Nevada Lawmakers Betray Trusts

  Edd Doerr fins a column titled “What part of ‘no’ don’t Nevada Republicans understand?”, by Allan Powell, interesting.  It was published in the Hagerstown (MD) Herald-Mail on June 12. Powell is professor emeritus of philosophy at Hagerstown Community College and writes a regular weekly column for the paper. He is the author is a number of books on Maryland history and is a member of the ARL advisory board. Powell, a crewman on a Catalina in the Pacific during WW II ( by the way), is a Humanist.

  Nevada Lawmakers Betray Trusts

          Lawmakers in Nevada join a growing number of state legislatures that take pride in breaking two trusts; the pledge to support public schools and pledge to abide by their constitution. According to the Washington Post (6/14/15), a law that "any parent in Nevada can pull a child from the state's public schools and take tax dollars with them, giving families the option to use this money to pay for private or parochial school, or even for home schooling". This is choice, out of control.

          Edd Doerr, President of Americans for Religious Liberty, a lifetime defender of the principle of separation of church and state, was prompt and clear in charging the writers of "utter contempt for the religious freedom of all tax payers who will be forced to support religious institutions they would not support voluntarily". He is also correct in pointing out that they violated the demands of the constitution of their own state. Article XI, sections 9 and 10 read as follows: "No sectarian instruction shall be imparted or tolerated in any school or university that may be established under this constitution" and "No public funds of any kind or character whatever, state, county or municipal, shall be used for sectarian purposes". What part of no, don't they understand?

          For those that might be curious about what the Maryland constitution has in print, I have a book that includes every state's requirement. In a portion of Article 36, we find "Nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain any place of worship, or any ministry, nor shall any person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness, or juror on account of his religious belief ...."

          Author Doerr points out that in 28 statewide referenda held between 1966 and 2014, support for vouchers is down by "landslide margins". Voucher plans have been rejected as recently as 2012 in Florida and 2014 in Hawaii. Doerr also notes that voucher attempts are by Republican political leaders. This was the case in Nevada where Republicans of both houses supported the vote.

          According to the account of the Nevada law, its supporters got help from the same education foundation started by Florida Governor, Jeb Bush. This must be seen as a national effort with the goal of privatizing public school systems. In addition, this law was praised as a "... huge victory for the children of Nevada" by Robert Enlow, the leading executive of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice which promotes the philosophy of Milton Friedman. He, it will be recalled, is known for teaching the economics of a free market.

          What could the chief executive of a for-profit organization mean about "A huge victory" for a school system that changes from a clearly public school outlook to a business model? Education grounded on a business outlook will be cost centered rather than a service centered institution. Success will be judged by higher test scores in competition with other countries. Love of knowledge for the sake of knowing would seem odd. Development of character and quest for noble values would be secondary to market interests. Community service would give way to personal enrichment.

          Citizens must realize that every dollar transferred to vouchers is a drain from what could be used to improve the public schools. Further, public schools expect to serve all classes and races of students.

          Those who study the movement to offer vouchers, do not fail to point out that it is primarily a Republican enterprise. The vote in Nevada followed party lines. One Republican leader who worked for passage averred that "This is the wave of the future". This lack of support of our public schools seems so unreal to those of us who grew up long ago and remember how close we were to the schools in our neighborhood.

          We well remember how patient our teachers were. During the Depression era, most of us tried to find ways to earn small change. We were not model students and teachers were well aware of our struggle to get food and clothing. We did not blame teacher for shortcomings in time and preparation for class. We looked up to those who were in public education and there was little tension in the community about the need to get into constitutional debates about the job of educators. One of our great gifts in life is our public schools - they deserve our thanks and support.

Allan Powell, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy, HCC

Critiques of Pure Arrogance Intellectual or Political?

by Gary Berg-Cross

Disciplined insincerity & confident ignorance are already evident in this spectacle we call the primary season.  Well it’s still the money primary I guess, but there is a steady effort to test market ideas for the later campaigns. It’s already evidenced an unhealthy dose of arrogance to go along with the insincerity & ignorance (not to mention those flashes & dashes of egoism, conceit, intolerance, sub-surface anger, quarter truths, & light, gossipy slanders.  

I’m thinking of, for example, of Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s sharp-tongued & perhaps dimmer-witted comments.  These started at the winter meeting of the free market Club for Growth winter economic conference in February.  It was a good time to be Palm Beach, but perhaps too comfy an environment for well-reasoned arguments. I’m already tired of people who want-to-be-in-charge of things saying “I’m not a scientist” followed by an awkward opinion that back hands real scientific understanding out of the conversation. In Jeb’s case it was his opinion about climate change, an important topic for Florida and the rest of the world.  Ok, so you are not a scientist or an economist but why not get informed?  There are advisors.

Perhaps we can be disappointed but not surprised with the opinion, since he is very much a politician fitting George Bernard Shaw comment in Major Barbara :

“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points

 clearly to a political career.” 

But it gets worse, because Jeb was just starting on the not-being-humble path. More recently in New Hanpshire he upped the attack as one sees from the headlines:

‘Jeb Bush Says People Who Accept Climate Science Are ‘Really Arrogant’

It is one thing to be “not a scientist” (Re climate change.) and another to attack scientists for their inconvenient evidence, if not a good approximation of reality.  Why are they not to be believed?  Well their explanations are too complicated – he used the more manipulative work “convoluted” in comments reported by CNN.  Then we have the pithy punch:

“For the people to say the science is decided on this is really arrogant, to be honest with you,” ... “It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t have a conversation about it, even.”

Well I think that was a swing at President Obama as much as at Science. He’s speaking up.  But it is easy to believe that the arrogance (perhaps anti-intellectual arrogance in this case) really dwells in those politically conservative people.  Sure, one can perceive strength as arrogance in fact-based people, who are right but the not believed. They have a lot to go on. Evidence-based belief comes from the various climate scientists who actively publish research, 97 percent agree that humans cause climate change. Further the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

leveraging research  from ~ 800 climate experts across the globe,  concludes that  it is at least 95 percent likely that human activities are the main cause of atmospheric and ocean warming since the 1950s. Scientists speak in probabilities, how’s that for arrogance?  Well pulling math on you seems arrogant to some, I guess.

I think that the more dangerous arrogance is this.  It is the acted upon and emotion-centered belief of people who are wrong on the evidence (see above), don’t like testing evidence (what is the trend for the next decade?) and for one reason or another can't face this reality and projected reality.  This type of arrogance is manifested in Jeb's attack on the evidence based community and is especially true of political leaders who need to comfort the flock.

Unfortunately, this is just an early, primary season example of the attack on intellect, facts and critical thinking. We are likely to have more as part of 2015-16 silly season. I know that I will still be upset when I see  how many hands get raised this year when the candidates are asked about their belief/non-belief in evolution. Sort of a reverse American Exceptionalism demonstration.

A brief comment on "Zombies of 2016"

by Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)

Paul Krugman’s column in the April 24 NY Times, “Zombies of 2016”, chops up Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and other Repubs who would like to infest the White House. Below is the comment I posted in the Times on lone. -- Edd

Excellent column, as usual. Christie, of course, is toast. But Jeb Bush agreeing with Christie on raising the Social Security age? Equally out of step with the American people. And not only on that issue. Jeb also has little respect for women's rights of conscience and religious freedom, and he made an utter fool of himself in the Terry Schiavo case.

As for education, Jeb is no friend of our public schools. His school voucher plan for diverting public funds to private schools, especially the divisive sectarian ones run by his own church, was so bad that Florida voters rejected it in the 2012 election by 55% to 45%.

A third Bush in the White House would turn the Oval Office into the Offal Office.

Looking at Political Rhetoric Ahead with the Aid of a Look Back at Decider Era Language

By Gary Berg-Cross

There are quite a few decisions ahead we face as a nation, but the end of the year is also a time to look back.  Well, at first blush we see in the rear view mirror a very political, ideological and shallow belief driven year.  Looking ahead at some of looming, large conversations it seems that there is plenty to anticipate. But  as a nation we have gone from a 2 year campaign to a permanent campaign mode that makes compromise and balanced decisions difficult.  With ideological belief ridding harshly on pragmatic approaches we are likely to slink into that finger-pointing style for some time. 

That seems a poor environment for decisions so perhaps a look back provides some perspective on what might get when we auto pilot on  politics, ideology and God-given beliefs.  We don’t have to go back too far.  We can look at George W. Bush’s (ghost team written) presidential autobiography Decision Points for some idea of what emerges from such an atmosphere.

When it came out Decision Points  was described by a NYTs review as:

 “a book that is part spin, part mea culpa, part family scrapbook, part self-conscious effort to (re)shape his political legacy…. Certainly it’s the most casual of presidential memoirs: how many works in the genre start as a sort of evangelical, 12-step confession (‘Could I continue to grow closer to the Almighty or was alcohol becoming my god?’),”

Eliot Weinberger’s writing in the London Review of Books pointed out how the book blurred distinction between fiction and non-fiction.

That is to say, the parts that are not outright lies – particularly the accounts of Hurricane Katrina and the lead-up to the Iraq War – are the sunnier halves of half-truths.

Obama is certainly not George W. and likely more thought and data for decisions, but he is dealing in part with neo-con and rigid belief factions that advised us into “problems.”  It is sobering to think about how many Bush legacies, discussed in that book as if Bush was heroically dealing with each one, still have to be dealt with by Obama. The list includes:

• Recession and debt following the financial crisis of 2008
• Terrorist attacks,
• Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and controlling the military,
• Middle East conflicts, emerging democracies & aid,
• drones,
• Various domestic issues (including Medical reform, Social Security reform, Education and Immigration reform),
• Federal response to disaster (Sandy etc.) and
• Political strategy

What ever book Obama writes it will probably provide more insight into these and reflect a different backward glance than W’s last days in office (from Wikipedia):

"I reflected on everything we were facing. Over the past few weeks we had seen the failure of America's two largest mortgage entities, the bankruptcy of a major investment bank, the sale of another, the nationalization of the world's largest insurance company, and now the most drastic intervention in the free market since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time, Russia had invaded and occupied Georgia, Hurricane Ike had hit Texas, and America was fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was one ugly way to end the presidency."

Ugly yes, but as Eliot Weinberger wrote in the London Review of Books:

“Bush is the lone hero of every page of Decision Points. We hear very little substantial thinking but are offered instead some detached voice sounding forceful, in command, and often peeved at “the inadequacies of his subordinates”. 

 

Now with a permanent campaign abroad in the land we don’t have to wait for a book to hear spin, combined with mea culpas and self-conscious effort to (shape political legacies (think John Boehner).   So perhaps we can be fore-warned and not have to wait for a future Obama book.  Instead someone else is likely to spin the next few years events to their purpose in a George W decision making style voice:

‘What the hell is happening?’ I asked during an NSC meeting in late April. ‘Why isn’t anybody stopping these looters?’

‘By the time Colin gets to the White House for the meeting, this had better be fixed.’

‘We need to find out what he knows,’ I directed the team. ‘What are our options?’

‘Damn right,’ I said.

‘Where the hell is Ashcroft?’ I asked.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘This is the right thing to do.’

‘We’re going to stay confident and patient, cool and steady,’ I said.

‘Damn it, we can do more than one thing at a time,’ I told the national security team.

As I told my advisers, ‘I didn’t take this job to play small ball.’

‘This is a good start, but it’s not enough,’ I told him. ‘Go back to the drawing board and think even bigger.’

‘We don’t have 24 hours,’ I snapped. ‘We’ve waited too long already.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ I asked Hank. ‘I thought we were going to get a deal.’

‘That’s it?’ I snapped.

It’s complaint and bravado without substance and you can substitute freely to imagine the events that will be reported around the fiscal curb, for example. (“we don’t have 2 hours and what the hell is going on?”)  It’s the new normal and I’m already afraid we’ll be hearing this empty leadership style language in the 2014 campaign. In Texas, noted the NY Times, the 2014 Campaigns  Have Already Begun – “The Campaigns Are Dead, Long Live the Campaigns”. .And the rhetoric has plenty of fodder to throw at us. 

‘That’s it?’ I’ve snapped just thinking about what our political-interest-media hybrid system has become.

Image Credits

Bush Cartoon: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/68807

Bush on Katrian: http://jezebel.com/5680772/bush-says-kanyes-katrina-outburst-was-worst-moment-of-his-presidency

Jeb: http://blog.4president.org/2012/jeb-bush/

 
George P. Bush: http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2014-statewide-elections/what-if-bush-leapfrogged-other-texas-republican