Libertarianism and you

(As usual, the opinions expressed here are mine, I don't claim in this post to have any scientific data to back up my opinions - they're opinions. So don't bother yelling at me.)

Libertarianism

There's been a discussion on an email list I'm on about the demonstration in Washington last week by the "Tea Party" folks. During the course of that discussion one of my friends said

"If I had to label myself, I guess I would be a Libertarian; I want the government to get the hell out of my life and my pocketbook. Everything the government runs turns to crap; they accomplish so little with such amazing expenditures of our cash. It is close to being a true inverse relationship (there’s a piled higher and deeper thesis for you); the more it costs, the less effective it is."

That got me to thinking again about Libertarians, what they believe, and why. I'm a liberal, I've always been a liberal, I'm pretty sure I always will be, although I do get conflicted about certain things. I just don't get conservative ideology (more on that later). Libertarians are odd ducks, though, because while it would seem they normally would line up with conservative Republicans, they've also got this government is bad no matter what thing going on that is interesting.

According to Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge these days) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism, "Libertarianism is a term adopted by a broad spectrum of political philosophies which advocate the maximization of individual liberty and the minimization or even abolition of the state....The best or most commonly known formulation of libertarianism supports free market capitalism by advocating a right to private property, including property in the means of production, minimal government regulation of that property, minimal taxation, and rejection of the welfare state, all within the context of the rule of law."

My initial response to this is "why that is so 18th century!" Here's why I think so. The second sentence in the definition above seems to sound a lot like various things said just before and after the American Revolution. The values expressed, IMHO, may have worked and the consequent policies may have worked when the population of the USA was 3 million and largely rural, say in 1789.

But by the time the population got to first 50 million (roughly 1880) and then 100 million (roughly 1914) and was a mix of rural and urban, most of this stuff (again IMHO) didn't work. And now, at 300+ million and overwhelmingly urban (81%+), those values and policies don't work at all for the plain and simple reason that with that many people there are many more predators around and many more people likely to be victims. Of course, if you don't believe in helping your fellow man, this is not an issue.

I heard a great quote on NPR this morning during a report on the economy and on regulating the financial system. It went something like this - if you have a system that allows cheating and theft, people will cheat and steal. So I think that given the size of the country, the size of the economy, and the opportunity for cheating and stealing, that more regulation (and hence more government) is called for. I think that unregulated free market capitalism is evil because it allows the predators to do what they will, at the expense of everyone else (thank you Bernie Madoff). I also think that capitalism is the most viable economic system, it just needs to be regulated and the regulations need to have teeth. (The Soviets showed that having the government own everything and eliminating all competition is just a bad idea.)

One of the other things that Libertarians rail against is the federal government, but many of them seem to think that state governments are not so bad. Pshaw.

IMHO states are just a bad idea. They're yet another holdover (like the electoral college) from the initial competition between the 13 colonies as they emerged into independence (there's that 18th century idea thing again). The only thing states should be used for is to determine the number of Senators - a balance in the legislative branch I like. How often has the federal government had to send in troops or go to court to reverse some egregious action by a state? Think segregation, please.

Libertarianism also seems to be a bastion of the idea that everyone is basically on their own, and that they are not obligated to be their brother's keeper. The health care debate is just the latest in a long list of examples of this moral value (or lack thereof, IMHO). One of the most striking comments I've heard came from a self-professed conservative Republican at our Congressman's local town hall meeting this summer (Hare, D-IL 17). A woman who was enrolled in the Medicare system thought that universal health care (of which she was a beneficiary - but the irony did not strike her) was immoral because "we paid into this all our lives and we shouldn't have to support anybody else." (a paraphrase, but it stayed with me)

Aside from fundamentally not understanding how Medicare works, she was espousing the "I'm in it for me and nobody else" philosophy that seems to run through right-wing Republicans and Libertarians these days.

Oh, and the canard that the federal government is wasteful. Well, sometimes it is, but sometimes so are unregulated corporations (anyone want to go on an AIG junket???). And sometimes the government is _more_ efficient. A recent GAO report says that the cost of a stay in a VA facility (a real socialist medical program because the government is not only a single payer, but they own the hospitals and employ the doctors) is 2/3 the cost of a stay for someone with private insurance in a private hospital. And the veterans are happy with their care - overwhelmingly. And they don't have any co-pays and their insurance won't get canceled when they get sick.

So, overall, I think Libertarianism is an idea whose time has come and gone. It can't survive in a country of this size that is mostly urban; it's ideas just don't make sense to me in that context.

News and What I (mostly) listen to and why...

Been having a discussion with some friends about network news, reporters, and news shows. My latest thoughts (at 4:00 AM when I coulnd't go back to sleep).

First, I'm pretty close to being a news junkie. I read my local newspaper every day, I read Newsweek every week, I wake up to Morning Edition every weekday and drive home to All Things Considered every evening. During the day I'll find 10 minutes or so to browse cnn.com and nytimes.com. And this doesn't include the 5 - 10 geek web sites I look at pretty much every day and the computer news emails I get every day from the two professional organizations to which I belong. (it is my job, after all.)

But I hardly ever watch TV news and when I do, it is almost always PBS. Every few months I'll tune into one of the major network broadcasts but I'm always disappointed so I don't go back.

Why am I disappointed? Two reasons, I think. First, story selection. Most of the time the selection of stories and their ordering in the network newscast just turns me off. Really, has anyone counted how many times the network news led with a Michael Jackson story this summer? This, I think, is what other folks mean by dumbing down the news. Second, is story length. I'm sure that there are probably terrific field reporters for all the networks but I'll never know that because either their stories don't make it on the air or they are reduced to one minute sound bites. I realize both of these things are driven by network management and the fact that now networks are trying to make a profit from their news organizations, but it doesn't make me want to watch.

I listen to NPR _because_ of the story lengths. Yes, they can get sucked into stupid story sequences (they did too many Michael Jackson stories this summer as well), but generally the longer stories I get to listen to are wonderfully informative. It must be at least once a week that I end up sitting in my garage for 5 minutes or more so I can finish listening to a story on ATC. And because Morning Edition is 1 1/2 hours long and ATC is 2 hours long, they get to report a lot of stuff - stuff I might not hear or see on a network 23 minute broadcast. Neither NPR nor PBS is perfect, but neither am I, just ask my students or my wife.

And, frankly I don't have the time. I listen to the radio a lot because I can do other stuff while I'm listening. And at my age I've given myself permission not to care about some things, and I don't care about TV news anymore (well, except for the Daily Show, but that doesn't really count as news, does it?). I've got too many other things to do than have to sit and watch talking heads babble. And if that makes me a snob, so be it.

Finally, I like to think that all worlds are real. I live in one.

Liberal Education bad?

A friend of mine pointed me to an article in the NY Times. It in turn references a "report" from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/what-should-colleges-teach/

My response:

First of all, I want to note that the American Council of Trustees and
Alumni (ACTA) is a very conservative group that advocates for
"academic freedom" in the same way that David Horowitz of Academic
Bill of Rights fame does. (Their premise is American colleges and
universities are controlled by the liberal elite who are brainwashing
our children and stifling any other type of discussion. In addition,
these liberals have crushed the Western tradition of education and
doomed our children to be ignorant yoyos who will all be working for
Indian and Chinese immigrants.) The president of the ACTA has written
extensively on the demise of American higher ed and the Board of the
ACTA includes Ed Meese (yes, that Ed Meese), and guys from the conservative
Hudson Institute think tank and the equally conservative National
Association of Scholars. (Ya gotta love these names. ;^)

So take the "What Will They Learn?" report with the normal ton or two
of salt.

That being said, I'm certainly in sympathy with a good general
education curriculum. Unfortunately, I think their report is looking
for ways to place lots of very good schools in a very bad light.
Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Cornell, Haverford, Grinnell, Oberlin, Smith,
Wash U, Williams all get an F on their scale??? Give me a major break.

What happens in their report is that they present a seemingly
reasonable set of gen ed requirements (a math course, an econ course,
a foreign language requirement, a composition course, etc) and then
apply the standard so rigidly that practically none of the schools can
pass.

For example (quoted from the report itself):

Bowdoin College: No credit given for Composition because the First-Year
Seminars do not focus exclusively on writing.

University of California-Berkeley: No credit given for Foreign
Language because only second-semester competency is required.

Carleton College: No credit given for Mathematics or Natural or Physical
Science because the two subjects are folded into the Mathematics and
Natural Sciences requirement.

University of Chicago: No credit given for Foreign Language because only
one year at the college level is required. No credit given for U.S.
Government or History because the Civilization Studies sequences are not necessarily
focused on American history.

It goes on. These folks were actively looking for ways to say "fail!"

So, moving on. I'll work with some categories a friend of mine came up with and tell you about Knox.

First of all my friend was talking about a public university with an open
admission policy. Knox is private and calls itself "highly selective".
So there's likely a big difference in the pool of students we're
looking at. At Knox our average ACT score for entering classes the
last few years has been either 27 or 28, depending on the year (take
ACT scores with a pound of salt as well.) About 25% of our students
are first-generation college students, and more than 85% of our
students get some form of financial aid. We have 11% international
students (mostly South and East Asian) and are about 25% students of
color. About 45% of our students come from Illinois.

Literacy and numeracy: I'd say our students generally have decent
writing skills. All our first-year students take a Preceptorial course
which is writing intensive. It includes several weeks of writing
instruction, but isn't really a composition course. It's taught by
faculty from all across campus - I've taught it once. Faculty are
given some instruction in teaching writing, but mostly we're on our
own. Our students also must take two more writing-intensive courses
during their tenure at Knox, one of which must be in their major. Most
take more. My CS majors learn technical writing mostly from me in an
upper-level course that's required of all majors. I'd say they end up
definitely on a bell curve there in terms of quality of writing.

Numeracy quite a different story. Our students are supposed to show
Quantitative proficiency (usually through their ACT score) and
Quantitative Literacy (QL) by taking a course labeled QL. All Math
courses are labeled QL, as are a few other courses - one CS course, a
general Stats course, Chemistry I, 3 Econ courses, and most Physics
courses. Our students try to avoid the Math courses like the plague
and when forced to take one, will generally take the lowest possible
Math course (our two biggest majors are Engish Lit and Creative
Writing - mostly they don't see the use). The Stats course is very
popular as long as one of the Math profs isn't teaching it.

We have one Math course considered to be remediary and our Center for
Teaching and Learning (aka the Writing center) also offers a remedial
math course.

Logic and rhetoric: Can't say that our students are particularly
strong on logic, but for rhetoric, the writing requirement in the
major helps.

Travel experiences: About 1/2 of our students have some sort of
overseas experience. Many of them for one, two, or three terms (three
terms is one academic year for us), some for as short as a week or
two. We have three overseas centers (France, Spain, & Argentina) and
except for the plane fare, the overseas terms at our centers cost just
what a term on campus does.

Critical thinking: Ah well, learning to distinguish between belief
and fact, having informed opinions. Well, these are 18 - 22 year olds
after all. Lots of things are still very black and white to them, and
they have ideas I consider strange. In several of my CS classes we
talk about topics considered to be "computer ethics", "professional
practice", "impact of technology on society", privacy, etc. These are
all very interesting discussions. They don't tend to believe in
copyright or intellectual property rights at all (gee, what a
surprise), but they also can't really articulate why their belief
might be right or wrong. With ethical case studies related to the
profession, they tend to always want to do the right thing, but they
also are still pretty self-centered. They tend to be very
compassionate and righteous about discrimination, but as I said, it's
still pretty black and white for them, not much of a middle ground. I
love playing the devil's advocate in these discussions.

Oh, and the final word - they all think they know way more than they
really do, and we do a terrible job of convincing them that this
broad, general education thingie is really worthwhile.

cheers,
john