Feeling a bit too much the elder rebel — whose rebellion is increasingly merely to laugh at the enemy’s antics — I suggested to a URI College Republican in a comment to my previous post that it is only recently that campus communities have had to face the idea that perhaps anti-conservatism isn’t simply an objective indication of compassionate intelligence. I contend that the prejudice is only so visible now because it is being challenged. Well, as if to provide me evidence, URI student Arthur Ferri has published a humorous example of the old mentality in The Good ¢5 Cigar:
The University of Rhode Island’s conservatives lament that their social science and humanities professors are liberal. Professors who spent their entire lives analyzing the beloved “marketplace of ideas” under the strictest academic protocols and guess what? Conservatism lost. That is why conservative faculty members in these disciplines are few and far between.
… Maybe conservative students are “captive and vulnerable,” but no liberal student I ever met felt “captive and vulnerable” in the classroom, but rather proud and confident that his liberal values (yes, we like that word) stand up successfully to vigorous academic scrutiny. Liberal students find “political propagandizing in the classroom” stimulating and a challenge, especially from conservative professors.
Ah yes! The pride and confidence of students who believe that they are regurgitating an ideology that has emerged victorious in “the ‘marketplace of ideas’ under the strictest academic protocols.” The stimulation and challenged of not taking “two seconds of verbal abuse from conservatives in the classroom without hitting back hard with solid academic evidence” that is provided readily by the many professors — not “few and far between” — with whom the students agree. Oh the confidence of the smug and the stimulation of the sneer built on political dominance in an environment in which “intellectual diversity” means degrees of Leftism (which, as we all know, professors push merely for the unobjectionable reason that it has been proven correct):
Conservatives are never going to have power here and nothing can possibly be done about it. At the university, conservatives will never be allowed to sit at the cool people’s table in the cafeteria.
Witness the hamartia of those who cannot ponder the possibility that authoritarian mechanisms are possible, indeed victorious, in the world of higher education. Rest assured, College Republicans (and Arthur, too), that Mr. Ferri’s is the voice of a doomed elite. We who’ve been sputtered at with the “solid academic evidence” of the intellectual comme il faut can hear the hollow echo of stagnation in its strains.
[Open full post]Earlier today, I described Congressman Jack Murtha’s plan for “redeploying” troops out of Iraq as appeasement. I explain why Congressman Murtha’s approach is deeply flawed in my latest TechCentralStation article.
[Open full post]President Bush gave another speech on our progress in Iraq and our own Senator Jack Reed (again) offered the Democrat response. Senator Reed referred to the speech like this:
“Another missed opportunity to be candid with the American public,” Reed tagged Mr. Bush’s speech. During a news conference in the Capitol, Reed said, “The American people were eager to hear the president’s plan for the economic reconstruction of Iraq. Instead, we again heard vague generalities.”
Such vague generalities can be found here.
[Open full post]I’ve been following the letters to the editor exchanges in the University of Rhode Island’s student paper, The Good ¢5 Cigar, subsequent to David Horowitz’s appearance on campus, including an angry offering from the man himself. In today’s edition, however, is a letter from John Biszko, a Tulane student displaced back home, as it were, by Katrina, that is particularly poignant:
I feel absolutely compelled to write in to the Cigar because since the time I have become a part of the College Republicans I have come under an unfair and vicious onslaught unlike anything else I have ever encountered. I have studied at Providence College, the University of Connecticut, Tulane University of Louisiana, and the Special Operations University of the U.S. Military, and I have never encountered such blatant and inexcusable attempts at liberal political indoctrination in classrooms before.
Personally, I’m inclined to advise the young man simply to enjoy, grow, and improve from the experience, and I can’t decide whether the barbed point with which he closes enhances or diminishes the wisdom of such counsel (emphasis added):
I will also add that my intelligence has been insulted by blatant attempts to present Republicans as uncaring, and that my uniform has suffered onslaught by anti-military sentiment expressed by professors from the podiums of their classrooms during class periods that myself and other students pay dearly for.
Of course, our consideration of the matter isn’t merely academic; Mr. Biszko neglected to mention that Rhode Islanders all pay dearly for the public university.
ADDENDUM:
Also in today’s edition of the Cigar is a letter from another student conservative, Jesse Gillett, who makes this curious defense of the College Republicans on a discrete, but related, issue:
I apologize, Miss Grant, for pointing this out to you again because it may still come as a shock to you; the essay made no attempt at stating (or whining, as you likely want people to think) that affirmative action discriminates against whites. To say that the College Republicans stand for such a ludicrous idea, without providing logical reasoning, is despicable.
I lack the time to read the backstory, so I can’t say whether Gillett’s point is accurate with respect to the essay in question, but the claim strikes me as of the type that lend credence to the notion that the speaker is hiding actual beliefs and intentions. It is plainly true that affirmative action discriminates against whites. That may not be the most important argument against the practice, but it’s true nonetheless. As for what the College Republicans “stand for,” well that I can’t say.
[Open full post]In a moment of negative serendipity (if there is such a thing), the following headlines great the reader of today’s ProJo:
“Electric Boat to cut 2,400 jobs”
“State OKs expansion in Newport Grand slots”
The Electric Boat layoff is a result of a reprioritization by the Navy and is an example of the normal economic corrections that go on all the time. Jobs go away in one sector of the economy and are added in others. While it can be difficult and trying for the individual affected by this normal economic ebb and flow, a job-seeking EB welder can take heart that his skillset is probably coveted by another employer here in Rhode Island or (more likely) somewhere else. If he can’t find a job as a welder here in Rhode Island–and doesn’t want to move–he could forget welding altogether, sign-up for job retraining, and look for a job in some other area. Or he could always take a job at Newport Grand. It seems they’re expanding.
Anchor Rising Contributor Mac Owens has posted this story about an encounter with Senator Chafee on The Corner:
Chafee is a disgrace. In February 2002, I was invited to give some remarks at the North Kingstown Republican Town Committee’s Annual Lincoln Day Dinner. This is a big event each year and all of the Rhode Island Republicans are there. The title of my speech that night was “Abraham Lincoln, the American Founding, and the Principles of the Republican Party,” which I think at some point was published on NRO. In any event, Chafee was there and sitting at a table right in front of the podium. When I reached the penultimate paragraph of my speech, I looked right at him and said:
“As the country music philosopher, Aaron Tippin, said in a song a few years back, “you’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.” Republicans have traditionally stood for limited government to protect equal rights. If the Party of Lincoln ever abandons its fealty to the principles of the Declaration, it will become little more than a pale imitation of the redistributionist Democratic Party. And Republicans can never hope to match the Democrats in offering a government solution for every problem, real or imagined.”
Chafee’s face turned absolutely scarlet. I heard from a party guy later that evening that Chafee was livid. I was elated.
Shortly after 9/11, I was talking to a friend of mine who is a TV reporter. He is a great guy but his politics are conventionally liberal. He was disgusted with Chafee because when he asked for Chafee’s response to the attacks, our senator wouldn’t give him an answer. Apparently, he needed to see what others thought first. Even liberals are disgusted by Chafee’s lack of backbone.
I voted for him in 2000. I will never pull the lever for him again. As a Southerner, I come from a long line of “Yellow-Dog Democrats” and in keeping with this legacy, I will vote for a yellow dog before I will vote for this spineless disgrace.
Incidentally, the speech to which Mac refers is available here.
UPDATE: Anonymous commenter “Anthony” had this to say about Mac’s post:
Suffice to say, I do recall Chafee’s reaction to the incident. Maybe Chafee didn’t give the reporter the sound bite he was looking for, but to suggest the Chafee wasn’t bothered by the 9/11 attacks is just factually untrue. It is shameful to suggest otherwise. . .
So let me get this straight, you used Senator Chafee’s name to raise money for the North Kingstown GOP and then proceeded to intentionally insult the person who helped you raise the money? Afterwards you were glad that you embarassed a special guest? Nice. Real classy.
I bear responsibility for cross-posting Mac’s comments on NRO here at Anchor Rising. I have informed Mac of these comments and leave it up to him to respond if he so wishes.
UPDATE II: Mac responds:
I take it that Anthony doesn’t like my assessment of the good senator’s attachment to the principles of the Republican Party. But if he were to actually read my speech he would see that I had no intention of embarrassing Chafee. He does a fine job of that on his own. The purpose of my speech was to remind a group of Republicans about the legacy of their Party, a legacy too many Republicans, Chafee most certainly among them, have forgotten or abandoned. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know Chafee would be there when I was composing the speech. The fact that he was livid told me that at least one person there understood what I was talking about.
I probably shouldn’t have related the second hand story about Chafee’s response to 9/11, but I believe the reporter’s account. He is a very well known reporter whose liberal credentials are impeccable. Nonetheless, I shouldn’t have added it to my post. For this I apologize.
Anthony needs to develop a sense of humor. I know Aaron Tippin is not a real philosopher. But sometimes there is wisdom in the most mundane things. For instance, when it comes to women, I take my motto from a Sawyer Brown song. “Some girls don’t like guys like me. Ah, but some girls do.” Now that’s true country philosophy.
In any event. I’ll still vote for that yellow dog before I pull the lever for Chafee again.
Cheers, Mac[Open full post]
OK, that was a cheap ploy. I’m pro-choice within the context of L. Brent Bozell‘s editorial in today’s ProJo regarding ‘a la carte‘ cable television options:
Consumers watch, on average, just 17 channels. But to get them, they are forced to buy this bundle of channels, because it opens up the universe of programming that they do want, from Disney and Nickelodeon to CNN and C-SPAN to channels for sports fans and history buffs.
This “all or nothing” approach is more than just an annoyance; it’s a consumer rip-off. And it forces parents to try to protect their children from cable programs that they consider unsuitable just to get kid-friendly channels. . .
It would be unthinkable for a magazine publisher to tell you that in order to subscribe to the children’s magazine Ranger Rick, you must also subscribe to Playboy and Guns & Ammo. But that’s exactly what the cable industry has been forcing cable subscribers to do. The practice limits choice, raises consumer costs, and prohibits new and independent cable programming that might better reflect the diverse interests of viewers. . .
The cable industry knows there is growing consumer support for legislation requiring cable companies to provide “a la carte” pricing — an option that would allow subscribers to select and pay for only those channels they want.
It’s something I’ve been hoping for this for quite some time. Most cable providers are highly resistant to this infringement on their monopolistic programming power (satellite TV usage is still relatively scarce), but some other big hitters are supporting the measure. Speaking strictly as a consumer, I hope this goes through.
[Open full post]National Grid, the company that most Rhode Islanders send their electric bills to, says it is not responsible for rising electric rates. Here’s a spokesman from National Grid quoted by Jim Baron in the Pawtucket Times…
National Grid says the climbing cost it isn’t their fault, they take care of the wires and the poles and the switching stations. The law forbids them from owning electric generating capacity. They deal strictly with transmission and distribution.The analogy doesn’t work. When I use UPS, I pick the sender on the other end and I decide if I want to pay the cost of item being delivered. When I buy my electricity from National Grid, I don’t get to choose whether I want oil-generated, nuclear-generated, or otherwise-generated electricity. National Grid picks the flavor of electricity that I receive. Mr. Ryan’s analogy would only work if I told UPS “send me a book” and UPS picked the bookseller and price without consulting me.
National Grid spokesman Michael Ryan likens the company to services like UPS and Fed Ex – it can’t be blamed for the price of the goods it delivers, he says.
And Rhode Island residents do have different flavors of electricity to choose from. According to a letter sent by Governor Don Carcieri to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, “roughly half of Rhode Island’s energy comes from sources other than oil or natural gas”. Here’s where things get less-than-intuitive. The price a customer pays for electicity is not necessarily tied to its cost of generation…
In his November 18th letter to the FERC Secretary Magalie Roman Salas, Governor Carcieri cited his concerns regarding “serious problems in the electric energy markets in New England that unnecessarily increase the price of electric energy to consumers”…The Governor’s press release is a tad ambiguous about whether suppliers of non-oil, non-gas electricity raise prices because they can or whether they raise prices because of government mandates. Baron�s article explains that uniform pricing is the result of government mandates�
Specifically, the Governor noted that two mechanisms for determining the price of energy are primarily responsible for this phenomenon. First, the market price for energy is determined by the highest cost charged by any single producer, forcing local energy distributors, and thus consumers, to pay inflated energy prices.
For instance, if the cost of producing energy from oil and natural gas goes up, but the cost of producing energy at a nuclear plant remains static, the nuclear producer increases its rates to match the price being charged by the oil and natural gas producers. In this scenario, the nuclear producers are enabled to charge higher rates even though their actual production costs have not increased.
In testimony earlier this year before the [Public Utilities Commission], Gov. Donald L. Carcieri pointed out a quirk in the law that ties the price of electricity to the price of oil and natural gas, even though that power may have been produced at a nuclear plant, or a coal-fired generator or at a hydroelectric facility.The URA is the “Utilities Restructuring Act of 1996”, which ties electric rates to a “Standard Offer” tied to the prices of oil and gas. At first glance, the URA seems to be yet another example of government’s uncanny ability to design systems that combine the compassion of raw capitalism with the efficiency of bureaucratic socialism.
That decision was made when the URA was written, said Ryan and Robert H. McLaren, senior vice president of New England Regulatory Affairs and Energy Supply for National Grid.
Understanding the details of the current price regulations is the beginning — not the end — of understanding the relation between government intervention, markets, energy policy and electric rates. There’s a whole other level of considerations centered on regulations disallowing companies from owning both electricity generation and electicity transmission facilities. However, from Baron’s articles and Governor Carcieri’s letter, two points emerge right away, one substantive, one seemingly semantic, but not… [Open full post]
Here’s the seemingly semantic point about deregulation and electricity prices: how is a system where the lowest cost producer is forced by law to set prices at the level of the high cost producer considered “deregulated”. This is more than semantics. Because the current system is considered “deregulated”, a key Rhode Island official is arguing that tighter government contol of the power industry is self-evidently necessary. This is from a second Pawtucket Times article from Jim Baron…
Count Special Assistant Attorney General Paul Roberti, who specializes in regulatory issues in representing the Division of Public Utilities, among those who think deregulation is at least part of the problem….Mr. Roberti is arguing that the failure of the current set of pricing regulations can only be interpreted as evidence supporting the need for stronger price regulations, but he needs to do a bit more explaining to make his case.
Deregulation, Roberti said, “is jeopardizing our reliability because it is not promoting fuel diversity (coal, waterpower, nuclear, solar and wind generation as opposed to oil and natural gas-fired plants), it is not promoting conservation and worst of all it is not promoting sufficient (capacity) to meet the peak day in summer and the peak day in winter, which means we are facing rolling blackouts without an administrative surcharge. That all adds up to failure. They may not believe it, but the market has failed.
A big part of the current problem, apparently, is that current regulations force all electricity to be priced the same, regardless of the cost of generation. Also, it is unclear how increased regulation limiting the price of electricity will promote conservation. Keeping prices artificially low promotes increased consumption, not conservation.
Mr. Roberti’s case is based on the tragically flawed idea that good intentions guarantee good policy…
“The market has one thing on its mind, which is profits,” Roberti said. “Regulation is the heart that wants to make sure that consumers get essential utility lifeline services at the lowest reasonable cost. That is the role of regulation.”But the legislators who wrote the current set of regulations presumably had good intentions. Why should we expect them to do any better this time around? As Justin just pointed out, RI legislators have a tendency to take their regulatory powers a step (at least) too far, ultimately doing more harm than good.
Making a case for stronger, weaker, or status-quo regulation depends upon explaining the role and the concerns of National Grid. I can’t quite determine from what I’ve read so far what National Grid’s market incentives are supposed to be. If the FedEX/UPS analogy that National Grid suggests is accurate, then they are collecting the same fixed rate no matter what they deliver. Is that the case? Or are they a true wholesalers, buying from producers and reselling at a markup to retail customers? In either case, what is their incentive to shop around for the lowest prices?
We’re starting to ask the right questions. Eventually we’ll get the right answers. And then turning the right answers into good policy? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. [Open full post]
