My Beauty Best Teacher

When government runs healthcare, politics starts intruding in and good healthcare starts going out. According to the Times Online, the British department in charge of healthcare, the National Health Service, recently published a pamphlet that it then distributed to schools around the nation. This government-issued document informs students that they have a right to an enjoyable sex life, and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.

These are the sort of arguments that I might make in my own household, but they are not the sort of views that I think should be ordered by the government. It is kind of creepy to think that once Big Brother nationalizes our healthcare system, some bureaucrat will write a booklet similar to this one, in which young children are informed about the benefits of sexual pleasure.

According to the government, society has been stupidly pretending that there is a need for safe sex and that you should be in a loving committed relationship prior to having sex- the government bureaucrat who ordered this document sent to all schools feels that the main reason for sex is mindless enjoyment, and if more kids are brainwashed that way, this pervert might get lucky more often.

Not to sugarcoat it, in my mind, this government employee is either a dirty old man who likes to hit on younger girls or some sort of new-age feminist who is lacking in real happiness.

The document is called Pleasure, and has a nice slogan in it- “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away” it says. Then it goes on to ask "what about sex or masturbation twice a week?”, suggesting that this type of physical activity is healthy. Let me stress yet again that this is a government bureaucracy, the one that runs the healthcare system, doing this, in England.

This is not too far off here in America if Obama and the liberals running our nation have their way.

Walter Russell Mead gives some great advice to students going back to school. The whole article is filled with advice and suggestions, but for the sake of brevity, here are some of the best parts:

The real world does not work like school. Life in school is life in bureaucracy. You follow the rules, do what you are told, and rewards follow. That’s the old system; the new one won’t work that way. Creativity, integrity and entrepreneurial initiative will pay off; following the old rules and hoping for the old rewards is a road to frustration. You have to fight the tendency of the educational system to turn you into a timeserving baby bureaucrat, following the rules and waiting for the inevitable promotion.

Most of your elders know very little about the world into which you are headed. Most faculty members, especially the tenured ones, have worked and lived in a world that is passing away. In many cases it’s hard for them to imagine the kind of lives you will live, and you need to keep this in mind.

You are going to have to work much, much harder than you probably expect. Your competition is working hard, damned hard, and is deadly serious about learning. There’s nothing written in the stars that guarantees Americans a higher standard of living than other people. Those of you who spend your college years goofing off in the traditional American way are going to pay a much higher price for this than you think.

Choosing the right courses is more important than choosing the right college. Your generation can’t afford to throw these four years away; choose your courses carefully and seriously.

Get a traditional liberal education; it is the only thing that will do you any good. However, in times of rapid change, it is paradoxically more useful to immerse yourself in the basics and the classics than to try to keep up with the latest developments and hottest trends.
 
Character counts; so do good habits. Character and spiritual grounding are going to count much more in the tumultuous, uncertain environment that is approaching than in the more stable and bureaucratic world of the past. But in a world in which employment is less secure, competition tougher, and your reputation for integrity and productivity are the most important assets you have, character is going to count.

The one piece of advice I would add is that students, whether they be in high school or college, need to read on their own. They can't cede their mind to the institution- if only the government is putting information and thoughts and theories in your head, than that is a very bad thing. Students should always be reading a book they choose on their own, and should be rotating fiction with non-fiction or biographies. Don't let someone else have total control over your education- educate yourself on your own on your own time too.

Joe at jgeldhof@comcast.net sent me an email recently called 'identify yourself', where he displays all the typical racist, angry, sexist, and ignorant views that are common to liberals and Democrats. For amusement, here is his email, which is the kind of typical stuff I have to read from his kind. I apologize in advance for the language:

This person by themself is simply a harmless, angry, sexist, racist individual. But put this person in a position of power over me or you, and he is dangerous. Make him a bureaucrat in charge of your healthcare choices, or in charge of your energy uses, or in charge of regulating your company, and he degrades the human condition and represents a threat to your life, liberty, and property. This person is the reason why our Founding Fathers wisely made government divided, conflicted, inefficient, weak, and limited- not because in hands of great people government can't do great things, but because in the hands of Joe, government could be very terrible. Thanks for pointing this out Joe.

UPDATE: For those who are curious, Joe sent me further emails... here is some of the stuff that he wrote...
He further proves my points above about how dangerous someone like him is with political power.

I'm not a right wing wack job that listens to the pictures drawn by the likes of: palin, Cheney, lieberman, bush, bush, and bush, and Rush, and hannity, and o'reilly (who got his nuts twisted by women). keep defending these buttocks and we'll see how long this country lasts.... hooray for the African American in the white house. Makes you guys look like wimps... where do you store your white sheet and hood... you're a facist... you're a communist...

He is just further proving my point that it will not be a good thing for him and his kind to have power over me and my kind (and me and my kind don't want any power over him and his kind).

Here is some news that you won't read anywhere else.

RNC Chairmen Michael Steele met today with a group of Republican teachers at an event hosted by the National Education Association, the largest union in the country. It was perhaps the first time in recent memory that the head of the Republican party met with teachers at the NEA headquarters.

"You are all Republicans?" he asked when he got to the podium. After a loud happy chorus of "yes!" he asked "And you are in the NEA?" The crowd yelled "yes" again, as everyone at this particular NEA gathering was in fact a Republican teacher. "That's freaken awesome!" Steele said in delight.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is not opposed to teachers- Steele wanted us to all be aware that the RNC and the Republican party is never opposed to teachers, in spite of how they might view or talk about the teachers union. "The RNC would like to thank all you teachers for what you do," he said.

The first thing he talked about was how he viewed healthcare, and he tried to relate it back to teachers. He suggested that our nation not "lurch blindly into healthcare," referring to the speed and secrecy which the Democrat's healthcare bill may be introduced. The most important thing he said though about this issue was that we need to view healthcare through the lens of the patient-doctor relationship, and not to make it a patient-bureaucrat relationship. This healthcare debate, he said, is about choice or orders, the individual or government, cost not access, and we need to keep those thoughts in mind.

Speaking to Republican teachers, Chairmen Steele focused most of his comments on education. He "had the privilage to teach," he said, refering to his time teaching history and economics, and he knew that teachers have "the hardest job in the world." When he was Lt. Governor, he said that he "wanted to get into the classrooms and see what was really going on- and not deal with bureaucrats, or unions, or politicians, but instead deal with the teacher/student relationship." He got into the classrooms and talked with thousands of teachers, and this gave him an insight into how to improve the education system.

But when he sat down with the NEA, it became "all personalities and politics, and not issues and problems." Steele talked about how the NEA and the Republican party need to work together to build bridges and find consensus on issues, and move towards making progress on improving our educational system.

Steele several times looked around in surprise at being at the NEA building, which is usually not friendly to Republicans, but about 30% of the NEA is Republican, and they are becoming more organized and active in their union.

Speaking from his position as head of the RNC, he said that what we need to do as a country is put in place more policies that let teachers do their jobs and let them be the great teachers that they are, and those are the sort of ideas that the NEA and the Republican party should both be embracing.

Reason.tv has some interesting videos on its site. The one that I found the most fascinating is called "Food Fight." In this video, which is hosted by Drew Carey, we a battle between private businesses and government officials. In what is only to become more common with the passage of legislation giving more government power over controlling the health care and energy industries, the video shows how public officials paid for by citizen taxpayer dollars spend their time going around Los Angeles seizing bacon-wrapped hot dogs.

Yes, amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, there exists an underground world of illicit trade in bacon-wrapped hot dogs. The Department of Health has made it illegal to sell a hot dog wrapped in bacon, and if they catch any street vendors doing so, they will use their police powers to hassle these private businesses, shut them down, seize their goods, or even destroy their businesses. It is all seen on the video- there is actually camera footage of government thugs confiscating a food cart and dumping the bacon-wrapped hot dogs into the trash.

"Bacon is a potentially hazardous food,” says the LA County Health Department. Personally, I think a government that can throw a food vendor in the in the slammer for 45 days for selling bacon dogs is a bigger threat to our lives, liberty, and property. Which do you want- a dangerously powerful government or a street vendor who pays taxes and sells consumers products they want?

A government bureaucrat, supported by no data at all, feels personally that bacon-wrapped hot dogs are not safe, and put in a rule that makes it illegal to sell them. Apparently he feels he is the business of stopping people from doing what they want because he doesn't agree with it- sounds like more government officials in the business of tyranny.

Be prepared for more of this- is your home or business going to be up to the new Green Codes or the new Health Codes that government officials come up with every day? With Democrats in office, you really need to ask yourself- are you really living in a free country any more?

If you thought I was joking, you should have been paying more attention to the news- Government tightens food standards is only the beginning. Obama and the Democrats have just decreed that the bureucratic agencies that rule us now have more power over private businesses and can decide what temperature eggs must be kept at and who you are allowed to buy chickens from.

This new system for 'monitoring eggs' was coupled with 'other steps' gives federal monitors more authority and more force with which to respond when you break their rules. These new powers are designed to combat salmonella in eggs, but are only the first step- the Department of Agriculture is soon to be created similar powers to those who raise cows for meat and milk, and the FDA is developing ways to control those who grow tomatoes, melons and leafy greens.

Democrats, liberals, and Obama are only about one thing- controlling your life. Now they are even trying to control what you eat! Will the attacks on property, liberty, and life never end?

Democrat President Obama is well-known for his positions on life issues, such as abortion, but be prepared for seeing more of his lack of compassion once he is in charge of running your healthcare. I imagine there will be a lot more of this:

President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.
In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

So, let's imagine that you are about to die, but you had not tried everything yet. A reasonable person, if they had quality insurance that they paid for their whole lives, would expect the doctors to try everything to save their lives, if it was possible. If they paid for the insurance, and the insurance covered it, then it is expected that the doctors try expensive procedures, get additional tests, and try additional drugs. If these things are ultimately unsuccessful and you die, at least you did all you could to to save your life, and so did the doctors who took an oath to save your life.

Even if one person is saved using these expensive procedures (that they paid for their whole lives with insurance), then it is worth it. You can not measure the cost of one life, it is that precious. In our society, you can indeed hope that medical science can save you, and it is possible to change your condition to dead to alive by getting an expensive surgery.

Under Obama's plan, a government bureaucrats full time job would be to say 'no' to saving your life. Obama wants people in our government to take your tax money and then evaluate whether your life is worth saving or not, and if that bureaucrat doesn't think your life is worth saving (based partly on your race, condition, age, sex, political affiliation, etc), the you die.

Obama wants to kill you- although he wants you to die quietly by being drugged up on painkillers first. He said "maybe you are better off not getting the surgery" when he was talking about people on death's door- he is saying he wants you to die rather than cost the healthcare 'system' any more money. To 'shave medical costs' Obama wants you to die, as cheaply as possible, rather than cost the 'system' any more money. He does not value human life, he does not value liberty, and he does not value property.

Perhaps though Obama is right- really, all this healthcare plan needs is more cowbell. I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!

The Democrats are going to make another push for their healthcare bill. Let's not forget why we opposed this bill in the first place. As I wrote in Tyranny: Healthcare Reform Threat to Life, Liberty, and Property :

The Democrats healthcare plan is going to need my tax money to be put in place, and thus it does not increase the protection of my property from government, and recent reports and reviews by several groups in government and business have concluded that this healthcare plan will indeed end up costing most American’s more money in the end, further eroding my property.

The Democrat’s healthcare plan does not adequately address concerns for life either. The plan is going to create panels who will evaluate whether or not someone or something should be covered, and this may indeed put pressure on a government that wants to contain costs to not do everything in its power to protect the life of seniors in our society.

Nor does the plan adequately address concerns that taxpayer money and government support will not be used to support or encourage abortions. It is not hard to imagine that a government that is concerned with keeping down the costs of healthcare coverage may somehow with some policy push for the abortion of special needs children who will indeed be a great cost on a national healthcare system.

My objections to the Democrats healthcare plan are based on an understanding of what the proper role of government in our society should be, as written about by those great men who founded our nation. They wrote that the purpose of government is to protect my life, my liberty, and my property, and not to create vast bureaucracies of unelected officials who will control my life, my liberty, and my property.

Don't forget what is in this bill that the Democrats want to pass- Death Panels Are in the Healthcare Bill, and none of President Obama's proposed changes diminish any of the sweeping pro-abortion problems in the Senate bill and he actually proposes to increase the funds that would be available to directly subsidize abortion procedures (through Community Health Centers) and to subsidize private health insurance that covers abortion (through the premium-subsidy tax credits program).

I've tried to simplify this for you before- Simplifying the Healthcare Debate and Simplifying the Healthcare Debate Again. But all you really need to know about this healthcare bill you already know- that Obama's Health Care Plan Attacks Life, Liberty, and Property:

Obama's health care plan attacks life, by subsidizing abortion clinics at birth, by denying care and treatment (through rationing and bureaucratic delays) during life, and by denying care and treatment (through 'consoling and discussion') at the twilight of life.

Obama's heath care plan attacks choice, by replacing the patient-doctor relationship with one of patient-bureaucrat-doctor, where if you choose a procedure or drug, a government employee can tell you no. It removes responsibility to work hard and insure your own self, and gives up your freedom and liberty to government run and regulated faceless bureaucrats.

Obama's health care plan attacks property, because in order to pay for it, he needs to raise money. That money is either borrowed, which lessens the worth of all other money in the system, including mine, or the money is raised, by taking it from me. I worked for whatever money I earn- if the government did not exist, I would still work for whatever money I earn and it would be mine- therefor the government is not the creator of money nor the lawful taker of it. Obama's heath care plan will take my property in the form of higher taxes, fees, or borrowed funds.

Remember why you opposed this healthcare plan in the first place, and do not let your Congressman forget.

Some days, I am just stunned by what is occurring in America, and that is why sometimes you see some delays in my posts. Today though I am once again spurred into action, no longer stunned by the audacity of the Democrats but rather fighting mad. Earlier this month I wrote in a post:

The Democrat’s healthcare plan does not adequately address concerns for life either. The plan is going to create panels who will evaluate whether or not someone or something should be covered, and this may indeed put pressure on a government that wants to contain costs to not do everything in its power to protect the life of seniors in our society.

Many of Obama's supporters yelled "you lie" at this comment- they were right in a way- the new healthcare plan does not 'adequately address concerns for life', it totally disregards any concerns for life. The new Obamacare plan (or Pelosiplan, or Reidcare, or whatever you want to call all of the Democrat's tyrannical proposals) does indeed have Death Panels in it.

Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation", authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program." During these consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services.

In other words, if you are on Medicare, every 5 years you will sit down with a government bureaucrat who will tell you how much you are costing the healthcare system and tell you about all of the benefits of you just killing yourself and stop being a burden on society. And if you get sick, or ill, or injured, the state will immediately set up a bureaucratic panel to decide whether you are worth keeping alive. Oh, you won't be forced to sit in front of this unelected death panel, who will decide whether you are to live or die, but you will be encouraged to do so by every doctor that you see, and bribed to do so with financial incentives. This will sway many.

It is in the bill. The Democrats are proposing Death Panels! Read the stinking bill yourself- it is there. This isn't propaganda. This isn't "Fox". This is the actual language of the bill. Death panels for old people. How in the world could any person on Medicare even slightly support this bill? How in the world could any person on Medicare support the AARP, which supports this bill? How in the world could anyone on Medicare vote Democrat, who support this bill?

They are going to put in place bureaucrats who may decide you are not worth keeping alive. And I am sure that if you have gotten a lot of medical attention lately you'll be deemed too expensive. And I am sure that if you have voted Republican in your life, you will be deemed too expensive. And I am sure that if you are a 'bad guy'- ie, anyone the Democrats don't like, you will be too expensive to keep alive, and will die, crying out for the medical care that you deserve and can pay for, but denied it by a tyrannical state that is bent on blocking your god-given right to life.

UPDATE: No matter how much you liberals clap your hands over your ears and yell "nananananana", reality does exist. Over at Daily Kos, they write "death panels still don't exist- they're still the idiotic creation of whack-a-doodle Republicans and Fox News". Read the stinking bill. I cited the section above. You can argue about the exact interpretation of that provision, but there is no way to say that talk about death panels is unfair or idiotic.

The truth of the matter is that the main reason why the government is taking over the healthcare industry is to keep down costs. People at the end of their lives cost a lot of money to keep going. Ergo, there is pressure on the government to not do all they can do to keep expensive old people alive.

There is a provision in the bill about end of life counseling. It is not unfair, unreasonable, or idiotic to suggest that that consoling may be a way for doctors to counsel patients to die, saving the system the cost of keeping them alive. In other words, death panels.

You can argue about the meaning of the provision, you can argue about the logic, but to reject engage in liberal behavior and clap your hands over your ears and say it is made-up or idiotic or unfair is simply to be a fool pawn leading our nation to tyranny.

One of the most astounding things that I let slip to my students is that I believe that minimum wage causes higher unemployment. They usually just shrug that off as some sort of crazy thing that I must be joking about- in fact, if you ever utter in usual society a statement similar to that you'll get the same sort of looks. After all, how in the world could raising the cost to hire employees ever lead to less employees being hired?

It's actually a fairly simple concept though. If you have a job that is low-skill, such as a stock boy or sales staff in the mall or something, they likely bring in little revenue themselves. I mean, you need people stocking and straightening shelves and you need sales staff in malls and in big box stores, but each one individually will bring you such little additional revenue that you have to be careful how many you hire as a business.

Let's say you run a store in the mall, and you budget $50/hour for 'sales staff'- you know, people who can greet people as they come in the door, fold clothes, help out customers, look good in their clothes and thereby encourage others to buy them, etc. If you pay each one $5/hour, you could hire 10 sales staff and gain your store a reputation for great customer service and help and presentation. These employees have few real skills- in fact, since they are willing to work for that pay, it is likely they are the group with the fewest job skills- and so their pay is in line with what they provide. They will gain experience and soon command a higher salary. If no one is willing to work for $5/hour, then you'll have to offer more money, until you attract someone who willingly accepts employment at the amount you offer.

But let's say some do-gooder government bureaucrat making 100K/year comes along and thinks that it isn't fair that you are only getting paid the amount that you and your employer both voluntarily agreed upon. This person decides that everyone should now be paid $10/hour, and then pats themselves on the back for making the lives of all of these low-skilled laborers better. The store owner now has a choice- increase the amount of money that they budget for 'sales staff' or hire less people. If they just let their store slip a little in looks, have less staff available for help, automate some of the things that people did better, and not have friendly greeters, business will suffer- but so will the competitors too, so the only real loser will be all of society. If they instead just keep their 'sales staff' budget at $50 and simply cut back the number of employees who work, those employees will have to work harder and there will be more demands on their skill level, but that's okay- there are plenty of people willing to work for $10 hour. Our good businessman now fires all 10 people, re-hires 5 new people with more skills (probably older people with degrees in useless subjects), and moves forward with a store that is lesser than before.

The end result of raising minimum wage in this theoretical exercise will result in higher unemployment, especially in those groups with lower skill levels, and stores that are less appealing.

I don't have any hard data on whether stores are less appealing today than they were back in the old days- myself, I think that it is, with more 'self-checkout' operations, less helpful staff, less personal service, and stores that are less straight and clean.

I do have hard data on unemployment rates, especially unemployment rates with those with lower skill levels. The overall unemployment rate in the United States is now 9.2%, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal article:

Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001. The nearby chart chronicles the teen employment percentage over time, including the notable plunge in the last decade. So instead of learning valuable job skills—getting out of bed before noon, showing up on time, being courteous to customers, operating a cash register or fork lift—millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out.

But Congress has also contributed by passing one of the most ill-timed minimum wage increases in history. One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics.

So, there you go- raising the minimum wage did result in higher unemployment, especially in low-skill job areas. Nancy Pelosi and the liberals in Congress who voted to increase the minimum wage might be shocked to learn that their policies have led to a black teen jobless rate of 41.6%, but I'm not. A higher minimum wage forced on businesses by government equals higher unemployment.

H/T Conservative Hideout.

Vin Suprynowic, writing in the Las Vegas Review Journal, writes:

The modern Prussian police state was built by Bismarck and others in the 19th century on a Spartan model, giving the central government vastly greater control over the individual than had ever been considered possible before.

Bismarck's program centered squarely on insurance programs designed to increase support for the ever larger and more powerful government. The program included health insurance, workman's compensation, disability insurance and old-age retirement pensions, all innovations at the time.

Starting with the model of Prussian compulsory schooling, American "educators," starting with John Dewey and Edward Thorndike eagerly imported this Prussian model to America.

Trained to accept such state control (and now the new "green" religion) in the schools for most of the past century, then made dependent on government insurance programs (Social Security, Medicare) as surely as the pimp makes sure his young ladies are dependent on the needle and the fix only he can provide, slavery to the state soon appears inescapable, even ordained by God and nature.

"It is possible that all our politics will come to nothing when I am dead, but state socialism ("Der Staatssozialismus") will push itself through," Bismarck said in 1881.

"State socialism," he called it.

We're told that for some reason we're not allowed to call the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda "socialism," "communism," "Marxism," "state socialism" "fascism," or anything else that might sound unpleasant.

Much as I hate to cite the tyrant Lincoln, if we call a dog's tail a leg, does it have five legs? Telling us we're not "allowed" to use an accurate label for something doesn't change what it is.

Instead of allowing General Motors and Chrysler to go through normal bankruptcies, through which new and more efficient private operators could have purchased their worthwhile assets while shedding their crippling union contracts, the two giant auto makers have now been effectively nationalized. Meantime, an unelected federal "pay czar" decides on the compensation of executives, even at supposedly private banks that have paid back all their "bailout" loans. Does that sound like the normal function of the American free market, as understood in 1910, 1960 or even 1990?

Thanks to thoroughly unconstitutional "bailouts," the federal government now de facto manages our major banks and/or credit card companies, along with our airlines and airports.

The health care bill was "sweetened" with a federal takeover of college loans. Why? You don't imagine the federal government will ever try to manipulate the behavior of college graduates, offering to "forgive their college loans" if they agree to behave in ways favored by the fedgov, do you?

"Federalizing" all these programs shifts money and employment from the private to the government-bureaucrat sector. Unionized government bureaucrats tend to belong to outfits like the SEIU, which actively back Democrat/socialists, while dispatching purple-shirted thugs to beat up black freedom-fighters handing out "Don't tread on me" Gadsden flags outside rigged Democratic "town hall" meetings.

The so-called "health reform" bill authorizes $10 billion to field 16,500 more IRS agents to collect and enforce mandatory "premiums," which we're assured are not a "tax." Providing you're a "normal" citizen with a job and house, of course. (Illegal aliens Get Out of Jail Free, as usual.)

Last week the Review-Journal mentioned in passing, in an editorial about socialist Congresscritter Dina Titus' move to facilitate the takeover of Nevada Occupational Safety and Health enforcement by the federal government, that the Constitution grants the federals no authority to regulate workplace safety within the states. One letter writer couldn't wait to write in that the newspaper was wrong: turns out the preamble to the federal OSHA law as adopted specifies that it's all constitutional, since the federal government is empowered to regulate interstate commerce, and "workplace health and safety can impact interstate commerce."

So we're right back to "If you call a dog's tail a leg, does it have five legs?" If Washington can do anything it likes because everything somehow "impacts interstate commerce," why do we have a Constitution with that two-page list of specifically delegated powers? Why not just one sentence: "Congress shall have power to do anything it figures might promote the general welfare and/or impact interstate commerce"?

Vin is right- our Constitution was written for the expressed purpose of limiting the power of the national government so that our god-given rights to life, liberty, and property would be better protected. As the federal government expands, so does its threat to your life, your liberty, and your property, and that is what our founding fathers were trying to protect us against. They wanted to unleash the best of human potential, and knew that that is best done when man is allowed to be free from the constraints of the state. Our economy is more prosperous when we are free and property is protected, and our society is more civil when people provide funds for charities rather than having the government take money from people and redistribute it to favored charities.

In Michigan, I have observed what happens when Democrats run government, and I predicted accurately what would happen if Obama and the Democrats won the elections of 2008. Democrats turned Michigan into Detroit, and Democrats are now turning the United States into Michigan. You need to make sure that everyone you know votes Republican next election, or else your kids will grow up in a nation that is less civil, less prosperous, and less free than then one they are growing up in now. We need to stop these Prussians who are running out government today before they turn us into Germany in 1900... 1920... or 1940.

People need to have a job- they need to do something good for society and feeling good about themselves and paying taxes and being a productive member of society and not just be a recipient of the forced generosity of those who do work in society. And one policy change that the federal government and state governments that they could implement that would lead to more people having a job is to lower or repeal minimum wages.

Dr. Gary L. Wolfram, a Professor in Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College, wrote in an editorial that was in the Detroit News called Grow jobs, repeal the minimum wage:

...If we could make the poor better off by simply increasing the minimum wage, why not a minimum wage of $1000 per hour?

The U.S. unemployment rate among16-19 year olds is a staggering 25 percent. In Michigan, 28 percent. That's a recipe for frustrated youths. Often they end up in the underground economy, selling drugs.

It has been estimated that nearly half of Detroit's adult population is functionally illiterate. Michigan's minimum wage keeps these unskilled workers from gaining employment and is partly to blame for the city's high unemployment.

If there were no minimum wage, however, then producers could hire the unskilled and train them. Those of us old enough to remember gas station attendants who washed car windows also remember that many a young person got their first job pumping gas. They learned important job skills that improved their productivity and let them move on to higher-paying occupations.

The minimum wage increases of the last 50 years have eliminated these and other entry level jobs and kept large number of the unskilled dependent upon government for subsistence.

Aside from the harsh unintended consequences, there is also a principle of individual liberty at stake. If you are willing to pay me for my labor at the rate we agree upon, then why should the government tell me that I cannot sell you my labor? Why should a state or local government be able to tell me that I cannot work because I can't produce $7.25 or $7.40 an hour worth of goods and services? Individual freedom depends on the right to one's own labor.

It's time that we restored one of our fundamental freedoms by ending the minimum wage.

These are the very points that I made several months ago in my own editorial, a blog post called Higher Minimum Wage Laws Have Resulted in Higher Unemployment Rates? In that post I wrote:

But let's say some do-gooder government bureaucrat making 100K/year comes along and thinks that it isn't fair that you are only getting paid the amount that you and your employer both voluntarily agreed upon. This person decides that everyone should now be paid $10/hour, and then pats themselves on the back for making the lives of all of these low-skilled laborers better. The store owner now has a choice- increase the amount of money that they budget for 'sales staff' or hire less people. If they just let their store slip a little in looks, have less staff available for help, automate some of the things that people did better, and not have friendly greeters, business will suffer- but so will the competitors too, so the only real loser will be all of society. If they instead just keep their 'sales staff' budget at $50 and simply cut back the number of employees who work, those employees will have to work harder and there will be more demands on their skill level, but that's okay- there are plenty of people willing to work for $10 hour. Our good businessman now fires all 10 people, re-hires 5 new people with more skills (probably older people with degrees in useless subjects), and moves forward with a store that is lesser than before.

The end result of raising minimum wage in this theoretical exercise will result in higher unemployment, especially in those groups with lower skill levels, and stores that are less appealing.

I don't have any hard data on whether stores are less appealing today than they were back in the old days- myself, I think that it is, with more 'self-checkout' operations, less helpful staff, less personal service, and stores that are less straight and clean. I do have hard data on unemployment rates...

Oh, I know that many out there feel that any job that doesn't pay someone enough to live a life of luxury is a job not worth having- many liberals and progressives are sure to comment that 'you can't feed your family on a sub-minimum wage'. Maybe you can't, but you can feed them a lot better on a sub-minimum wage than you can on no-wage, and while you are doing that you will be doing something productive for our society, earning important job skills, and even giving a little back to society in taxes. Perhaps you need some assistance after that, but that's not the point here- the point is that minimum wage laws act as a barrier for good things happening for those who don't have jobs.

And those people who earn minimum wage right now are usually not earning that wage for a long time- they use their increased skills to secure wage increases and better opportunities and go forward from there, or if they don't, they likely are lucky that they are protected from competition by these laws that artificially force employers to pay them rates higher than they honestly deserve.

Let's be honest- in the name of making themselves feel better because they are guilty for being successful when they really don't deserve it, many liberals and progressives put in place policies that harm those in our society who need the most help; they put in place minimum wage laws that prohibit people from freely making contracts regarding their labor and wages, they put in place controls on businesses and individuals which hurts their attempts to increase their property and wealth, and they make the lives of those who they force to suck down forced charity a little bit less.

Imagine that you lived in a state of nature- your plane crash landed on some previously unclaimed island that has no inhabitants and there is no hope of being rescued or contacting your previous home nations. Or you go to the moon, or an asteroid, or the bottom of the ocean, or some other location where there are no laws and no legal rights are written down. What sort of rights would you have?

Another way of asking this question is for you to think of things that others would do to you that you would think are wrong- that you would believe are wrong because you know that to do these things are wrong, with or without a government or any sort of legal authority telling you that they are wrong. These are what are called your natural rights.

What sort of natural rights would you have, whereby you would feel violated and wronged by others, even if there were no government or state or authority? Let's say you crash land on the island or find yourself on the moon- would you feel that you had been horribly wronged and violated if your fellow citizens didn't pay for your healthcare insurance in case you got injured? You're on an asteroid, and you demand that the other people on the asteroid buy a house for you or subsidize your loan, and they say no- have you been wronged and your natural rights violated? Of course not- you don't have any sort of right to have others pay for your healthcare insurance, house, car, food, or anything of that sort.

Imagine that you begin to work on your island, tilling a field and growing a crop, where others lay around and do nothing other than to watch you. After you are done growing your crop, they all band together in a large group and vote to have you distribute your crop to everyone, with everyone getting an equal share, even though you contributed all the labor. Were you wronged? Did someone violate your rights? Or let's say on the moon, you provide some sort of service that is essential- taking care of the banking, entertaining others by playing a sport, taking a risk and thinking up a new product- and you work hard at your service and in return others pay you some sort of compensation, that they voluntarily pay for your service because they recognize its worth; and after this, someone else comes along and demands a share of your 'money' in order to pay for someone else to conduct a study of the effects of drinking in prostitutes in China, or to build a road that you will never travel on the other side of the moon, or to cut a check to the older people stranded on the moon, or to hire a bureaucrat to supervise you and tell you all the things you are doing wrong. Would you be wronged then?

Of course you would have been wronged- your labor is yours, and the profit from your labor is yours, and the government does not have any 'right' to your labor, not unless you are a slave to the state. You are okay with voting to provide a military to protect your property from outside aggression, or police or fire service to protect it from theft or fire, or to create a court system to resolve any disputes that may arise regarding your property. But for the government to come and demand the fruits of your labor and lay claim to it is tyranny- it is your property, it existed before government, it will exist after government, and you are the only person who can lay any sort of right to that property. This in your natural right to property.

The purpose of our government is to protect these natural rights- life, liberty, and property. There is no such thing as a 'tax cut for the rich'- the government does not have any sort of claim on the rich citizens' property, so a more proper name for this would be a 'lessening of the unequal taxes levied on those earning high incomes'. You do not have any sort of right to healthcare or housing; but neither do you have any sort of right to social security or medicare- those are provided to some in our society by violating my rights and the rights of other young people in society to keep and earn property in order to provide forced charity to those who have had ample opportunity to earn and pay for their own retirement and healthcare- but they have no right to this sort of forced charitable giving.

Understanding property rights and the nature of them is important, because once the state becomes destructive to these property rights that state is on the road to tyranny. We can see it already in our nation, where our government has arbitrarily violated contracts because a car company is going bankrupt, failed to properly issue permits to energy companies who have gone through the (excessive and capricious) permit process, or the forcing someone young and healthy and full of life to buy a product like health insurance in order to subsidize the costs for others in society. Once it has been established that your property rights can be violated by a government- that rights to keep and earn property that existed before government was around and would be around even if government was not around- then the next step is to go after your freedoms and liberties, and lastly, your life.

Fight for the right to keep and earn property, and stop engaging in class warfare, because it will only lead to tyranny and injustice.

For more, check out John Locke, property rights, and economic theory.: An article from: Journal of Economic Issues or John Locke and Property as a Human Right Today: Towards a New Theory of Property Rights.

I'm on record as opposing Obamacare, which is one of the major policies that Obama and the Democrats in Congress (including Gary Peters) pushed through, because, as I wrote in Tyranny: Healthcare Reform Threat to Life, Liberty, and Property, Obamacare is a threat to my life, liberty, and property. As time passes, I'm documenting many of these threats, such as the fact that there was a Calorie Count Mandate in Obamacare Bill where the national government orders restaurant chains and convenience stores and vending machine operators to post calorie counts on menu boards and drive-through displays and everything else, costing businesses untold thousands in additional costs. Or in Death Panels Are in the Healthcare Bill I wrote about how Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation", authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare where a government bureaucrat will tell these senior citizens how expensive they are to keep alive and work to get them to die.

Today I'm going to point out yet another way that Obamacare, that piece of legislation pushed for by Obama and passed using dirty tricks and phony counting methods by Democrats in Congress (including Michigan's Gary Peters), attacks your life. Under Obamacare, the FDA will apparently pull drugs off the market because those drugs are too expensive to give to citizens.

That's right, part of the whole 'cost containment' package that the government is bringing to the table is going to be the outlawing of expensive drugs that could possibly help you live longer and healthier. Under Obama and the Democrats, we are going to increasingly live in a society where medicine and help is blocked to ordinary citizens by government, where the government will prevent you from living a longer and better life, and where the government will be the biggest barrier to your life. Of course, government employees and politically connected groups like labor unions will be able to get these medicines, as they are exempted from Obamacare.

From The Washington Post (H/T theblogprof and HotAir):

Federal regulators are considering taking the highly unusual step of rescinding approval of a drug that patients with advanced breast cancer turn to as a last-ditch hope.

The debate over Avastin, prescribed to about 17,500 women with breast cancer a year, has become entangled in the politically explosive struggle over medical spending and effectiveness that flared during the battle over health-care reform: How should the government balance protecting patients and controlling costs without restricting access to cutting-edge, and often costly, treatments? …

The FDA is not supposed to consider costs in its decisions, but if the agency rescinds approval, insurers are likely to stop paying for treatment. “It’s hard to talk about Avastin without talking about costs,” said Eric P. Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “For better or worse, Avastin has become in many ways the poster child of high-priced anti-cancer drugs.”

According to wikipedia, Avastin is an effective (and expensive) drug that is useful in extending the lives of people who have cancer. Imagine your grandparent or mother or father has cancer, and there is a drug available to them which will prolong their life by years and years. What would you do and how would you feel if you found out that the drug was being withheld from your loved one by a Democrat because he/she thought it was too expensive? How would you vote in the coming election if you found out that your loved one was forced to die years earlier because a Democrat official didn't think they were worth spending the money on?  That's Obamacare, and we're already seeing its results.

Over dinner tonight the discussion turned to politics, particularly health care. I made the bold statement of saying that I opposed Obama's health care plan, and several people at our little dinner party started to attack me. "Don't you care about people?" they asked. "Do you suggest doing nothing?" they wondered. "Bush did whatever he wanted when he was President, now it's our turn," they justified.

My argument was simple, although shocking and revolutionary. I think that government should work hardest on protecting very important things, the most important of which are people's ability to live (and live as long as they can), the ability to choose for themselves, and the idea of keeping and earning stuff. And that above all, above providing health care or fighting global warming or running automobile companies, government should not attack these important things and try to take them away. And Obama's health care plan does this.

Obama's health care plan attacks life, by subsidizing abortion clinics at birth, by denying care and treatment (through rationing and bureaucratic delays) during life, and by denying care and treatment (through 'consoling and discussion') at the twilight of life.

Obama's heath care plan attacks choice, by replacing the patient-doctor relationship with one of patient-bureaucrat-doctor, where if you choose a procedure or drug, a government employee can tell you no. It removes responsibility to work hard and insure your own self, and gives up your freedom and liberty to government run and regulated faceless bureaucrats.

Obama's health care plan attacks property, because in order to pay for it, he needs to raise money. That money is either borrowed, which lessens the worth of all other money in the system, including mine, or the money is raised, by taking it from me. I worked for whatever money I earn- if the government did not exist, I would still work for whatever money I earn and it would be mine- therefor the government is not the creator of money nor the lawful taker of it. Obama's heath care plan will take my property in the form of higher taxes, fees, or borrowed funds.

My argument to my friends was simple- that all men are created equal, that we all have certain rights, that some of the most important of these rights is life, liberty, and property, and that the purpose of government is to protect these rights. And that whenever government becomes destructive to these rights by taking them away, that government is a tyranny, and all good patriots must oppose it with all their manly strength.

My friends, sadly, did not agree with my arguments- they sided with King George instead.

Luke Johnson asks in the FT "What’s so terrible about making money?":

He's convinced that many intelligent, ambitious individuals would adopt a self-employed way of life if they could strip away all the cultural bias and realise that building a venture can be a creative, even an heroic, endeavour. In truth, becoming an entrepreneur is a vocation, like fine art or quantum physics or teaching. But intellectual snobbery, prejudice and the comfort blanket of big organisations means business frequently fails to win the moral arguments...Most people focus on the risks of free enterprise and are scared to join the ranks of the self-made. Some have learned to play the system of government and institutions like a game, and enjoy power, pension and profit from their position in the state sector.
Why should they encourage choice and competition when they have such a safe haven as a bureaucrat, trade union official, academic, etc?

Recently I wrote in San Francisco Passes Ban on Toys and Happiness:

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently approved a preliminary ban on toys in McDonald's Happy Meals, although the decision still needs to pass a final vote. This echo's an earlier decision in California’s Santa Clara County, which also passed a similar Happy Meals toy ban ordinance. And don't look now, but the Center for Science in the Public Interest wants the ban on toys and happiness for children to go national- it is going to sue McDonald's to force it to end its practice of throwing in a free toy along with an order of fries and Chicken McNuggets....

....Liberals in California and potential liberals in the court system believe that if you are left to freely decide on your own what to feed your child, you will make the wrong decisions because you are an idiot. You are not free to decide what to feed your children and your child is not free to enjoy happiness and a toy unless they eat their vegetables. Oh, we've all been there- threatening little Timmy or Amy to eat their vegetables or no toys, but I bet you never figured that someday you wouldn't have to say this, because if little Timmy or Amy didn't eat their vegetables the police would beat them down and steal their toys. The nanny state continues to get bigger and bigger, as people in California vote against a limited government that is restricted to protecting life, liberty, and property rights, and instead empower an all-powerful government to rule your life and control your children, all in the name of some sort of morality or fairness or something. It's creepy and predatory, and it warrants an injunction, and that injunction will be the American people standing up and saying "come and get me, and pry this McDonald's toy out of my cold dead hand if you can." ....

Well, it doesn't stop with this for liberals. Not content to control what you choose to feed your child, liberals in San Francisco could soon put a measure on the ballot banning circumcision, reports CBS San Francisco, and it will likely pass because it meets the liberals main criteria of 'control other peoples' behavior.' The ballot measure that would make it a “misdemeanor to circumcise, excise, cut or mutilate the…genitals” of a person under 18.

Now, whatever your views as parents are regarding circumcising your son (and we did extensive research before having our 5 boys circumcised), it is clear that the decision is yours and not the state's to make. People circumcise their children for many reasons- health and religion chief among them- and for the government to come in and punish parents or doctors who perform this surgery because some liberal doesn't like it speaks again to the tyranny that government increasingly engages in, where it is now the greatest threat to your life, liberty, and property.

This is not the first or last time in the last year that California has proposed or considered banning human liberty and freedom just because some do-goody fascists controlled government power and used it to coerce others into obeying their unjust commands. Whether it is outlawing Happy Meals, banning male circumcision, or outlawing bacon-wrapped hog dogs, the government of California is out of control. Instead of doing a few things right and doing them well and under budget, California's government, run by liberals and Democrats, is now a bankrupt sprawling Leviathan that threatens the citizens of that once great state increasingly.

In Government Thugs vs Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dog Vendors I wrote:

...In what is only to become more common with the passage of legislation giving more government power over controlling the health care and energy industries, the video shows how public officials paid for by citizen taxpayer dollars spend their time going around Los Angeles seizing bacon-wrapped hot dogs...


...Yes, amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Los Angeles, there exists an underground world of illicit trade in bacon-wrapped hot dogs. The Department of Health has made it illegal to sell a hot dog wrapped in bacon, and if they catch any street vendors doing so, they will use their police powers to hassle these private businesses, shut them down, seize their goods, or even destroy their businesses....

...A government bureaucrat, supported by no data at all, feels personally that bacon-wrapped hot dogs are not safe, and put in a rule that makes it illegal to sell them. Apparently he feels he is the business of stopping people from doing what they want because he doesn't agree with it- sounds like more government officials in the business of tyranny....


....Be prepared for more of this- is your home or business going to be up to the new Green Codes or the new Health Codes that government officials come up with every day? With Democrats in office, you really need to ask yourself- are you really living in a free country any more?...

...Democrats, liberals, and Obama are only about one thing- controlling your life. Now they are even trying to control what you eat! Will the attacks on property, liberty, and life never end?...

If I'm wrong, how come I'm so right so often?  Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto

Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article last week that was powerful and insightful called America in Decline? I have pondered on it over the last couple days, and think that the most important piece of the article was the reasons why America is declining and whether or not this will continue. Read the whole article, but here is the part to ponder the most:

Consider the following areas in which America is said to be in trouble, but in fact could easily surmount the present difficulties.

Debt. In 1999 Americans worried about the specter of paying off the debt and transmogrifying to creditor status. There are trillions of dollars produced annually in this country; it is a matter of redirecting the economy from consumption to savings, and to wealth creation from redistribution. The years 2004-2005 seemed bountiful when the federal budget was a mere $2.3 trillion. Go back to those spending levels and the administration could more or less balance the budget. If we had a leader willing to cut expenditures and ignore the furor, we could pile up surpluses rather quickly. The present fiscal policy is a choice to embrace redistribution and decline, not a result of innate unproductivity, resource depletion, strikes, and factional strife.

Energy. Known reserves of natural gas just keep getting larger. The amount of oil in the Dakotas, in Texas, in Alaska, and offshore climbs too, even as cars are getting more efficient and new hybrids become more practical. There is enough natural gas (and its derivatives) to quite easily power a quarter of our fleet for a century or more. Should Americans have a president who wished to drill, utilize natural gas as a transportation fuel, and downplay subsidizing "millions of green jobs," the nation could do wonders on the energy front. Each barrel produced here rather than imported from Saudi Arabia means more money, more jobs, and enhanced national security. Asking other governments to pump more oil, whether Brazil or Saudi Arabia, even as we insist that drilling and supply have no effect on prices, shows that Americans prefer to become more indebted and dependent. Again, that is a choice, not a fate.

National security. Despite all the talk of al Qaeda, the Bush anti-terrorism protocols—derided and then embraced and expanded by Obama—coupled with the terrible toll we took on Islamists in Anbar, Iraq, and in Afghanistan, have meant that radical Islam is far weaker than it was in 2001, and we far stronger. Osama bin Laden is now dead; and his organization in disarray. We are still spending less than 5 percent of GDP on defense. If we were to develop a strategic, consistent policy of bestowing our alliances and friendship on those who shared either our values or our notion of security, we could easily regain our strategic preeminence, rather than "leading from behind."

Immigration. Close the border, before addressing other immigration issues. We should institutionalize employer fines, finish the fence—and predicate legal entry into the US not on race, nearness to the border, or the number of relatives in America, but on skills and capital. America would experience a renaissance if it were to end 500,000 illegal entries and replace them with 250,000 legal entries based on education and expertise, not national origin, proximity, or family connection. Immigration could be one of our greatest strengths, rather than a continual effort to bolster political constituencies. Apparently, self-supporting, highly educated, confident immigrants from all regions of the globe are not this administration’s natural constituents, and therefore of no value politically.

Entitlements. Whether we adopt the Simpson-Bowles commission’s analysis, raise the retirement age, or follow Rep. Paul Ryan’s recommendations, there is a little discussed truth: with reasonable reforms, we can make Social Security solvent and still support retired citizens in finer fashion than was true ten years ago. Borrowing to spend is a mood, a state of mind, not a death sentence.

Victor Davis Hanson may be an expert with a slew of degrees and be a member of the Hoover institution, but you don't have be a genius to see his point- that policies that liberals, Democrats, progressives, 'moderate' Republicans, and others are pushing on debt, energy, national security, immigration, and entitlements are bad DECISIONS- they are policies that are based on false assumptions regarding human nature and the role or abilities of government and they are policies based on theories of economics (Keynesian) or the environment (AGW) that are unproven at best and dangerous at worst.

But these policies had real effects, bad effects that have weakened our nation and moved us closer to tyranny and father from liberty and freedom. The road to bad policies are always paved with good intentions, so those who are pushing these policies are not bad people and those who are opposing these policies are not necessarily good people- but the point remains that society is not advanced when power and authority and responsibility is moved away from people to a far-distant bureaucrat who is given wealth and sustenance by taking it from the labor of others through taxes or fees or whatever.

But these policies can be reversed by other policies, policies that emphasize life, liberty, and the protection of property. These sort of policies are usually pushed for by Republicans, particularly libertarian and conservative members of the Republican Party, who are aided and supported by other Republicans and moderate or conservative Democrats. It is to the Tea Party or right wing of the Republican Party that our nation must look to for leadership, to their policies, however imperfect they are, to overturn the bad policies of the past.

On debt, energy, national security, immigration, and entitlements, the Democratic Party is pushing for the wrong policies and the Republican Party is pushing for the right (or the less-wrong at least) policies.

Read the whole article- it is very good, and I have only touched on a portion of it.

Sickness is everywhere. In my house. In our schools.

Sitting here at 6:42 am in the morning, I am in my comfy chair for a brief moment at the start of my day about to head a school after another night with a sick child. The worst has past and she should sleep comfortably through the day with her bottle of Gatorade nearby. I know because she is the fourth of the five of us to have this same virus. (I'm the only one left standing but as the nurse, I have to admit I'm completely worn out.)

Last Wednesday afternoon my iphone got sick. It would not update to iOS5. I was getting Error 3200 (like many other hundreds of thousands of people, it seems.) I got on Twitter and eventually got onto some reputable blogs to determine that this error that no one had ever seen before was due to lack of capacity on Apple's servers.

Last Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of Blackberry Messenger (BBM) customers around the world, primarily non US, could not use their messenger service. This was due, we now know, to a major switch failure where the backup switch did not take over.

Measuring and Placing Blame for Failure
As I was facing my own 3200 error on Wednesday, it struck me that in the US, we have a whole different standard of measurement for businesses versus schools.

When we judged Apple for the 3200 error, everyone knew it was a systemic problem and that somewhere there was a technical reason for the error. We also knew that if Apple was an effective company that they would move heaven and earth to take steps quickly because their core mission was at stake. They would spend what they had to, do what they had to, because an inability to scale up in this way would harm their long term growth. They are positioning themselves for the next ten years, not the last.

When we judged BBM for their error, they took quite a bit longer to fix it, but we still knew there was a systemic error somewhere. Many do think that their inability to find the problem more quickly points at bigger problems within the company.

But in neither of these cases did you hear:

• All of the engineers at Apple are sorry wastes of human flesh who are just drawing a paycheck.
• BBM engineers should all be fired for this.
• All technology companies have bad, sorry, engineers and programmers.

If someone said this, a whole industry would be up at arms. And yet, for example in Rhode Island last year, a school literally fired every teacher.

When business fails we blame the system. When education fails we blame the people.

The other struggle is that you can see an Apple or a BMM outage immediately but often it takes a decade to see a failure at a certain grade level. We should be able to "deconstruct" what is happening with the failed classes that are coming out. We have plenty of students and parents (and teachers) to interview. Where did they lose interest? What happened? When did the situation turn for the negative with this class of students? Are we deconstructing today's failure and analyzing what we did 10-13 years a go to cause it? Ships like educational institutions don't turn on a dime.

Find the problem and fix it.
Neither can we say "one thing" has gotten us here. That one thing isn't just teachers that one thing isn't just administrators. Never to shift blame, we must examine ourselves closely for any failure in the system, but let's look at some other things too.


There are a few questions I think we should ask ourselves in every schools. (In my few brief moments I have left in this chair before I go help my fourth grader review his wordly wise words (again) for his big test today.)

• Discipline. One student can disrupt learning for a whole class. Are we so eager to give another chance that we've made teachers impotent? Are the corrective measures we're using actually correcting anything? Does one student have the right to disrupt learning for everyone else? Can't we use video and document what is happening and stop having one persons word against another?
  
  
• Classroom environment. Each classroom should be a place where learning can happen. Are their noise interruptions or basic flaws that are preventing learning from happening? When these happen, are the systems in place to promptly fix the problems? (Leaks, loud/broken Air conditioners, etc.) Do administrators and others respect class time and rarely interrupt on the intercom or impromptu assemblies?
  
  
• Class size. There is definitely a point where it becomes significantly harder to teach a class. My largest class was 26. We had to be in desks because I only have 21 computers (not counting mine at my desk.) One time I had 22 students and had to let a student use the computer at my desk. I have to say that the 26 and the 22 situations were very tough to manage for me. It took everything I had and I know for a fact that I couldn't cover as much as I did when I had 18 or 12. For me, the point where it becomes a bit more challenging is somewhere around 19 or 20. I don't know why it gets tough at that point but I have a computer lab and it is. I have friends with 30 and even more in a class. I've heard of 40. In South Africa, I saw a teacher who had 150 students. She said, "I couldn't help everyone but I helped the ones I could."
• IT Purchasing policies. Why do we buy what we buy? There is no doubt, corruption in the system. Right now in Alabama, their 2009 move to a glitchy  state-wide SIS system without going to bid has raised eyebrows and my inside sources say that it is sparking an investigation. (The Mobile School Board demanded it this summer.) IT is not an afterthought it is as important as the plans for the new school building. We need people who understand the specific needs of education making decisions and the position of IT directors escalated to a level where less temptation for corruption is there. Many IT decisions should really be curricular decisions anyway. We still treat it like a black box in most schools.
  
  
• How we look at research. We talk about research based best practices and in some ways it has become the Achilles heel of education. All a company has to do is go out and fund research proving their product improves learning and we'll buy it and cite the research. Are we blind? Are we so eager to believe there is a quick fix that we'll swallow such nonsense? When I dated guys, I knew not to believe half of what they said about themselves on the first date because they were trying to make themselves look good. Salesmen are trying to SELL. If we're sick we get a second opinion. Take a look at the What Works Clearinghouse but know also that sometimes we should test new things and innovate as well. Can we "BETA" test before we go full scale? WE should.
• Do we listen to contrarian voices? Stephen Downes and Gary Stager, God bless 'em, they are often contrarian voices. I read them for that reason. While I don't always agree with how they disagree with  people sometimes (everyone deserves respect) I do think that we need to listen to all sides of issues and topics. If you only listen to people just like you when people just like you are wrong, you'll be wrong too. Balanced voices make for good decisionmaking. Contrarians are sometimes right and the general viewpoints are sometimes wrong. Get the facts, listen to both sides and make up your mind.
  
• Do we educate parents on their role? One thing that could improve learning by next week for every school would be if parents made sure their children got 8-9 hours of sleep a night. That one thing. Read Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School and other research and you'll find that student learning is negatively impacted by lack of sleep.(One study equated the IQ drop of 1 hour less of sleep to that of lead poisoning.) Yet, parents persist on letting their kids sleep with their constantly buzzing cell phone on their pillow denying them the ability to get a good night's sleep. If we know that a child drops two grade levels in their ability to perform in class after losing an hour of sleep, then do we have systemic problems with our education system because of a nationwide inability to put our children to bed at a decent hour and take cell phones out of their hands?
  
  Don't stop there. How about having a place to do homework? Making sure they have their assignments written down and are bringing homework home. If the kid has "no homework" then are they studying anyway. Studying for a test is homework too. To think you can have a good school system without parental involvement is like thinking you can be a healthy athlete without drinking anything. Parents are a higher indicator of success than teachers.
  
• Are teachers free to teach? (I wrote about this in a Washington Post oped this summer.) Who is the customer? How much time are teachers spending filling out paperwork for administrators?
  
  What is a better measure of a good teacher: good paperwork and detailed lesson plans or what is happening in the classroom with the students? What makes a good bureaucrat doesn't make a good teacher and yet we have a system that consistently rewards teachers who are good paper pushers and hurts teachers who aren't. The customer is our students after they've graduated from high school. Will they thank us for what we taught them?
  
  I had a time during my teaching career where I had to do detailed lesson plans and honestly, sometimes I realized that I had finished my plans but wasn't ready to teach. I hadn't made the copies and done the work to really teach. Flat Classroom was invented the year that my interim headmaster (now my curriculum director) said - stop filling out lesson plans and start teaching - keep a general overview of what you cover in your lesson plan book but I'll be in your classroom 3-4 times a week. Then, I really started teaching. I was a good teacher but focusing on teaching and my students is what made me a great teacher and that was when this blog was born too.
  
• Do we look at what is happening in the classroom? Are administrators in your classroom more than once a week? Do they know what is happening there? A poor teacher becomes a bad teacher without supervision. A great teacher loves showing off and feels valued when their administrator comes by. All teachers appreciate this because we have the chance to point out obstacles that administrators can fix. (i.e. that loud A/c unit.) Why do we make teachers fill out paperwork about what they are doing with students, couldn't we have a recorder of some time document what they are ACTUALLY doing? Paperwork is antiquated and unnecessary in a world of digital recorders. Is anyone looking at it anyway?
  
• Stop looking for quick fixes. Quick fixes don't fix education. If you have a massive failure, you have massive problems. A quick fix is what you do when your child scratches their knee and needs a band aid. Major surgery happens after a horrible car crash. This car has run into the 21st century head on and most in education weren't ready. Certainly, we have some work to do. As I said in Alabama last week - maybe it is time to kill some sacred cows if we can't afford to feed them any more.

My Management professor, Dr. Phil Adler, always said that

"Accountability without Authority is a recipe for disaster" 

and that is what we have in education right now.

We have a lot of accountability on the heads of teachers and administrators.

• But do we give them authority? 
• Can they change a curriculum that is not working? 
• Can they fix things that are broken? 
• Can they handle discipline and be backed up? 
• Can they appeal to have the schedule changed or class sizes altered? 
• Can they  get rid of a computer system that is causing problems for everyone? 
• Can an administrator who identifies a personnel issue actually have the authority to fire the person who deserves it? 
• Can an administrator who is constantly causing classroom problems be reported in a way to reduce the problems or let other administrators know that this person is harming the learning environment.

We've made educators into bureaucrats by this massive move to centralize the education system in America. Bureaucrats are infamously horrible at moving quickly to fix things. BBM and Apple would still be trying to get things fixed today if they had to push paper like many of my public school friends have to do.

I'm quite tired of business people criticizing educators for not running education like "a business." The last 30 years of lawsuits and centralization of education has turned many schools into behemoths where it is very hard to get anything done, even if you are in charge. I can say this because I've worked with public schools for the last 15 years and have many close friends who are administrators.

Let's hold people in education accountable but first, let's give them the authority to do something about the myriad of problems they face.

When you have a system wide problem with low test scores you have systemic problems.

No one can tell me that every teacher in a certain town is a sorry teacher or that every principal is a bad principle. The logic just doesn't add up. We have great teachers and great principals losing their jobs today.

Why Destroy and Start Over Doesn't Make Sense
And to those who say, just destroy it and start over. That would be like me saying that I'm going to solve this stomach virus in my house by killing my children and adopting new ones. Eventually my new children WILL get sick too. Besides, it would be a horrible waste of human life and all of my love for them knows that is a horrific thing to even suggest.

And yet, people ever day call to destroy all the schools and start over. It may solve your problem temporarily but if we keep moving "best practices" that aren't best practices at all to new places then we have problems. My private school friends who say they are having problems say they start when the public school testing environment moves into their walls. It kills learning.

If the chicken is always on the scale being weighed, she's never in the barnyard eating grain.

If we've learned anything in the last ten years is that much of what we've put in place in the last ten years should be called to question. When you have teachers who have thrived for 20-30 years getting out because of the system, its the system.

Let's open our eyes and look at 3200 error in education for what it is: systemic problems that require a fix. Stop blaming ALL the people and start getting practical here. We have a mission and the future of a nation is at stake.