Obama once again has started to debate about solutions that do not address the correct problems.
Currently we are entering a season of heavy debate over gun-control. The Democrats had given up on this area of debate over the past 10 years. Their lust for the renewed debate is palpable.
Whether due to lack of information or a desire to make a showy argument, Democrats once again focus on the wrong end of the debate. They wish to restrict "assault rifles."Many writers of done a better job of describing the problem with definitions. A recent New York Times article describes the problem of definitions, too.
The Democrats have desired to get rid of guns that look mean. They look at the stock. They look at the barrel. They look at the grips. They look at the magazines. What do they not look at?
I am not a marksman. I am not a specialist on guns. I do believe that I know a bit more about guns than the average Democrat.
What I'm looking at a gun, the first question that comes to my mind is "What do I want to do with it?" Do I want to shoot squirrels? I want to shoot deer? Do I want to shoot quail? Do I want to shoot a home intruder? Do I want to shoot an intruder on my farmland? Do I want to shoot a mugger? Do I want my wife to be able to protect herself from a rapist?
Each one of these seems to describe a different gun or configuration for lawful use of a firearm. Some require shotguns. Some require large bullets out of powerful guns. Some require short barrels. Some require long barrels with telescopic sights. Some require easy concealment. Some require being able to be placed in a woman's hand bag.
And then the question becomes, "What defenses do I have available?" Am I able to hide behind a wall? Do I have time to react and target carefully? Do I need to stop the movement of a person? Do I need to put a hole through a person? How long do I need to wait for additional assistance from police? How long do I need to wait for assistance from family members or neighbors?
I would be a fool to take a heavy gun used for deer to shoot squirrels. There would be no squirrel left. I would be an equal fool to shoot at deer using a squirrel gun. I would merely annoy the deer.
If I am in fear of my life, do I want to put one bullet into an intruder or attacker? Do I want to put on entire clip into the attacker? Do I trust that my aim would be true on the first shot? If I am running away from the attacker, as many states would require, would I be able to hit my target?Is the attacker shooting back?
How does a military grip answer these questions? How does a folding stock answer any of these questions? How does a small clip solve these problems? How long am I willing to wait for police to arrive to discover my dead body? As one joke says, "When seconds count, the police are minutes away."
Selecting the right gun for the correct problem is an important step.
Equally to avoid problems using guns, proper identification of the guns that are the problem is important.
The biggest problem with guns in crimes is that a human being picks it up. Until the gun is put into action by a human being or set up in a trap by a human being, the gun is merely an inanimate object. The fastest way, then, to identify the gun that is likely to be a problem, is to identify the person holding the gun that is a problem.
Since only the law-abiding will dispose of guns as gun-control is imposed, we leave the criminals armed and the citizenry unarmed.
The proper solution is to find ways to have citizens be better armed and better trained than criminals. The proper solution is to have more well-trained citizens carrying weapons. The proper solution is well-trained citizens able to use long guns to protect their homes and families at a safe distance from criminals. Short guns are for short distances. Long guns are for long distances.
The best criminals are dead criminals outside of a home. How many bullets does it take to achieve this goal?
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Friday, November 09, 2012
Lessons for the GOP from Steve Jobs
We always hear from the mainstream of the Republican leadership that you
need to win the independents by persuading them. The result of that
seems to be that the GOP leadership believes that a principle of politics is that you move to the independents to persuade
the independents. You make your thoughts similar to the independents' thoughts. The Reagan counterargument has always been to persuade the independents to come to
the conservatives.
This sounds remarkably similar to Steve Jobs's description of how to move the computer marketplace. Even as a liberal, he leaves the GOP a lesson by analogy. He believed that you needed to find a message about computers and software that drew people to your product.
Jobs did not try and play Microsoft and find pieces and parts that IBM used to build the first PC. He made his own product. He did not always make the rest of the tech world happy to see the way he did it. His consumers were often pleased with the results of his late career products.
The Republican Party needs to learn a lesson from Jobs. Make your own product. Do not imitate your competitor. Rise and fall on your own merits.
Don't compromise on refusing tax rate increases. Give up on matters that make your product stronger. Push Romney's caps on deductions and let the taxpayer choose the deductions he chooses. (It is not as good as really low rates. There is too much incentive to spend money on tax advisors to save this year's taxes, rather than on growing businesses and wealth for future growth.)
Push strong national defense. Period.
Fight Islamic terror and expansionism. Period.
Push for strong healthcare through encouraging abundant medical practices in small doctor-owned practices and by removing governmental involvement in all healthcare. Make Medicare a voucher system.
Push for educational reform by encouraging private and parochial schools over public union-run schools.
With those messages, there is no way you will look like you are hobbling together a PC-clone computer or Democrat-clone platform. You will be your product. Rise and fall on your own merits.
This sounds remarkably similar to Steve Jobs's description of how to move the computer marketplace. Even as a liberal, he leaves the GOP a lesson by analogy. He believed that you needed to find a message about computers and software that drew people to your product.
Jobs did not try and play Microsoft and find pieces and parts that IBM used to build the first PC. He made his own product. He did not always make the rest of the tech world happy to see the way he did it. His consumers were often pleased with the results of his late career products.
The Republican Party needs to learn a lesson from Jobs. Make your own product. Do not imitate your competitor. Rise and fall on your own merits.
Don't compromise on refusing tax rate increases. Give up on matters that make your product stronger. Push Romney's caps on deductions and let the taxpayer choose the deductions he chooses. (It is not as good as really low rates. There is too much incentive to spend money on tax advisors to save this year's taxes, rather than on growing businesses and wealth for future growth.)
Push strong national defense. Period.
Fight Islamic terror and expansionism. Period.
Push for strong healthcare through encouraging abundant medical practices in small doctor-owned practices and by removing governmental involvement in all healthcare. Make Medicare a voucher system.
Push for educational reform by encouraging private and parochial schools over public union-run schools.
With those messages, there is no way you will look like you are hobbling together a PC-clone computer or Democrat-clone platform. You will be your product. Rise and fall on your own merits.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Presidential Debate and Defining Victory
Last night's townhall debate leads to the constant question: "Who won?"
In some respects it is like answering the question for a bunch of 8 year olds doing foot races across the yard.
The first boy is very short compared to the group and is known to be slow. The leader of the bunch decides that he gets a 10 yard head start.
The second boy hates that "unfair" advantage but is the fastest in the group. He complains wildly in fear that he will not cross the finish line first given the head start.
The third boy is the leader and is trying to make the race competitive. He knows he will be beat, but he stands next to the fast boy and prepares to be beaten. Even so, he runs hard through the finish line.
When it is all over, boy #1 crosses the finish line half a step before boy #2. The yelling starts again in earnest.
Who won? The boys turn to you to referee the dispute after the fact.
Do you decide for boy #1 because he crossed the line first?
Do you decide for boy #2 because he covered the greater distance in a nearly identical period of time?
Do you decide for boy #3 because he has shown the greatest moral character trying to create a competitive race given the characteristics of each competitor?
Notice one assumption that I did not make. I did not assume that the boys agreed on what the definition of "victory" was. The boys start by assuming that winning means crossing the finish line first. When the fast boy #2 discovers that he could not win that way, likely changes his argument to be that he ran the fastest with an unfair head start to his opponent.
This scenario is what presidential debates are like. There are no set rules about how to define victory. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.
Simply put, with no definition of victory before the debate (and I don't count, "The President did better than last time" as a definition of victory), it is hard to give a fair and reasonable answer.
The President is like boy #1. He was given a forum in New York, a very blue state, among undecided voters who wrote questions with a significant Democrat overtone to them. These undecideds will decide no election. If this debate would have been held outside of Cleveland or in Akron, I doubt we would have had as much uniformity in tone.
Romney is a bit like boy #2 in performance and a bit like boy #3 in attitude. He outperformed the President in content, but he was starting from behind given the questioners, the location, and the moderator. Yet, Romney never complained about this. He agreed to it far in advance.
Using the finish line standard of measure, it was a solid tie. Both men got to the finish line on their points.
Using the quality of performance and distance covered in the period of time offered, Romney outperformed.
Ultimately, the problem in debates is that we do not have judges like Len Goodman holding up paddles showing scores on paddles while we wait for the public to vote. He has no immediate gratification of who won. We will know, though, in just a few weeks.
In some respects it is like answering the question for a bunch of 8 year olds doing foot races across the yard.
The first boy is very short compared to the group and is known to be slow. The leader of the bunch decides that he gets a 10 yard head start.
The second boy hates that "unfair" advantage but is the fastest in the group. He complains wildly in fear that he will not cross the finish line first given the head start.
The third boy is the leader and is trying to make the race competitive. He knows he will be beat, but he stands next to the fast boy and prepares to be beaten. Even so, he runs hard through the finish line.
When it is all over, boy #1 crosses the finish line half a step before boy #2. The yelling starts again in earnest.
Who won? The boys turn to you to referee the dispute after the fact.
Do you decide for boy #1 because he crossed the line first?
Do you decide for boy #2 because he covered the greater distance in a nearly identical period of time?
Do you decide for boy #3 because he has shown the greatest moral character trying to create a competitive race given the characteristics of each competitor?
Notice one assumption that I did not make. I did not assume that the boys agreed on what the definition of "victory" was. The boys start by assuming that winning means crossing the finish line first. When the fast boy #2 discovers that he could not win that way, likely changes his argument to be that he ran the fastest with an unfair head start to his opponent.
This scenario is what presidential debates are like. There are no set rules about how to define victory. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.
Simply put, with no definition of victory before the debate (and I don't count, "The President did better than last time" as a definition of victory), it is hard to give a fair and reasonable answer.
The President is like boy #1. He was given a forum in New York, a very blue state, among undecided voters who wrote questions with a significant Democrat overtone to them. These undecideds will decide no election. If this debate would have been held outside of Cleveland or in Akron, I doubt we would have had as much uniformity in tone.
Romney is a bit like boy #2 in performance and a bit like boy #3 in attitude. He outperformed the President in content, but he was starting from behind given the questioners, the location, and the moderator. Yet, Romney never complained about this. He agreed to it far in advance.
Using the finish line standard of measure, it was a solid tie. Both men got to the finish line on their points.
Using the quality of performance and distance covered in the period of time offered, Romney outperformed.
Ultimately, the problem in debates is that we do not have judges like Len Goodman holding up paddles showing scores on paddles while we wait for the public to vote. He has no immediate gratification of who won. We will know, though, in just a few weeks.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
So gas prices are down?! What?!
This guy at Forbes.com has a brilliantly simple way to show that gas prices are not high. The dollar is just collapsing under the weight of Obama.
So should we start a website of the average cost of goods and services against the ounces of gold that the spot market would require?
So should we start a website of the average cost of goods and services against the ounces of gold that the spot market would require?
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Bidding on teachers
I just saw this article on the faults of merit pay.
What struck me was the idea of bidding for next year's teacher. I would add the idea of sponsorship of vouchers and direct threats of non-renewal of contracts.
What struck me was the idea of bidding for next year's teacher. I would add the idea of sponsorship of vouchers and direct threats of non-renewal of contracts.
Friday, November 04, 2011
Lessons on media in Cain Kerfuffle
In this recent news blitz on Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment case, I am again reminded about the news media's ridiculous notions of the rules of disclosure.
Since the reporter seeks a higher salary through satisfying thepowers that be in his news organization, we must understand the dynamics. The reporter has low standards of proof to put himself in front of the public with hos information. The target has high standards of proof to overcome bad news. This simply reflects the rules of the game that most likely increases the reporter's salary and income over time.
To understand how perverse this self-serving methodology is, let's pretend that these same rules applied in court. What would be the outcome.
To keep this example as close to a real lawsuit, let us pretend the reporter was filing a libel or slander claim against a private citizen. Under the rules that reporter claim should apply, once the reporter filed the lawsuit, he has the right to say anything he wants about the private citizen.
In the news reporter's world view, the level of proof the reporter must meet is simply, "I accuse you. Now disprove my accusation." The reporter need show no papers, no recorded statements, or no evidence that private citizen was even in the place where the accusation suggests the wrong doing occurred. The reporter believes Mr Citizen now has to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Any flaw or hesitation means the reporter's flimsy accusations are true. No trial. No argument. Instant verdict in the court of public opinion.
The problem is that people seeking damageto their reputation have an incentive to keep their had down and protect their good name. The reporter's false promise is that playing by the reporter's arbitrary and capricious rules the citizen can end the problem quickly.
To truly fight and win this type of battle with the press is to be able to identify the self-serving nature of the reporter's rules and require the reporter do work before the response is forthcoming. It also requires persistent repetition of a strong statement of the rules of fair play:
1. I respond to specific allegations as to time, manner, place, and person.
2. I respond to corroborated evidence only.
3. If a judge wouldn't consider the case, I certainly won't.
4. I will sue for slander and libel.
5. Anonymous sources need not be disclosed to the public, but they must be disclosed to me before I will respond.
6. New questions do not demand instant responses. Instant responses only serve cameras. I serve the truth.
To fight the media this way means you will have days or weeks whee your message of the day is not served. PR consultants believe this is bad. In truth, those days will happen. It is better to have the battle early in a campaign. Set down a marker for the media. If you are clean, you will more message days than fewer. If you follow the reporter's preferred path, you are on their message when they choose.
Since the reporter seeks a higher salary through satisfying thepowers that be in his news organization, we must understand the dynamics. The reporter has low standards of proof to put himself in front of the public with hos information. The target has high standards of proof to overcome bad news. This simply reflects the rules of the game that most likely increases the reporter's salary and income over time.
To understand how perverse this self-serving methodology is, let's pretend that these same rules applied in court. What would be the outcome.
To keep this example as close to a real lawsuit, let us pretend the reporter was filing a libel or slander claim against a private citizen. Under the rules that reporter claim should apply, once the reporter filed the lawsuit, he has the right to say anything he wants about the private citizen.
In the news reporter's world view, the level of proof the reporter must meet is simply, "I accuse you. Now disprove my accusation." The reporter need show no papers, no recorded statements, or no evidence that private citizen was even in the place where the accusation suggests the wrong doing occurred. The reporter believes Mr Citizen now has to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Any flaw or hesitation means the reporter's flimsy accusations are true. No trial. No argument. Instant verdict in the court of public opinion.
The problem is that people seeking damageto their reputation have an incentive to keep their had down and protect their good name. The reporter's false promise is that playing by the reporter's arbitrary and capricious rules the citizen can end the problem quickly.
To truly fight and win this type of battle with the press is to be able to identify the self-serving nature of the reporter's rules and require the reporter do work before the response is forthcoming. It also requires persistent repetition of a strong statement of the rules of fair play:
1. I respond to specific allegations as to time, manner, place, and person.
2. I respond to corroborated evidence only.
3. If a judge wouldn't consider the case, I certainly won't.
4. I will sue for slander and libel.
5. Anonymous sources need not be disclosed to the public, but they must be disclosed to me before I will respond.
6. New questions do not demand instant responses. Instant responses only serve cameras. I serve the truth.
To fight the media this way means you will have days or weeks whee your message of the day is not served. PR consultants believe this is bad. In truth, those days will happen. It is better to have the battle early in a campaign. Set down a marker for the media. If you are clean, you will more message days than fewer. If you follow the reporter's preferred path, you are on their message when they choose.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Term limits reconsidered
Polipundit's post makes me want to post a thought that has been bouncing around in my head for a month or so. Term limits on politicians are great, but what about employment limits for bureaucrats? Why not enforce a twenty year across the board limit on government employment? Force some of these lifetime government-employed people to find a new employer for 4-5 years.
Think about what that would do to government-school teachers or license branch functionary or tax collector. How many people in government are immune from having to worry about losing their jobs, yet those same people will lecture the rest of the world about how to live a life fully.
Imagine a government-school teacher who has just returned to his beloved teaching at age 47. He has just spent 5 years working as a lab scientists during his required 5 year break from government employment. He is now eager to be back with is beloved students, where he spent the first 20 years of his career. He has new life experiences to share. He has new insights into science. He has been gone longer than the limited and phoney 1-year sabbaticals that academia loves so that he has had to absorb worries about being able to return to the classroom. He is as fresh and excited as a first-year teacher, but he has the wisdom of an experienced family man.
That term-limit on government employment would be great.
What about the second teacher who chooses to disperse his 1-year breaks with 4-year visits to teaching. He, too, has more to offer the kids.
What about the third teacher that teaches in a private school for 5 years. He, too, will have experiences that challenge the assumptions in government schools of how education should work.
The license branch manager who has run a restaurant? The court clerk who has been in a small business worried about keeping expenses down?
Politicians need term limits, but they are at least exposed to the risk of losing their jobs. Their staffers' risk is similar but insulated. Those staffers may bounce from politician to politician, or politician to party organization. The full-time committee staff or institutional staff come to expect certain customs.
What if everyone in the building has had to step away from being in government for at least 5 years?
What if a Congressman went back into state government for 5 years? Or state politician back to local government?
This part from Thomas Paine that is posted at Polipundit.com makes my point about why. Forcing a change like that stated above is about how to do it.
Think about what that would do to government-school teachers or license branch functionary or tax collector. How many people in government are immune from having to worry about losing their jobs, yet those same people will lecture the rest of the world about how to live a life fully.
Imagine a government-school teacher who has just returned to his beloved teaching at age 47. He has just spent 5 years working as a lab scientists during his required 5 year break from government employment. He is now eager to be back with is beloved students, where he spent the first 20 years of his career. He has new life experiences to share. He has new insights into science. He has been gone longer than the limited and phoney 1-year sabbaticals that academia loves so that he has had to absorb worries about being able to return to the classroom. He is as fresh and excited as a first-year teacher, but he has the wisdom of an experienced family man.
That term-limit on government employment would be great.
What about the second teacher who chooses to disperse his 1-year breaks with 4-year visits to teaching. He, too, has more to offer the kids.
What about the third teacher that teaches in a private school for 5 years. He, too, will have experiences that challenge the assumptions in government schools of how education should work.
The license branch manager who has run a restaurant? The court clerk who has been in a small business worried about keeping expenses down?
Politicians need term limits, but they are at least exposed to the risk of losing their jobs. Their staffers' risk is similar but insulated. Those staffers may bounce from politician to politician, or politician to party organization. The full-time committee staff or institutional staff come to expect certain customs.
What if everyone in the building has had to step away from being in government for at least 5 years?
What if a Congressman went back into state government for 5 years? Or state politician back to local government?
This part from Thomas Paine that is posted at Polipundit.com makes my point about why. Forcing a change like that stated above is about how to do it.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Articles: Obama's Numbers
Articles: Obama's Numbers
I think the numbers issue for Obama is interesting. I think the issues for elections that are direction changing are even more interesting.
Using the Census data for the 2008 election of voter participation by age (Census Publication P20-562 (May 2010)) and the IRS 2000CM mortality tables, I ran some rough projections on what happens to the voter population over time. Since the census source data did not break the data down by age, I purposefully did not do this by each incremental age. I then averaged the mortality rate (more accurately the survival rate) for each cohort. For younger ages, this made the mortality rate artificially high and for older ages, artificially low.
To simplify tracking specific cohorts of people, I grouped them by age. Group I is all voters under 35 in the 2008 election. Group II is voters between 35-55. Group III is voters over 55. Once assigned to a group in this analysis, a voter does not change groups as he ages.
What I found among persons that voted in 2008, 16.8% are dead by the 2020 presidential election. More significantly, those Group I voters are only two and a half percentile of the sample group, but through death alone become three and half percentile of those alive in 2020. Group II voters do not materially change through proportion of the 2008 voting group. Group III voters decline from three percentile of the voters in 2008 to only two percentile of the 2008 voters still alive in 2020.
The effect on voting is that the thinking of the voting population moves from older, established philosophies to newer philosophies among prior voters by about 20% of the vote every twelve years, due to mortality alone.
Assuming that our population continues to grow and replenish each age group, particularly the younger voters, this effect can be increased by at least another percentile or more every twelve years.
Essentially without accounting for any other factor the age component accounts for over 30% of the change in voting patterns, all other things being equal.
Any political scientist will tell you that this analysis does very little to predict changes in voting patterns. I agree.
Due to the physiologic tendency of thinking patterns and philosophies to crystalize and not change in our latter years, what it does mean that over twelve years, nearly 30% of the population is going to be able to adopt a new voting philosophy. Older voters will try to avoid it. Younger voters will change philosophies most easily. Older voters are sticky. Younger voters are more fluid.
What this means for the 2012 election is that it can have significant long-term consequences for nearly a generation's long-term voting behavior.
An 18 year old voting for his first time in 2006 may come to hate the results of his Democratic vote by 2018. He is more likely to vote Republican from 2010 onward if Republican policies are implemented and that voter associates any success with those policies.
Simultaneously, those who came of age during FDR or LBJ die out rapidly even if they rarely vary from their party of choice.
The young voter who comes to be depressed about Democrats because of their votes in 2006 and 2008 leading to economic disaster. Votes in 2010 and 2012 for Republicans that result is desired impacts on society stand to make this voter a life-long Republican. As the voter naturally shifts from being a fluid voter to a sticky voter due to age, Obama's era will be a linchpin in the voter's thinking.
If that type of pattern is noticeable while 30% or more of the population that votes changes, long-term voting habits will shift throughout the electorate.
Consequently, Republicans need to consider going "all in" in the 2012 election for the clearest philosophical pitch they can. Succeed or fail in economics or taxes, 2013 to 2017 has a good chance to be a good economic period if even 15% of Obama's enactments are repealed. Republican office holding will give investors confidence of no more Socialism in big chunks.
If voters have a clear philosophy stated with this turn around, they will attach it to the Republicans' stated philosophy, right or wrong. Only through the course of several elections espousing this philosophy will political scientists be able to assess the accuracy of philosophical pronouncements versus actual practice versus actual results.
If Republicans go "all in" philosophically with a strong Conservative message, barring unforeseen circumstances like World War III or a volcanic eruption from Yellowstone's super-volcano, Republicans can push Democrats to the back benches for the next 12 to 20 years. The longer the economic success with a strong philosophical coherence the longer that position of power will be.
In practice, this will be extremely difficult. Success breeds many fathers. Each claimant to the mantle of father of the success will try to define the philosophy to serve his financial or political gains. Dilution of the philosophy becomes probable. Confusion among newer voters become equally more probable. The likelihood of a swing back the other direction becomes stronger in the next twelve-year cycle.
The key in the second cycle is whether the Conservative philosophy is articulately taught and empirically tested to persuade future generations of its truth. The least philosophically immersed will begin pushing Conservative doctrine as gospel truth and push away naysayers as if stupid or evil. Those tendencies to seek conformity to groupthink must always be undermined and deprived of credibility. Conservatism withstands empirical scrutiny. Avoid religious indoctrination and its prevalence can last for generations because each generation can perfect it.
The key today is to take the gamble of articulating the philosophy clearly, proudly, and courageously when electoral victory is most likely. Then prepare for the withering onslaught of the dying socialistic philosophy.
I think the numbers issue for Obama is interesting. I think the issues for elections that are direction changing are even more interesting.
Using the Census data for the 2008 election of voter participation by age (Census Publication P20-562 (May 2010)) and the IRS 2000CM mortality tables, I ran some rough projections on what happens to the voter population over time. Since the census source data did not break the data down by age, I purposefully did not do this by each incremental age. I then averaged the mortality rate (more accurately the survival rate) for each cohort. For younger ages, this made the mortality rate artificially high and for older ages, artificially low.
To simplify tracking specific cohorts of people, I grouped them by age. Group I is all voters under 35 in the 2008 election. Group II is voters between 35-55. Group III is voters over 55. Once assigned to a group in this analysis, a voter does not change groups as he ages.
What I found among persons that voted in 2008, 16.8% are dead by the 2020 presidential election. More significantly, those Group I voters are only two and a half percentile of the sample group, but through death alone become three and half percentile of those alive in 2020. Group II voters do not materially change through proportion of the 2008 voting group. Group III voters decline from three percentile of the voters in 2008 to only two percentile of the 2008 voters still alive in 2020.
The effect on voting is that the thinking of the voting population moves from older, established philosophies to newer philosophies among prior voters by about 20% of the vote every twelve years, due to mortality alone.
Assuming that our population continues to grow and replenish each age group, particularly the younger voters, this effect can be increased by at least another percentile or more every twelve years.
Essentially without accounting for any other factor the age component accounts for over 30% of the change in voting patterns, all other things being equal.
Any political scientist will tell you that this analysis does very little to predict changes in voting patterns. I agree.
Due to the physiologic tendency of thinking patterns and philosophies to crystalize and not change in our latter years, what it does mean that over twelve years, nearly 30% of the population is going to be able to adopt a new voting philosophy. Older voters will try to avoid it. Younger voters will change philosophies most easily. Older voters are sticky. Younger voters are more fluid.
What this means for the 2012 election is that it can have significant long-term consequences for nearly a generation's long-term voting behavior.
An 18 year old voting for his first time in 2006 may come to hate the results of his Democratic vote by 2018. He is more likely to vote Republican from 2010 onward if Republican policies are implemented and that voter associates any success with those policies.
Simultaneously, those who came of age during FDR or LBJ die out rapidly even if they rarely vary from their party of choice.
The young voter who comes to be depressed about Democrats because of their votes in 2006 and 2008 leading to economic disaster. Votes in 2010 and 2012 for Republicans that result is desired impacts on society stand to make this voter a life-long Republican. As the voter naturally shifts from being a fluid voter to a sticky voter due to age, Obama's era will be a linchpin in the voter's thinking.
If that type of pattern is noticeable while 30% or more of the population that votes changes, long-term voting habits will shift throughout the electorate.
Consequently, Republicans need to consider going "all in" in the 2012 election for the clearest philosophical pitch they can. Succeed or fail in economics or taxes, 2013 to 2017 has a good chance to be a good economic period if even 15% of Obama's enactments are repealed. Republican office holding will give investors confidence of no more Socialism in big chunks.
If voters have a clear philosophy stated with this turn around, they will attach it to the Republicans' stated philosophy, right or wrong. Only through the course of several elections espousing this philosophy will political scientists be able to assess the accuracy of philosophical pronouncements versus actual practice versus actual results.
If Republicans go "all in" philosophically with a strong Conservative message, barring unforeseen circumstances like World War III or a volcanic eruption from Yellowstone's super-volcano, Republicans can push Democrats to the back benches for the next 12 to 20 years. The longer the economic success with a strong philosophical coherence the longer that position of power will be.
In practice, this will be extremely difficult. Success breeds many fathers. Each claimant to the mantle of father of the success will try to define the philosophy to serve his financial or political gains. Dilution of the philosophy becomes probable. Confusion among newer voters become equally more probable. The likelihood of a swing back the other direction becomes stronger in the next twelve-year cycle.
The key in the second cycle is whether the Conservative philosophy is articulately taught and empirically tested to persuade future generations of its truth. The least philosophically immersed will begin pushing Conservative doctrine as gospel truth and push away naysayers as if stupid or evil. Those tendencies to seek conformity to groupthink must always be undermined and deprived of credibility. Conservatism withstands empirical scrutiny. Avoid religious indoctrination and its prevalence can last for generations because each generation can perfect it.
The key today is to take the gamble of articulating the philosophy clearly, proudly, and courageously when electoral victory is most likely. Then prepare for the withering onslaught of the dying socialistic philosophy.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
What does defense spending produce?
In reading, Victor Davis Hanson's article on the myth of World War II spending, I had some thoughts about economics that are quite tangential to VDH's point.
VDH points out how liberal's are changing their story about the Keynesian effects of spending during the Depression and WWII.
In reading this, my mind jumped back to Economics 101 in the classic Guns versus Butter choice. As you all remember, this is the choice that we as a society through government have to make whether we want more guns or more butter, but we can't have both. Laying aside one of the flaws of this dichotomy that good spending increases the size of the economic pie, so you end up with both, there are some inherent teases in this set of false choices that drives much liberal economic thinking.
Since most liberals only use economics classes to recite catch phrases and not dig any deeper, this guns versus butter is one of their favorites. In their eyes the choice is quickly converted into a choice of welfare versus defense spending. The notion for them is that if there are limited dollars, money spent on either welfare (using government distributed butter as the image) or guns (using army rifles as the image) is gone once spent. The choice must be made. The compassionate minded must choose butter and reduce spending on guns.
I do not dispute the fundamental choice that guns versus butter was supposed to teach. The lesson is supposed to be that must make choices in government spending. The problem is that the images are misleading to the uninquiring so they create false confidence among liberals that they understand economics.
Let's dig deeper. Butter represents welfare spending and other government spending on the domestic front like building highways or public schools. Guns represent the army, navy, and marines. (I am not sure where the FBI, ATF, or state and local police fit in most liberals minds. I suspect that the FBI and ATF are guns because I believe they are non-union and that police are butter because they are often union. Am I jaded?)
For the simple minded, purchasing guns is bad. Analysis done.
For the deeper minded, let's keep exploring what these images really represent and whether a better set of images are available.
Butter as domestic spending has the feel-good aspect that anything spent at home gets a better society. Guns as military spending has no feel-good aspect to the average liberal. The choice seems easy. Not knowing anything about the author of this method of teaching, I wonder what his motivations were.
In the real world, this dichotomy is a disaster. Most federal domestic spending is far beyond the scope of what is allowed under the US Constitution. Education? No. Welfare? No. Social Security? No. Medicaid? No. Obamacare? No. Liberals feel good but have no legal basis for their programs.
The problem with most of these programs is that they are grant programs. As a lawyer, I look at transactions to see if each party to the transaction gives something of value to promote the exchange. If so, there is a contract. If not, there is a grant or a gift. Both would be legal transactions for individuals, but not necessarily for constitutional governments. The problem with most liberal, grant programs is that the government is not a party receiving a benefit back from the other party. The programs produce no value because it is simply the transfer of money. The recipient may have strict restrictions, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, where misspending is a felony. Other programs have no restrictions on the expenditures, like Social Security or unemployment benefits.
Of those that go for specific purposes, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, the government gets nothing, but the program beneficiaries get specific goods or services. Since the government gets nothing, it has no accounting method to show that the government balance sheet has increased. It gets the benefit that fewer food riots will occur or old people attacking the car of the Chairman of House Ways and Means. The food providers or medical providers who receive the money on the beneficiary's behalf do increase their cash flow and hopefully their wealth through retained earnings after paying expenses. The program beneficiaries have little incentive to change their behavior within the program. Their choice is pass or fail: stay in the program or quit. Most economic choices are ones of timing of expenditures, size of expenditures, and selection of goods and services purchased balanced against choices on how to obtain more resources to use in the next round of purchases. These government programs destroy the choice about how to garner more resources.
On the guns side of the equation, most people have trouble explaining what gun purchases in a time of peace buy for the general public. Buying more and bigger guns is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is buying sufficient guns, military talent, and logistical capabilities that are most likely enemies fear to attack us at home or to attack our citizens abroad. We are buying peace of mind. Most liberals believe this is just as much conservative feel good as butter programs are liberal feel good.
If we are discussing whether to buy a multi-million dollar airplane because it is cool, I would agree with the liberal. If we are talking about projecting power with that airplane to the four corners of the earth so that we don't have to put boots on the ground in every corner of the earth, I would beg to differ with the liberal.
Ultimately, buying peace of mind with the military is a difficult concept to grasp. Why do we want peace of mind? As a liberal hiking in the mountains of ancient Persia, will you be arrested as a spy? We know from recent history the answer is yes. The fear of arrest overseas in that type of situation is an example where the US has not bought sufficient peace of mind. As a conservative businessman traveling in Venezuela, are you likely to be arrested as a spy? Not that I am aware, no. The US has bought sufficient peace of mind there. Can an American travel to the Caribbean and avoid arrest? Absolutely. The travel is cheaper than Venezuela and less personal security is probably needed. I would suggest the quiet presence of the US Coast Guard and US Navy in and around the old pirate-haven Caribbean is a major reason.
The guns choice allows American citizens to move around the world more cheaply under fewer threats which in turns allows more commerce.
A similar domestic guns choice of welfare versus police demonstrates that higher police presence reduces crime where high welfare spending has no causation at all. But high welfare spending and inadequate police presence guarantees a safe incubator for criminal activity. Commerce disappears. Jobs disappear. Wealthy families leave.
Just think how many private transaction are peace of mind purchases: psychiatry, massage therapy, gift shops filled with useless knick-knacks, nice restaurants, flower shops, mega-groceries, luxury homes and cars, etc. If we converted our economy into one that refused to sell anything that offer peace of mind, we would have politburo-run grocery with lines out the door and no food on the shelves.
We buy peace of mind every day. The military is first and last line of defense from foreign threats to our daily bliss. The police are our second-to-last line of defense (don't forget the Second Amendment is the source of the last line of domestic defense) to domestic threats to our daily bliss.
The stronger we are perceived by our enemies, the more likely are enemies go elsewhere.
The guns versus butter analysis is one of the greatest sources of liberals complete disconnect from reality when we discuss government spending. They misapply its true lessons and superimpose their own notions of right and wrong choices. Now all guns choices are bad and all butter choices are good.
The real choices are between expenditures that reduce the daily cost of living for self-sufficient citizens and those that increase the financial burdens on the self-sufficient. The choice is the great wide open versus prison.
Expenditures on highways reduce the daily cost of living by allowing more independent movement of infinite variety. (Some Constitutional questions remain about whether the federal government is properly the dominant player.) Highways give government a general use product that no other provider can provide efficiently and widely. The benefits of highways are easily and objectively measured by traffic counts and value of commerce passing over it. This allows a systematic analysis of good places to place or expand highways. It allows successful governments to build infrastructure for actual growth occurring, not wishful thinking. (Yes, politicians with earmarking and pork barreling ignore these objective measures. That is a reflection of decisions made at the wrong level of government than a bad use of money.)
Expenditures for grant programs with no reciprocated consideration are undesirable. (The individual states need to be aware of these economic problems arising from grant programs, but are not Constitutionally prohibited from pursuing them.) Grant programs benefit only one person or organization at a time. The benefits are diffuse and not subject to measurements of benefits that not subjective. The consolidation of benefits mostly go to the politicians who support the benefit and not to a community.
Once we become aware of the inherent fallacies of liberal reliance on guns versus butter, we are better able to deal with the real problems on the side of the equation called "butter." "Guns" can be expensive, especially during a hot war, but are easier to identify and corral. "Butter" is budget busting, as Obama has demonstrated, and harder to fix.
VDH points out how liberal's are changing their story about the Keynesian effects of spending during the Depression and WWII.
In reading this, my mind jumped back to Economics 101 in the classic Guns versus Butter choice. As you all remember, this is the choice that we as a society through government have to make whether we want more guns or more butter, but we can't have both. Laying aside one of the flaws of this dichotomy that good spending increases the size of the economic pie, so you end up with both, there are some inherent teases in this set of false choices that drives much liberal economic thinking.
Since most liberals only use economics classes to recite catch phrases and not dig any deeper, this guns versus butter is one of their favorites. In their eyes the choice is quickly converted into a choice of welfare versus defense spending. The notion for them is that if there are limited dollars, money spent on either welfare (using government distributed butter as the image) or guns (using army rifles as the image) is gone once spent. The choice must be made. The compassionate minded must choose butter and reduce spending on guns.
I do not dispute the fundamental choice that guns versus butter was supposed to teach. The lesson is supposed to be that must make choices in government spending. The problem is that the images are misleading to the uninquiring so they create false confidence among liberals that they understand economics.
Let's dig deeper. Butter represents welfare spending and other government spending on the domestic front like building highways or public schools. Guns represent the army, navy, and marines. (I am not sure where the FBI, ATF, or state and local police fit in most liberals minds. I suspect that the FBI and ATF are guns because I believe they are non-union and that police are butter because they are often union. Am I jaded?)
For the simple minded, purchasing guns is bad. Analysis done.
For the deeper minded, let's keep exploring what these images really represent and whether a better set of images are available.
Butter as domestic spending has the feel-good aspect that anything spent at home gets a better society. Guns as military spending has no feel-good aspect to the average liberal. The choice seems easy. Not knowing anything about the author of this method of teaching, I wonder what his motivations were.
In the real world, this dichotomy is a disaster. Most federal domestic spending is far beyond the scope of what is allowed under the US Constitution. Education? No. Welfare? No. Social Security? No. Medicaid? No. Obamacare? No. Liberals feel good but have no legal basis for their programs.
The problem with most of these programs is that they are grant programs. As a lawyer, I look at transactions to see if each party to the transaction gives something of value to promote the exchange. If so, there is a contract. If not, there is a grant or a gift. Both would be legal transactions for individuals, but not necessarily for constitutional governments. The problem with most liberal, grant programs is that the government is not a party receiving a benefit back from the other party. The programs produce no value because it is simply the transfer of money. The recipient may have strict restrictions, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, where misspending is a felony. Other programs have no restrictions on the expenditures, like Social Security or unemployment benefits.
Of those that go for specific purposes, like the Program formerly known as Food Stamps or Medicaid, the government gets nothing, but the program beneficiaries get specific goods or services. Since the government gets nothing, it has no accounting method to show that the government balance sheet has increased. It gets the benefit that fewer food riots will occur or old people attacking the car of the Chairman of House Ways and Means. The food providers or medical providers who receive the money on the beneficiary's behalf do increase their cash flow and hopefully their wealth through retained earnings after paying expenses. The program beneficiaries have little incentive to change their behavior within the program. Their choice is pass or fail: stay in the program or quit. Most economic choices are ones of timing of expenditures, size of expenditures, and selection of goods and services purchased balanced against choices on how to obtain more resources to use in the next round of purchases. These government programs destroy the choice about how to garner more resources.
On the guns side of the equation, most people have trouble explaining what gun purchases in a time of peace buy for the general public. Buying more and bigger guns is not what we are talking about here. What we are talking about here is buying sufficient guns, military talent, and logistical capabilities that are most likely enemies fear to attack us at home or to attack our citizens abroad. We are buying peace of mind. Most liberals believe this is just as much conservative feel good as butter programs are liberal feel good.
If we are discussing whether to buy a multi-million dollar airplane because it is cool, I would agree with the liberal. If we are talking about projecting power with that airplane to the four corners of the earth so that we don't have to put boots on the ground in every corner of the earth, I would beg to differ with the liberal.
Ultimately, buying peace of mind with the military is a difficult concept to grasp. Why do we want peace of mind? As a liberal hiking in the mountains of ancient Persia, will you be arrested as a spy? We know from recent history the answer is yes. The fear of arrest overseas in that type of situation is an example where the US has not bought sufficient peace of mind. As a conservative businessman traveling in Venezuela, are you likely to be arrested as a spy? Not that I am aware, no. The US has bought sufficient peace of mind there. Can an American travel to the Caribbean and avoid arrest? Absolutely. The travel is cheaper than Venezuela and less personal security is probably needed. I would suggest the quiet presence of the US Coast Guard and US Navy in and around the old pirate-haven Caribbean is a major reason.
The guns choice allows American citizens to move around the world more cheaply under fewer threats which in turns allows more commerce.
A similar domestic guns choice of welfare versus police demonstrates that higher police presence reduces crime where high welfare spending has no causation at all. But high welfare spending and inadequate police presence guarantees a safe incubator for criminal activity. Commerce disappears. Jobs disappear. Wealthy families leave.
Just think how many private transaction are peace of mind purchases: psychiatry, massage therapy, gift shops filled with useless knick-knacks, nice restaurants, flower shops, mega-groceries, luxury homes and cars, etc. If we converted our economy into one that refused to sell anything that offer peace of mind, we would have politburo-run grocery with lines out the door and no food on the shelves.
We buy peace of mind every day. The military is first and last line of defense from foreign threats to our daily bliss. The police are our second-to-last line of defense (don't forget the Second Amendment is the source of the last line of domestic defense) to domestic threats to our daily bliss.
The stronger we are perceived by our enemies, the more likely are enemies go elsewhere.
The guns versus butter analysis is one of the greatest sources of liberals complete disconnect from reality when we discuss government spending. They misapply its true lessons and superimpose their own notions of right and wrong choices. Now all guns choices are bad and all butter choices are good.
The real choices are between expenditures that reduce the daily cost of living for self-sufficient citizens and those that increase the financial burdens on the self-sufficient. The choice is the great wide open versus prison.
Expenditures on highways reduce the daily cost of living by allowing more independent movement of infinite variety. (Some Constitutional questions remain about whether the federal government is properly the dominant player.) Highways give government a general use product that no other provider can provide efficiently and widely. The benefits of highways are easily and objectively measured by traffic counts and value of commerce passing over it. This allows a systematic analysis of good places to place or expand highways. It allows successful governments to build infrastructure for actual growth occurring, not wishful thinking. (Yes, politicians with earmarking and pork barreling ignore these objective measures. That is a reflection of decisions made at the wrong level of government than a bad use of money.)
Expenditures for grant programs with no reciprocated consideration are undesirable. (The individual states need to be aware of these economic problems arising from grant programs, but are not Constitutionally prohibited from pursuing them.) Grant programs benefit only one person or organization at a time. The benefits are diffuse and not subject to measurements of benefits that not subjective. The consolidation of benefits mostly go to the politicians who support the benefit and not to a community.
Once we become aware of the inherent fallacies of liberal reliance on guns versus butter, we are better able to deal with the real problems on the side of the equation called "butter." "Guns" can be expensive, especially during a hot war, but are easier to identify and corral. "Butter" is budget busting, as Obama has demonstrated, and harder to fix.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The incomprehensible lack of diversity of diversity education
Why is diversity education always taught the same way?
I can just imagine if other subjects were taught the same way:
Newtonian physics taught as a man pushing a box over level ground, even if the real point was gravity's acceleration.
Algebra taught as long addition writ large.
English as "Jack and Jill."
Botany as the study of an oak leaf.
Chemistry as the study of table salt.
The constant refrain of diversity education is that we should learn to appreciate the differences in one another.
The problem that I find is that the people who are best trained in diversity are the least appreciative of the differences in one another.
If a black student comes into class and proclaims his love for his white brothers, he is hailed as living up to the diversity creed. If a white student takes no interest in the fact that the black student next to him has a different skin color, he is racist for not appreciating the differences.
Diversity classes tell us that we look different but share common experiences but discourage actually learning about each others' pasts that might expose different experiences and different opinions. They are discouraged from accounting for differences in skin color, hair characteristics, childhood experiences that don't fit the template, and monetary habits. Heaven forbid a student mention that another person's statement of reality is wrong. There is only one opinion allowed but many observations of facts; so long as the observations support the allowed opinion.
Skin color tells you nothing about the person's character. Got that?
A person who truly appreciates diversity will learn about medieval English madrigals from a black man from the inner city of Washington, DC.
A person who truly appreciates diversity will seek out friends of other races because of similarities of interests and learn about their new friend's family and life experiences over a beer (or root beer for minors). He will ask tough questions that challenge his interlocutor's understanding of reality. Then both friends will challenge their differing opinions. They will laugh that one uses more sun tan lotion than the other. That one's hair is straighter than the other. That one's mother kept money in a shoebox and the other's mother kept money at a bank that went out of business. They will return to the joys of their similarities of interest and look forward to their next meeting.
Anyone who shouts about the importance of diversity scares me as a person who wishes to find only people who agree with him. Diversity studied is diversity ignored.
It does not have to be that way, but diversity training is the domain of the liberals and is just a way to use corporate money to enforce liberal orthodoxy (i.e., correct belief) just as the Spanish Inquisition was about enforcing correct Catholic orthodoxy.
As I watch my child grow, he has friends of all races and cares not one whit. Only as teachers in school tell him to look at all the other kids and teaches my son to place value on being different from his multi-racial circle of friends does he start to have a race-oriented mindset.
Diversity training does more damage that it solves. No member of the KKK will go into diversity training and confess his sins and repent of his racism. No member of the NAACP will go into diversity training and confess that the NAACP is damaging the black community. But put a multi-racial circle of young friends in diversity training and they will start to question their natural open-mindedness.
What's worse is inserting diversity training into history classes.
As a life-long student of history, I have found that the only way to truly learn history is to accept that each era has their biases that cause corrupting influences. The now-beloved Progressives were heavily exposed to racist ideology with many proposing programs to serve their racist goals. Study the history of the early Progressives by getting mad at their racism makes little sense. It is hard to truly learn about what motivated the Progressive's racism if you as a historian are angry.
As history meets the present, that emotional detachment can and should change. The only way a human being can affect the future is by his thoughts, feelings, and actions be carried out in the present.
A passionate pursuit of righteous behavior that interacts with other persons based solely on the content of their character is the best form of antidote to racism.
Diversity training is like taking the heroin addict and waiving a filled syringe in front of their eyes to demonstrate the evils of heroin. It does not work but it feeds the worst elements of the addiction.
I can just imagine if other subjects were taught the same way:
Newtonian physics taught as a man pushing a box over level ground, even if the real point was gravity's acceleration.
Algebra taught as long addition writ large.
English as "Jack and Jill."
Botany as the study of an oak leaf.
Chemistry as the study of table salt.
The constant refrain of diversity education is that we should learn to appreciate the differences in one another.
The problem that I find is that the people who are best trained in diversity are the least appreciative of the differences in one another.
If a black student comes into class and proclaims his love for his white brothers, he is hailed as living up to the diversity creed. If a white student takes no interest in the fact that the black student next to him has a different skin color, he is racist for not appreciating the differences.
Diversity classes tell us that we look different but share common experiences but discourage actually learning about each others' pasts that might expose different experiences and different opinions. They are discouraged from accounting for differences in skin color, hair characteristics, childhood experiences that don't fit the template, and monetary habits. Heaven forbid a student mention that another person's statement of reality is wrong. There is only one opinion allowed but many observations of facts; so long as the observations support the allowed opinion.
Skin color tells you nothing about the person's character. Got that?
A person who truly appreciates diversity will learn about medieval English madrigals from a black man from the inner city of Washington, DC.
A person who truly appreciates diversity will seek out friends of other races because of similarities of interests and learn about their new friend's family and life experiences over a beer (or root beer for minors). He will ask tough questions that challenge his interlocutor's understanding of reality. Then both friends will challenge their differing opinions. They will laugh that one uses more sun tan lotion than the other. That one's hair is straighter than the other. That one's mother kept money in a shoebox and the other's mother kept money at a bank that went out of business. They will return to the joys of their similarities of interest and look forward to their next meeting.
Anyone who shouts about the importance of diversity scares me as a person who wishes to find only people who agree with him. Diversity studied is diversity ignored.
It does not have to be that way, but diversity training is the domain of the liberals and is just a way to use corporate money to enforce liberal orthodoxy (i.e., correct belief) just as the Spanish Inquisition was about enforcing correct Catholic orthodoxy.
As I watch my child grow, he has friends of all races and cares not one whit. Only as teachers in school tell him to look at all the other kids and teaches my son to place value on being different from his multi-racial circle of friends does he start to have a race-oriented mindset.
Diversity training does more damage that it solves. No member of the KKK will go into diversity training and confess his sins and repent of his racism. No member of the NAACP will go into diversity training and confess that the NAACP is damaging the black community. But put a multi-racial circle of young friends in diversity training and they will start to question their natural open-mindedness.
What's worse is inserting diversity training into history classes.
As a life-long student of history, I have found that the only way to truly learn history is to accept that each era has their biases that cause corrupting influences. The now-beloved Progressives were heavily exposed to racist ideology with many proposing programs to serve their racist goals. Study the history of the early Progressives by getting mad at their racism makes little sense. It is hard to truly learn about what motivated the Progressive's racism if you as a historian are angry.
As history meets the present, that emotional detachment can and should change. The only way a human being can affect the future is by his thoughts, feelings, and actions be carried out in the present.
A passionate pursuit of righteous behavior that interacts with other persons based solely on the content of their character is the best form of antidote to racism.
Diversity training is like taking the heroin addict and waiving a filled syringe in front of their eyes to demonstrate the evils of heroin. It does not work but it feeds the worst elements of the addiction.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)