Rocco DiPippo has a piece on FrongPageMag investigating Montclair State University’s Grover Furr — professor of (apparently) Leftism. From the extended version that Rocco has published on his blog:
… the reader might have concluded that Professor Furr, by spreading disinformation, pushing Marxism and communism on his students, and advocating for one of mankind’s greatest mass murderers, behaves exactly as a professor of English literature and professional educator shouldn’t. Unfortunately, I doubt that many of his colleagues would be so affected. During extensive research of Furr I found not one example of a university professor, teacher or administrator questioning his in-class behavior or his teaching methods.
What I did find was quite the opposite–a network of high school and college teachers and administrators who actually support his methods, views and goals and recommend his web pages as both a teaching resource and as a guide in developing curricula–sad commentary on Humanities departments nationwide, which as you read this, sink deeper and deeper into a miasma of pseudo-intellectualism, fatuous scholarship and anti-Western Marxist propagandizing.
As Lane Core has noted (click “confer”), the network that Rocco has discovered is an achievement a half-century in the making.
[Open full post]I was going to respond to a letter by Jayne Platt:
We can call and write our representatives. I do, I really do. Should I quit my job and babysit the Assembly, watching every bill that comes to the floor? Then, I ask, why should I vote?
Stopping a self-serving, destructive bill needs to be done before it becomes law. After it’s law, how long will it take to reverse it? Separation of powers has taken decades to get to this point, and we’re still not there yet.
If half of our elected officials can’t be there to vote on critical bills, what logic on earth makes one think that a working Rhode Islander could control that power?
Under the current structure of government, I am not consenting.
But then I noticed that Westerly’s Ed Murphy, although not meaning directly to do so, has already responded:
The problem in Rhode Island is the broad abdication of citizens’ responsibility for what is happening to them. When people blindly accept what they are told by self-interested politicians, accept as normal and unchangeable that which is clearly improper, and look out only for what they perceive to be their personal interests, regardless of the interests of their neighbors, what can we expect?
Exactly what we have: a one-party legislature, dominated by legislators who are either present or past union leaders or members, led by a small group of power grabbers who would rather watch a Celtics basketball game than meet their sworn obligations to the public. How much does it require to make the point?
The problem is as clear as the answer: Wake up, Rhode Island! Stop letting others determine your future! Accept some responsibility for what is being done to you and your family! Join the ballot-box union and accept some responsibility for our future!
I don’t think people understand how much good they can do merely as they go about their lives here in Rhode Island. Contacting representatives is a good thing (I think), but each call is only one call. What this state needs are more calls from different people as well as more votes for different candidates.
You know, one doesn’t have to be slightly-questionable-activist-guy (or gal) to play a role in moving things forward. Talk to those with whom you interact every day. Encourage voting — or, better, heterodox voting. Above all, what Rhode Islanders need to foster is a political culture in which discussing politics — and actually acting on gripes and conclusions — isn’t an activity only for those with ulterior interests or a predilection for posturing.
Warren Beatty has suggested that Governor Schwarzenegger raise taxes on the rich:
Schwarzenegger should raise taxes on the California rich and “terminate” his fund-raising and dinners with “the brokers of Wall Street” and the “lobbyists of K Street,” Beatty said…
Beatty said Schwarzenegger should lead the rich toward helping California.
“It’s called the haves giving a little more to the have nots,” he said. “Nobody likes taxes, but everybody likes a peaceful, compassionate, law-abiding, productive, protective society.”
Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Vince Sollitto replied Saturday: “Tax and spend rhetoric aside, California needs budget reform because it’s not a revenue problem, but a spending problem.”
Beatty’s comments prompted the posting of these two quotes:
Walter Williams –
Reaching into one’s own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person’s pocket to assist one’s fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.
P.J. O’Rourke –
There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as “caring” and “sensitive” because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money. Well, who isn’t? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he’ll do good with his own money — if a gun is held to his head.
The referenced website itself contains this quote –
Thomas Sowell –
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.
Coerced “charity” via government taxation has several corrosive effects:
First, it incentivizes citizens to relinquish all personal responsibility to care for or get involved in supporting the needy in their community. After all, “the government” is responsible for doing that.
Second, it assumes that a distant bureaucrat can better judge how to structure the policy designed to meet the true needs of our neighbor whom he has never met. This is the knowledge/information problem raised over the years by both Hayek and Sowell.
Third, the problem in the second example also leads to higher economic costs due to more ineffective programs, continued propagation of such poor policies, and the ability for the programs to be affected by remote sources of power whose self-interest can often be anything but truly helping the needy neighbor.
Fourth, it also harms the recipient of the charity because appreciation is soon replaced with a feeling of entitlement and that person has less incentive to pull himself up by his own bootstraps.
On the other hand, voluntary charity draws people in through the formation of associations who are willingly bound by the same altruistic purpose. Such voluntary associations end up developing a refined sense of moral responsibility at the individual and group levels. And by teaching people to care and receive the joy and satisfaction that only comes from giving personally, people are touched in emotionally and spiritually powerful ways – and will be more likely to continue to reach out to others.
(E.g., Think back to when your young child first gained an appreciation for the satisfaction that comes from giving to others while expecting nothing in return.)
At a practical level, workers at a local charity will likely either know that neighbor or know people who knew the neighbor personally – allowing them to have valuable information which could determine what would be the most effective course of policy-related action.
To paraphrase Michael Novak, we need to take the time to build up these voluntary associations. Our society will be stronger and more free as a result. And more good things will happen over time.
This posting continues a periodic series on Rhode Island politics and taxation, building on ten previous postings (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI).
Ed Achorn of the ProJo is back with another thoughtful commentary that deserves to be shared and read in its entirety:
Last week, I sat in on a bit of a two-day symposium about “moral leadership,” sponsored by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Scholars discussed the concepts advanced by English philosopher John Locke, who inspired the values expressed in America’s Declaration of Independence.
In Locke’s view, a government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. As I sat and listened, I could not help wondering how much the people of Rhode Island really consent to the kind of government they have.
They vote, of course.
But if they truly consent, it would seem that they want to have second-rate public schools, and to pay a first-rate price for them. They want to have the nation’s fifth-highest taxes, and to drive away well-to-do people and retirees who could contribute greatly to the state in revenue and jobs. They want a national magazine to brand the state “Tax-hell Rhode Island.”
They want poor bridges and pothole-ridden roads. They want sewage flowing into the Bay, periodically killing massive numbers of fish. They want to create unsustainable government costs — even with enormously high taxes — by extending early retirements and lavish benefits to public employees. They want to pay for “free” lifetime health care for crossing guards, so that the Laborers’ Union will be happy and politicians can have more plush patronage jobs to hand out. They want Rhode Island courts to be ranked among the nation’s worst — dead last in New England — in being “fair and balanced,” according to a survey of 1,400 practicing corporate attorneys and general counsels.
They want their governor and local communities to force the public to hire lawyers and go to court to obtain public documents. They want their legislators to ram through bills before the public is any the wiser.
If most Rhode Islanders don’t consent to these things, on the other hand, then the state’s government is losing its legitimacy.
To be sure, there are structures in place that make it hard for Rhode Island citizens to get the government they want.
Public-employee unions are unusually powerful in the Ocean State. Their armies of campaign workers and piles of campaign cash regularly secure a majority of legislators who will vote in the unions’ interest, rather than the public’s. Leaders and spokesmen of these unions have become so arrogant that they often viciously denounce any citizen who would even discuss trying to shift the balance toward the public’s interest.
Rhode Island is perhaps the most Democrat-leaning state, and its voters are reluctant to turn out incumbents from their party. Freedom from fear of defeat in an election makes any politician (of any party) very complacent — and reckless.
A culture of secrecy thrives in Rhode Island government. It is often difficult for citizens to find out what is being done in their name.
This year’s legislative session is already crowded with bills filed to serve special interests, rather than the general interest:
Rep. Donald Lally (D.-Narragansett) sponsored a bill that would effectively give Rhode Island unions, through often one-sided negotiations, the power to decide the law of the land. His bill would give union contracts precedence over city and town charters — the basic governing structures and laws of municipalities.
Labor boss George Nee asked for the special legislation — and what Mr. Nee wants of the General Assembly, he often gets.
Sen. Teresa Paiva-Weed (D.-Newport), who long had a reputation as a public-spirited legislator, is co-sponsoring a bill that would bar the governor from appointing, for one year, people who had run for state or federal office and lost. This partisan bill — of highly dubious constitutionality — is transparently designed to make it harder for an opposing party to field candidates or fill positions.
Legislative leaders are trying to make independent day-care workers the equivalent of state employees, eligible to negotiate for plush benefits at a vast new expense to taxpayers.
House Majority Leader Gordon Fox (D.-Providence) introduced a bill to help a waterfront developer by removing power from Portsmouth officials and giving it to a state commission.
The question is: Do Rhode Islanders really consent to all this? Do they want their state to be run this way, or is this being forced on them?
I would argue that — even though the playing field is sharply tilted against the public interest — citizens are indeed “consenting” to the government they get. They have the legal means to change it.
They could call any legislator who is damaging the public and complain. They could run for office or raise money for honorable candidates, speak out, protest, join citizens’ organizations. They could apply a healthy degree of skepticism to the arguments of special-interest groups that feed off government. They could fight for greater openness. They could read the newspaper and act on what they see there.
Those of us who love Rhode Island, and wish to see it solve some very daunting problems, may not like this truth, but there it is: If citizens stand back and silently take what is being done to them, that is an expression of their consent.
What is the answer, Rhode Islanders? Are we truly a state filled with spineless wimps who consciously choose to accept this fate? I hope not.
[Open full post]This posting builds on three previous ones about the Naked Public Square (I, II, III).
Greg Wallace, over at What Attitude Problem?, posted this story yesterday about yet another successful attempt to strip naked the public square. Read the story and follow the links.
This latest news story leads me back to a quote by Richard John Neuhaus found in the Part II posting:
When religion in any traditional or recognizable form is excluded from the public square, it does not mean that the public square is in fact naked…
The truly naked public square is at best a transitional phenomenon. It is a vacuum begging to be filled. When the democratically affirmed institutions that generate and transmit values are excluded, the vacuum will be filled by the agent left in control of the public square, the state. In this manner, a perverse notion of the disestablishment of religion leads to the establishment of the state as church…
Is this really the legacy we want for America? Is this really the legacy we want to leave for our children?
[Open full post]Power Line has a commentary on an interview given by Washington Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett to the People’s Daily Online, a Communist China publication.
The interview’s headline quote by Bennett is:
I don’t think US should be the leader of the world.
Bennett also offers up the following thought:
Democracy means many things. How do you define democracy? As a Chinese journalist, you may have your own definition of democracy which corresponds to your history and your way of seeing the world. I may have another definition. Someone else may have their own definitions. Democracy means a lot of different things.
Gotta love that clear thinking, no?
[Open full post]Every once in a while it is worth stopping and taking a look back.
I recently reread some of President George W. Bush’s major speeches on the War on Terror, dating back to shortly after September 11, 2001.
I thought it might be helpful to have many of them accessible in one posting:
1. September 20, 2001 initial speech about War on Terror
2. October 7, 2001 Afghanistan speech
3. January 29, 2002 State of the Union speech
4. June 1, 2002 West Point graduation speech
5. January 20, 2005 Inaugural speech
6. March 8, 2005 National Defense University speech
The clarity of these core speeches helps us stay focused on what we are fighting for as free men and women.
Figures I’d find out about this at the last minute and that it’s on a day when I’m busy and under the weather, but any of you who are healthy and free might be interested to know that Dinesh D’Souza will be speaking at Brown tonight at 8:00 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching on The College Green (Salomon 101).
[Open full post]My family had the privilege of visiting The Statute of Liberty in August 2004 on only the 23rd day after it had re-opened for the first time since September 11, 2001. It was there that we saw first-hand the poem penned by Emma Lazarus and etched on the pedestal of the statute, which includes these famous words:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Immigrants came to America from places where their lives were defined forever for them before they were even born. Here is how some of them described the unique allure of America:
For them Europe meant poverty and persecution, and America meant democracy and opportunity. “Other lands,” wrote the Polish emigré Henry Sienkiewicz, “grant only asylum; this land recognizes the immigrant as a son and grants him rights.” When they were “sickened at last of poverty, bigotry and kings,” wrote another immigrant, “there was always America!”
The land of freedom and opportunity, the land where immigrants were granted rights without any consideration of family history. That was the magnificent allure of America.
Many Americans have their own personal stories about how the American Dream became a reality for their families. There is nothing more American than having the opportunity to achieve more than your parents and then enabling your children to do even better than you.
What makes the Dream possible? At the core, it is the principle of liberty – the freedom not only to have lofty aspirations but to have the opportunity to achieve them. That unique level of freedom has its origins in our own Declaration of Independence, about which President Calvin Coolidge said:
In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignity, the rights of man – these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions…Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish…
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful…If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final…If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people…
In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people…The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guarantees, which even the government itself is bound not to violate.
It is truly unfortunate how so many of America’s public leaders have forgotten the spiritual basis which empowers the freedom that is central to our lives. It is equally as unfortunate, as Andrew has written, that certain political activitists have forgotten the importance of freedom, democracy, and individual rights.
That freedom, however, only translates into realized opportunity through hard work, the second core principle that enables people to realize the American Dream.
While hard work alone can make the difference, sometimes it is not enough to make the American Dream come alive for every American citizen. That leads to the final enabling component to the American Dream: access to a quality education. Such access is the great equalizer, ensuring that all Americans have a decent starting position as they enter adulthood.
But there are problems with education in America, as I have written previously:
Education is the gateway to the American Dream for all citizens. Yet, we are failing to provide a quality gateway for our children. The performance of public education in America is absymal as we have one of the weakest performing educational systems in the industrial world. It is not for lack of spending money: We have tripled our per-pupil spending in real terms over the last 40 years…More money won’t fix the structural problems…Only competition from true educational choice will solve the problems…
Nowhere is access to a quality public education more challenged than in Washington, D.C. and other disadvantaged inner city locations. That same posting continues:
I find it particularly ironic that certain liberal U.S. senators (who often have sent their own children to the most elite private schools) consistently do the bidding of the unions to block the inner city black children of Washington, D.C. – who are stuck in the worst public education system in our country – from receiving the educational vouchers which would give them educational freedom and a fair shot at living the American Dream. The unions and their cronies are willing to risk creating a permanent underclass so they can maintain their chokehold on public education in America. That is morally offensive.
It was, therefore, with great interest – thanks to a posting by KelliPundit – that I read a news report about black Americans, party politics, and the principles of freedom, opportunity, faith, and educational choice:
[Donna Brazile,] the Democrats’ most-respected minority outreach tactician warned her party at the beginning of the 2004 election cycle not to “take African-American voters for granted.” Polls showed an increase in younger black voters registering as independents, not as Democrats. Many were drawn to President Bush’s campaign message of an “ownership society” and his faith-based initiatives to help the needy.
Ken Mehlman, who managed Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign and is now the Republican national chairman, is leading a stepped-up drive to reach out to black voters, often with the help of influential black religious leaders attracted by the GOP’s emphasis on religious values usually missing in the Democrats’ message.
Addressing the National Black Chamber of Commerce in Trenton, N.J., last month, Mr. Mehlman told several hundred business owners that “the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass is not complete without more African-American support and participation.”
…Black voters remain the Democrats’ most loyal voting bloc, but they find a number of Republican issues appealing, and Mr. Mehlman believes if the GOP reaches out to them with a menu of choices, it can win a much larger share of their votes.
Polls show 60 percent of African-Americans support school choice vouchers to get their kids out of failing public schools. Mr. Bush’s emphasis on small-business ownership also resonates very strongly among upwardly mobile blacks, as does the chance to build a bigger retirement nest egg in Social Security personal investment accounts.
Mr. Mehlman’s offensive has the potential to make significant inroads into the Democrats’ once largely monolithic black vote, Miss Brazile says. “The GOP is preaching a new gospel to black voters yearning for answers” to age-old problems that still afflict their community. “Once they start listening to Republicans, some may even like what they hear.”
That warning from one of the party’s most respected political figures sent shock waves last week through the Democratic National Committee’s high command, who know that if their party loses 15 percent or so of the black vote, it will be in the minority for years to come.
At a personal level, I care little about party politics. What excites me, though, is that there is increased competition in American politics to see who has the best ideas on how to make the American Dream come true for ALL Americans. Let the debate begin in earnest. Everyone will be better off as a result. What could be more American than that!
[Open full post]For a guest column on TheFactIs.org, a news and commentary site sponsored by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Culture of Life Foundation, I’ve expanded on my thoughts related to Stanley Kurtz’s Policy Review piece about population decline and the possible social strategies for dealing with it.
The bottom line is that life is a yes-or-no question.
