Categories
education and schooling ideological culture

Child Sacrifice to the Cult

integration, politics, children, symbolism

One’s political ideology should not become a cult.

The text for today’s sermon against cults is a post about a curious case of child sacrifice. 

In Alex Tabarrok’s first sentence he links to a 2016 article in The New York Times by one Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Choosing a School for my Daughter in a Segregated City.” Economist Tabarrok, blogging yesterday at Marginal Revolution, explains that Ms. Hannah-Jones “sent her child to a predominantly black/lower-income public school in New York City. Now her child says she shouldn’t have been used as political fodder.”

What Hannah-Jones did was send her daughter to a failing public school to somehow advance social justice. She could have sent her daughter to a school with a better curriculum, better teachers, and better fellow students, but to serve her woke ideology, she subjected her own child to a terrible education.

A decade later she and Najya, her daughter, finally confronted the consequences of that choice, the lackluster learning being just the first half of it: “Najya knew very little algebra and had huge gaps in many of the building blocks of math that she should have learned in elementary school, like mastery of long division and fractions.” 

And the psychic toll was worse.

Tabarrok swiftly undermines the initial assumptions going into the schooling choice,* concluding with an astute analysis of our times: “It’s been said that Ayn Rand’s heroes don’t exist, but her villains do. . . Hannah-Jones says that she and her husband ‘felt an obligation to make educational decisions based on the collective good.’ But she wasn’t just sacrificing herself for her ideology; she was sacrificing her child, who had no choice in the matter.”

That’s the operative word in education, no? Choice. Schooling decisions aren’t easy. Even parents with education, intelligence, and resources can make mistakes. Sometimes ideological ones. With our system failing, at whopping tens of thousands spent per pupil, please consider that sacrificing individual kids doesn’t really serve the collective good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “The failures she documents are failures of management and accountability, not lack of resources. NYC spends upwards of $40k per pupil on average, the highest of any large district in the country. Moreover, schools in NYC with lower-income students get more than the average. PS 307, where NHJ initially sent her child, is currently funded at just over 52k per student, far above the national average.”

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Categories
Thought

Dostoevsky

You know, amongst us socialism spreads principally through sentimentalism.

The character Pyotr Stepanovitch in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons (1872), Part Two: VII, Ch. 6.
Categories
insider corruption political economy

Slower Than a Stationary Bullet

California, High Speed Rail, Gavin Newsom, folly, transportation, waste

California’s decades-in-the-making high-speed rail system has problems.

The first: In 2008 Californians approved a $10 billion bond measure as down payment on a $45 billion, 800-mile bullet-train system.

At the time, a policy analyst suggested that many people “sense that maybe that [bullet train] is something I can use at some point. It’s something they can relate to.” Hence the 52.7% support.

Now, I can “relate to” plenty of big projects I might “use at some point,” preferably before shuffling off this mortal coil, but that doesn’t mean I favor forcing fellow taxpayers to shell out many tens of billions for extravagant dreams. 

Neither does it mean I wish to open the door to endless horse-trading and political skullduggery.

There is another problem: It’s become clear that the only likely result of California’s “high-speed” project, in addition to lining the pockets of the politically well-connected, will be duplicating and interrupting an already-existing service.

The chapter-and-verse is laid out by blogger Chris Bray. “The High-Speed Rail Authority is,” Bray writes, “replacing trains with trains, and train stations with train stations. The Central Valley, which is connected by rail, is being connected by rail, after which the Gold Runner will be shut down where it overlaps, but still operated where it doesn’t.”

Instead of the mega-connective system Californians though they were voting for, they’ll get “trains to Fresno where they already have trains to Fresno.” And when riding, have to keep switching back and forth between an Amtrak train and a bullet train.

But, hey, look on the bright side: maybe it will never happen.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Anders Chydenius

Fatherland without freedom and merit is a large word with little meaning.

Anders Chydenius, For What Reason do so Many Swedes Emigrate Every Year? (1765)

Categories
Thought

Piker on Mao

He’s a great man of history. Of course, there were a lot of excesses.

Hasan Piker, in interview with Alex Thompson, on Axios. When asked what kind of “excesses,” he responded: “Deaths borne out of mismanagement and famine.”
Categories
Today

At Salamis

On September 21, 480 BC, Greeks defeated Persian forces in the massive naval battle of Salamis.

Categories
Update

A.I. “Force”?

While the Space Force ramps up and military men say the darnedest things in public, President Donald Trump is now talking about a new “force” — one pertaining to artificial intelligence.

“The president posted on Truth Social that he wanted to appoint an ‘AI czar’ to lead a new ‘AI force,’” explains an article in The Verge. “He made the announcement amid growing calls from across the political spectrum and even within the industry to pump the brakes on AI development. He posted that his administration ‘will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!’

So, just to be clear here, this is not the laissez faire president you may have been looking for.

Categories
Thought

Hemingway

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter,” Esquire, Sept. 1935.
Categories
Today

Do Tell?

On September 20, 2011, the United States military ended its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time. Instituted during the presidency of Bill Clinton, the policy had been issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on December 21, 1993, going into effect on February 28, 1994.

Categories
Update

Social (In)Security

The endless fraud that is Social Security seems eternal to most Americans, and even those who prophesy its demise might feel a bit like Jonah outside the walls of Nineveh, under a gourd, cursing a worm. But the comedy of its seemingly stable instability aside, the basic truth remains quite clear: It was never constructed on a sound basis. There was never investment of funds taken in; that was prohibited by law. It was always pay-as-we-go. Surpluses were sent to Congress where they were spent. What Congress “owes” the program is vast.

And, because of its creaky, half-tontine/half-Ponzi scheme structure, “the deal” so many count on is repeatedly restructured, so to keep it going — each time the tax burden on non-retirement people raises.

None of this should be shocking to readers of Paul Jacob’s Common Sense column. Back in 1999 (that was quite some time ago!) Paul explained why the program has served as a “third rail” in American politics:

Politicians chasing votes have spent every dollar you’ve paid to Social Security. The money’s gone. There is no “trust fund” because Congress couldn’t be trusted. If a private pension fund was run this way, the people would be arrested. Managing your Social Security, Congress spent all the money and the program is headed for bankruptcy.

But why should Congress care? They’ve opted out of Social Security and their congressional pension makes them millionaires.

In 2007, Paul wrote of the first Boomers to apply for Social Security benefits under the standard retirement plan. In 2010, Paul directly contradicted a Nobel laureate economist (Paul Krugman, in case you are interested), calling him a liar. About Social Security.

Telling whoppers about Social Security is almost a national tradition at this point.

In light of this, The Wall Street Journal’s September 17 look at the subject is worth noting. It is called “Republicans’ Pre-Emptive Social Security Surrender” and it is by Joseph C. Sternberg:

The battle over Social Security reform will be among the most consequential economic fights Washington has had in several generations. So why are some Republicans already preparing to surrender?

The issue has taken on new urgency as it becomes clear a legal cliff edge will force reform by 2032 or else. By that date the so-called trust fund for the old-age portion of Social Security will be exhausted. By law, annual benefit payouts then immediately shrink to match annual payroll-tax revenues. That would mean a 22% reduction in Social Security checks in the first year.

The standard proposal to forestall all this is the focus of Sternberg’s op-ed. And what is that proposal? Nothing other than the notion — beloved by Democrats, because it looks an awful lot like “sticking it to the rich” without saying so directly — of raising the cap on contributions.

The program is funded by a payroll tax of 12.4%, borne equally by employer and employee and applied to the first $184,500 of taxable income. The theory is that if higher-earning households pay the payroll tax on all their income, it removes a regressive element of the existing system and creates a fabulous new revenue stream.

But will that work? Sternberg says No:

This issue will likely gain coverage here at ThisIsCommonSense.org in the near future.