

Faith vs. the Faithless
David Brooks
New York Times - 2007-12-07

Brooks wrote a good analysis of Mitt Romney's speech on faith about the conflict between those who want religion to be very much part of public discourse and those who want to leave religion as a private matter.

Brooks thinks the speech was a good one, but he is not enthusiastic about it. Rather than various religious points of view competing in the public square, Romney maintains that those with "faith" are being victimized by the faithless. "Romney insisted that all religions share an equal devotion to all good things. Really? Then why not choose the one with the prettiest buildings?" "There was no hint of ... the religion most people know–the religion that imposes restraints upon the passions, appetites and sinfulness of human beings."

The Times also wrote "The Crisis of Faith", 2007-12-07

"A presidential candidate cowed into defending his way of worshiping God by a powerful minority determined to impose its religious tenets as a test for holding public office."

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune wrote "The religiosity test: Doubters need not apply" about the religious test several candidates are expecting; that is, one must believe in a single god. Agnostics, atheists, and humanists need not even try. They seem to ignore the provision in the U.S. Constitution "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office".

I read Chapman's column in the 2008-01-02 Star Tribune; his latest column available on the Chicago Tribune web site was 2007-12-23. He did write several on religion in presidential politics.

The Dictatorship of Talent

Op-ed by David Brooks
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04brooks.html?hp

According to Brooks, China is no longer a Communist society but a corpocracy ruled by an elite based on merit. The merit is based more on passing tests heavy on memorization than on creativity. Will it be able to move to an information society?

If CTRIP and others are an indication, probably. CTRIP is a successful Chinese online travel complany.

Creative fallacies

I'm reading George Soros' The Age of Fallibility, and I recently read columns by Diane Ravitch on No Child Left Behind (1) and David Brooks on the co-opting of classical conservatism by the Republican Party (2). Or should I say, the co-opting of the Republican Party by people who are certain they hold the truth.

No Child Left Behind and the "war on terrorism" have created more problems than they have solved and diverted resources away from possibly better solutions. We have looked for the quick fixes, the Father knows best solutions, rather than engage in a sober discussion of what the real problems are. We deal with solving problems with the certainty we know the solutions rather than deal with the uncertainty that we won't have a perfect solution.

For example, peace demonstrations are not the answer to extricating our country from the Iraq war. Demonstrations are more mob rule than governance. A better strategy would be to write columns, blogs, letters to the editor, letters to representatives showing the fallacies of the current course. This strategy would have to also suggest ideas to deal with the problems. For example, what do you do for all the Iraqis that have helped the U.S. forces?

The "war on terror" like the "war on drugs" before it is a misleading choice of words. The "war on terror" has reinforced the view that a military solution will adequately deal with criminals who are certain that their view of the world will prevail. We can't bomb Hamburg because terrorists are living and plotting there.

We need to counter terrorism more with ideas than bullets. The U.S. has blown many chances to show that the bin Laden version of Muslim is contrary to many teachings of the Qu'ran. We need to show that an ideology will not bring about a heaven on earth, but that an open society will give us more opportunities to get closer to a just world. We need to counter certainty with possibilities.

(1) "Get Congress Out of the Classroom", Diane Ravitch, New York Times, Oct. 3, 2007

(2) "The Republican Collapse", David Brooks, New York Times, Oct. 5, 2007

Tectonic shift in politics coming?

Before I started writing blog entries today, I checked my friend Harry Welty's blog, http://www.lincolndemocrat.org

He had an interesting link to Andrew Sullivan's blog entry on "Why we went to war".

I thanked Harry for posting the link and replied:

Thanks for posting the link to “Why We Went to War”. I’ve long suspected that it was more “projection of power” than real defense. However, if it had been executed properly it might have worked. But then ideologues have an unrealistic view of their own capabilities. I think about Carl Becker’s assertion that Lincoln went to war not so much to quell a rebellion or to abolish slavery but to keep the power of the whole United States against depradations on a splintered America by European powers. See, “The United States: An Experiment in Democracy”. Sorry, I don’t have a page number.

I had also emailed him a link to David Brooks' column "No U-Turns", New York Times, March 29, 2007. Brooks said that the political environment is not for the rugged individualism of Goldwater and Reagan. He called it the "Liberty vs. Power paradigm". He wrote that the new paradigm is "security leads to freedom".

I sort of agree that Goldwater and Reagan aren't the future of the GOP but its a mystery to me how the party can recover from Bush,Cheney, Rove, Dobson and company.

I replied:

I think the only hope for politics is some new, grand coalition like I suggested in my April Fool Reader article. It doesn’t have to be Olympia Snowe, but somebody of stature who works on governance rather than power and posturing. Maybe Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas or Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. The latter can’t become President under the current rules, but he could be an enabler.

I did send webforms to Snow, Sebelius, and Schwazenegger with the link to my article and the hope that they would continue their work on the common ground.