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Sunday, August 10, 2014

Miscellany: 8/10/14

Quote of the Day
History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, 
by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. 
The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, 
to the prejudice and oppression of another, 
is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. 
An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, 
is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... 
These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities 
between the people favored and the people oppressed; 
whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, 
and all manner of connections, 
by which the whole state is weakened.
Benjamin Franklin

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Via Julius Henry



Via Bastiat Institute
Via tydknow
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
  • Federal Civil Rights Suit Filed. A few months back I remember writing about Wisconsin resident Tanya Weyker whose car was struck by Deputy Joseph Quiles. The accident resulted in Weyker's neck being broken in 4 places and injuries to a passenger's spleen. Quiles had run a stop sign before colliding with Weyker's car and no doubt believing the best defense is a good offense, cited her on "drunk driving" and 4 other traffic infractions; the department continued to pursue Weyker even after a blood test exonerated her and video footage surfaced, showing Quiles driving through a stop sign. The department eventually dropped charges, and Quiles has filed for related duty disability retirement. In addition to a $250K claim filed with the county over Weyker's injury, the federal suit names Quiles, other deputies, their supervisor and the county, and seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages.
On Kurdish Aid to Yazidis Trapped by ISIS War Criminals

HT Libertarian Republican



A Rant On a Pro-Teacher Rant

While I was preparing a tweet on a WashPo story about a male white teacher fired by a female black principal (Tweets are limited to 140 characters: he claims his female black principal, a former PE teaching colleague, said even before she was promoted she was targeting him as the first person she would fire, claiming that white teachers only turn to black schools because white schools aren't willing to hire them; she allegedly called him a "white b*" (skipped past "son of a") and other things; she reassigned him to freshman classes (probably an attempt to get him to quit), blocked his attempts to transfer schools, etc.; I should note the principal denies the accusations but refuses to discuss her rationale for the termination and the judge did not rule for the hostile work environment claim), I noticed a link on "a strange definition for bad teachers".

I have not read other pieces byValerie Strauss, but it doesn't take long for her pro-union sympathies to become blatantly obvious: for example she puts Campbell Brown's reference to "bad teacher" in scare quotes, i.e., "bad" teachers. She totally skips past the fact of flat baseline achievement scores over decades despite an inflation-adjusted several-fold increase in education spending, and negligible termination rates vs. other professions and apologist rhetoric (i.e., self-serving crap):
 Critics say this is nonsense and that giving teachers due process when they are accused of wrongdoing protects against patronage and other forms of administrative whim. They also note that many students get inadequate educations in non-union states where teachers have no job protections and that tenured teachers can be and are fired, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary.
But her ire is especially directed at a NY father whom notes that his young twin daughters, assigned to different teachers, have progressed at differing levels. He attributes the results to things like the brighter child's teacher often bought class supplies out of her own money and assigned homework. To be sure, the pro-union columnist pitches in a predictable rant against inadequate school funding for supplies, defends the teacher whom doesn't buy supplies, but then argues that there's little evidence about the merit of homework for younger children. (I'm impatiently listening through all this nonsense; I have read through literally hundreds of articles in the education literature in doing my own research and writing, and quite frankly, a lot of what I've come across is methodological rubbish.) I am horrified by dumbing down student standards.

In my college teaching experience, I KNOW I was a better teacher than my colleagues, which wasn't captured by 3 subjective teacher ratings at the end of the semester (which are notoriously unreliable); I would get comments like "I learned more in Professor Guillemette's class than any other class, but he deserves none of the credit because I did it all on my own" (maybe it'll dawn on him any day now that's what I wanted him to do); I usually required more computing assignments than my colleagues, changed textbooks between semesters (in a discipline where textbooks are often obsolete by publication),  often required considerable supplemental readings available at Kinkos, was a textbook reviewer, and always came to class with word-processed lecture notes. My selected textbooks often came bundled with newer limited-version software unavailable on the university's computer system. I was usually available in my office beyond posted office hours. I spent more time on campus than any colleague I knew. I would routinely put in over 70 hours a week. I didn't put in all those hours for my own benefit; I had high expectations of what I expect of a professor, and I worked my ass off. You end up getting attacked by colleagues whom feel threatened by what you're doing; the UWM business school dean wasn't happy I wasn't using their licensed version of a Microsoft COBOL compiler which had not been updated to the latest ANSI standard; and students weren't happy that I expected more work out of them than other professors. I often read crappy paranoid reviews like "he's trying to get us to drop the course so he'll have fewer papers to grade"; here's a word to the clueless: if I wanted to, I could have dropped most assignments and tests, made class attendance optional, and made exams open-book and easy: no one would have even questioned me about it.

The father was trying to explain the difference between a committed teacher and an "ordinary" teacher. If I was going to conceptualize a committed teacher, I would expect someone whom expected more, not less, of his or her students, will go over and beyond the scope of expected duty, will sacrifice, without complaining, because of his or her professionalism. I was bored through most of school until I got a demanding English teacher in sixth grade; I rose to the challenge, and I ended up applying the same discipline to my other subjects, and the rest is history. I'm not saying I was your typical sixth-grader, but we've seen a similar drive for excellence in Asian-American communities, by parents whom expect their children to succeed and will do whatever it takes, including tutoring or supplemental programs.

Facebook Corner

(Tom Woods). Ron Paul returns to my show this week. What would you like me to ask him? (No Rand questions, but anything else is welcome.)
How would he address the chronic underfunded liability problem and state pension obligations where state courts protect the crony unionists? How would we restore a free market to healthcare? How does he address the isolationism smear from neocons? How do we fashion a positive pro-liberty agenda? How does he address what I call the Statist Paradox--the role of a free-market politician in the State? If he had been elected President, how would he have dealt with the likes of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi? Vladimir Putin? ISIS?

(Reason). Did the Surgeon Leave His Scissors in Your Belly? The Feds Will Help Keep It Under Wraps.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/10/hospital-compare-website-stops-reporting
Can you say "regulatory capture"?
You all are the ones proposing to limit oversight AND limit tort remedies, right?
"Progressive" troll: your objections to tort reform are corrupt and self-serving, probably a parasitic trial lawyer hoping to earn windfall fees on absurd punitive damages. In a free market system, victims would still recover a judgment for actual damages; we also believe in transparency.

(IPI). Join us on Aug. 20 as we welcome Deirdre McCloskey to discuss how the West grew wealthy, and how others will follow in our footsteps.
A highly respected economist and historian, Deirdre goes against the mainstream thought of generations of historians, arguing that the explosion of economic growth and modern capitalism is attributed to ideological shifts, not material causes.
Ticket info: http://illin.is/1pl4uPe
Wow. IPI always manages to land great talent. To those unfamiliar with her work, this essay is freaking awesome.

(Lawrence Reed). Get motivated. Learn. Be optimistic. Use humor. Make allies, not enemies. Seize the moral high ground. Tips for advancing liberty.
Outstanding. The ideologues are the worst; the AnCaps in particular seem far more obsessed with the heresy of minarchists than progressives, and it's almost impossible to read any thread on Rand Paul without at least half a dozen Ron Paullists attacking him for his having endorsed Romney after his dad was mathematically eliminated from the 2012 nomination or less strident rhetoric. I like Rand Paul's moves to partner, e.g., with Wyden on civil liberty and Booker on prison reform.

Via Being Classically Liberal
 If only every time a State school bell rings, a libertarian wins his wings...

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Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Michael Ramirez via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Billy Joel, "The Longest Time"

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