The campaign against India's female genocide

To: The Government of India, The OHCHR, UNICEF, The UNIFEM, The UNFPA, CEDAW, The EU and The G8

We the undersigned, strongly condemn the practices that have led to the elimination of millions of girls and women from India’s population, and hold the government of India accountable for failing to protect the lives of its female citizens.

We further contend, on grounds of human rights, that immediate and effective action be taken by the government, through the implementation of rapid action task forces, to halt this femicide. We also insist the government officially commit to a time-line within which the associated practices of female feticide, female infanticide and dowry murders will be effectively arrested through the rigorous enforcement of existing laws and a stringent accountability on the part of India’s hospitals, government offices, and law enforcement agencies.

We further urge international human rights bodies and other governments to join in this effort to persuade the government of India to acknowledge and honor the call of this petition.

Today my brother-in-law invited me to sign a petition demanding that the UN, the EU and the G8 join forces to coerce the government of India to enforce its constitution of democratic equality for all men and women. This particular campaign against India's female genocide was started in 2006 by Rita Banerji, who picked up on the language used by Nobel Laureate Dr. Amartya Sen in 1986 to describe the phenomenon demonstrated in national census data. At that time, Dr. Sen claimed that 37 million women were "missing" from India, and since then, claims Banerji, the number has climbed to 50 million. Dr. Sen later revised her research and in 1990 tallied the global number of "missing" women to 100 million.

If we want social practices like these to end, signing a petition isn't going to do it. India is overpopulated and many families want a first-born male. (A lot is actually accomplished as preferential gendered abortion.) In a society that cannot afford reasonable healthcare for all, money is set aside for males and females are neglected.

Take Japan, for instance. In terms of its historic preference of male over female offspring, it is typical of Asian countries. But after World War II Japan was not allowed to regrow its military, and consequently it put all its energies into developing its economy. Now, as in European and Western countries, the balanced has tipped to favor women at a ratio of 1.05 or 1.06.

Western countries, too, have clear sexist treatment in favor of men -- look at our political representatives, university professors and CEOs -- but we are wealthy enough to be able to afford quality nutritional and medical care for all.

In other words, perhaps it's wrong to look at the "missing" 50 million women as a result of immoral practices that can be stopped through a simple change in policy. Look at the mess that China is in due to a well-intentioned attempt to guide change in population over time - and the male-to-female ratio is much worse than ever before. How can democratic India jarringly mandate equal treatment between males and females when their society is still very classist in practice, mindset and design?

If women have opportunities for gainful employment, slowly, perception of their relative worth will change. In developing countries for so much more labor is physical, women, with higher body fat and less muscle mass than men, are at a disadvantage. Women were given preferential treatment in North America because they were needed as the lynchpin to the colonists' cultural warfare against the native tribes -- in short, we needed to increase our population, so we could not afford to let our women die. India's population is bursting at the seams. Consequently, to be blunt, what do they need women for?

In some places in India, women are able to find gainful employment, and this is likely due to high literacy rates in those areas. As regional populations increase in wealth over time, education is more highly valued, which nullifies the inherent physical advantage of men over women in densely populated and labor-intensive areas.

The petition is useful in that Westerners are being made more aware of the plight of not only Indian women, but women generally in the undeveloped and developed world. However, change comes slowly, and I doubt that Dr. Sen herself would have ever called for the powerful countries of the world to pressure India into using a big stick to stop social practices that have arisen as a result of the geographic reality of southern and southeast Asia. Even if we were to succeed in artificially ending these abortive practices against women, will not that many women still die from increased starvation, crime and civil unrest?

It is paramount that we look to preventing similar imbalances from happening in other countries. India is so far gone that it may take generations more to arrest these social practices and turn around the imbalanced male-to-female ratio. We need to understand why it is happening in India and learn from it. Reacting to it impetuously and forcefully won't necessary help the situation; in fact it may make it worse.

Don't rain on my gay parade: Equality and the future of marriage

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. --Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
     President Obama's recent statement - his personal support of same-sex marriage and rejection of civil unions, putting him in stark contrast with Mr Romney - has given everyone a lot to think about. While I am not ignorant of the campaigning dynamic going on in such an unambiguous admission, neither am I interested in it. Rather, I am interested in the question it raises for the future of American society. Should we, like the President, embrace homosexuality as equal under the law in all respects? Or should we, like the soon-to-be Republican candidate, embrace the preservation of traditional, monogamous, heterosexual marriage?
     First, a preliminary philosophical observation. Always and in every society there is an Other (a group generally viewed as outside the accepted circle of good, God-approved individuals) who is denied social equality and legitimacy. We see a long list of Others in our society's history. Women, visible minorities, religious minorities, disabled persons, subcultures, and so on.

     Some societies perpetuate these prejudices and preserve social and legal inequality. This is done by squelching the voice of the Other and preventing it from being heard as a valid point of view. In some societies prejudices increase because of economic rivalry, a historical wrong or sociocultural resentment. However, as a democratic society evolves, these prejudices have generally been eroded by other more enduring values and principles.
     In a democratic society it is inevitable that, once they are considered persons and citizens with the right to vote, the voice of the Other will be heard. That voice will complain of the prejudices endured and their manifestation as gross legal inequalities. It is always in the legal arena that any issue in inequality will first come to a head.
     A democratic society will invariably increase legal equality of non-destructive preferences and behaviors, whatever these may be, and regulate or ban preferences and behaviors that hurt those besides their practitioners. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859. This ranges from sexual self-determination to the use of narcotics to ethnic background to religious belief/practice to protesting to riding a bicycle without using a helmet. Our legal courts are charged with seeing the basic trajectory of our country and, when it is time, creating or altering laws to increase equality and decrease destructive acts.
     Legislation in a democratic society cannot be coterminous with morality. In the United States we expect to enjoy personal freedoms, even if we do not always follow the status quo. We are allowed to live in peace with differing views and practices on many subjects. We understand the difference between morality and law - no wonder that so many moral people break laws on a regular basis without a single pang of guilt.

     You don't see pornography or other sexually explicit entertainment outlawed, do you? People who see homosexuality as immoral almost certainly view these other practices as immoral - and many others, too. However, it doesn't matter how many people believe watching porn is wrong. Laws are not written based on what the majority believe is moral or immoral. Laws have to do, as I said already, with stopping people from hurting others, and granting equality to groups disenfranchised in older generations. It is unethical to write a law stopping someone from doing something just because you think they shouldn't. That's called bigotry.
     Therefore, there is no basis whatsoever to outlaw minority practices unless they are destructive to others. I have the right to believe an act to be immoral but I do not have the right to impose my view on others. I have the right to believe an act to be moral but I do not have the right to require others to do it, or to see things the same way. A democratic society believes in free thought, which stands and falls on free speech, which stands and falls on free action - so long as my free action does not impinge on the rights of someone else.
     Only if gay marriage is destructive to others, therefore, can there be any basis for outlawing it. Otherwise it's simply a clear-cut example of an oppressed minority finally having an opportunity to receive equal treatment under the law - the constitutional right of the GLBT community as much as it is mine or any heterosexual person.
     So, does gay marriage hurt others? I don't think that it has ever hurt me. No gay or lesbian has ever hurt me by simply being the way they are, much less hurting me by committing themselves to each other in monogamous, life-long union. I can't see how that could ever hurt me. Am I missing something here?
Here are some possible arguments of how homosexuality and gay marriage could be destructive to others:

1. God will punish the entire society for its immoral conduct. The biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is the chief example supporting this argument. However, if you read the story carefully, you'll note that Abraham only has to find ten righteous people in the whole city to save it. As long as heterosexual marriage is resolutely preserved, then, I can't see why even the most superstitious person would worry about being turned into a gigantic salt shaker. 
2. Homosexuality will be approved by society so it will harder to convince our children that it is wrong. Exposure to a different idea or way of life is not the same as actual harm. If it was, we could not stop until we had a morally homogeneous society, and this conception runs contrary to every fiber in my democratic body.
3. Gay marriage will lead to gay adoption. Let's assume it does, or will, eventually, given the view of democratic society I outlined above. I've never heard of a study showing that a child raised by a gay couple is more likely to have some serious psychological trauma, or be abused, or anything else. Again, it's pretty clear that the horror of the idea of kids being "raised gay" is a result of moral prejudice. Such prejudice is the right of anyone, but by no means can it determine the direction of new legislation.
4. Gay marriage will lessen the validity of heterosexual marriage and lead to the destruction of the institution of marriage, raise divorce rates, corrupt society because the family unit no longer passes on valuable moral teachings to children, etc. I say, there's some truth in that. But the bigger truth is that Western society lost that battle almost one hundred years ago with the legalization of birth control methods as part of the early feminist movement and the liberation of women to be more than baby factories.

     The fact of the matter is that marriage isn't primarily about babies anymore. Society has changed, for better or for worse, and there's no going back. To try to salvage an obsolete notion of marriage is hopeless. In fifty years no one outside of extremely conservative religious groups will even bother. I can visualize the Catholic church continuing to maintain strict policies against both contraceptives and gay marriage for maybe that long, but not much longer. American society, meanwhile, will continue to develop and update its laws to reflect its nature - assuming the political scene is fixed sometime before the Union of States utterly dissolves. If you want a society that considers marriage to be primarily about progeny, you'll have to go to some other part of the world (not Europe). But I predict as their populations stabilize and the middle class becomes wealthier, as health care quality and availability increases and infant death mortality drops, the urge to define marriage in terms of procreation will weaken and ultimately fade.
     Folks, it's a brave new world out there, and we need to go and be part of it. Instead of pining for a lost era where black was black and white was white, we need to figure out how to make society work as best as it can.

Politics away from the dinner-table

      The two topics you're not supposed to discuss at the dinner-table are religion and politics. Well, I've been interested in the former since the middle of tenth grade, and comfortable discussing it after the middle of six years of post-secondary study on the subject, after traversing the spectrum from theological conservative to liberal. And the latter? Well, we'll get to that.

      A bit o' life contributed to what I'd call an inevitable change in my opinions in such matters. First, my distaste for authority. Second, a belief in social and cultural influence. The origins of both lie in my upbringing. My mother was laissez-faire, my step-dad was an unclear parental-guardian figure, and my father strongly encouraged me to think for myself, argue, reason, and who to this day maintains incredible dissonance with pretty much every social, political, military and religious institution on the planet. Contrary to most children, then, the education system never successfully taught me to do what I was told.

      Add to this the reality of my cultural diversity. My grandfather grew up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona, my grandmother moved from Arkansas to Fresno during the Great Depression, and my mother's parents a pair of middle-class Englishwomen and Scotsman who became life-long missionaries to China, Mongolia, and Taiwan.

      It was a foregone conclusion that ultimately I would give up the claim of my youth that the Bible was an absolute authority, that morality was absolute, and to subscribe to the murky waters of ideological relativity. The fact that I'm now analyzing my own ideological development in terms of personal experience only confirms the persistence of this sordid tale. And so it goes to this very day.

       For a long time I was content to restrict my philosophical interest to the spiritual realm. However, since moving to the United States I've had to give up my precious apathy in matters political. Growing up in Canada, receiving a socialist education and enduring a traumatic religious transformation has resulted in my rejecting the moralizing sympathies of the Republican cause. As for their cry for smaller government, I cannot see the point. At this stage in economic history it simply means we trade a federal puppet for fifty state puppets, and all the while corporate powers are holding all the strings. Washington's great fall to the evil of money – currently enshrined in electioneering and lobbying – is troubling indeed, and the terrible polarization of a broken two-party system refutes any hope for deep and lasting policy changes to defeat this corruption. A minority in Oklahoma, I silently count myself a Democrat and try not to engage many of my colleagues in serious political discussion.

      My best friend in high school, Jay, always joked that a benevolent dictatorship was the most reliable and efficient way to run a country, and I sympathize with the thought. Unity without all the red tape and time-consuming procedure. An emperor to run the galaxy a la Palpatine. If Hitler had been for vinyl flooring instead of genocide, would fascism have such a bad name? In every strategy game I play, you don't win through democratic process. You win by being in control and making all the right decisions to grow your civilization economically, militarily, and culturally. And in nearly every one of those games, you are practically forced to adopt a militaristic ethic toward neighboring nations. Otherwise, the game is boring. Maybe real-life dictators experience similar internal naggings for conquest and... peace, of a sort.

      Sometime ago I ran across some youtube videos on anti-statism which, after years of living in Oklahoma, was a breath of fresh air. I'd heard about it in high school but the word "anarchy" was filled with frightening associations and I never seriously considered it as a political option. After listening to several long-winded but well-reasoned arguments and counterarguments, however, it gained my respect. Just like totalitarianism is the final form of political control (Democratic Party), anarchy is the final form of political freedom (Republican Party). And while neither will ever have a prayer of significantly impacting American politics, considering these extremes was helpful in trying to make sense of why the bulk of Americans are able to respond so emotionally and vehemently against one political party or the other. In a two-party system, the easiest way to discredit "the other" is to exaggerate its distinctive features – much like Nazis illustrated Jews with long noses in anti-Semitic propaganda. In reality, President Obama and Governor Romney are chiefly centrist, regardless of public perception, and whether one is in office or the other is in office will make very little difference to my life, socially or economically.

      Nevertheless, exhausted as I was from political nitpickery so popular in my new home, I repeatedly promised myself, my friends and my family that I will leave the United States as soon as possible. It's the simplest way to voice my real and well-earned distaste for American politics. For a country to come so far and yet be disabled by pointless bickering and in-fighting is so maddening, how could anyone look at it straight in the eye without wanting to flee?

      Desperation forced me to consider absurd options, like a benevolent dictator, the end of the state entirely, and... a third party. I've always thought that minority governments are relatively effective. The balance of power dictates that they compromise in order to rule, and this greatly slows the push toward the corruption and abuse of that power. However, in the current political climate the rise of a third party and the transition of American politics toward a Canadian or European likeness seems as absurd as the voluntary self-annihilation of the government, or the ascension of a true totalitarian to the White House.

      Like the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it feels as if there is no end in sight. We were driven here by unyielding historical forces, and those same forces are keeping us from discovering a solution. On the other hand, the best part of history is its unpredictability. Ten years from now I might be lamenting an entirely different set of seemingly insurmountable challenges, having forgotten the progress from yesteryear and taking for granted our new-found freedoms. Pie in the sky? Probably. But in the end it's optimism that keeps away defeatism and keeps me thinking and engaging a system that does change, albeit slowly and spasmodically.

      Here I am, on the cusp of a new chapter in my life, one I've been pining for all year, and it's still hard to believe it's finally on its last approach and descent. Perhaps America, too, is on the verge of something new. After all, aren't we overdue? Like the movie I saw last night – Cabin in the Woods – can we finally step down from our position as ruler of the cosmos, and give someone else a turn? The world badly needs a fresh hand at the wheel.

The pill or the cross? A trumped-up debate

This is a carefully balanced proposal. I think it's high-minded, but I think it's fair-minded. In other words, it's got something to offend everyone. -The Firm (1993)
     Today in the teacher workroom one of my colleagues declared that President Obama is attacking the Catholic Church with a vengeance. And this teacher is not alone. Obama is currently envisioned by many as the contemporary incarnation of the Roman emperor Nero, burning Christians in the backyard of the White House, feeding them to starving circus beasts at the local amphitheater, and cackling gaily all the while. Recent polls show more than half of Catholics taking issue with the President's recent decision regarding enforced health care coverage of contraception.
     Nevertheless, there is no great conspiracy by the current administration to aggravate one of the largest voting bodies in the country. There is no secret plan to undermine the Amendments to the Constitution in order to install an oppressive bureaucracy to control hard-working American men and women. Obama is not a Jew-hating, anti-papal Muslim brother. For the record, he's an intellectual Christian drawing from many traditions. He's not Jacobean.
     What is going on is a centuries-old war between the current liberal landscape, whose crown jewel is the utterly dispassionate and fair medical establishment, and the awkwardly-defunct-but-in-denial religious establishment, codified supremely as the Catholic (=universal! at least claiming such) Church. Sadly, this much more interesting issue will not be addressed in this article. Another time, perhaps. (In the meantime I will refer you to a related issue I wrote about last month.) The scope of this post is simply to outline the facts of the debate and argue its present status as being no longer front-page news material.
     The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, which constitutes the chief legislative reform to the American health care system, is known pejoratively as "Obamacare." It requires health care providers to offer coverage for pre-existing conditions and preventative services. It also increases nationwide coverage by thirty million. The majority of states have appealed PPACA as unconstitutional, hearings in the Supreme Court will take place in late March, and a decision is supposed to be reached by June.
     The health care controversy is obviously complicated enough to reach the highest Court in the land, and I only wish to address the issue of requiring religious organizations to provide contraceptive coverage. This issue has been raising hell for a month or so, now, and like the proverbial bad penny, won't take a hint and go away.
     Let's look at the facts first.
     Before PPACA, women were protected from paying higher premiums for medical coverage just for being women if they received that coverage through their employer. However, if they were shopping for individual coverage, no such protection existed. Women paid higher premiums on average (legal in 37 states), even though they did not receive a corresponding increase in service. Since women are more likely to be unemployed or only employed part-time and in 2010 made up 55% of the individual health care market, this is a substantial problem.
     Let's be clear why. Women who got pregnant could suddenly lose their health insurance coverage without remuneration. Other cost sharing such as additional deductibles because they were treated as a rape victim or got a C-Section (regularly required by a medical doctor as the safest procedure for both mother and infant). Because of this legal discrimination, many women chose not to get any health coverage at all.
     I believe that one of the fundamental marks of authentic civilization, alongside universal education and transparent political system, is a universal health care system. When a society lets its poorer and more vulnerable members suffer physiologically, it is violating their right as human beings to physical dignity. I don't care if you're a crack addict, a pedophile or a jobless ninny. As long as you're a citizen of my country, if you have a disease - even one you suffer from because of your vice - you have the right to receive quality medical treatment for your ailments.
     PPACA stopped this gender-discrimination and requires all employers to provide women with preventative services such as gestational diabetes screening, regular gynecological checkups, contraceptives and related counseling, breastfeeding supplies and relevant support. An exemption to this rule (for contraceptive coverage only) exists for for employers defined as religious institutions.
     The first amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
     This exemption is rife with potential for abuse. Let's say I'm a health care provider and I want my individual rates (not through an employer) to be competitive. Covering women raises the average cost of my plans because women require more medical service than men. I need to find a way to offset that additional cost. PPACA prevents me from raising premiums for women simply for being women. However, if I can legally choose to withhold certain medical coverages that women typically want, they will be less likely to purchase health care coverage from me. In this way I can still encourage them to find coverage elsewhere. To benefit from the exemption clause, all I have to do is claim that I morally oppose contraception on religious grounds. According to the First Amendment, the government cannot legally force me to freely exercise my religious beliefs. I get to exert my religious beliefs over my employees' and beat my competitors' rates.
     Thankfully the writers of the PPACA were smart enough to limit the exemption to religious employers. To qualify as a religious employer, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, the institution must "(1) Have the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; (2) primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets; (3) primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets; and (4) is a non-profit organization[,in other words,] churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches, as well as to the exclusively religious activities of any religious order."

     In the case of a religious employer and a woman who needs contraceptive care we have a conflict of interest. Both parties have rights. Women as human beings have a right to quality health care (as stated above) and that includes contraceptive treatment. If you are an employer and you deny that coverage, you are discriminating against an employee. That's illegal. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "Religious discrimination involves treating a person (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of his or her religious beliefs. The law protects not only people who belong to traditional, organized religions, such as Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism, but also others who have sincerely held religious, ethical or moral beliefs." Many women sincerely believe that it's morally right to have an active sexual life without overpopulating the planet with additional mouths to feed, that it's morally right to enjoy sex for the purpose of interpersonal intimacy rather than procreation. An employer must respect that belief. That's the law. Otherwise, why shouldn't an employer choose not to hire you because of your religion? your lifestyle? your ethnicity? your sexual orientation?
     The EEOC has been around for more than fifty years, and it's the reason employers are no longer allowed to discriminate in covering their employees. In 2010 PPACA took that same principle and extended it to health care providers, because even though they aren't employers, they shouldn't have the right to discriminate either.
     So how do we uphold both the woman's individual rights and the institution's rights? The solution is simple. Provide coverage to the woman without going through her religious employer at all. The health care provider must offer it without charging the church. Now the church is not spending its monies for what it perceives to be a sinful action. No cost sharing on the part of the employer or the employee.
     And that's exactly what the rules are.
     So why are people still accusing Obama of attacking the church?
1. People think the definition of "religious employer" is too narrow. Catholic universities and hospitals should be included, it is said.
Response. Maybe the definition could be widened. But we still need to provide contraceptive coverage to the woman. She has her rights too, as explained earlier. And in no way does the nuance of the definition of "religious employer" constitute "an attack" on Catholics. It's something to be considered by people of intelligence and experience.
2. People generally want to blame the President for everything. This is especially bad during a recession, and especially especially bad during the last year of his first term in office.
Response. People love to complain and find someone to blame. Frankly I can't think of a perfect solution to this problem, but I certainly can't think of a better solution than the one currently in place. Every alternative I've seen crushes the rights of either the employer or the employee.
3. The President doesn't have a positive religious identity. As a Democrat, Obama is already on the back foot, and worse, was labeled a closet Muslim, despite clearly being a liberal Christian. Contrast Obama with Bush Jr., who during his first term claimed to read Oswald Chamber's classic My Utmost For His Highest (a daily reading of wishy-washy Christian moralisms) on a regular basis.
Response. Personally I don't think Obama's religious beliefs are a problem. I'm betting he's fairly non-committal, which means as a politician he's looking to create and maintain a system in which the beliefs of all are respected, as long as they don't impinge on the beliefs of others. And that's exactly what the government of a religiously free country is supposed to do.
     Since representatives of the Catholic Health Association and Mount St. Mary's University not only accepted the accommodation (while reserving the right to negotiate certain minor details), but praised the President's willingness to listen and respond to legitimate concerns, we can confidently declare that the rest of this nonsense is no different than the long-winded spectacles of Obama's birth certificate, Solyndra, and the Ground Zero Mosque.
     Ongoing questions: The battle between the medical establishment and the old, defunct religious establishment.

No Child Left Behind, left behind

     It's the end of an era.
     The 2002 law dubbed No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which mandated states to set measurable standards for public school education and rendered federal funding contingent on achieving them, is no longer binding. As 2014 looms ever nearer, states may apply individually for relief from NCLB provisions, providing they demonstrate they are on track to improving education even if they won't attain freakishly high proficiency levels tomorrow in English and Math. On February 9 ten states (including Oklahoma) were granted such wavers.
     Thank God, right?
     NCLB asked every state to find a way to climb Mount Everest without telling them how or giving them any equipment. Only two years after the bill was signed into law, a series of meetings were held to identify its flaws and pave the way to its reform. 135 national organizations originally signed the Joint Organizational Statement, which recommended we:
     1. emphasize academic growth alongside objective and universal standards;
     2. move from relying solely on standardized testing to employing multiple types of assessment;
     3. find effective ways to increase accountability on all levels;
     4. design effective methods of assessment and decrease the frequency of national tests;
     5. increase quality of professional development for teachers and administrators;
     6. apply sanctions only if they don't undermine existing, effective reform efforts, and otherwise replace them with constructive interventions;
     7. ensure necessary state funding to meet federal requirements, especially with respect to schools serving low-income populations.
     20 more organizations appended their signatures since the statement was originally published.
     It's been eight years since then. With all these great recommendations and practically the whole country in agreement on them, it should be a fairly straight and sunny path to reform, right?
     Wait. What exactly has Washington done since 2004 to address the education crisis and salvage NCLB?

      2009: Race to the Top. Over $4 billion dollars of Obama's Stimulus were allocated to reward states able to execute specific educational policies and demonstrate high quality education through testing. Result? Most importantly, nearly every state adopted common national standards. Monies were split between twelve winning states, each receiving between $75 and $700 million. Certain states changed their education policies to be more competitive in the Race. (By the way, the Race is over, in case no one told you.)
     And... that's it? Sorry, President. Big speeches don't satisfy me here. The DREAM Act was never signed into law. And even if it had been, it would have joined a painfully short list of approved bills that address secondary issues. Student loans. Various re-authorizations and extensions of older legislative material. Nothing revolutionary.
     Of course, due to the current political climate, Obama has no choice but to remain largely inactive with respect to his grand promises to reform education. In this, he follows in the footsteps of those before him -- every president since... Nixon?... has promised to deliver in this area, and nevertheless, in every term education continues to stagnate. One by one, countries around the world pass the United States.
     NCLB will remain my generation's cautionary tale for education. Everyone's optimistic right now, because the general consensus is NCLB was a Big Mistake, and that admission creates possibility for the future - at least on paper. NCLB, we say, reacted impulsively and even destructively to a disappointing reality. It saw the problems, yes - but did it understand them? Did it take the time necessary to see the true nature behind the nation's failings? Like doctors, a law can address symptomatic pain or structural problems. If you see a long line of infants floating down a raging river toward a waterfall, you can wade in a save a couple babies from certain death, or you can head up the bank and stop the one who's sending them down the river in the first place.
     As an inner-city educator, what do I see? I see a lot of frustration in our students and in our teachers. I see huge administrative paychecks and little accountability. I see lot of people so used to failure that they have lost the confidence needed to step forward without stumbling backward. I see a broken network between families and schools. I see a lot of passing the buck and finding someone else to blame. I see children (who were, legally, considered property of their parents not long ago) rebelling openly against those whose vocation it is to oversee their transformation into adulthood, whose hands are tied, who are thus unable to effectively direct their own institution.
     And what, then, is the solution? As educators, we've been patient but not pragmatic. We've been dedicated but not diligent. We need to raise the teaching profession to the same level of dignity and expertise as doctors and lawyers. This, in turn, requires a complete overhaul of the way teachers are trained, and the kind of people hired to teach. Earning the responsibility to oversee the development of the mind should be no less taxing than earning the responsibility to oversee the health of the body. (After all, don't these two areas together constitute the chief evidence of a truly civilized society? Why isn't Obama putting the same energy into education that he put into health care?) Let master teachers be supported by apprentice teachers still studying for full certification. And so on.
     In terms of ongoing bureaucratic issues, well, I don't think the problems caused by unions and lobbyists and poorly-constructed hierarchies and departments can be addressed satisfactorily until our political system is reformed. Until then, money will continue to have more power in deciding the fate of our children than it deserves.
     This is my gut instinct. I'll be the first to admit that I'm still pretty ignorant about the systems that determine who and what gets funding and what rules the games are played by. When I look at countries with higher student academic achievement, the same frustrations exist but on a significantly smaller scale.
     The Joint Organizational Statement is something I'd sign, but unless we find people strong enough to create a road map of how to get there, and give them the resources and authority to do so, it's not worth the paper it was written on.

Probably; after all, they're poor

     Humanity is increasingly becoming a civilization that tries to control complex social patterns so the race progresses. We try to find ways to intentionally encourage desirable traits and discourage undesirable traits. In essence, now that we've adopted the Darwinian vision of natural evolution, we seek to control our own evolution to ensure our future existence.
     The primary way to understand large-scale traits and patterns is through statistical analysis. While often useful, this technique is fundamentally at odds with the rights of the individual as enshrined, for example, in the Bill of Rights.
     That is why, for at least the past couple of years, American legislators and judges have been fumbling with the vague language employed in our Fourth Amendment (the prohibition of "unreasonable" searches and seizures).
     Let's look at an example in the news right now.
     In 2010, Governor of Florida Rick Scott introduced state legislation that would require those seeking welfare (under the federal program TANF, Temporary Assistance For Needy Families) to submit to a drug test. Applicants must pay for the $30 screening but are reimbursed afterward, provided they don't fail. This bill was signed into law in June 2011.
     Scott said that it was unfair for taxpayers to support the addictions of drug users; conversely, welfare can now act as an incentive to not use drugs.
     Shortly after Scott signed the bill, a delegation of Democratic representatives attacked the new legislation, calling it "downright unconstitutional." Rep. Alcee Hastings argued that the bill could set a precedent to require drug testings for all federal assistance programs, from Medicaid to education to emergency relief.
     Similar legislation in Michigan was overturned in a federal court in 2003. Moreover, in 1998 a pilot project in Jacksonville, Fl., tested almost 9000 applicants and found that less than 4% failed the test. Given that each test costs around $50 and applicants are awarded, on average, $250 per month, the program would be lucky to pay for itself.
     Besides the financial cost of the program, what about human rights? The Fourth Amendment states:
     The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
     "Probable cause" is a term that has been debated, but most agree that a warrant must be obtained as a result of information submitted by a law enforcement officer who has sworn an Affidavit. (A minority view suggests that "probable cause" means the same thing as "reasonable cause" and no evidence need be submitted or sworn in.)
     On Thursday The Daily Show ran a special segment that highlighted the sheer prejudice and hypocrisy of Scott's program. The stereotype is that, as Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi put it so well, "The poor love drugs," which is actually false. (I wonder if this suggests that there is, in fact, "class warfare" raging in America.) The inconsistent behavior is that state dollars spent on welfare deserve the attention of drug screening - but what about state and federal employees, and social service programs whose benefits are not reaped primarily be the poor? A dollar is a dollar, and if Rep. Scott wishes to make sure no taxpayer money is rerouted to fund destructive and addictive habits, everyone who receives state monies should be required to submit to similar screening.
     Of course, that's not the case, and that's why the bill was rightly overturned. Preliminary results show that 2.5% of applicants tested positive for drug use and 2% declined to take the test, whereas around 6% of Americans use drugs. (Earlier research revealed that government-assisted families were 50% more likely to report drug use than families receiving no assistance.) Scott is appealing the decision and I'm guessing that the case will end up in the Supreme Court, which means it will finally get the attention it deserves.
     In the meantime, Pennsylvania is advancing similar legislation - but in this case, drug testing is only required of felons with a drug-related conviction in the past five years. Does this constitute "probable cause"? In terms of statistical likelihood, absolutely. People with a history of drug abuse are more likely to return to drugs - that correlation is practically uncontested.
     But how likely? Is over 50% enough? What constitutes "probable"? Am I as an individual ready to be defined legally by the normative behavior of my supposed social class? I don't think I am. Regardless of what people like me have done, I want to be judged according to my own behavior. And if there's not much to go on, give me the benefit of the doubt.
     Ironically, I'm siding with the Democrats (who normally champion social engineering) against the Republicans (who normally champion the rights of the individual). The reason for this reversal, I suggest, may be because Republicans treat poor people as an isolated group and not as individuals. But what do I know?
     So, there are three questions to ponder:
     1. Does statistical probability count as probable cause? Read these two articles (1) (2) if interested. (This is the same problem in Arizona with respect to identifying "likely suspects" of illegal immigration).
     2. Are poor people really more likely to use drugs? My very brief online research, linked earlier in this article, turned up conflicting results.
     3. Is class warfare a myth or a reality? This is a pretty polarized issue right now so it's probably best just to mull it over and not post on it.
     You're welcome to share your thoughts and opinions - I'd like to hear them!

Built to last

Mayor: You see them, Mr Rango? All my friends and neighbors. It's a hard life here. Very hard. Do you know how they make it through each and everyday? They believe. They believe it's going to be better. The believe that the water will come. They believe against all odds and evidence that tomorrow will be better than today. (Rango, 2011)

     President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address was inspiring. I watched the likes/dislikes of the live Youtube stream go from about 60%/40% before the Speech to 68%/32% afterward. For a nation wallowing in recession and a political atmosphere comparable to the Grand Canyon, I'd call that pretty inspiring. According to Tweet volume, the President's most laudable delivery was on the subject of education (though this topical surge may be, at least partially, the result of the age of the average Tweeter).
     President Obama listed the improvements his administration has made on the country's domestic and foreign policies, and laid out an intelligent plan to attack ongoing problems. He addressed the splitting headache that constitutes D.C. politics, from insider trading to departmental inefficiency, and encouraged his fellow representatives to unite together, following the example of the American soldiers who risked their lives for the sake of each other and the sake of a common mission.
     God, I hope he'll stick around for another four years. I don't pretend to know much about politics, the economy or international relations, and I'm not so foolish as to think that President Obama is the ideal president. But I do know that Obama still possesses the ability to inspire. That counts for more than you might think.
     It's up to the US Congress to find points of political-center agreement where  bills can be created to advance the great arm of bureaucracy (that dirty word) in effective and affordable ways. As a separate arm of government, the executive branch can't make the House cooperate. Neither can the President introduce legislation - he can only suggest bills or policies he believes Congress should create.
     Of course, the President has other responsibilities, such as the nomination of federal judges, the direction of the executive branch of government (some five million federal employees) by way of executive orders - including the military - and last, decisions regarding foreign relations and affairs. He needs to be able to create a team of people to surround him, who he can lead well. And he needs to be able to inspire.
     President Obama can be criticized in many areas, but he's inconceivably better than the two current alternatives. Chronicled wonderfully in countless Daily Show episodes, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney backstab, change values in a heartbeat, play awful politics and cater to an extremist wing of a party that has, in my view, lost its way. If the Democratic party can seize the currently vacant political center, they could direct the country's affairs until the GOP reinvents itself.
     What if Romney (aptly called "a perfectly lubricated weathervane") were to become the forty-fifth President? If Obama is left-center, then Romney is right-center, which by itself is a fairly insignificant change. However, Obama has successfully inspired many Americans in spite of inheriting a ragged economy. Could Romney take over in this respect and finish what Obama started? Whether or not his administrative talents are slightly superior to Obama's is really a non-issue when his party is primarily concerned with downsizing Federal influence in every way. Obama has four year's experience; Romney will need to learn a new office and take time to figure out how to apply his knowledge of state governance to the level of nation-building.
      Obama inspires; the main criticism against Romney is that he is lack-luster in this respect. Frankly, when the chips are down, there needs to be a singular voice in Washington calling people to pull themselves up by their boot-straps, believe in themselves, their country, and their government. The Republican party calls people to believe in the so-called job-creators, to whom they owe all; and to distrust all government involvement as "interference." While I believe deep down that he knows better, Romney can't go too far afield from that line of thought without alienating his own party. There are too many lobbyists.
     I've also noticed that every time a new President is elected, it takes about a year for the new administration to tear down enough policy established by their predecessors before they can positively affect job growth. During that year, growth in all sectors is slow, and progress is minimal. By the time Romney's administration gets some momentum, there's only a year until congressional elections, and I'd bet money the House is going to flip back to a Democratic majority, in light of the ridiculous ideological posturing of the current representatives. Statistics show that the vast majority of Americans understand the fundamental necessity of compromise between the two parties to get things done.
     (And if Gingrich became President, God help us.)
     And where is the ideology of a party whose representatives declare publicly that their number one goal is to wrest political power for themselves? I'm sorry. Big government, small government, efficient government, whatever. I can't subscribe to a political organization that embraces such outspoken megalomaniacal behavior. (At least the Democrats fight that vice to the degree that not a single party member could ever get away with saying something like that publicly.)
     In any case, I suppose I shouldn't really worry too much about American politics, seeing as I don't intend to stick around more than a few more years. When I lived in Canada, as far as I was concerned, the US could rot in hell. However, having lived here, even in the Midwest - a place so diametrically opposed to my philosophies and thinking patterns - I have truly learned to love the country, the values it stands for, and its place in the world and in history. And I hope and pray that this is not the beginning of the end, but rather, as our President so poignantly put it, I've witnessed the beginning of an America built to last.

 

Why can't we all just get along?

     Stanley Fish's 1996 article in First Things, "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?", is a must-read. Despite continued leaps and bounds in the realms of science -- from plate tectonics and the moon landing to the human genome and a bonafide "wrinkle in time" -- it's amazing to see just how little progress has been made in the human art of philosophizing.
     In humankind's great experiment to ensure a permanent intellectual peacetime, the enlightenment effectively swallowed up the entire playing field. Liberalism depicts the mind as "not yet settled" on a particular set of dogmas (foundational beliefs from which thought proceeds). Fish offers the tenets of liberalism as follows:
     1. Even if you do not embrace a point of view you can still understand it
     2. Beliefs are analyzed by rational criteria which themselves are bound to no particular beliefs; they are objective
     3. A fixed commitment to an idea or value is a sign of cognitive and moral infirmity
     4. A reasonable mind is an open mind, ready to jettison its most cherished convictions
     In my recent experience in the worlds of education and institutional religion in the Midwest -- in sync with my time spent in Scotland and Canada in years gone by -- Fish is right to say that liberals, generally speaking, hold to these very tenets as dogmas. And I've been one of them. I've acted as an authority figure in matters religious, moral, ethical and philosophical, and I've promulgated the view that our society is meant to be one characterized by skepticism, tolerance and infidelity.
     Fish further argues that to suggest to the liberal that this message is self-contradictory, since it marginalizes and excludes (among others) the religious voice, might get you a conciliatory seat at the table of discussion, only to be patronized by ears which do not hear and eyes that politely stare before looking elsewhere for more "reasonable" contributors.
     I find this positively devastating. This means that there's an unresolvable intellectual and moral war in our society, and we've been doing a good job at fooling ourselves that if we could only universalize the principles of skepticism, tolerance and infidelity, it would yield that world which John Lennon imagined ten years after the publication of this article.
     Fish has been criticized as an extreme relativist and an anti-foundationalist. He got his start in medieval literature (especially Milton, quoted extensively in the article linked above) and then developed a literary theory that made central the interpretative communities of a given text -- akin to reader-response theory. For Fish, truth is always contingent (dependent) on the culture from whence it rises. Appropriately, perhaps, Terry Eagleton accuses Fish of being a liberal among liberals, having abandoned all hope of an objective plane from which to launch a properly robust and legitimate critique. (I'm truly sorry that I wasn't still in Edinburgh when Eagleton delivered his The God Debate Gifford lectures two years ago.)
     Two questions must be answered. First, is it possible to be committed and tolerant at the same time? What does that look like? Second, has liberalism as a movement graduated to that lofty, laurel-laden vantage point?
     I remember an article by Fish that I read in college, "Going Down the Anti-Formalist Road," published in 1989. Near the end of the article (p.29) he tries to clear up how anti-foundationalism (the denial in the existence of any truth, known or unknown, that operates as the basis for all real knowledge) does not contradict itself by offering itself as yet another foundation. This is basically the same issue the relativist faces when saying "There is no absolute truth" -- is that statement absolutely true?
     Fish comments, "Philosophers of a certain kind love this kind of argument, and one can almost hear them chortle as they make it." He observes that his thesis merely asserts the local, in-culture quality of all foundations, his own included, and the way in which they are established "by persuasion," that is, by argument and counter-argument, all limited by context, none of them "just there." And, as long as anti-foundationalism "holds the field" against all critics, it can be considered "absolutely true (at least for the time being)".
     Well, if you're like me, your brain is swimming right now. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Fish is right about modern-day liberalism. Whether or not it's possible to be at once tolerant and committed, we can say for certain that it's not happening often enough.
     And for myself, I've noticed a blatant undercurrent of tension and muddled thinking whenever I pronounce the rightness in accepting the (in my view ridiculous) literal beliefs of conservative Christians, whether about the rapture, the devil, the resurrection or the divine nature of Jesus. Even though I don't subscribe to those beliefs, I accept that others believe them.
     Unfortunately, the language of acceptance and tolerance is very ambiguous. As Fish states, do I treat the ramifications of those beliefs as credible and fully equal to my own? For example, if I married a woman of non-materialistic persuasions, and we raised a child, and that child became sick with leukemia, would I allow her to skip a visit to a medical clinic and simply trust to the priest? Hardly.
     Can tolerance, then, really be called tolerance if it excludes personal risk? I have a hard time seeing how.
     Real intellectual conflicts do exist in our world. It's difficult to identify universal principles that all people to agree on, and can be used as the basis of fruitful dialogue. The problem is only exacerbated if we consider societies on the other side of the globe, or those from centuries past. And throwing the blanket of tolerance over them does mitigate conflict, but to what extent does it do so falsely? Is it worth it?
     Maybe in some cases, it is. Right now we have a locked Congress with an approval rating lower than polygamy, made of two sides who refuse to compromise, much less tolerate each other. We have a country to run, an economy to bolster, and a debt to repay. Let's quit bickering and meet half-way, right?
     On the other hand, maybe the Conservative's open love for dogma has been mocked by the Liberal's equal but far more secret love for the same for too long. Could a deep-seated hypocrisy in the values I've embraced for years, the Enlightenment doctrine, produced the bitter and backwards politics we now see emanating from the GOP?
     It's a theory, and it's one I wish I could investigate further. But I can't think how. So I'll instead let mastication and rumination take over, keep my eyes and ears open, and see if these ideas ring true over the course of the next couple years.