Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by Charles W. Nuckolls
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Revitalizing America
Anthropologists, like Peter Worsley, termed a "revitalization movement" the attempt to restore, by ritual means, an imagined lost of age of abundance. The Seneca relgion of Handsome Lake; the Sioux ghost dance; the Melanesian cargo cults: all examples of societies near collapse making a last ditch effort through fantasy to reverse the decline reality had in store for them.
One sees the same thing in the United States today in our increasingly furtive efforts to breath life back into the American Dream -- a dream based on perpetual growth and unlimited, cheap fossil fuel. Of course it could be different. Americans could wake up to the fact that things can't go on like this forever. Or Obama could say, instead of merely hint, that peak oil is a matter of geophysics, not tax policy. Or, indeed, the Energy Deparment could announce that no combination of switch grass and used french-fry oil will ever come close to replacing the 20 million barrels of crude we use everyday.
But none of that will happen. And that is why I expect "revitilization" and ritual. In other words, what we are likely to see is the foredoomed but profoundly seductive attempt to make the physical world obey the desires of the majority of industrial humanity by means of ritual action. The Sarah Palin fans chanting “Drill, baby, drill,” as though drilling a hole in the ground magically obliged the Earth to put oil at the bottom of it, are taking tentative steps in that direction. So are the people who insist that we can keep on enjoying the trappings of the age of abundance if we only support a technology, or join a movement, or adopt an ideology, or – well, the list is already long, and it’s going to get much longer in the near future.
My guess is that we’ve got a couple of years at most before somebody puts the right ingredients together in the right way, and the first fully fledged revitalization movement begins attracting a mass following with its strident denunciations of the existing order of things and its promise of a bright future reached by what amounts to a sustained exercise in magic.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Dr. Pangloss: Patron Saint of the United States
Recent statements that the United States has "turned the corner" and embarked on sustainable recovery strike one a tantamount to faith-healing. Somehow, politicians and opinion-makers are able to reassure the public that its belief in American exceptionalism remains well-founded and true. Apparently they believe it themselves.
And, indeed, they believe it in the same way Dr. Pangloss believed that this is the best of all possible worlds. Even getting his left buttock cut off did not suggest to Candide's companion that he modify his outlook. Americans and their economy, too, are being systematically dismembered, but the wonderful tautological perfection of our belief system keep us from recognizing the threat to our integrity. Dr. Pangloss would have surely approved
What is most interesting is that, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, Americans do not see the correlation between a growth-oriented economy and rising fuel prices. Notice the jump to $81/barrel on Friday? That was because of number of job losses was not as high as expected. Imagine what might happen if the number actually turned positive. Triple-digit oil prices would arrive again instantaneously.
On second thoght, Voltaire is probably too removed for most Americans. "Spongebob," the cartoon characters, resonates better, and he projects the same unchallengeable optimism in the face of reality. So, let us make Spongebob the partron saint of America! I have no doubt that if I search the web diligently, I will find that he has already been made into an object of religious devotion.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
OJ Simpson and Climate Change
The campaign against climate science has been enormously clever, and enormously effective. It’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy, I think, is to the O.J. Simpson trial, an event that’s begun to recede into our collective memory. For those who were conscious in 1995, however, I imagine that just a few names will make it come back to life. Kato Kaelin, anyone? Lance Ito?
The Dream Team of lawyers assembled for Simpson’s defense had a problem: It was pretty clear their guy was guilty. Nicole Brown’s blood was all over his socks, and that was just the beginning. So Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian et al. decided to attack the process, arguing that it put Simpson’s guilt in doubt, and doubt, of course, was all they needed. Hence, those days of cross-examination about exactly how Dennis Fung had transported blood samples, or the fact that Los Angeles detective Mark Fuhrman had used racial slurs when talking to a screenwriter in 1986.
If anything, they were actually helped by the mountain of evidence. If a haystack gets big enough, the odds only increase that there will be a few needles hidden inside. Whatever they managed to find, they made the most of: In closing arguments, for instance, Cochran compared Fuhrman to Adolf Hitler and called him “a genocidal racist, a perjurer, America’s worst nightmare, and the personification of evil.” His only real audience was the jury, many of whom had good reason to dislike the Los Angeles Police Department, but the team managed to instill considerable doubt in lots of Americans tuning in on TV as well. That’s what happens when you spend week after week dwelling on the cracks in a case, no matter how small they may be.
Similarly, the immense pile of evidence now proving the science of global warming beyond any reasonable doubt is in some ways a great boon for those who would like, for a variety of reasons, to deny that the biggest problem we’ve ever faced is actually a problem at all. If you have a three-page report, it won’t be overwhelming and it’s unlikely to have many mistakes. Three thousand pages (the length of the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)? That pretty much guarantees you’ll get something wrong.
Indeed, the IPCC managed to include, among other glitches, a spurious date for the day when Himalayan glaciers would disappear. It won’t happen by 2035, as the report indicated—a fact that has now been spread so widely across the Internet that it’s more or less obliterated another, undeniable piece of evidence: Virtually every glacier on the planet is, in fact, busily melting.
Similarly, if you managed to hack 3,000 emails from some scientist’s account, you might well find a few that showed them behaving badly, or at least talking about doing so. This is the so-called “Climategate” scandal from an English research center last fall. The English scientist Phil Jones has been placed on leave while his university decides if he should be punished for, among other things, not complying with Freedom of Information Act requests.
Call him the Mark Fuhrman of climate science; attack him often enough and maybe people will ignore the inconvenient mountain of evidence about climate change that the world’s scientific researchers have, in fact, compiled. Indeed, you can make almost exactly the same kind of fuss Johnnie Cochran made—that’s what Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) did, insisting the emails proved “scientific fascism,” and the climate skeptic Christopher Monckton called his opponents “Hitler youth.” Such language filters down. I’m now used to a daily diet of angry email, often with subject lines like the one that arrived yesterday: “Nazi Moron Scumbag.”
If you’re smart, you can also take advantage of lucky breaks that cross your path. Say a record set of snowstorms hit Washington, D.C. It won’t even matter that such a record is just the kind of thing scientists have been predicting, given the extra water vapor global warming is adding to the atmosphere. It’s enough that it’s super-snowy in what everyone swore was a warming world.
For a gifted political operative like, say, Marc Morano, who runs the Climate Depot website, the massive snowfalls this winter became the grist for a hundred posts poking fun at the very idea that anyone could still possibly believe in, you know, physics. Morano, who really is good, posted a link to a live webcam so readers could watch snow coming down; his former boss, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), had his grandchildren build an igloo on the Capitol grounds, with a sign that read: “Al Gore’s New Home.” These are the things that stick in people’s heads. If the winter glove won’t fit, you must acquit.
Why we don’t want to believe in climate change
The climate deniers come with a few built-in advantages. Thanks to ExxonMobil and others with a vested interest in debunking climate-change research, their “think tanks” have plenty of money, none of which gets wasted doing actual research to disprove climate change. It’s also useful for a movement to have its own TV network, Fox, though even more crucial to the denial movement are a few right-wing British tabloids that validate each new “scandal” and put it into media play.
That these guys are geniuses at working the media was proved this February when even The New York Times ran a front page story, “Skeptics Find Fault With U.N. Climate Panel,” which recycled most of the accusations of the past few months. What made it such a glorious testament to their success was the chief source cited by the Times: one Christopher Monckton, or Lord Monckton as he prefers to be called since he is some kind of British viscount. He is also identified as a “former advisor to Margaret Thatcher,” and he did write a piece for the American Spectator during her term as prime minister offering his prescriptions for “the only way to stop AIDS”:
... screen the entire population regularly and ... quarantine all carriers of the disease for life. Every member of the population should be blood-tested every month ... all those found to be infected with the virus, even if only as carriers, should be isolated compulsorily, immediately, and permanently.
He speaks with equal gusto and good sense on matters climatic—and now from above the fold in the paper of record.
Access to money and the media is not the only, or even the main, reason for the success of the climate deniers, though. They’re not actually spending all that much cash and they’ve got legions of eager volunteers doing much of the internet lobbying entirely for free. Their success can be credited significantly to the way they tap into the main currents of our politics of the moment with far more savvy and power than most environmentalists can muster. They’ve understood the popular rage at elites. They’ve grasped the widespread feelings of powerlessness in the U.S., and the widespread suspicion that we’re being ripped off by mysterious forces beyond our control.
Some of that is, of course, purely partisan. The columnist David Brooks, for instance, recently said: “On the one hand, I totally accept the scientific authorities who say that global warming is real and it is manmade. On the other hand, I feel a frisson of pleasure when I come across evidence that contradicts the models ... [in part] because I relish any fact that might make Al Gore look silly.” But the passion with which people attack Gore more often seems focused on the charge that he’s making large sums of money from green investments, and that the whole idea is little more than a scam designed to enrich everyone involved. This may be wrong—Gore has testified under oath that he donates his green profits to the cause—and scientists are not getting rich researching climate change (constant blog comments to the contrary), but it resonates with lots of people. I get many emails a day on the same theme: “The game is up. We’re on to you.”
When I say it resonates with lots of people, I mean lots of people. O.J.‘s lawyers had to convince a jury made up mostly of black women from central city L.A., five of whom reported that they or their families had had “negative experiences” with the police. For them, it was a reasonably easy sell. When it comes to global warming, we’re pretty much all easy sells because we live the life that produces the carbon dioxide that’s at the heart of the crisis, and because we like that life.
Very few people really want to change in any meaningful way, and given half a chance to think they don’t need to, they’ll take it. Especially when it sounds expensive, and especially when the economy stinks. Here’s David Harsanyi, a columnist for The Denver Post: “If they’re going to ask a nation—a world—to fundamentally alter its economy and ask citizens to alter their lifestyles, the believers’ credibility and evidence had better be unassailable.”
“Unassailable” sets the bar impossibly high when there is a dedicated corps of assailants out there hard at work. It is true that those of us who want to see some national and international effort to fight global warming need to keep making the case that the science is strong. That’s starting to happen. There are new websites and iPhone apps to provide clear and powerful answers to the skeptic trash-talking, and strangely enough, the denier effort may, in some ways, be making the case itself: If you go over the multi-volume IPCC report with a fine-tooth comb and come up with three or four lousy citations, that’s pretty strong testimony to its essential accuracy.
Clearly, however, the antiseptic attempt to hide behind the magisterium of Science in an effort to avoid the rough-and-tumble of Politics is a mistake. It’s a mistake because science can be—and, in fact, should be—infinitely argued about. Science is, in fact, nothing but an ongoing argument, which is one reason why it sounds so disingenuous to most people when someone insists that the science is “settled.” That’s especially true of people who have been told at various times in their lives that some food is good for you, only to be told later that it might increase your likelihood of dying.
Why data isn’t enough
I work at Middlebury College, a topflight liberal arts school, so I’m surrounded by people who argue constantly. It’s fun. One of the better skeptical takes on global warming that I know about is a weekly radio broadcast on our campus radio station run by a pair of undergraduates. They’re skeptics, but not cynics. Anyone who works seriously on the science soon realizes that we know more than enough to start taking action, but less than we someday will. There will always be controversy over exactly what we can now say with any certainty. That’s life on the cutting edge. I certainly don’t turn my back on the research—we’ve spent the last two years at 350.org building what Foreign Policy called “the largest ever coordinated global rally” around a previously obscure data point, the amount of atmospheric carbon that scientists say is safe, measured in parts per million.
But it’s a mistake to concentrate solely on the science for another reason. Science may be what we know about the world, but politics is how we feel about the world. And feelings count at least as much as knowledge. Especially when those feelings are valid. People are getting ripped off. They are powerless against large forces that are, at the moment, beyond their control. Anger is justified.
So let’s figure out how to talk about it. Let’s look at ExxonMobil, which each of the last three years has made more money than any company in the history of money. Its business model involves using the atmosphere as an open sewer for the carbon dioxide that is the inevitable byproduct of the fossil fuel it sells. And yet we let it do this for free. It doesn’t pay a red cent for potentially wrecking our world.
Right now, there’s a bill in the Congress—cap-and-dividend, it’s called—that would charge Exxon for that right, and send a check to everyone in the country every month. Yes, the company would pass on the charge at the pump, but 80 percent of Americans (all except the top-income energy hogs) would still make money off the deal. That represents good science, because it starts to send a signal that we should park that SUV, but it’s also good politics.
By the way, if you think there’s a scam underway, you’re right—and to figure it out just track the money going in campaign contributions to the politicians doing the bidding of the energy companies. Inhofe, the igloo guy? Over a million dollars from energy and utility companies and executives in the last two election cycles. You think Al Gore is going to make money from green energy? Check out what you get for running an oil company.
Worried that someone is going to wreck your future? You’re right about that, too. Right now, China is gearing up to dominate the green energy market. They’re making the investments that mean future windmills and solar panels, even ones installed in this country, will be likely to arrive from factories in Chenzhou, not Chicago.
Coal companies have already eliminated most good mining jobs, simply by automating them in the search for ever higher profits. Now, they’re using their political power to make sure that miners’ kids won’t get to build wind turbines instead. Everyone should be mighty pissed—just not at climate-change scientists.
But keep in mind as well that fear and rage aren’t the only feelings around. They’re powerful feelings, to be sure, but they’re not all we feel. And they are not us at our best.
There’s also love, a force that has often helped motivate large-scale change, and one that cynics in particular have little power to rouse. Love for poor people around the world, for instance. If you think it’s not real, you haven’t been to church recently, especially evangelical churches across the country. People who take the Gospel seriously also take seriously indeed the injunction to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.
It’s becoming patently obvious that nothing challenges that goal quite like the rising seas and spreading deserts of climate change. That’s why religious environmentalism is one of the most effective emerging parts of the global warming movement; that’s why we were able to get thousands of churches ringing their bells 350 times last October to signify what scientists say is the safe level of CO2 in the atmosphere; that’s why Bartholomew, patriarch of the Orthodox church and leader of 400 million eastern Christians, said, “Global warming is a sin and 350 is an act of redemption.”
There’s also the deep love for creation, for the natural world. We were born to be in contact with the world around us and, though much of modernity is designed to insulate us from nature, it doesn’t really work. Any time the natural world breaks through—a sunset, an hour in the garden—we’re suddenly vulnerable to the realization that we care about things beyond ourselves. That’s why, for instance, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts are so important: Get someone out in the woods at an impressionable age and you’ve accomplished something powerful. That’s why art and music need to be part of the story, right alongside bar graphs and pie charts. When we campaign about climate change at 350.org, we make sure to do it in the most beautiful places we know, the iconic spots that conjure up people’s connection to their history, their identity, their hope.
The great irony is that the climate skeptics have prospered by insisting that their opponents are radicals. In fact, those who work to prevent global warming are deeply conservative, insistent that we should leave the world in something like the shape we found it. We want our kids to know the world we knew. Here’s the definition of radical: doubling the carbon content of the atmosphere because you’re not completely convinced it will be a disaster. We want to remove every possible doubt before we convict in the courtroom, because an innocent man in a jail cell is a scandal, but outside of it we should act more conservatively.
In the long run, the climate deniers will lose; they’ll be a footnote to history. (Hey, even O.J. is finally in jail.) But they’ll lose because we’ll all lose, because by delaying action, they will have helped prevent us from taking the steps we need to take while there’s still time. If we’re going to make real change while it matters, it’s important to remember that their skepticism isn’t the root of the problem. It simply plays on our deep-seated resistance to change. That’s what gives the climate cynics ground to operate. That’s what we need to overcome, and at bottom that’s a battle as much about courage and hope as about data.
Bill McKibbin
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Suburbia is Toast.
Exactly what kind of American suburbia is sustainable when oil prices go up? How come Americans believe the post-war era of happy motoring can continue forever?
Oil prices pushed near the top of their recent range this week, and the usual suspects trotted out on the TV to tell us why this rally couldn't last. And on the face of it, their argument seems to make sense. It boils down to ...
1. Crude has been trapped in the same range since June. 2. U.S. oil demand is lackluster at best. 3. There is plenty of oil in storage.
So why, then, are oil prices trending higher?
Force #1: Global Demand Is Rising
To be sure, America is using less oil. The Energy Information Administration expects America's oil demand to fall by 330,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. And oil refiners including Valero and Sunoco have shut plants to cope with a glut of fuel.
However, all gluts end. The EIA recently revised upward its estimate for U.S. oil consumption in 2010, expecting demand to increase by 320,000 bpd over 2009.
And demand is recovering faster elsewhere in the world. In fact, the International Energy Agency expects global oil demand to rise to 86.1 million bpd in 2010 from 84.6 million bpd in 2009.
And in its October Monthly Oil Market Report, OPEC jacked up its estimate of global oil demand for next year. "The risks to the forecast are seen on the upside," OPEC said in a statement. "Should the U.S. continue to show healthier oil demand levels, then world oil demand could increase by another 200,000 barrels per day before year's end."
OPEC expects the emerging markets will run rings around developed countries when it comes to oil demand growth. And international experts agree that there's one country in particular that will likely use a LOT more oil ...
Force #2: China Is Shifting Into Higher Gear
China's oil consumption doubled in the last decade, rising to 8 million barrels a day last year from 4.2 million barrels in 1998, according to BP Plc's Statistical Review. And that trend continues.
Chinese oil demand was revised upward to 8.17 million bpd for 2009 from a previous estimate of 8.08 million bpd, according to the International Energy Agency. Crude oil imports in January-August period went up 7.4% from earlier. And demand is accelerating. China's oil imports rose 18% in August.
Looking at next year, China's crude consumption is expected to increase 1.4 million barrels per day to 86.1 million, according to the IEA.
Even these raised estimates may not be high enough. China's car sales are booming — up 78% in September from a year earlier. Overall vehicle sales totaled 1.33 million units, while passenger car sales climbed 84% to 1.02 million units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported.
So far this year, China has seen 9.66 million cars sold — far ahead of the U.S., which has seen auto sales of 7.85 million. What's more, most cars sold in China are first-time owners. In the U.S., most car sales are replacement vehicles.
So, those revved-up China auto sales mean much higher gasoline consumption and oil consumption.
Force #3: The Cheap Oil Is Going ... Going ...
Peak production is already receding in the rear view mirror for dozens of nations. World reserves are being depleted by about 4% a year, according to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. That leaves the world margin of error far too small, and vulnerable to disruptions such as rebel attacks on pipelines or saber-rattling disputes in the Middle East.
As reserves of cheap oil run lower, competition for remaining assets becomes more frenzied. The global financial crisis barely slowed China down in its quest to outbid western oil companies for global assets. For example, ExxonMobil recently made a $4 billion offer for Ghana's Jubilee oil field. But then China National Oil Company opened its own talks with Ghana to make a rival bid for a stake in Jubilee.
The Jubilee field is estimated to hold 1.8 billion barrels of oil. According to the Energy Information Administration, the world's 15 largest oil producers delivered about 64 billion barrels per day in 2008.
Exxon's $4 billion bid would buy it a 23.5% stake in the Jubilee. According to some experts, oil would have to sell at $100 a barrel to make this stake profitable for Exxon.
Deflationists — people who argue that the big trend in prices going forward will be down, not up — would argue paying that kind of price for oil is just crazy! So how crazy is it that China is willing to trump that bid? How high of an oil price is China planning on?
And Ghana is just the beginning. Chinese oil companies have announced plans to spend at least $16 billion to gain access to African energy assets.
Meanwhile, the big American oil companies, outbid by foreign competitors with deep pockets, are facing a future of steadily dwindling production. Let's keep the focus on ExxonMobil. It has been producing a little over 2.4 million barrels of oil a day for the last year and a half, its lowest rate of production over the last decade.
Many oil companies are running up against the limits of growth. This is something that is affecting the entire Western oil industry, and will probably eventually spark a resource war in the Arctic, as the U.S., Canada, Russia and other countries fight over oil and gas resources literally at the end of the Earth.
Like I said, suburbia -- that car-depenent extravaganza of the post-war era -- may end up looking like the worst misallocation of resources in American history.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Academic Star Chambers
Business-style quantification of academic performance is now so thoroughly in place that we can scarcely remember a time when the "citation index" and "impact score" were not part of our discourse.
It only amazes me how completely faculties have been bamboozled into adopting the administrative mindset: if it cannot be counted, it simply doesn't count.
At my institution, where I serve on the Tenure and Promotion Committee, the review committee members are only given the files a week or so before meeting. Suffice to say there is no time to read, let alone carefully consider, the contributions of someone to a field of study. So what do we do?
We pull up impact scores and assess the rating of different journals, issue by issue, to see if the contributions is "worth" anything. It takes a few minutes. Then we move on to the next file.
I am virtually alone on the committee in explicitly rejecting this approach, since, if numbers are allowed to do the talking, then the review process simply becomes an exercise in clerical number-crunching. Why not just have a secretary compile the statisticis?
The alternative, of course, would be to allow review committees an opportunity to read and assess their colleagues' work based on intellectual criteria. Heaven forbid!
I can only say how grateful I am that I received tenure and promotion to full professor before the business-school mindset completely corrupted the system and turned us all into shills for the administrative elite.
Friday, October 9, 2009
An Unaccountable Elite
Who am I talking about?
A judgement body from whose decisions there is no appeal; secret regulations, unknown, typically, even to body members; an ever-widening scrutiny, even of mundane activites, for unconforming ideologies.
Don't know? You should, since you've probably got one at your institution. It is called the "Institutional Review Board." Such bodies, officially, are charged with "protecting human subjects," and they are supposed to be governed by federal statutes. In reality, they are autonomous entities within universities that sit in judgment on fundamental issues, such as "what is science." From their decisions, there is no appeal, and since their membership always includes "non-scientists" and "members of the community," one cannot assume the knowledge or background we take for granted within the disciplines. Ignorance, misinformation, and just plain silliness are commonplace.
To give one example: one of my students wanted to do fieldwork on widows in India -- a fairly routine sort of inquiry, especially within my discipline (cultural anthropology.) Her proposal was rejected, and I quote, "because you are a white woman, and a white woman is like a white man, and a white man represents implicit force." The person who wrote this "critique" was a non-faculty (but full-voting) member of the IRB, and her qualification is that she has an undergraduate degree.
There are plenty of horror stories like this. And if you think they are confined to anthropologists or medical researchers or drug-trial investigators, you're sadly mistaken: the IRB process is increasing taking under its purview projects in the humanities, including history. The people who do "oral history" have run into this problem plenty already.
Soviet-style justice, based on secret rules, and conducted without accountability are no stranger in American academic institutions. Administrations seem to specialize in creating star-chambers, don't they? But that does not mean we have to accept their proliferation, or the distortions they create, or the absurd beaurocratic over-reach they represent.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
"He Who Wishes"
In modern democracies freedom is usually construed as freedom from contraint by others. The same was true in ancient Athens, the opinions of Plato and Aristotle notwithstanding. However, the Athenians belived that preserving freedom depended on the fulfillment of civic responsilbiities. Freedom, in other words, was both a prequisite and a product of citizenship.
But why is the citizen motivated to participation? This is something I would consider essential to preserving democracy and preventing the rise of an entrenched elite. Citizens must take the initiative. But we find less and less of that today, especially in the universities, which have become holding pens for inert and essentially passive consumers-in-training.
The difference between American universities and ancient Athens is that the latter depended on the willingness of members to take the initiative. 'Ho boulomenos," that is, "he who wishes" is a key figure in the operation of the Athenian democracy. He stands for office, speaks in the assembly, and brings charges in cases of injustice.
We do not possess a similiarly institutionalized role in the American university, nor do we attempt to inculcate the free exercise of responsible citizenship necessary to the preservation of liberty. Instead, we have "food courts," and the only decision we expect to be exercised is in the choice of high-fat foodstuffs. A course catalogue, these days, is the food court's intellectual equivalent -- and often contains roughly the same nutritional value. The Athenian "He who wishes,", however, was more than a consumer of cheese-doodles.
What might this mean for us? To institionalize the mechanisms of deliberative democracy, I suggest, requires that every citizen of a local rea has an equal change to participate. It matters that these citizens come to see themselves as connected, and not primarily transients for whom exit is an easy option. The local unit, therefore, must have a plausible claim to being an functional boundary. People must "feel" themselves to part of something both political and economic. I would therefore propose that within a locality a randomly selected group of citizens be invited to participate in a deliberation about a significant policy question.
The nature and functions of their deliberation -- and how they might contribute to the rehabilitation of the 'ho boulomenos' I will describe in a subsequent message.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Biculturalism in New Zealand
Here in New Zealand one has a legion of choices in filling out the census forms: Maori, New Zealand-European, Pacific Islander, and a host of others. Lacking until recently, however, was the choice, simply, of "New Zealander." This is an officially "bicultural" society, meaning the two (and only two) relevant categories politically are Maori and Pakeha (the Maori word generally applied to those of European descent.)
But people found thess labels wanting, and said, in essence, that they did not consider themselves either. What to do? At this point, the government introduced its new option: New Zealander.
What happened next was unexpected. From 2000 to 2006 the percentage of the population identifying itself as New Zealander grew enormously -- by more than 300%, in fact. "New Zealander" is the fatest growing segment of the population. What does this do to the idea of the nation as bicultural?
It's too soon to say. But with Maori and non-Maori flocking to the new category in droves, one cannot expect the much-flouted biculturalism of the last thirty years to continue to resonate. The result will surely be the increasing irrelevance of ethnic categories -- unless, of course, those with a vested interest manage to keep them alive.
And this is quite possible. The irony is that the more victories are won in defense of Maori treaty claims against the Crown, the more ethnic categorization diminishes in importance to the public, Maori and non-Maori alike. This has led to palpable frustration on the part of activists, especially in the weakening Labour government, who must now seek more robust expression of their aims. The next stop, they say, is the issue of sovereignty and a national constitution that will establish scope for non-parliamentary form of government along "traditional" Maori lines -- whatever that means.
I suppose one never knows where the ethnic identity bandwagon will stop. A lot of New Zealanders are trying to jump off. Will the system let them?
Friday, November 17, 2006
Lessons from Ancient Athens and Modern Greece
Why not use lotteries in elections to public office?
The reasons are obvious. All over the world, political parties face the problem of how to nominate candidates democratically. Democracy is less credible if the choices on the electoral ballot are not determined by truly democratic means.
The main mechanism of democratizing nominations, the mass primary, has a long and distinguished history. The primary has the advantage of mass participation, but it also has some limitations. Turnout is often low and unrepresentative.
Citizens who do participate do not always have the time or motivation to become properly informed about candidates' positions or topical issues. People often vote on the basis of name recognition and a superficial impression of sound bites broadcast through the news media.
So what is the alternative? In most countries,parties that do not use the mass primary usually leave the nomination of candidates to party elites. Democratic reformers face an unsatisfactory choice between primaries and elites - between politically equal but relatively uninformed masses, or better-informed but unequal party players.
Is there a way out of this dilemma? Is there a way to include an informed and representative public voice in the nomination process? A solution can be found in the practices of ancient Athens, where hundreds of citizens chosen by lot would regularly deliberate together and make important public decisions.
In ancient Athens, there were citizens' juries and legislative commissions of several hundreds, as well as the Council of 500 that set the agenda for the Agora, the public forum - all chosen by lot. Lottery provided for an equal chance to participate, while deliberation ensured an informed outcome.
Recently, Pasok, the socialist party of Greece, revived this ancient practice after 2,400 years and applied it to the selection of candidates in the municipal elections.
In the Athenian district of Marousi, site of the Athens Olympics, a randomly selected group of 160 citizens gathered to choose from among six candidates. All members of the group were sent briefing materials on 19 issues ranging from traffic and waste disposal to private universities and social services. After 10 hours of deliberation and direct questioning of the candidates, the participants voted by secret ballot; in the second round, Panos Alexandris won a clear majority and was therefore nominated as the Pasok candidate for mayor of Marousi.
This was the first time deliberative polling - a method developed by the Center of Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University - has been used anywhere in the world to select candidates for election. The concept and process was developed and managed by an international group of international experts, allowing academic and political experience to converge for the public good.
This experiment is a way of enhancing democracy at the party and national level. Deliberative polls will be integrated into other party activities also, as part of our efforts to create a more open party that reflects a more open, politically engaged society.
In Athens, where democracy was first developed, we have been drawing on the lessons of our forefathers to give greater legitimacy to modern-day democracy. Unless our politicians are accountable to their electorates, unless our citizens have equal access to accurate and balanced information, unless we take measures to improve public participation in decision-making processes, our democracies will always fall short.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Japanese Racism: Another Sign of the Times
Racism has never been absent from Japan, but in the last few years it has become especially evident at Japanese resorts known as "onsens." Apparently the notion of mixing Japanese and non-Japanese bodies in the same water is deeply disturbing. The sign above, typical of many, warns non-Japanese to keep their polluting bodies to themselves and out of all-Japanese tubs.
More subtle, but just as real, are the Japanese facilities that suddenly and explicably "close for maintenance" when foreigners show up and request services. I was once told that an "onsen" near Hakone was out of commission, while Japanese patrons continued to enter and jump into the hot water pools (visible through a plate glass window behind the manager's desk.)
There are positive features to Japanese ethnophobia, of course. Anyone seeking an education in open discrimination based on race can visit Japan for a first-hand look. And now that Japan has selected a super-nationalist prime minister, Abe, one can only assume such opportunities will multiply.
The reasons for Japan's pronounced drift to racial ethnocentrism will be the subject of another message -- with a few more pictures, to boot, from Japan's many "exclusive" hot springs resorts.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Small Town Victory for Property Rights
Readers might recall several postings I have made detailing the attempt by one local government -- in the small Colorado mountain town of Ouray -- to restrict property rights.
Officials believed that Ouray's status as a tourist mecca would be improved if all the buildings resembled a Disney-esque fantasy on Victorian architecture. Lots of gingerbread decorations, that sort of thing. It would be "good for the community" if people obeyed, and thus, all remodeling and new construction would have to conform to a detailed set of specifications to insure "conformity."
What is interesting here, however, is the process. City council sessions are badly attended, and it was clear the advocates of regulation depended on lack of public recognition. I happened in accidentally one day, and was astonished to find the regulation agenda almost on the books, with no public discussion or comment. That's often the way things get done, I've noticed, especially in small towns dominated by semi-dynastic oligarchs from "established" families.
So I published articles in the local newspaper and established a website (www.freeouray.org). It turns out there are plenty of freedom-loving citizens still left in small town America. I pushed hard for a full public vote, and low and behold, one was actually held just last month. And guess what happened? The pro-regulation camp was defeated overwhelmingly!
Just goes to show. When people are tipped off to the loss of their liberties, they do tend to respond. The only place where I've found this rule of thumb does not apply is the university. Faculty members can pretty much be led off to the slaughterhouse without a whimper, if the administrators tell 'em it's for the "good of the community."
But that's another story . . .
Monday, April 24, 2006
Property Rights in Small Town America
Since the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Kelo vs. New London to permit the use of Eminent Domain to take private property for “development,” voters in two dozen states (including Colorado) have reacted by proposing new laws and amendments to their constitutions to protect their rights of ownership. Local governments have been put on notice by citizens who have suddenly woken up and recognized that slowly but surely they have lost control of their own property through government measures. These measures take different forms, from outright seizure to so-called “certificates of appropriateness” that local government uses to tell you what kind of house to build and what that house should look like. But they all boil down to the same thing: you as a property owner have less control and government officials have more.
Ouray is a small town in the mountains of southwestern Colorado. On May 2nd, Ouray voters have the chance to join the fight and protect their rights of private ownership before it’s too late. After lengthy debate, the Ouray City Council has bowed to public pressure and will permit the citizens to vote in two ballot measures that could decide if we remain a community of individuals with property rights or turn into socialist “people’s state” where central-planning bureaucrats call the shots. Unfortunately, the vote is non-binding – city officials aren’t giving up their power to make the final decision – but the people have a chance to send them an unambiguous message: We dare to defend our rights!
Of the two measures, “C” is the more straightforward of the two. It asks if people are in favor of mandatory regulations of exterior construction. I believe Ouray voters will reject this measure hands-down. They will recognize it for what it is – a power-grab that diminishes our rights to own and control our own property. Most folks still believe that they are better at managing our affairs that a room full of chattering bureaucrats.
Measure B is a bit more tricky. It asks people to approve “review” of exterior construction for conformity with historical preservation standards. Sounds innocuous, but don’t be fooled. This measure is a Trojan Horse. Once you agree to let government officials “review” your plans for “conformity,” you have handed them power over you – perhaps not directly, but indirectly by letting city officials decide on what constitutes “conformity.” There is a reason why the word “review” is so vague, and why the process itself is not described. The authors of the measure want it that way, so that if Measure C fails, Measure B can be used to accomplish the same ends through the backdoor. It is government control by stealth.
The people of Ouray take pride in their property rights, and have shown, again and again, that they are responsible citizens when it comes to management of their own property. They do not need, and do not want, the government to take this responsibility away from them. I hope they remember that when they vote against Measure B and C, they are voting for their freedom to make choices that in are in their own best interests, and (therefore) in the best interests of the community
I'll report on the results of the vote next week. Meanwhile, watch out and be prepared: the same issues are coming to a ballot box near you.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
DEATH AND CENSORSHIP IN ALABAMA
Newpapers in campus towns often work hand-in-glove with university administrators to make sure the news is carefully sanitized.
Almost two weeks ago, a student turned up dead at the University of Alabama. The death was not reported in the Tuscaloosa News until ten days later, and then only because a concerned citizen called the editor. She (the editor) had not heard a thing. Wouldn't you think a newspaper that is the wholly owned subsidary of the New York Times would monitor local death reports? And wouldn't you think the newspaper would find it curious that the University does not issue a statement or press report on the death?
If you're like me, that's what you would think, but around here if the news is not good for business it simply doesn't get reported. And right now, of course, the university is in the midst of its recruitment season. That means doing everything possible to attract those warm, fee-paying bodies. An unexplained student death is deemed incovenient to achieving this purpose.
University administrations, like governments everywhere, can't be held accountable without vigorous investigative reporting. Having nearly eliminated freedom of speech within the university, however, administrators have now figured out a way to control the outside press. And in a one-newspaper town like Tuscaloosa, nobody's the wiser.
My advice is this: don't get bumped off in a college town, especially during recruitment season.
Thursday, December 1, 2005
Liberty in a Small Town: Ouray, Colorado
Voters in the small mountain town of Ouray, Colorado, roundly rejected a slate of candidates for School Board who advocated uncontrolled spending and increasing property taxes. There is more to this story, however, than taxpayer revolt.
A few months ago, a few of us vigorously protested the city's attempt to impose mandatory style regulations on house construction. City officials want to turn Ouray into a Disney-esque Victorian theme park, and to conform, home-owners would have to adhere to rigid design rules including number and shape of windows, roof pitch, and paint color. (see www.FreeOuray.Org.)
We reminded the good citizens of Ouray that there is a relationship between the rights of private property and human rights. Most were amazed: they had no idea what the government was up to. And they began to grow very uneasy. The result was that at the next election they voted, decisively, against big government at the local level.
One thing our small mountain town makes clear: City "heritage" commissions and home-owner associations are where the next great battle over individual rights is going to be fought. Watch out . . . one is probably coming to a location near you.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Multiculturalism Loyalty Oath
In the Spring 2005 issue of the journal Academic Questions, social scientists Stanley Rothman, Neil Nevitte, and S. Robert Lichter reported results from a random 1999 sample of more than 1,600 U.S. university faculty from about 180 institutions. The researchers reported that 72% identified themselves as liberals and 15% as conservatives. They also found that even after accounting for the effects of publication record, gender, race, and religion, politically conservative or Republican faculty tend to work at less prestigious institutions.
Of course, statistically significant correlation does not prove causation. Some anecdotal instances may enhance the plausibility of a causal interpretation involving anti-conservative bias. According to a press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), several years ago, Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania asked job applicants to "’provide a brief statement of your commitment to diversity and how this commitment is demonstrated in your work,’ and to ‘certify’ their understanding that ‘any false or misleading statement on this application constitutes sufficient grounds for dismissal.’”
Following FIRE’s intervention and subsequent publicity, the statement was removed. Nonetheless, one may wonder whether it indicated the presence of a widespread, unspoken agenda at many schools.
What seems most striking here is that such statements potentially discourage applications not only from conservatives but also from anyone who refuses to pledge loyalty to a dominant ideology. In this light, certain ads for administrative positions this year may seem especially bothersome.
The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Georgia is seeking a dean, the chief administrative official of the college. In a solicitation for applicants posted on the web site of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the college says that the applicant should possess the ability to “vigorously support diversity initiatives.”
Imagine a person who believes that one’s race and gender play no legitimate role in one’s qualifications for faculty appointment. If such a person is interested in the position, may not he or she feel discouraged from applying? Of course, the ad does not rule out such candidates absolutely. Surely, no sane person would commit ahead of time either to oppose or support whatever is proposed in the name of diversity. Might not the potential applicant reasonably wonder if applying would be fruitless, though?
A current ad from the College of Communication and Information Sciences at the University of Alabama is a bit more specific. It states that the successful applicant is expected to have “a deep commitment to recruiting and retaining faculty, staff, and students of color.” Here, our aspiring dean might face a sharper dilemma. How one can both believe that the ethnic background of faculty is irrelevant to personnel decisions yet commit to trying to hire members who belong to specific groups?
Making prospetive candidate swear a loyalty oath to multiculturalism must be intended to discourage applications even from liberals who believe that affirmative action should be based upon class, not race.
In its original sense, affirmative action was designed to broaden the process of identifying qualified candidates for jobs. No search can hire the best person if it relies solely upon good ‘ole boy networks for applicants, for example. Yet, as the University of Alabama example illustrates, today affirmative action has been transformed and will be used to restrict the pool of applicants to those who pass ideological muster.
Monday, October 31, 2005
More on Japanese Nationalism
Are "guilt" and "shame" useful as analytic terms for Japanese culture? Certainly the Japanese themselves think so. And it makes sense to pay attention to what they are saying, especially since, invariably, expressions of nationalism in Japanese culture are juxtaposed to arguments about shame and its corrolary, pride.
In Japanese popular culture “evil” (aku, jyaaku) is represented through images of breakdown and decay. The Japanese recognize this breakdown in their own increasing inability (as they see it) to feel shame or experience pride. According to this view, shame is the orientation to the gaze of others that inhibits purely selfish acts, such as talking loudly in public or disobedience to authority.
The absence of shame is marked by increasing emphasis on personal autonomy and a reluctance to assume social responsibility. It is widely believed that such problems date from the end of the Pacific War and have become especially prominent with the decline of the Japanese economy after 1990. The Japanese media routinely call attention to the decline of a shame-based culture and relate shamelessness to the eruption of murderous rage among adolescent students.
While student murders are statistically insignificant, they have added to the public perception of a problem in social control. It is said that shame used to be sufficientto prevent most criminal acts since the perpetrator’s family would suffer a loss in social standing. The killing of the an 11-year-old in 1997 in Kobe, for example, transfixed Japan in part because of its shameless savagery: His head was left resting on the front gate of a junior high school with a defiant message stuffed in the mouth.
But is insufficient shame a factor in explaining the schoolboy’s murder or, more generally, the moral decay contemporary Japanese tend to perceive? Consider what the killer himself (Seito Sakakibara) said when he taunted police and threatened more slayings. "I can relieve myself of hatred and feel at peace only when I'm killing someone," he said in a letter sent to a local newspaper. "I can ease my own pain only by seeing others in pain.”
Lack of shame might be the convenient interpretation, but as the killer’s own words suggest the opposite might be true. The killing apparently served a curative or therapeutic purpose for a young man who reported constantly feeling watched and look down on by others. Murderous rage, in other words, functioned as a regressive therapy for feelings of intense shame that were not too weak but too strong to repudiate or resolve more peacefully.
Excessive shame is made all the more potent by the unavailability of pride as a compensating emotional orientation. Insufficient pride is manifest in the phobic anxiety that surrounds any expression of nationalist sentiment. Many Japanese were horrified, for example, to see their fellow citizens waving Japanese flags during the 1998 winter Olympic Games in Nagano. And the debate over displays of the flag on public buildings, such as schools and post offices, continues despite the parliament’s decision a couple of years ago to authorize such use.
Many Japanese believe that anxiety over the issue of national pride is intensified by the post-war habit of apologizing every time reference to the war is made by other countries. However, an important corner was turned in 1998 with the release of the blockbuster movie, “Pride: Moment of Fate,” whose subject, Tojo Hideki, appeared as the rehabilitated leader of Japan’s war-time government after decades of Hitler-like vilification and public neglect.
The message of the film was unambiguous: Japan had acted in its own self-defense and Tojo was a hero despite the fact that he launched the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is therefore right that modern Japanese take pride in their history and seek the full restoration of their national glory, and that they identify with figures like Tojo. Interestingly, Tojo is repeatedly depicted in the film as a loving grandfather - kissing his grandchildren and bouncing them on his knee - and this points to the fact that pride and identification with the grandfather are, from the point of view of Japan’s contemporary nationalism, one and the same.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Nationalism and Oedipal Conflict in Japan
Nationalism is strongly resurgent in Japan, and seeking the roots of this resurgence, I could not help thinking about it Freudian terms.
Many Japanese people believe that they have forgotten something vital to their identity. They want to remember, even though doing so runs the risk of un-doing the post-war generation’s carefully constructed image of Japan as a modern capitalist nation based on individual freedoms and human rights. The will to overcome this cultural amnesia and remember an identity now deemed authentic is couched in terms that are strikingly Oedipal.
The Japanese who identify themselves as the grandchildren of the Pacific War generation are in rebellion against, and seek to replace, their own fathers -- the generation defined as the architects of Japan’s contemporary society and economy, with its accompanying emphasis on war guilt and individual liberty. A generation of “sons” thus resolves its ambivalent anger and consequent guilt toward their fathers by leapfrogging a generation and identifying with their grandfathers, the members of the war generation but also, in the view of increasing number, the last generation to be authentically and genuinely Japanese.
As Streek-Fischer writes, commenting on the rise of Hitler-worshipping skinheads in post-unification Germany: “Adolescents seek continuity and identity. If they do not find any appropriate perspectives in their family and society, they look for it in the past – in their family’s and society’s ‘past.’” The same thing can be said of contemporary Japan.
Monday, September 5, 2005
The Emperor Comes To Alabama
As thousands of refugees stream north in search of food and water, the University of Alabama plays football. Some few people will heed the Athletic director's call to relinquish their hotel rooms to the refugees. Many will not.
Here is what should have happened: President Witt should have announced that the University of Alabama would forfeit the game to Middle Tennessee. Rooms would have been freed and important resources could have been diverted to helping the refugees. Instead, what do we have? Giant,gas-guzzling recreational vehicles vie for parking places near the Recreation Center where hundreds of hurricane victims huddle together and wonder if they will ever be able to go home.
It is a scene worthy of a Nero and testimony, once again, that the University will tolerate no diversion from its sacred mission of converting an educational establishment into a gladatorial finishing school.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
THE ECLIPSE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
This is about a small town in Colorado, a town called "Ouray." It is like a lot of other small mountains towns, struggling with the demands of growth and the loss of what some perceive to be its "true" character. Preserving that character, it turns out, comes at a price. Read on, and see how easy it is to wake up one morning in a rock-solid Republican area and find out the city government has turned into a politburo. And check out our website website:
In a trend that began some years ago, our Ouray City Council is contemplating additional measures to restrict your rights over your land and houses in the city. The stated purpose of these measures is to define the "desired" scale and character of all development.
Currently the city uses voluntary guidelines, but many officials consider these inadequate. They want mandatory regulations, to be enforced by regulatory bureaucracy that would decide if your plans for your property are "compatible" with official notions of style and historical character.
Among the regulations currently being considered are these: The style and design of new houses (and modifications to existing ones) must conform to the "architectural tradition" of the city. New construction must be "compatible" with other structures in the neighborhood. Exterior materials must be similar in color, texture, and dimension to the city's "historical context." Roofs must be steeply pitched.
Who would define the meaning of terms like "tradition" and "character?" The city government. Who would evaluate your building plans and decide if they conform to the City's mandated aesthetic standards? The city government. What sort of city would you then have? Would it be a city increasingly under the control of the Office of Community Development and its unelected "coordinator?"
It would certainly not be the Ouray that many of us cherish, a place of eclectic styles representing many historical and architectural concepts. It would not be a place where the free market operates, efficiently and openly, and where individuals (not government officials) make decisions about the disposition of their resources. Instead, it will be a place where mainly gingerbread-decorated neo-Victorians are sanctioned, and where free market innovation is discouraged in preference to government-mandated design rules. As one member of the (unelected) Planning Commission put it, 40% of the visitors to Ouray expect to see quaint Victorians with steeply pitched roofs, so that is what we need to give them.
Highly restrictive regulations have already been approved. Did you know, for instance, that you cannot build or add on to your house in the historic district (most of the city) if the size will exceed by more than 10% of the average house size in your block? The Council passed this ordinance only last year. Think again about adding a bathroom or expanding the kitchen. Or did you know that you cannot build on more than 30% of your lot in the residential zone R1? That means almost three quarters of your land is unavailable to you for any other purpose than landscaping. And yet these restrictions are nothing compared to what will happen if a number of city officials get their way.
The day is soon approaching when you will have to apply for a certificate of "appropriateness," to demonstrate that your structure conforms in design, scale, building materials, setback, and landscaping features to the "character" of the city as defined by city officials. Is that really what you want here in Ouray? If you value free market capitalism, if you want to safeguard your right of private property against predatory government encroachment, we strongly urge you attend the working sessions on historical preservation.
Unfortunately, very few people showed up at the last meeting, and that means city officials have not heard from the people who take their rights seriously. Local government becomes unresponsive and overbearing when it is not held accountable to the people.
Make your voice heard now, or it will be too late!
An age-old question: boxer shorts or briefs? And which do dictators prefer? Now we know the answer. Saddam wears briefs. And as far I am concerned, only one truly important issue remains. What's the brand?
Nor should we stop there. We all know that briefs bind and crimp, cutting off the flow of vital essences and inhibiting the free movement of . . . well, you get the point. Could it be that dictators are the way they are because they all have their nickers in a twist?
And what about university administrators? I'll bet Thames wears briefs.
Shalll we put the proposition to the test? I think not! No telling what sort of unpleasantness we might find.
Final note of self-disclosure: I'm a boxer man myself, and proud of it.
Readers of this blog will recall my suggestion last year to institute a new field of study: "distraction studies," the purpose of which is to examine the myriad ways university administrators bamboozle their faculties.
The purpose of "distraction" is to prevent serious inquiry by causing professors to scurry and run in pointless meandering through a forest of political shibboleths: "diversity," "multiculturalism," etc. Meanwhile, administrators wheel and deal, and all the time feather their nests, while the wild-eyed faculty face off against each other along familiar battle lines.
Consider creating such a program on your campus. Distraction is ripe for study. After all, we are so good at being bamboozled, it really should be a field in which one can receive an advanced degree.
The Sociology Department at UC Davis has adopted a voluntary policy of grade deflation to counteract an epidemic of A's. The predictable whining has already started.
“It’s kind of scary when I’m already at the bottom of the curve,” she said. “Everyone’s fighting for that A. It breaks down what we know as a college education.”.....
Szutu added that he believes that this system discourages peer help and support.
“Why make students compete against each other?” he said. “Students should want to help each other. The point of education is to learn.”
Hat tip Margaret Soltan. The College Republicans at Grand Valley State University in Michigan continue to apologize, over and over again, for holding an affirmative action bake sale. The apologies continue even after the alleged need for them has long since passed. Will the apologies ever end? Probably not. Here is the latest entry in the grovelfest from CR officials Amanda Zaluckyj and Karen Hall: People are rallying to defend the academic freedom of Jonathan Bean, a blogger for Liberty and Power (see here about the case). The support for Bean shows again that the most sensible attitudes can often be found outside, not within, the walls of the academy. Jim Muir of The Southern writes:
After writing the column I assumed I would receive the usual mixed number of pro and con e-mail responses that accompany my weekly endeavors. Boy was I wrong.
On an average week I normally receive 10-12 e-mail messages, however this week I was bombarded with more than 50 responses from 13 states. The amazing aspect is that only two people opposed what I had written in defense of Professor Bean. The speech code at Dartmouth is officially dead. The academic witch hunt at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale against Liberty and Power blogger, Jonathan Bean is getting national attention. Articles have appeared in
The Boston News and Fox News.
If you want to protest his treatment, contact the following:
James Walker,
President@notes.siu.edu,
618-536-3331,
Office of the President-SIUP
Shirley Clay Scott, Sscotts@siu.edu, 618-453-2466, Dean College of Liberal Arts
The College Republicans at Grand Valley State University in Michigan are still degrading themselves. They are doing their best to appease the administration and show that they are sorry, yes truly sorry, for holding an affirmative action bake sale. Naturally, the GVSU administration has not hesitated to make the most of the situation by twisting the knife. It has put the chapter on probation and required a public apology. One administrator piously proclaims that the controversy provides a "learning opportunity" to "educate" the benighted.
The only bright spot in this sad affair is the admirable behavior of Kyle Rausch, the ex-head of the chapter. He has continued to stand up for campus free speech against the combined forces of GVSU's administration, timid College Republicans on campus, a cringing faculty advisor, and the Ottawa County Republican party. Says Rausch, “I no longer consider myself part of an organization which is so willing to apologize for their opinions.”
The administration at Grand Valley State University has put the College Republicans on probation for their "discriminatory" affirmative action bake sale. No doubt with the advice of their advisor, Paul Leidig, the GVSU College Republicans, as is their wont, have responded with yet more groveling and more apologies. Meanwhile, Kyle Rausch is refusing to back down:
The College Republicans say they do not plan to appeal.
"I'm hoping that from here, we can just move forward taking what we've learned," said Karen Hall, a 19-year-old sophomore and vice president of the organization.
In a prepared statement, the new leaders of the group explain that "the club did not support holding a bake sale with discounted prices as a parody of affirmative action. However, without proper support, individuals went forward with such a bake sale."
The group also apologized "that individuals using our club's name failed to adhere to university policies."
For background on this controversy, see here.
Hat Tip John Rosenberg at Discriminations.
John Leo discusses the College Republican affirmative bake sale controversy at Grand Valley State University here: Kyle Rausch, the ousted head of the College Republicans at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, has responded to Professor Paul Leidig's comments. Rausch was removed from his position after he organized an affirmative action bake sale. Leidig, his faculty advisor and the chair of the Ottawa County GOP, supported the ouster.
Rausch says, in part:
If anyone has any questions or comments, you can reach me at rauschk@student.gvsu.edu. It would be greatly appreciated if everyone could write a letter to the state and local parties along with the university. Thank you.
For Leidig's comments and more background on the case, see here and here. Dear Professor Leidig,
I have read of your action supporting the removal of the president of the campus young Republicans. His only "offense" as I understand it, was to defend his right to free speech -- a value one would think you would support.
Instead, you caved in to those who lead the fight against freedom of speech under the guise of protecting people from "being offended." I can assure you that as the sponsor of a student organization myself, I would have acted in entirely the opposite way. You bring no credit on yourself or the Republican Party when you sacrifice basic principles to political convenience.
You owe the offended student an immediate (and public) apology, which should be tendered with your own letter of resignation as faculty sponsor of the Young Republicans.
Sincerely,
Charles W. Nuckolls, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Anthropolgy
Brigham Young University Freedom-loving administrators at Northeastern Illinois University have banned an "affirmative action bake sale" by the College Republicans even after they had allowed a feminist group to stage a "pay equity bake sale." Incredible and shameless.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is helping the students to fight back. See here. Students at the University of Alabama have not only upbraided their elders in the faculty and administration for trying to censor "hate speech" but now they have criticized them for giving out too many A's! This is the editorial from today's
Crimson White:
Grade inflation is an increasing problem on campuses around the nation, from Chapel Hill, N.C. to right here in Tuscaloosa.
Two UA professors - David Beito, an associate political science professor, and Charles Nuckolls, an anthropology professor - are suggesting that grade inflation has been drastically on the rise for the past 30 years. The percentage of A's handed out at the University in 2001 was 30.5 percent, up from 23 percent in 1988. The Crimson White has an article on the high percentage of A's in lower-level undergraduate courses at the University of Alabama.
While the article has some devastating information, the article has some errors. Our report on Grade Distortion never claimed that the College of Education had the highest increase in the percentage of A's only that it had and continues to have one of the highest percentage of undergraduate A's on campus. Unfortunately, the article did not mention the high percentage of A's in Women's Studies (nearly 80 percent of entry level undergraduate grades!).
The article also lets go unanswered the administration's claim that grade distortion (the combination of inflation and disparities between disciplines) results from higher ACT Scores. For example, it does not cite our correspondence with Bob Ziomek, director of ACT program evaluation. He stated that that the “ACT average doesn’t explain the whopping increase in A’s being awarded. ACT scores are fairly flat while the number of A’s and B’s being awarded are out of sight.” Here is the Crimson White article:
Grade inflation has become an issue at universities across the nation, but David Beito, an associate political science professor, and Charles Nuckolls, an anthropology professor, said UA officials are not addressing what could be a growing problem.....
Beito and Nuckolls reported great difficulty in obtaining the information about student grades, and they said administrators are trying to cover up the University's grade inflation problem.
"This is a public institution," Nuckolls said. "One would think that the public could get the numbers. This should be an issue of accountability."
Beito and Nuckolls said they would like to see reports on student grades published regularly and possibly posted on the Internet. Provost Judy Bonner said there are no plans to post grades.
"It is not anything that I would like to see available," Bonner said. "It is not useful to anyone."
Read the rest here Pat Samples, one of the authors of the free speech resolution in the Student Senate of the University of Alabama, has an op-ed piece today in the Crimson White.
The student resolution, which was approved unanimously, repudiated the Faculty Senate's earlier "hate speech" resolution (also approved without a dissenting vote).
In an act of gross overreaction to an incident involving alleged anti-gay comments by a comedian on campus, the UA Faculty Senate passed a resolution claiming that the University "has a duty reflected both in law and in standards of civility to control behavior which demeans or reduces an individual based on group affiliation or personal characteristics, or which promotes hate or discrimination, in all formal programs and activities."
Such a broadly worded statement clearly opens the way for the University to adopt a speech code that would violate the civil rights of UA students. Suzanne Fields praises The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for defending Ward Churchill's academic freedom and for supporting the University of Alabama students who are launching a pro-free speech rebellion:
Read the rest here
Hat tip to Greg Lukianoff at The Torch. After a long hiatus, the website of the Alabama Scholars Association is back in operation with the latest news on the student-led "free speech movement" at the University of Alabama. Earlier today, Mike S Adams wrote the following in his column for Townhall.com:
Anyone armed with an 11th grade education can see that such a speech code is unconstitutional. Indeed, many of the UA “diversity initiatives” such as the
Vagina Monologues would be banned under such a code, if the university had any intention of applying the code equally. Come to think of it, booing an
Auburn football player would be banned under the code, too. Read the rest here.
UPDATE: Robert Shibley at The Torch, the blog of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education , has a long post on this. Randy Barnett at the Volokh Conspriacy has also commented.
ANOTHER UPDATE:
The comments just keep on coming. Todd Zywicki at the Volokh Conspiracy, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, and QD at Southern Appeal have taken note of the Alabama student rebellion. These days the students at the University of Alabama are showing more maturity, good sense, courage on issues of academic freedom than the faculty.
Yesterday, the Student Senate unanimously passed a resolution that represents a stunning victory for academic free speech. In concise and clear wording, it explicitly repudiates a resolution by the Faculty Senate which calls for a sweeping speech code. Interestingly, the Faculty Senate resolution also passed without a dissenting vote. This is shaping up into quite a David and Goliath battle.
We have been following this issue for quite some time. In an article for HNN, we compared the Faculty Senate's resolution to a proposed segregationist law in Mississippi during the 1950s.
Here is the resolution of the Student Senate:
WHEREAS, The right to free speech is an inalienable human and civil right that is protected by the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Alabama;
WHEREAS, Free speech is absolutely vital to the mission of any university, where new and often controversial ideas must be discussed openly and rationally in order to make advances in knowledge;
WHEREAS, The Faculty Senate of the University of Alabama has recently passed a resolution urging the University of Alabama to regulate the speech of students at the University of Alabama;
WHEREAS, Speech codes have been used by other colleges and universities to silence dissenting speech, not merely so-called “hate speech”, and to persecute those with unpopular opinions;
WHEREAS, There are currently numerous legal challenges pending against such speech codes, and the adoption of such a speech code at the University of Alabama would invite a lawsuit against the University that would be costly and would greatly tarnish its public image;
WHEREAS, In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it”;
WHEREAS, By defending free speech for all students, one in no way condones any kind of hate or intolerance; On the contrary, one is promoting tolerance of others despite their differences, especially their differences of opinion;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT The University of Alabama Student Senate most strongly urges the Administration and the Faculty Senate of the University of Alabama to refrain from adopting any form of speech code, even one that purports to ban only so-called “hate speech”;
BE IT FURTHUR RESOLVED THAT The University of Alabama Student Senate most strongly urges the Administration and the Faculty Senate to adopt policies that explicitly protect free speech for all students at the University of Alabama;
BE IT FURTHUR RESOLVED THAT Copies of this resolution also be sent to Dr. Robert Witt, President of the University of Alabama, Dr. John Mason, President of the Faculty Senate of the University of Alabama, The Tuscaloosa News, The Crimson White and Dateline Alabama for informational purposes. Having dragged Professor Hoppe through the mud for a year, the administration condescends to remove a slanderous letter from his file. Bravo. These days, any victory in the battle to protect academic freedom -- even a small one -- is welcome. But what will happen next?
Here are some suggestions:
1. The AAUP, FIRE, and the ACLU should send out press releases to each and every university president in the United States. They should claim victory. And the message, in so many words, should be this: You will be next if you try to smear somebody for exercising freedom in the classroom.
2. A letter should be sent to the UNLV Board of Trustees thanking them for defending academic freedom and forcing the president to back down. (One has no doubt this is what actually happened.)
3. Professor Hoppe should send a letter to the Denver/Boulder newspaper comparing himself to Professor Churchill and calling on the Colorado administration to defend academic freedom.
This is a hard-won victory. Let us try to make use of it to maximum effect.
I leave for India in a couple of days -- a brief trip, to return to the village on the southeastern coast where I began my career as an anthropologist almost thirty years ago.
Ever wonder what a system of "affirmative action" would look like if were permitted to completely run amok? For decades India has employed what it calls a "reservation system" whereby up to 80% of positions are set aside for "backward" castes. Universities (as one might expect) are particularly keen on set-asides. The result is predictable, and sadly, all too familiar: the collapse of merit and dominance of group membership as the only acceptable standard for selection or advancement.
To be sure, we hear much today about out-sourcing to India. Try making a flight reservation without talking to someone in Bangalore or Delhi. But India barely registers a blip when it comes to technical innovation or academic achievement. The brain drain continues unabated, and always will, as long as smart people are pushed aside in favor of protected groups.
I will see if this analysis still holds water when I return. Any questions? It's not just that Halloween has just passed; I feel the presence of the General's spirit more generally. Perhaps it's because I think it inhabits the mind of President Bush. Indeed, if you read Doonesbury, you know what I mean: it would make more sense to me if the little voice that speaks to the invisible Dubya from inside his Roman helmet is the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers rather than Dick Cheney. Why?
MacArthur, whatever his faults, articulated a clear policy and found the Acheson model of "limited war" odious. No politician since MacArthur -- not even Reagan -- was so clear, at least not until Bush. The problem is that Bush won't say so. He pretends, or used to, that the war in Iraq was really about weapons or terrorism or whatever. What it's actually about is the battle for the Middle East, that is, the strategic reallignment of forces throughout the region.
If the general were still alive, he'd no doubt fire off a letter to the press and irritate the heck out of everyone. He was direct. And it got him into trouble. I am not sure I agree with SCAP about Korea, but I do give him credit for articulating a clear vision. My hunch is that Bush has a similiar vision. It's just that he won't tell anyone about it.
The story of the "decline" of MSU is a story of faculty and administrative complicity. The president, Shelby Thames, is a puffed-up and Putin-style despot whose action against two tenured professors earlier this year assures him of a place in the administrative rogues' gallery. But such creatures remain in office only through faculty complicity. The same faculty who cry and moan in the public forum shut up pretty fast when a "deal" is rigged and they are comfortably cashiered. That is the other side of the story at MSU, and the situation will never change, there or anyplace else, until faculty develop some backbone and refuse to be bribed. Our article, "The Wrong Song of the South," has generated comment, mostly from League of the South types who cannot for a moment entertain the possibility that Southern culture is not synonymous with the confused political claims of the old Confederacy.
What interests me, however, is not their whipped-dog snivelling, but the legacy of ambiguity they claim for their own. Why is it, one wonders, the debate on Southerness always turns on the question of why the South left the Union? And more to the point, why is this question always so hard to answer?
The reason is that the South itself decided long ago that this question should not be answered, at least not definitively. I do not mean the decision was a conscious one. It was more like a cultural consensus, motivated by group defensiveness. Because if Southern identity could be maintained as an always moving target, it was less likely to take a mortal hit from its adversaries.
I have heard "the South" spoken of as a political entity, a religious cause, a cultural bulwark against the intrusions of industrialism, and so on. Try to attack one and "the South" immediately changes shape and turns into something else. Beito and I tried to show that one of these "Souths," the one that considered slavery central to its existence, did figure more largely than the others in the debates of the 1850's. And as it always has, "the South" shifted its ground, saying, in essence, "but that's not the South we mean."
It has been that way for a long time. Indeed, it is one of the most successful political shape-shifting stories we historians have ever seen. Southerners will never define who they are, and will never let you do so, either -- and so the debate will never permit itelf to end. And, for what it's worth, that is what the South means to me.
Famed bobble-head reporter Gilbert Cruz last week resigned his position as campus beat reporter for The Tuscaloosa News.
Cruz achieved the epithet "bobble-head" earlier this year when he devoted a front-page article to covering the making and marketing of a bobble-head doll in the shape of long-dead Alabama football coach Bear Bryant.
Cruz's reporting about campus affairs at the University of Alabama generally followed the same style and form, maintaining a rigorous avoidance of investigation or analysis.
The Alabama Scholars Association, an affiliate of the National Association of Scholars, created a special section on its website devoted to the "bobble-head" journalism of Gilbert Cruz. (See www.alabamascholars.org) We are pleased that after only a couple of months of relentless lampooning, Mr. Cruz decided it would be in his best interests to leave.
We understand he will now be employed in the entertainment industry, in a job much better suited to his talents as a soft-ball writer of fluff and flummery.
Bottom line: If you are dissatisfied with the reporting in your local newspaper, start a website and lampoon the heck of it. We have heard little from Mississippi State University lately, after University officials successfully bought off Professors Glamser and Stringer.
Even the titilating website, "firethames.com," has closed up shop.
Should we be surprised? Probably not. Faculties are made up mostly of selfish and self-centered egoists who do not define themselves as members of the same class, and whose sense of collective interests, therefore, is deeply stunted. We behave as if we were singular little monads, and among us, narcissism as a character trait is our most telling feature. It's a good thing, too: without a heavy coating of narcissism we would have little else to defend ourselves against the fraud and perfidy of the administrative ruling class.
The consequence, however, is a social system in which people are encouraged to sell out for peanuts. Glamser and Stringer, whatever the merits of their case, carried more than the weight of their individual interests. They were seen, correctly, as symptomatic of a larger problem, i.e., the erosion of faculty governance and the decline of academic freedom. But Mississippi administrators knew something else: that faculty members almost always sell out when the rewards are high enough or the penalties too severe. It doesn't take much, either -- faculty members always sell themselves very cheaply.
You can bet administrators throughout the country took notice, and the next time tenure is threatened, they will feel emboldened.
Glamser and Stringer may have "won" their bit of coin, and can now slide into a mellow retirement. Their victory, however, is our loss, and we will all pay dearly for it in the years to come. Perhaps there already is such a field of interest. If not, there should be. "Distraction Studies" means all the things university administrators do to distract faculty from the political economy of their institutions.
Want to distract a professor from examining health care fraud or financial wrongdoing in the Administration? Just start talking about affirmative action, diversity training, or multiculturalism. Left and right will oblige by dropping everything as they fill the trenches for another repeat-performance of their carefully scripted battle scenario.
Administrators love it when faculty do that. It keeps them from sniffing around the accounting books.
Again, I don't know if "Distraction Studies" already exists, but if it does, I suspect most of the administrators I know have already been granted higher level degrees. Sugamo Prison, in Tokyo, was the site where Japanese war criminals, like Tojo, were held -- some for as long as the Occupation continued, until 1952.
As part of a project, I examined the prison records and interviewed surviving American guards and their Japanese prisoners. Not one incident of cruelty to prisoners was reported. On the contrary, prison life was amazingly courteous, and both sides expressed a warmth and admiration for each other that is clearly the reverse of what we now find at the Baghdad prison under the command of American forces.
Iraq is not Japan, to be sure. But one finds, over and over again, the comparison being made. If there is any validity to it, then I suggest the main lesson to be learned is this: to convert an enemy into an ally cannot be done when prisoners are treated sadistically, and forced to perform sodomizing acts in front of their camera-toting American tormentors.
Richard Minear's 1971 book, "Victor's Justice," lambasted the American Occupation of Japan, and especially the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, for concealing a blood-lust for vengeance in the legal niceties of a courtroom charade. Yet in Iraq, what we see is not even the charade, nor any pretense of law and justice. In fact, it is not even the lust for vengeance. It is just stupid, blind cruelty.
We should remember that in 1945 Americans convicted and executed General Yamashita for less.
The announcement that the termination of two tenured professors at the University of Southern Mississippi has been "settled" should alarm and terrify everyone concerned with academic freedom.
The two professors agreed to accept two years' salary in return for never setting foot on campus again. A gag order was also imposed, specifiying that the professors could not reveal or discuss the nature of the charges against them or the negotiations that resulted in settlement. We will never know, then, what happened, since the parties to the disupte have been bought off.
I say, bad show! Scholars around the country rallied to the defense of colleagues whose academic freedom was violated. We said then, and we say now, that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. But we all know from bitter experience how these issues typically end. Money changes hands, silence is purchased like a commodity on the market place, and the principle of academic freedom is sold off to the highest bidder -- just another token in a complex exchange whose ultimate common denominator is cash.
Thames should be hounded from office, certainly. He is a cad and a bounder. But the two professors bear some responsibility here, too. They didn't just sell themselves out, they sold the rest of us. And I, for one, don't like it. The situation at the University of Southern Mississippi is alarming, since it involves the sudden termination of two tenured professors. Apparently, the administration acted against them for exposing the fact that the Vice-President had falsified her employment history when she applied for the job. Both professors are members of the AAUP, and one is, or was, the organization's president.
It is sad, but true, that we professors rarely act in concert, even when it is a matter of our own defense, or the defense of the disciplines we represent. That has got to to change. The administrative elite that now runs most of our colleges want to operate them like businesses, which means creating a flexible and pliable workforce that can hired and fired at will.
Forget tenure. It's over, or will be soon, at most public colleges and universities -- at least in all but name. Already low salaries will probably go lower, and as for health and retirement benefits? Forget about it. Think University of Phoenix.
If you, the readers of this blog, do not begin to take action by joining in the defense of your colleagues and disciplines, then should not be suprised to find in a few years that you have neither.
Join the AAUP; join FIRE; join the NAS today!
Tenure is more than simply under threat. It has already been eliminated, in all but name, in more than thirty states. Will faculties who still have tenure wake up to their potential loss, or will they, like faculties elsewhere, remain the docile and compliant wage-laborers their "administrators" want them to be?
Alabama, where I am, still protects tenure, but its days are surely numbered. The surrounding states all got rid of it some years ago, as administrators tried to pander to "elected officials" in the state house and beef up their standards of "accountability." The current chancellor of the Alabama System, "Mack" Portera, presided over the elimination of tenure in Mississippi when he was University President there. The same is true of Mr. Witt, currently president of U of Alabama: he raised no voice of protest when Texas gutted its tenure provisions a few years ago.
But we all know where all the beefing up went, do we not? Into increasing the ranks of the administrators, of course, and into providing them with hefty "executive" salaries.
But faculties remain as they have been for years: timid and anxious to please their masters. Will they ever wake up?
Not until their heads reach the chopping blocks -- but if you ask me, I consider that the optimistic scenario.
Recently, a colleague tried to obtain footage of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi entering the Yakusuni Shrine in Tokyo. He was refused.
Yakusuni Shrine, for those who don't know, is the place where the spirits of Japanese war dead are enshrined and worshipped as gods. Tojo Hikeki, who, as Japan's war-time prime minister, ordered the attack on Pearl Habor, is one of the spirits installed at Yakusuni.
Since the war, Yakasuni has been the center of Japan's growing nationalist resurgency. Until the 1980's, no Prime Minister visited the Shrine officially, since doing so would enrage the anti-war elements of Japanese society and damage relations abroad, especially with Asian countries like China that has suffered at the hands of Japanese invaders.
All of that has since changed, and now, Japanese ministers and members of government routinely visit the Shrine. On August 15, the date of the Japanse surrender in 1945, even the Prime Minister visits and pays homage. Thus the question: can video footage of the current Prime Minister visiting the Shrine on August 15 be obtained?
Apparently not. The government-ownded TV station, NHK, refuses to provide it, calling it "too sensitive." We can understand why. Over the years, Japan has carefully cultivated an image of itself as a modern and peaceful democracy. What would the world say if people could see Koizumi marching in and out of Yakasuni where WWII kamakazi pilots are glorified?
The fault is not with NHK or the Japanese government. Their motives are obvious. But how is that the United States remains in the dark about resurgent Japanese nationalism? For the answer, I highly recommend Ivan Hall's recent book, "Bamboozled!"
University administrators do not react to criticism with argument and reason -- generally because they have none -- but with further deployment of administrative rules. You've heard of the "fog of war." This is the fog of officialdom, the pernicious off-spring of early 20th century progressivism and, ironically, the means once intended to protect us from the arbitrary exercise of power.
Case in point: David Beito and I have criticized the University of Alabama for failing to address, and then attempting to cover up, rampant grade inflation. Administrators do not like us. So what did they do?
Two things, and neither included argument or reason. First, they claimed that only "recognized" faculty groups could use campus mail to distribute their views. Recognized? What does that mean, we said. There was no answer, except to suggest that if they like you, you're "recognized." This is how the Chinese government operates. We pressed the administrators on this, and demonstrated, we think, that the power they claimed was not properly exercised by them but by the faculty itself.
Then came the second thing. OK, they said, even if you are recognized, postal regulations prohibt you from sending you newspaper, The Alabama Observer, through faculty mail. "Postal regulations?" we asked. You've got to be kidding! They weren't. Within 28 hours, the admnistration of the University of Alabama had banned our paper and the paper of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The Federalist Society, by the way, had already been banned when David Bernstein came to speak and the administration refused to publicize his Federalist-sponsored lecture.
Faculty, unbelievably, were nonplussed. Hey, so what if the principle of free speech had been violated? At least unnamed and unidentified "postal regulations" had been protected. And best of all, they thought, reactionary faculty conservatives had been prevented from communicating their ideas.
The faculty will eventually realize that this is a sword that cuts both ways. But in the meantime, the administration has won -- not by being "right," of course, but by throwing up incomprehensible rules and procedures, all designed to conceal the unprincipled use of power and cover the admnistrative posterior.
As I've said before, and will say again, the ONLY way to confront this kind of problem (short of a firing squad) is with mandatory term limits for university administrators. The decline of liberal democracy in this county was accompanied by the rise of bureaucracy at the beginning of the 20th century. Initially, this was seen by the early "progressives" as a way to insure fairness in the application of rules. Experts, not politicians, would make the decisions, removing decision-making from the play of politics.
It didn't work. Instead, politicians used the newly created regulatory bureaucracy to escape scrutiny or criticism. After all, they said, it's a matter of "following the rules." And they found it fabulously successful: Americans are easily whipped into submission by any petty bureaucrat waving "the rules" in from of them.
A case in point is the University of Alabama, which recently banned from on-campus distribution the publications of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the Alabama Scholars Association (ASA), and the Federalist Society. Why? The real reason is that administrators do not like the ASA. The AAUP and the Federalist Society are simply collateral damage.
How do you ban things these days? You cite "postal regulations." That's right: the post office and its rules are being used to defeat the first amendment. We are told that the University would be violating "postal regulations" if it allowed distribution of our materials. Faculty who would object to any outright attack on their constitutional rights shut up and tuck their tails between their legs when "regulations" are mentioned. After all, they say, it's "the rules."
That's how you defeat deliberate democracy and constitutional rights in America today. Saturday, May 21, 2005
Boxers or Briefs?
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Distraction Studies
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Grade Deflation at UC Davis
Majesta Palmer....worries that her grades are going to suffer in her sociology classes due to the new grading system.
Sophomore Chris Szutu agrees.
“What is wrong with everyone getting good grades?” he said.
Let's hope the Sociology Department stands firm in its policy. Grade deflation: I like the sound of it.Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Grand Valley State College Republican Grovel Watch
The College Republicans have a tradition of encouraging debate on issues of public interest. In that frame of mind, we discussed initiating a debate on the merits of affirmative action. The club did not support holding a bake sale with discounted prices as a parody of affirmative action, however without proper support, individuals went forward with such a bake sale. To those who were offended by the actions of the bake sale, it is unfortunate that you were offended. However, we respect and welcome your rights to hold and express your views, and ask that you grant others the right to hold and express their views as well. We also recognize there are proper ways to publicly express one’s views, and we apologize that individuals using our club’s name failed to adhere to university policies. [emphasis added] Continuing our tradition of encouraging debate, we look forward to future endeavors that encourage and respect an open dialog on the variety of opinions within the university community.
Jonathan Bean Update: Good News
Based on the e-mail I've received in the past few days it appears I'm not alone in my disdain for the tolerance police. Last week I wrote a column about the attempted character assassination of SIU history professor Jonathan Bean currently being conducted on the Carbondale campus by a group of history department radicals.....
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
No More Speech Code at Dartmouth
Monday, May 2, 2005
Witch Hunt at Southern Illinois University Getting National Attention
Friday, April 22, 2005
Grand Valley State Grovel Watch
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Republicans at GVSU Continue to Grovel
Following last Friday's misconduct hearing, the five-member review board decided to put the student group on probation until Dec. 1.
The review board also required the student group to make a public apology and create a leadership development plan to make sure club leaders are aware of university policies and procedures. The group will retain university funding and campus organization privileges.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Baking up Trouble at Grand Valley State
Proving that muddled thinking is not confined to campuses, the Detroit Free Press weighed in with an editorial denouncing the bake sale as “tasteless”and perhaps deserving of disciplinary action. The university charged the club with a violation of the student code and threatened sanctions. The students folded under pressure from the administration and issued an apology. When the president of the group refused to back down, he was asked to resign and did. The students’ retreat is understandable, if not very courageous. The university was in effect putting them on trial for bias, with the likelihood that a notation of racial discrimination would become part of their academic record and follow them to post-college job interviews. This is a major example of a politically correct college abusing its power.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Kyle Rausch responds to Paul Leidig
Paul Leidig and the local Republicans who support him have undermined the cause of free speech at GVSU in the hopes of pandering to certain social groups which may find it offensive. I resigned because I would not be associated with a group willing to so quickly apologize for something that was not wrong.
Thursday, April 7, 2005
Ignominy and Disgrace at Grand Valley State
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Spectacular Double Standard on Campus "Bake Sales"
Friday, April 1, 2005
Mallard Fillmore is on FIRE!
Monday, March 21, 2005
And a Co-ed Shall Lead Them.
When everyone makes an A plus in jogging class, we don't think much of it. On the other hand, if everyone were making such extraordinarily high scores in Calculus, we would wonder when the standards became so lax.
Friday, March 18, 2005
An Epidemic of A's at the University of Alabama
A report by two UA professors indicates that the percentage of A's awarded in undergraduate courses has increased dramatically over the last 30 years. But getting to the University grade information itself is difficult.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
UA Student Free Speech Rebellion Continues
We dare defend our rights! That is the Alabama state motto. That is also what the UA student Senate said to the UA Faculty Senate when it unanimously passed a resolution defending UA students' civil right to free speech on Feb. 24.
Read the rest here.
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
More Reaction to the University of Alabama Student Rebellion
The University of Alabama offers another example of freedom of speech at work -- and under fire. After a comedian insulted gay students at a performance on campus last fall, the Faculty Senate demanded restrictive speech codes to ban "hate speech" about "race, ethnicity, religion, culture, gender, sexual orientation or physical challenges." (What else would sophomores talk about?) The Student Senate, aware in a way their campus elders weren't of the consequences of such a ban, adopted a free speech resolution asking the university to guarantee a university atmosphere "where new and often controversial ideas must be discussed openly and rationally in order to make advances in knowledge." The students observed that free speech does not condone hate, but promotes tolerance by enabling differences of opinion.
Monday, March 7, 2005
Alabama Scholars Association Website
Monday, February 28, 2005
Rolling Back the Tide of Tyranny
Last semester, the faculty senate at the University of Alabama (UA) passed an Orwellian speech code designed to restrict “any behavior that demeans or reduces an individual based on group affiliation or personal traits, or which promotes hate or discrimination.”
Friday, February 25, 2005
Student Free Speech Rebellion at the University of Alabama
Resolution #R-98-04,
The University of Alabama,
Student Senate, 2004-2005
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Keep Up the Heat at UNLV
Monday, November 29, 2004
India, anyone?
Monday, November 1, 2004
General MacArthur's Ghost
Saturday, September 25, 2004
THE MSU MESS
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Shape-Shifters of the South
Thursday, July 8, 2004
Bobble-Head Journalism in Alabama
Saturday, June 5, 2004
Pay-Offs and Buy-Outs in Academia
Saturday, May 29, 2004
New Field: "Distraction Studies"
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
Sodomy and Sadism in Occupied Iraq
Monday, May 3, 2004
USM Settled? Hardly!
Monday, March 8, 2004
Gross Violations of Academic Freedom
Monday, February 2, 2004
Bye-Bye to Tenure
Saturday, January 31, 2004
JAPAN'S CAREFULLY CONSTRUCTED IMAGE
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Protecting the Administrative Rear-End
Thursday, December 11, 2003
PROCESS AND PROCEEDURES: HOW BUREAUCRACY DEFEATS DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY
Recent Entries
- What More Is There to Say?
- The Guardian and Russ Roberts
- Mo' Money, Mo' Problems
- This One's A Toughie...
- Playing the Genocide Card
- Montgomery (AL) Blacks Protest "Eminent Domain Through the Back Door" (Saturday)
- New Yorker Article on the Koch Brothers
- Regime Uncertainty: Are Interest-Rate Movements Consistent with the Hypothesis?
- The Weird Fashion for Bashing Faith Schools
- Ron Paul on the Mosque Fiasco
News
Roundup
HNN Blogs
- Cliopatria
- Liberty & Power
- Judith Apter Klinghoffer
- How Stupid?
- Mark A. LeVine
- Allan Lichtman
- Tim Furnish
- Gil Troy
Wikipedia
Contributing Editors
- Common Sense
- Stephen Cox
- Stephen Davies
- Grinder and Hagel
- Gus DiZerega
- Gene Healy
- Karen U. Kwiatkowski
- William Marina
- James Otteson
- Jim Powell
In Memoriam
Freedom and Standards on Campus
- Grade Inflation
- Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
- National Association of Scholars
- Acton Institute
- Atlas Economic Research Foundation
- Cato Institute
- Foundation for Economic Education
- Independent Institute
- Institute for Humane Studies
- International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
- Liberty Fund
- OnPower.org
- Pope Center
- Trebach Institute
Blogs & Columns
- The Adam Smith Institute
- Agoraphilia
- Alan Bock
- Alina Stefanescu
- A Tiny Revolution
- Antiwar.com Blog
- Austrian Economists
- Beacon
- Booker Rising
- Cafe Hayek
- Chris Sciabarra
- Colby Cosh
- Cold Spring Shops
- Colossus of Rhodey
- Crooked Timber
- David N. Mayer
- Diana Mertz Hsieh
- Discriminations
- Distributed Republic
- Division of Labor
- Econlog
- Education Wonks
- Gene Healy
- Gus diZerega
- Hit and Run
- James Bovard
- Jacob Levy
- Jesse Walker
- Jim Henley
- John Cole
- Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
- Juan Cole
- JustinLogan.com
- Karen De Coster
- Kevin Carson
- Knowledge Problem
- Lester Hunt
- LRC Blog
- Liberty and Culture
- Liberty Guys
- Liberty Magazine
- Liberty Papers
- Margaret Soltan
- Mises Economics Blog
- Peter Gordon
- Positive Liberty
- Progressive Historians
- Radley Balko
- Robert A. George
- Roderick Long
- SCSUScholars
- Sheldon Richman
- Stress
- Third Party Watch
- Tom G. Palmer
- Torch
- United Liberty
- Volokh Conspiracy
- War Historian
- Wendy McElroy
- Will Wilkinson
Old Archives
Recent Comments
- Marc Mayerson on The Trillion Dollar Question: Should the National Debt be Repudiated?
- David T. Beito on More on Demolition of Black-Owned Homes In Montgomery, Alabama (Short But Powerful)
- Gus diZerega on More on Demolition of Black-Owned Homes In Montgomery, Alabama (Short But Powerful)
- David T. Beito on More on Demolition of Black-Owned Homes In Montgomery, Alabama (Short But Powerful)
- Jeffrey Rogers Hummel on More on Demolition of Black-Owned Homes In Montgomery, Alabama (Short But Powerful)
- Allan Walstad on The Trillion Dollar Question: Should the National Debt be Repudiated?
- Mark Brady on “Born in the U.S.A.”: Damon Root’s Reminder of our Proud Exceptionalism
- C.J. Maloney on Great Zora Neale Hurston Footage
- Santese Lamar Smith on Cost of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan
- Michael Green on The "New Bellesiles"
Archives
September 2010August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
