RAG Perspective: An American Pro-Liberty Conservative: Miscellany: 4/13/10

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Miscellany: 4/13/10

Quote of the Day

The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Take a Bow, Mr. President

A number of conservatives get quite upset over the leader of the free world showing undue deference to other world leaders. The photo at the right is just one of a series (more prominent examples include the king of Saudi Arabia). Personally, I think he's acknowledging what he believes is a standing ovation directed at him. I dedicate the following signature song to our Chief Executive (I wonder if it's on his iPod...)

Bonus Video: Madonna's "Take A Bow"

New Jersey Public School Teachers Should Be Ashamed

Chris Christie, rapidly becoming my most favorite governor, dealing with the fiscal mess in New Jersey, is finding himself being personally attacked because he's asking teachers to forgo a 4% pay raise and chip in a modest contribution (1.5%) to their now (free) health care benefits; in 2005, the average pay of New Jersey teachers was $56,682, fifth in the nation (compared to a national median household (in contrast, the national median household income in 2008 was $50,303). He notes that hiring in New Jersey has increased 4 times the increase of enrollment. (Yes, I am aware that Democrats have rationalized increasing the number of teachers, i.e., smaller class size, for purposes of improving educational performance, but the empirical evidence is not compelling.) In fact, many of us in the private sector have had to share in the cost of our health insurance, have had to forgo raises (or even take pay cuts), employer matches to 401K's, and be more flexible and shoulder more responsibility. The union response to Christie's point that the requested benefit contribution was roughly comparable to union dues was unprintable. The fact that private sector households and businesses, which underwrite the cost of public servants, are struggling and that many teachers are pushing back at even modest sacrifices displays for all observers their sense of shared sacrifice and their priorities, which is not improving educational efficiency and performance for the people's money (if anything, they protect the jobs of mediocre teachers) but for protecting their own turf, as if the people of New Jersey owe them a living!

But the fact that the union president sent out an uncivil email to Bergen County teachers including the following is unconscionable and unacceptable:

Dear lord,' this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.

The Terry Ann Hansen/Russian Adoption Kerfuffle

First of all, I do not want to underestimate Ms. Hansen's issues in dealing with a troubled 7-year-old Siberian boy Artyom Savelyev, whom she adopted last year. It may very well be the case that the boy did have psychological problems and that he may have threatened the health and safety of his adoptive family. However, after adopting a foreign-born child, it is not acceptable to send the child without escort back to Russia with a note pinned to his chest saying that the family no longer wanted him.

Children (and adoptions) do not come with a money-back guarantee. In fact, parents often have to deal with all sorts of unexpected problems (e.g., catastrophic or mental illness, criminal behavior, school and discipline problems, etc.) Moreover, the boy had moved to a new country, family and customs, speaking an unfamiliar language; I'm sure these factors had an impact on the child's behavior.

However, what I fault Ms. Hansen is the way she dealt with the problem. When you adopt a child, you inherit the bad as well as the good; it's very possible a child may not manifest problem behavior in advance of an adoption. (You could make the same type of observation in terms of marrying someone whom has always been on his or her best behavior during courtship or an employer hiring an individual based on favorable references and a limited amount of information.) There are a lot of things one would expect in terms of dealing with the issues of one's own natural children, including psychological counseling. You cannot return a troubled child like a defective clock with receipt at the local department store for credit or replacement. I would also expect that Ms. Hansen would have consulted with the adoption agency, with lawyers, and/or the State Department before making what appears to be a unilateral decision to return the child. I am not asserting she didn't do these things; I know very little beyond news accounts, and Ms. Hansen has not made herself available to tell her side of the story.

But Ms. Hansen has touched a raw nerve in terms of Russian adoptions; news reports, for instance, of an American adoptive mother beating a toddler to death and an adoptive father accidentally leaving his young son strapped in a hot car for several hours, leave Russians justifiably concerned about the suitability of the adoptive parents. Most adoptive parents are wonderful; I have a dear cousin whom adopted beautiful Nadiya, now 11, from Ukraine nearly 2 years ago. Ms. Hansen's action regrettably affects not only Americans wishing to adopt Russian children, but in Ireland, nearly a third of adopted babies come from Russia.

I am glad to know that Ms. Hansen did not physically abuse a troubled child, and nobody wants to sustain a hostile family environment for the adoptive family and/or the adopted child. But I think we need to establish a more clearly defined and humane path for dealing with these problems.

Political Cartoon

Dick Locher points out the hidden danger of our national debt trending in the general direction of Greece's current woes; Greece has had to take unpopular austerity measures, including slashing pensions, and there has been social unrest. The Obama Administration and the progressive Congress continue to contract the tax base with its class warfare tax increases, which adversely affects business and job growth and tax revenues (cf. yesterday's post discussing Hauser's insight on government revenue as a percentage of GDP). Moody's has suggested threats to "social cohesion" if countries like the US and Great Britain fail to get federal debt under control.