The MOOC’s Not the Thing

Almost everybody in higher education is either figuring how they can make the MOOC (massively open online course) craze work for them or they are tearing their tweed jackets and skirts over it as they anticipate their sections of 12 or 15 being eaten by online gatherings of 20,000.

Angel investors are feeding beasts such as Udacity, Coursera, and EdX with their millions.  The toniest of institutions are rapidly aligning themselves with the new MOOC producers.  Those schools which are merely quite good need not apply.

It seems that everyone is making ready for a new world in which Harvard and MIT export their courses to the masses of students anxious to learn from the very best.  Khan Academy is scary enough.  What about HarvardX?

As irresistible as the premium MOOC seems, I think the change that is coming will take a different form.  I don’t think it will actually be the Harvards and MITs leading the charge.  Neither do I think the change producer will be the MOOC with thousands of students.

Tilt the prism just a few degrees and then you will have a better image to view.  What is going to happen is that educational publishers (and maybe some highly motivated individual academics, such as Jim Collins) are going to remake higher education.

Existing universities are not going to participate in their own destruction by outsourcing giant chunks of their operations to elite institutions.  What they will do, though, is work with educational publishers (and entrepreneurial individuals) to radically reduce the cost structure of teaching students.

The change is a simple one.  For a wide variety of courses, it would be easy to combine a package of text, short lectures that can be downloaded, slide packages, activities, and exams into a ready-made class.  The great professors, not the great institutions, will do this with the educational publishers in much the same way they do now.  All that is missing is to flesh out the current book, slides, tests, and reviews combo with some lectures and other activities.  Were he not now dead, James Q. Wilson (the dean of American Government professors) would easily be able to round out his famous textbook offering in just this way.

When these packages are ready, institutions hoping to cut cost will be able to hire master’s prepared instructors to facilitate the courses.  They won’t need to do the hard work of preparing content.  All of that will be done for them.  Neither will they need to plan.  Again, pacing will be part of the package.  All the instructor will need to do is to facilitate discussion, answer questions, and grade tests and papers.  With that workload, it will not be too difficult for a single instructor to handle five or six sections in a semester.  Because individuals with doctoral-preparation will not be needed (the doctor will be the one who comes in the package), the pay scale will be lower and the load per instructor will be higher.  If such a change can be accomplished, the savings are potentially immense.

I hasten to add that I am engaged in an exercise of prediction rather than of desire.  I love universities the way they are.  Teaching my own section of students who follow a plan of learning I have created for them is a joy.  It is especially wonderful if they are energetic participants in the exercise.

But I recognize that higher education is the latest sector to enter the path of Schumpeterian creative destruction.  When Schumpeter’s storm gets here, it will be via a revolution and expansion in educational publishing (by adding various media) rather than through the domination of MOOCs farmed out by the Ivies.

Tim Keller, Rachel Held Evans, and the Virginity of Young Christians

There is a fascinating tale of a brief Q & A with Tim Keller at the Christ and Pop Culture blog.  When asked about obstacles to revival, Keller pointed to fornication.  In other words, it is difficult to spiritually awaken people who have hard-wired a particular sin into their lives and have essentially committed to it.  If repentance means a large structural change, such as ending a co-habiting, sexual relationship, then it becomes that much less likely.

The part of the exchange that especially drew attention was the following:

Keller illustrated the point by talking about a tactic, one that he admittedly said was almost too cruel to use, that an old college pastor associate of his used when catching up with college students who were home from school. He’d ask them to grab coffee with him to catch up on life. When he’d come to the state of their spiritual lives, they’d often hem and haw, talking about the difficulties and doubts now that they’d taken a little philosophy, or maybe a science class or two, and how it all started to shake the foundations. At that point, he’d look at them and ask one question, “So who have you been sleeping with?” Shocked, their faces would inevitably fall and say something along the lines of, “How did you know?” or a real conversation would ensue. Keller pointed out that it’s a pretty easy bet that when you have a kid coming home with questions about evolution or philosophy, or some such issue, the prior issue is a troubled conscience.

Now, in my view, what Keller said is a very pastoral insight.  It is the kind of thing you learn from long experience dealing with church members and their children.  It also happens to be the kind of thing many of us have observed in our own lives.  For example, one of my very best friends had long been on fire for God.  When he became disappointed with his marriage, he suddenly became an expert critic of the Bible and questioned the concept of God’s authority.  We can see, in that instance, that the life circumstance prompted the doubts.  The values he had long embraced precluded leaving his wife.  So, he worked on deconstructing those values and justifying new ones.  One might also recall Augustine, whose conversion was held up to some degree by the fact that he had a mistress.

John Stonestreet of Summit Ministries and Prison Fellowship posted the story to his Facebook page and prompted feedback from Rachel Held Evans, who has become a successful writer on Christian topics, notably her experience as a Bryan College student and then again on trying out “Biblical womanhood.”  She took offense to what Keller said and wrote the following:

I’m often asked to speak on the topic of why young people leave the church. This. This is why young people leave the church. Because our questions aren’t taken seriously, because our value tends to be linked inextricably to our virginity, because our ideas are dismissed as silly.

I want to address one piece of what Rachel had to say.  ”[O]ur value tends to be linked inextricably to our virginity . . .”  To argue that the church has made something of a fetish out of virginity for young people is to essentially argue against the lordship of Christ and against the value of sexual purity.

When you are in high school and college, sex is the prime locus of the fight for sanctification.  It is the battle that is appropriate to the age.  You are on the edge of marriage during those years.

In the Christian understanding, sex is a marital act.  It is fitting that you and your spouse should have it in common only with each other.  To remain a virgin prior to marriage is to align oneself consciously with God and the church in viewing ourselves as uniquely and wonderfully human (in the image of God).  It is to renounce the reigning cultural logic which follows the popular lyric, “You and me, baby, we ain’t nothing but mammals, so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”  In remaining virgins, we deny that we are at the mercy of animal instincts and assert that we are capable of adhering to higher laws than those which are merely biological.  To marry as a virgin is to demonstrate submission to God, love for one’s future spouse, and to offer up a witness to the world.

The church does us no disservice in emphasizing these points.  Rather, to the extent we embrace these teachings we experience a richer and fuller life both in obedience to Christ and in greater intimacy with our spouses.

Following Up on “An Astonishing Message from a Gay Sister in Christ”

Straight away, I must mention that the open letter from my friend has occasioned an incredible response.  It touches a nerve right in that amazing third paragraph.  If you want to know why that letter has been linked, reprinted, and repeated so often, the answer is there.  ”To those of you who would change the church to accept the gay community and its lifestyle: you give us no hope at all.”

It is counterintuitive.  The reader would expect this gay woman to plead for the church to accommodate itself to the times.  But she doesn’t do that.  Rather, she sees herself as a sinner and reaches for the bracing, redemptive, and cleansing blood of Christ rather than the lukewarm saliva of evolving culture.

I think there is some controversy over whether we should call this woman “a gay sister in Christ” as I have called her.  When Justin Taylor posted her letter, he referred to her simply as “a lesbian.”  In my view, the author of the letter is clearly a sister in Christ, even though she is still in the gay lifestyle.  The more I think on the matter, the more certain I am.  My whole life, I have been guilty of a variety of sins.  Sins of ego.  Sins of putting myself first.  Sins of abusing my body in order to obtain pleasure (as with chronic overeating).  I think of others who can pass through 50 years in a church with obvious sins of treating others badly without ever incurring displeasure of other church members or having a church discipline team visit them.

Homosexuals in the church, even those in the lifestyle, are in no different position than many of us are.  They are sinners who are sinning.  So, too, are the Christian college students having sex and still coming to church or any of the other people in the church who have sin in their lives.  The definition of a Christian is a person who proclaims that Jesus Christ is Lord and sees him as his/her only hope for salvation.  That definition does not entail being without sin.  It seems to me that my anonymous friend is clearly in the fold.  Indeed, she may be very close to God right now because she is so aware of her sin and so clear in pinning her hopes for deliverance in this life and resurrection in the next upon Him.  May we all examine ourselves and our plight so carefully and accurately.

An Astonishing Message from a Gay Sister in Christ

(You must make it to the third paragraph in order to understand.)

To the churches concerning homosexuals and lesbians:

Many of you believe that we do not exist within your walls, your schools, your neighborhoods. You believe that we are few and easily recognized. I tell you we are many. We are your teachers, doctors, accountants, high school athletes. We are all colors, shapes, sizes. We are single, married, mothers, fathers. We are your sons, your daughters, your nieces, your nephews, your grandchildren. We are in your Sunday School classes, pews, choirs, and pulpits. You choose not to see us out of ignorance or because it might upset your congregation. We ARE your congregation. We enter your doors weekly seeking guidance and some glimmer of hope that we can change. Like you, we have invited Jesus into our hearts. Like you, we want to be all that Christ wants us to be. Like you, we pray daily for guidance. Like you, we often fail.

When the word “homosexual” is mentioned in the church, we hold our breaths and sit in fear. Most often this word is followed with condemnation, laughter, hatred, or jokes. Rarely do we hear any words of hope. At least we recognize our sin. Does the church as a whole see theirs? Do you see the sin of pride, that you are better than or more acceptable to Jesus than we are? Have you been Christ-like in your relationships with us? Would you meet us at the well, or restaurant, for a cup of water, or coffee? Would you touch us even if we showed signs of leprosy, or aids? Would you call us down from our trees, as Christ did Zacchaeus, and invite yourself to be our guest? Would you allow us to sit at your table and break bread? Can you love us unconditionally and support us as Christ works in our lives, as He works in yours, to help us all to overcome?

To those of you who would change the church to accept the gay community and its lifestyle: you give us no hope at all. To those of us who know God’s word and will not dilute it to fit our desires, we ask you to read John’s letter to the church in Pergamum. “I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise, you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore!” You are willing to compromise the word of God to be politically correct. We are not deceived. If we accept your willingness to compromise, then we must also compromise. We must therefore accept your lying, your adultery, your lust, your idolatry, your addictions, YOUR sins. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

We do not ask for your acceptance of our sins any more than we accept yours. We simply ask for the same support, love, guidance, and most of all hope that is given to the rest of your congregation. We are your brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not what we shall be, but thank God, we are not what we were. Let us work together to see that we all arrive safely home.

A Sister in Christ

The Importance of a Papal Name

Habemus Papem!

By now this turn of events is hardly cutting edge news.  We have heard about the Argentinian pope.  So, too, have we heard of his choice of a name, which is Francis.  With time, further elaboration ties this Francis to probably the greatest Francis who ever lived: Francis of Assisi.  

That old Francis is remembered for his love of God’s creatures, his otherworldliness, his care for the poor, and for simply being a holy man.  His life is a marker of something very potent in the story of the church.

We look at the short stretch of history in which we live and assume that we are part of some long, linear progression in one direction.  Thus, we assume that everyone was a committed Christian back in the past and that the church has lost and continues to lose ground in inexorable fashion over the centuries.  But this is not so.  The church waxes and wanes.  It is sometimes very clear and penetrating in its prophetic challenge to the broader society.  At other times, it becomes very worldly and comfortable with the establishment.  Oddly enough, we tend to see its worldly successes as the time of its greatest impact.  But the opposite is the case.  

In those times when the church operates just like any other important institution wielding power in predictable ways, we see that individuals rise up and begin to call Christ’s own to return.  Return to God.  Follow Him.  Stop resting on the ways of the world.  Protestants look at Martin Luther as one of those people.  But there are others.  Francis of Assisi was one of them.  

Perhaps this Francis will take his place in the ranks of the great reformers.  May it be so.  We Christians are watching.

Remembering an Encounter with a Young Pastor in a Park

Several years ago my wife and I were at a park playing with our son (then just a toddler).  We noticed a younger couple having a wonderful good time playing with their child around the swings.  Somehow it happened that the two wives starting talking together as did the two husbands.  I discovered that the young man was a Lutheran seminarian or pastor in training.  At that moment I was worrying about gay marriage (this was well ahead of the controversy we are embroiled in today). The young pastor asked me, “Why are you so concerned about that?  Isn’t it evident enough that men are made for women and women for men?  Hasn’t God made it clear in His creation?”  At the time I was annoyed, but the message has remained with me.  Why should I struggle and worry about the nature of marriage?  God has made it more than clear in his design.

Today, I find myself frequently remembering what he said to me.  Marriage is changing rapidly.  Though the democratic results have largely been in favor of traditional marriage, all of us can feel the massive change that has occurred among elites and the young.  It is coming.  Marriage may well be altered for a long time to come.  And yet I remember that God has made the matter evident.  If we make this change, it will be on us and on the way we have chosen to alter our minds.

When I ponder what the young pastor said, I sometimes think that I should give up on any concept of culture war.  Why insist on something when great masses of people seem bent on going a different way?  But I can turn that thinking around to twist myself in a knot.  There have been times when great masses of people were convinced that dark men were not men.  And yet had not God made it evident that they were men?  Indeed, he had.  Anyone could see that the black man was a man and not a beast of burden.  We experienced judgment in the form of a terrible war and the subsequent malformation of our politics and culture which continues to this day.

I think we must be faithful by reasoning in the public square and by championing the truth as we have light to see it.  That is the task before us whether we prevail or not.  But fundamentally, the most important war is the one being fought by the young pastor.  That is the war of the spirit.  When our spirits are submitted to God, he will show us the way.  The question is whether we will be interested in knowing Him.

A Refreshing View on Gender and the Workplace

I wanted to stand up and cheer after reading this exchange in the Wall Street Journal between an interviewer and Lauralee Martin, chief of Americas at the commercial real estate giant Jones Lang LaSalle:

WSJ:  Real-estate brokerage traditionally has been a male-dominated business.  How do you think you could help other women at JLL succeed as you have?

Ms. Martin:  I will have to say that I haven’t personally spent a lot of time thinking about gender, and maybe that is why I have done well.

Bravissimo, Ms. Martin!

My Ten Year Old President

If I Were President for a Day by Andrew Baker (10)

If I were president, I would start off by making my sister first lady. I’d choose Connor to be my vice-president. Soon, I would familiarize myself with the White House. Of course, I’d bring my cat Felix with me.

Next, I’d pass the Anti-Crime Act, which would prevent anyone from doing anything evil. In order to reinforce that law, I’d build a crime detector. The crime detector would locate crime instantly and transmit that news to a nearby police station. That way, people could live peaceful lives.

Then, I’d make machines that could make people’s lives easier and better. For example, a machine that heals broken bones, or a gadget that would defy gravity. Even a teleporter that sends mail! 

Later, I would send astronauts into space to locate another planet capable of supporting life. Then, we could make an alliance with that planet. That way we might someday be able to explore much more of space. Who knows what kind of new things we could discover!

Lastly, I would give a speech. It would be about how much good I’ve done. After the speech, I’d retire. After all, I can’t lead the USA forever, can I? It would also make a world record of the shortest time as president ever. And that would be one day.

Jury Duty: A Lesson in Deep Civics

I’ve been tapped for jury duty in Madison County, Tennessee.  Recently, I joined 70-80 other citizens in a courtroom.  We were oriented by a polite judge who explained that for the next two months the state of Tennessee would have first claim on our time.  Each night we are to call a number which will reveal whether our services will be needed the next day.  After the orientation, the judge met with many individuals, including me, who petitioned for particular days off during the two months because of plans already made.

When it was my turn to speak to the judge, he treated me with respect and granted my request.  I walked out of the courtroom, down the stairs, and got into my car.  By the time I sat down and grabbed the steering wheel, my hands were shaking.

I had a fairly smooth experience.  So why the apparently excessive reaction?

The answer is simple.  For the first time in my life, I personally had to ask an officer of the government whether I would be allowed to spend certain days in certain places.  It was completely in the power of the judge to prevent me from leaving town in order to serve on juries yet to be empaneled.  There was something about that fact that shook me to the core.

Is it outrageous that a judge should be able to corral citizens for a period of about two months and call upon them as needed for jury service?  I don’t know.  Certainly, it seems that something like that power is necessary for us to offer trial by juries.

The point of this brief deliberation is not to call for an end to jury duty.  Instead, I think there is a lesson to be learned.  Government power is an awesome power.  Citizens who have committed no wrong of any kind can be taken by the shoulder and compelled to pay taxes, serve on juries, or even leave home and fight in a war.

An instrument of this type must not be overused.  That essentially libertarian insight is difficult to overstate.  Because government is the simplest way to make something happen — coercion by raw force is often the simplest — those who would bring about a better order will always be tempted to employ its power.  Every time we increase the power of Leviathan we should shudder a little and take comfort in knowing that we only did so after the most agonizing and wakeful deliberation.

The Paradox of Respect: A Personal Insight

My wife and I enjoy watching the genre of television programs in which various consultants go in and try to save failing businesses.  Gordon Ramsay may have invented the basic model with his Kitchen Nightmares.  It has been replicated with shows about restaurants, hotels, bars, car lots, salons, and other businesses.

If you watch the programs, one thing becomes clear immediately.  The worst workers in virtually any business are the people who are obsessed with the question of whether they are being disrespected.

I happen to be in a good position to deliver this news, because exactly this issue came up in one of my first professional positions.  Once, I sat (as a very junior person) in a high level meeting and casually doodled on my copy of the meeting agenda.  The notes I was making illustrated my disdain for the process we were going through.  One of my superiors was in the meeting and later expressed his disapproval of what I’d been doing.  He had seen what I was writing.

My reaction?  Contrition?  Personal re-examination?  A desire to make things better?  None of the above.  Instead, I became so angry with this man with whom I worked that I was unable to enter the building the following morning.  I was ready to come to blows because I had convinced myself that he had disrespected me.  What business was it of his what I wrote on a piece of paper, anyway?  Today, at age 42 it is easy to see how wrong I was.  But back then, I was blind.  It shouldn’t surprise anyone that it took me several years to learn some of the important lessons required to become a more successful person.

Instead of struggling through the problems that come from assuming you deserve boundless respect when you have done little to earn it, consider letting someone else’s mistakes (like mine) be a placeholder for your own.  If you do good work and conduct yourself in a way that earns respect from others, you will receive it.  Paradoxically, if you run around kicking against the goads and carrying on about the respect you deserve, you will receive far less of it and will likely be thought a fool.

My One True Valentine

Ruth Elaine Baker, you are the girl I remember looking so cute wearing a Florida State tanktop and gym shorts. You are the girl who taught me how to change a tire after seeing me ride around on a spare for a couple of weeks. You are the girl who encouraged a young, clueless, new Christian to read about his faith (and created an academic). You are the girl who took my breath away that day you showed up with a new perm and a stone-washed jean jacket. You are the girl who was so earnest and serious behind those glasses framed in long, brown hair.

You became the woman who is the hero of 3 a.m. to mothers and babies in trouble, who is the mother of my children, and who makes me want to be worthy of her. Today is no different from any other day, but I hope you know that I still love you like no other, find you utterly irreplaceable, and look forward to spending all the days God has allotted to me with you.

Love,

Hunter

Donald Trump, Ed Koch, and the Ice Skating Rink: A Tale of Bureaucracy

James Q. Wilson’s terrific book Bureaucracy has an interesting story about Donald Trump and New York mayor Ed Koch.  The year was 1986.  The city of New York had spent six years and $13 million failing to build an ice skating rink in Central Park.  In early summer that year, Donald Trump proposed to Mayor Ed Koch that he take over the project for $3 million and promised to cover any excess amounts himself rather than go back to the city.  By late October the project was finished and was three quarters of a million dollars under budget.  

How do you explain this story?  Why was the city of New York so inept that it could not do in six years and with five times the money what Donald Trump was able to achieve in a few months?

There are several reasons why the city failed so miserably, but ultimately, the answer is that when government tries to do something, everything is infected by politics.  For example, when the city planned to build the rink, the type of fuel used for refrigeration was a political matter.  When Trump built the rink, he only worried about getting a reliable refrigeration unit.  The city also had to abide by standards for equitable bidding of the project.  Trump only had to give the contract to someone he knew could get the job done.  Most important, when the city had the project there wasn’t much incentive to contain cost. No member of the government would personally have to cover cost overruns.  Trump, on the other hand, accepted responsibility for coming in at or under the budget as the only way he could come out ahead.

As we continue to expand our government, we need to be thinking about what we really want.  Bureaucracy gives us all kinds of things that we emphasize in our politics such as politically correct energy, equity and diversity in bidding, protection of union members, and providing jobs for government workers.  On the other hand, sometimes you just want your skating rink by December.

22 Veteran Suicides Daily: Social Statistics and You

I just saw a headline that says 22 military vets commit suicide each day. Here’s the question: Does that information, alone, tell you what you need to know so that you can judge the significance of the statement?

The answer is no. The intent of the headline would lead you to believe that having served in the military somehow makes a person more likely to commit suicide. In order to judge whether there is any significance here, we would need to know the rate of suicide among people who have never served. If the rate is significantly greater, then fine, you may have something. But the rate may well be the same or even less, in which case the headline would indicate the opposite of what the reporter probably intended. It would indicate veterans are actually more mentally composed than other people.

The point? Don’t consume social statistics without thinking about the context necessary to make the numbers mean something.

An Out of the Box Immigration Solution: A NAFTA Worker Agreement

Immigration is heating up again as a political issue with the second term president and others discussing possible answers to the low level chaos which currently characterizes the movement of workers between Mexico and the United States.  The basic outlines of plans to address the problem shift to fit familiar lines of argument.  I would like to suggest a novel approach.

To state the matter very succinctly, we should deal with immigration in the context of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  NAFTA provided for the free movement of goods across the border.  The best way to handle the immigration problem is to provide for the free movement of workers across the border, as well.  We could accomplish this goal by negotiating a worker addendum to the agreement in existence. 

How would it operate?  Citizens from the countries involved in the agreement would be free to enter the member states to work.  All they would need to do is to register as a foreign worker, obtain a proxy for a social security number which would allow for simple payment of taxes, and find employment.

This solution would simplify matters significantly.  Workers would not need amnesty as they would not be in the country illegally.  They would not need to fear reporting crimes or traffic accidents because they need not fear deportation.  American states could provide things like driver’s licenses without fear of creating some presumption of citizenship.

There would still be the matter of children of registered workers being born in the United States with birthright citizenship.  However, those children would no longer be tied to parents living in the United States in a quasi-criminal, illegitimate way.  

Rather than giving amnesty to the many illegals in the United States today and setting yet another bad precedent to encourage future law breaking, we can offer current illegals a simple path to living legitimately in the U.S. as a NAFTA registered worker.  Capital moves freely.  Goods move freely.  Why not let the workers move freely?  We can protect the value of American citizenship, while simultaneously ending the problem of having a large population of illegals within our borders.

The Wife of Your Youth

Proverbs 5 advises a man to “rejoice in the wife of your youth.”  As I age, I find that those words penetrate deep into my soul.  

I married at the age of 24.  Much is made of the first year of marriage.  People talk and act as though the first year is by far the sweetest, while the rest is a long slide downhill.  I haven’t found that belief to be true.  

The wife of my youth was exciting and often intoxicating when I was young.  When we dated, I can remember that spending any time away from her was almost intolerable.  Our time as a young married couple was wonderful.  I loved meeting her at our apartment after work.  We went out to eat and I stared at her happily as she recounted the events of her day. In the mornings, we would sit at our folding card table (the only kitchen table we had) which shook and spilled my sweet wife’s overfilled coffee each time she crossed her legs.  We played endless rounds of double solitaire at that same table in the evenings.  

Now, I am 42 years old.  We have been married almost 18 years.  The worldly narrative is that I would be climbing the walls, tired of the same old woman after nearly two decades. Weary of her quirks and her stories.  Bored with her now familiar physical charms.  

But I will tell you something.  None of that is true.  I am far from sick of the wife of my youth.  After nearly 20 years together and two children, I still love to hear her talk about her day.  Instead of a loss of things like novelty and excitement, I have mostly marked a process of addition.  For example, I have been touched by her care for our children and the powerful drive she has to make their lives special.  On another front, she has been with me through so many struggles and anxieties largely unknown to the world outside our home.  She knows how I think and feel about more things in life than anyone else.  When I look for a word to describe what she means to me, the one that comes most readily to mind is “irreplaceable.”  She is irreplaceable in my life.  

I wish the same for anyone who happens to read this short reflection.  May God lead you to a spouse you can rejoice in as you age.  And may he grant you the wisdom to work through the challenges so you can stack years like bricks in a strong house.  We have been building for a long time together.  I like this home we’ve constructed.  I have no desire to switch it out for a fashionable apartment with a short lease somewhere else in town.

A Competitive Market in Government?

The great thing about federalism is that it holds states up to the competitive test. If you become fed up with the failed policies of California or Illinois, you can head for Indiana or Texas.

If the central government in Washington, D.C. blows it, on the other hand, . . . you have a bigger problem.

Nevertheless, the days when you can lock up your citizens (like the old Soviets did) are just about over. If a nation’s leadership proves itself incompetent, it will have to add a mass exodus to its list of problems.

Folks have options.  Especially the folks you might most like to keep on your team.

A Sign Sitting in a Field: Thoughts on the Incompleteness of Goal-Setting

 

A little more than twenty years ago, I saw this sign sitting in a field outside my hometown.  At the time, I was preparing to begin a graduate program in public administration at the University of Georgia.  When I saw the sign, I got a little excited.  There was some romance and color involved in its message.  What would the institute look like?  What kind of mission would it have?  What is “higher level thinking?”  

Twenty years later, though, the sign is not very inspiring.  Instead, it serves as a lesson about ambition.  As we enter resolution season with the beginning of a new year, we might do well to think about a sign sitting in a field for a couple of decades or so.  When you advertise your hopes and dreams to the public, makes sure you have the next steps in mind and are ready to act upon them.  

The Future of Higher Education

The American Interest and Nathan Harden suggest one future here.  You can get my take here.  I think my view maybe goes a little further in terms of the possibilities.

Capitalism and the Fulfillment of Karl Marx’s Dream

One of Karl Marx’s major critiques of capitalism was that industrialists create “surplus value” using the labor of workers and then reserve that value for their own enrichment.  The workers, then, receive nothing more than subsistence while the capitalist builds a massive fortune.  He thought that if the workers could remove the capitalist from the picture, they could appropriate the surplus value created by their own labor for themselves and thus gain a combination of greater income and leisure.

Now, there are a number of problems with Marx’s presentation of the situation.  The most obvious is that he attributes no value to the capitalist who may have invented the business that creates the value and certainly took significant risks to fund the enterprise.  Another problem is that labor is not merely awarded with subsistence pay.  In a free market situation, more productive labor commands a premium.  Thus, workers are able to bargain for a portion of the surplus value based on the differential value of their contribution.  

But all of that is slightly beside the point.  One of Marx’s dreams was that the overthrow of the capitalist would create substantial leisure time which would allow men and women to pursue their interests, such as poetry, the study of music, astronomy, or whatever else one might imagine. 

It is an interesting irony of history that capitalism has provided the leisure time Marx hoped would become available to the working man.  All one need do to see it is to review the vast number of special interest blogs, associations, publications, and other indicators of a massive hobby class devoted to avocations too extensive to estimate.  Not only has capitalism provided conditions for the worker to enjoy much leisure time, it has also generated riches sufficient (or maybe just short of sufficient as evidenced by our annual deficits) to fund long retirements and periods of unemployment and disability that run into years.  

The socialist dream has become a capitalist reality.

A Better Answer than Gun Control

What happened in Connecticut is an astounding tragedy.  Who can understand why an alienated young man would kill elementary school children who can bear no connection to his misery?  

I have seen a number of responses to the awful events of that Friday blaming a lack of gun control laws.  I’m not a gun guy.  I don’t like them.  I fear the possibility of my children being hurt by a gun either in my home or some other house.  

But gun control seems like a less good answer than a security guard at the entrance to each school. Nobody gets in without clearing security first. It is inconvenient and unpleasantly restrictive, but better than trying to gain inventory control over every firearm in America.

As things stand now, I could walk into my child’s elementary school and do almost anything.  There is no one to stop me.  The ladies at the front desk might take note and try to get some response from visitors, but the actual security level is very low.  

The fundamental purpose of government is protection.  It is not welfare payments, the provision of insurance, the redefinition of marriage, or any number of other purposes we have adopted.  Government is there to deter and punish those who do wrong.  If we are going to have public schools, then perhaps we should make sure that there is only one way into a building and that any visitors have to get past an armed security guard.  I can imagine few better uses of tax money than securing the place where we send our greatest treasures.

Social Conservatism and a Scene of Despair

I gathered my order from the counter at Hardee’s and took a table where I began to read The Man Who Was Thursday.  When I sat down, I noticed a pale woman sitting with an unopened bag of food.  She looked sallow and unhealthy.  

As I read, she began to cough.  Each cough was deep and seemed to rattle in her chest.  This was no simple cold.  I thought about picking up my food and moving, but I felt it would be insulting to her to do so.  I continued to read and listened to that attention-getting cough of hers.  

Finally, I discovered I could not give the book the attention I wanted to because I had become focused on the woman behind me.  For the moment, at least, she had become more present to me than G.K. Chesterton.  I got up and walked my tray over to the trash receptacle.  Looking her way, I saw that she was hunched over and working her way through a substantial stack of lottery cards.  With great concentration and methodical effort, she scratched away the silver coating on the numbers.  Occasionally, she punctuated her practice with long, ragged ugly coughing noises.

Those lottery tickets she must have spent at least $20 dollars on (more than for the flip flops on her feet) came from the state of Tennessee.  I thought about how she is addicted to gambling thanks to the active assistance of her government.  I also thought about how addicted the rest of us have become to the revenue.

If you want to understand social conservatives, thinking about the woman in Hardee’s scratching away at lottery tickets is a good way to start.  We want to encourage the things in life that help a person grow strong:  faith, work, education, character, duty, and family.  We want to work against the things that seem to shrivel up a soul such as perpetual dependence, reliance on games of chance rather than personal industry, an inability to connect consequences to choices, and the loss of the kind of strong family ties that prepare a person for life in a hard world.

At a minimum, we don’t want to support a government which invites the poor to sacrifice what little they have for a mirage.  We have lost that argument everywhere.  And more’s the pity.

Will You Give Your Life to . . . ?

You’ve been missing something.  You have lived your life wondering whether there might be anything greater than yourself, some cause, some great undertaking to which you might dedicate your life.  You have experienced many of the world’s possibilities, eaten many meals, played with many toys, accumulated goods, but still found yourself dissatisfied.  

Perhaps now you have come to a time of decision.  Maybe you are ready to move to a different level.  You are ready to leave lesser things behind as you subordinate your life and goals to something big enough that you can place your hopes upon it.

What I am asking is this:  ”Are you ready to give your life to the Southeastern Conference of the NCAA?”

Or maybe you already have?  We have meetings every Saturday.

There are a couple of options for self-reflection here.  If you really have given your life to the SEC, then you should try to get it back.  College football is a wonderful diversion, but if you find yourself constantly thinking about divisions, playoff scenarios, recruiting classes and the like, then it may be time to revisit your priorities.  The same advice applies if you live your whole week just waiting for Saturday which will climax in a great game with roughly the same import (to you) of the fate of great civilizations.  Rome fell.  Yeah, but did you see what happened to the program at Auburn?  Wow.  Cataclysmic!

The second option is a bit more subversive and less obvious.  Do you treat Sundays and the church the way you do the SEC?  Does the church serve as your primary form of entertainment?  Are you constantly attending new churches looking for a bigger thrill and a more entertaining experience?  Do you perform a score-keeping function as you watch different teams of Christians compete in the culture wars?  Do you despair with every setback as though your favorite college lost the big one on Saturday?

Whether you worship at the altar of the SEC or you treat the church as though it were the SEC, there is a more important question out there.  And really, there is nobody quite so good as my fellow southerners to ask this question.

Have you submitted your entire life and being to God the father and Jesus Christ his son?  Do you try to discern how God would have you make every decision?  Are you sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, not only in how you should pray or read, but also in how you respond to the needs of others?  Do you concern yourself primarily with how you can bring something to the church?  Or are you mostly worried about whether you are being properly “fed.”  Are you a lot more loyal to the SEC or to your team than you are to any church body?

Good questions for all of us.

A Current Reflection on the Nature of Media Bias

Listening to NPR recently, I heard a story about Ambassor Susan Rice and her recent travails regarding Benghazi and the administration response.  The reporter related information and opinions gathered from supporters and critics in an attempt to give listeners information needed to decide how to view recent events and significant actors such as Ms. Rice.

So far, so good.  But what happened next was interesting.  It turned out that the reporting on Rice was merely an introduction to a much larger story about Kelly Ayotte, the U.S. senator from New Hampshire.  Listeners learned that Ayotte has been a significant critic of Ms. Rice despite her mere two years in the senate.  It also turns out, the reporter noted, that Ayotte was often spoken of as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney.  In the discussion of Ayotte, there was really none of the full-orbed treatment afforded to Ambassador Rice.  Instead, the listeners were left with a vague sense that there was something not quite right about this Senator Ayotte person.  Remember, the story was ostensibly about Ambassador Rice’s difficulties of late.

If you pay attention, you can learn something about the nature of media bias.  Looking at a room full of excrement with a Democrat standing in the middle, the reporters start digging frantically.  After all, there’s got to be a Republican in there somewhere.

The Rich as a National Resource

As we near the so-called fiscal cliff at which time, among other things, the Bush tax cuts (which benefitted everyone, basically) are close to an end.  They would be replaced by the Clinton tax rates which preceded them.  All the attention has been on the fact that the highest Clinton rates (up to 39%) would result in more taxes on high income earners.  There has been little discussion of how more taxpayers on the lower end would have to pay higher taxes.  Personally, I welcome the return of the Clinton rates.  A few extra points is not too much to pay in order to broaden the base of taxation.  The more citizens who pay taxes,  the more interested they will be in fiscal policy.  

Of late, however, many on the left have expressed a substantial interest in MUCH higher taxes on top earners.  More than a few modern liberals have spoken with affection of the times when marginal tax rates of 90% or higher enforced a greater degree of equality.  At the same time, they note that the U.S. experienced economic expansions during periods when we had very high rates.  

First, I will deal with the latter point.  Has the U.S. had good economies during times of high tax rates?  Certainly.  It is possible to have good economies and high tax rates because people find ways to defeat the confiscatory impact of high taxes.  For example, today’s corporate exec may get a very high salary and join an exclusive private club.  Such an exec in a high tax regime may work for a company that builds its own golf course which the execs may enjoy for a very low fee.  In addition, the company may invest in all kinds of perks related to the headquarters building and other benefits.  Many of the rich benefits we are losing now are relics of a time when people sought to blunt the impact of income taxes by having companies provide non-cash rewards.  There were other ways to defeat confiscation.  Tax credits for speculative investments, various tax shelters, obscure loopholes in the code.  Though marginal rates have sometimes been radically different, the actual take from the rates has been more steady.  People will only pay so much before they will start to work hard NOT to pay more.  The key in tax policy is to find a rate which people will pay without working too hard to avoid taxes.  Such a policy is more efficient because it should bring in more money and not waste human energy in schemes to dodge payment.  

The bigger issue, here, though, is the attitude exemplified by viewing a 90% top marginal rate with favor.  I think the best way to get at these things is by asking basic questions.  Why should those who earn more pay a much higher rate than others?  After all, a man who makes 100,000 dollars will pay 10,000 dollars at a ten percent rate while a man who only makes 10,000 dollars will only pay 1,000 dollars.  Such a principle would treat the two men as equals and yet would still make the wealthier man pay more.  Why do we want to create a special higher rate for the person who makes more money?  What justifies us in this plan of action?  Rousseau (never thought of as a conservative) argued for a principle of law in which all laws must apply to all people equally.  Otherwise, it would always be in the interest of a majority to target a minority for confiscation or other advantage-making.  

The main answer that comes back is that if the government has additional needs, it is better to look to the rich to make up the difference than to ask others to pay.  There is an immediate problem with that perspective in the sense that we probably honor notions of equality and citizenship better by asking rich and poor to pay an equal percentage of all costs if not an equal amount.  It may be a greater problem still to encourage part of the population to look another part of the population as a national resource of some kind, which can be exploited as needed.  

A pragmatist will shun these notions of principle and favor the expediency of taxing the wealthy at higher levels.  It is true that they will feel less impact from higher rates, up to a point.  The problem (setting principle aside, which is dangerous) is that the appetite for asymmetric taxation will only grow.  Note England with its 50% rate on millionaires.  What have they achieved other than a sense of satisfaction?  Fewer millionaires.  Rich people are mobile.  Are you going to lock them up so you can tax them?  France is ready to undergo a similar experiment with its 75% top rate.

The question of locking people up so you can tax them takes us back to the arena of principle.  Do we think we own the rich?  Or would it be better to encourage the sense that we truly are all in this thing together and that the decisions of all will affect all?

The Worst Column about Texas of All Time

Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s columns appear with regularity in my old hometown papers The Decatur Daily and The Huntsville Times.  They are often homespun and interesting.  Regrettably, Ms. Johnson has broken that streak with the column I am required to anoint as The Most Egregious Strawman Construction Project of Recent Memory or alternately, The Worst Column I Have Ever Read.

Johnson begins the column “in the Free State of Texas” with a desolate scene.  Loose trash blows about on cold, windy streets.  (There’s no one to pick it up because the national trash removal service has been banished!  Never mind that there is no national trash removal service.  There would be one without awful states like Texas to stand in the way!)  A self-satisfied man sits and burns books on the fire to keep warm.  The books come from the town’s library.  It sits nearby with windows broken on the first day of secession.  There are fewer books to burn than might be expected as a citizen’s group has “swept the shelves” of “offensive literature” such as Twain, Steinbeck, and Shakespeare.  (My dear sweet heaven, can I go on describing this ridiculous piece of writing to you?  I must.)

Everyone has a concealed weapon.  The parks are dangerous.  No one can figure out who should empty trash or clean toilets (because local authorities could never handle something so difficult), so buildings are padlocked.  The man burning books to stay warm wonders whether Alabama and Kansas have “broken loose.”  Alabama was a state that could be counted upon “to be on the right side of history.” (Because anyone against collectivism must be in favor of slavery.  A most subtle pen at work here.  Behold.)

Even if a person had a television or radio (and this man does not), one would be unable to hear the now blocked “government-controlled airways.”  Such possessions as televisions and radios, by the way, have been lost “to enthusiastic looters the state police couldn’t stop.”  (Yes, in Texas as in every other state, the brave federal police maintain order.  Oh, wait . . . Law enforcement is predominantly carried out by the states.  Ms. Johnson is a victim of constitutional illiteracy.  Don’t worry, Ms. Johnson, the disease is epidemic.  You are very far from being alone.  And take note, those looters are apparently unworried about all the private citizens packing the weapons that made everyone nervous in a previous paragraph.)

For the big Twilight Zone type finish, Johnson has the freedom-loving Texan toss another book on the fire for warmth.  The cover reads Atlas Shrugged.  DA DA DUMMMMMMM!!!

I am emphatically not in favor of secession, nor is any such thing likely to happen in America.  It is no better an idea now than it was when some on the left floated the notion after the re-election of George W. Bush.  What I find objectionable is first the broad-brush, ugly slander on the character of a great state and its people.  Second, I cannot understand the vapidity of thought which would imagine that self-government is somehow impossible for a state of 25 million people accompanied by plentiful natural resources.  As if the United States of America in its fullness (and current leftwardness) is the only possible way the collected peoples of the many states could ever be governed!!!

I could spend paragraphs patiently correcting the many foolish items of belief in the column, which was featured with a big graphic of Texas in The Huntsville Times.  But all I really need to do is provide a comparison.  There is one state which completely follows the liberal point of view in its policy prescriptions.  That state is California.  There is another state which goes the other way.  That state is Texas.  Guess which direction all the U-Hauls are running?  And guess which one can’t get out of debt and has cities poised to declare bankruptcy left and right?

Check it out, Ms. Rheta Grimsley Johnson.

The Happy Moments

I put my daughter Grace in bed and started pulling her socks off. She giggled and said, “You’re my servant.”

I went to school a long time to end up as the servant of a 7 year old girl. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

What Changes Occur with the Fiscal Cliff?

If I had a post, I would link it, but I found this extremely useful summary (prepared by CPA Kay Parker) in an email from HBU.  In honesty, I have to say that I think it might be good from a public policy standpoint for these changes to take effect.  I think we would experience significant deficit reduction and would broaden the tax base (which is pretty much always good if rates aren’t too high).  See below.

What is the “fiscal cliff”?

It is a combination of up to $600 billion of expiring tax cuts, new taxes and automatic spending cuts you can expect unless Congress acts to extend or revise.

Expiring Tax Cuts

The 2001 Bush-era tax cuts that were extended during the Obama Administration are set to sunset at the end of 2012.

• The current 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 percent tax rate structure will be replaced by 15, 28, 31, 36 and 39.6 percent.

• The current 15% tax rate (0% for those in the 10/15% tax brackets) for qualified long-term capital gains reverts to 20% (10% for those in the 15% tax bracket). Certain five-year property will be taxed at 18% (8% for those in the 15% tax bracket).

• Qualified dividends will again be taxed at ordinary tax rates, instead of at the more favorable capital gain rate.

• The personal exemption/itemized deduction phase outs for higher income taxpayers will return.

• The current estate and gift tax, set at a maximum rate of 35% with a $5.12 million exemption amount, will revert to 55% with a $1 million exemption amount.

There are a number of extenders set to expire at the end of this year. For example:

• Payroll tax holiday

• State and local sales tax deduction

• Marriage penalty relief

New Taxes

Certain taxpayers will see a 3.8% Medicare surtax on net investment income, and high-income wage earners will incur an additional 0.9% Medicare tax.

Spending Cuts

Automatic spending cuts agreed to as part of the debt ceiling deal of 2011 will begin to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

 

UPDATE:  I should add, though, that I think the estate tax is fundamentally wrong.  I do not support a higher rate there.  The money in an estate has all been taxed.  There is no need to tax it again.

Popular Entertainments and the Soul

I have become older and more tender. A short while ago, I tried to watch The Walking Dead after hearing many people praise it. I couldn’t handle the program. Too raw. Too much emotion.

I also had to give up on my viewing of Downfall. I managed most of it, but when Frau Goebbels started giving her children cyanide in the bunker, I was done.

This is a stark change from my younger years when I could watch practically anything and feel almost nothing except vicarious thrills at sex, violence, and tragedy.  My hope is that rather than becoming weak and sentimental, my soul is actually becoming stronger and more engaged.  The sensations that would register little when there are no fully developed nerves to feel them are now felt with alarming force.  

Lessons Learned from the 2012 Election

(Cross-posted at National Review Online)

Mitt Romney ran an excellent campaign. I congratulate him on investing in the hard work of leadership rather than living it up in some island paradise. He is an American hero. Regrettably, he was the wrong person to run in a year when the single greatest challenge Republicans could make rested on the repeal of Obamacare. Anti-Obamacare sentiment was enough to elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts. It might well have been enough to put the right Republican over the top nationwide. But Mitt Romney could not make a convincing case against Obama’s law when it so closely resembled his own work in Massachusetts. His federalism distinction was technically accurate, but it made little sense to the typical voter, who just saw an apple that looked like the apple everyone was yelling about.

We may also have learned something about Americans and religion. Romney underperformed McCain by 2 to 3 million votes. That is astonishing. President Obama’s support practically collapsed, as he brought in about 9 million fewer votes than in 2008. Had Romney been able to build on McCain’s overall base, he would probably have won the popular vote and possibly the White House. I can think of a couple of theories to explain Romney’s underperformance in total votes. One is that many conservatives refused to vote for a moderate Northeastern former governor who was the prime catalyst for a huge government health plan in his state. The second theory is less attractive. Many Republican voters may have refused to support a member of the LDS faith.

Third, it is clear Republicans must crack the code of appealing to minorities. They lost African-Americans, as usual. But the GOP also performed terribly with Hispanics and — to my surprise — with Asian-Americans. Somehow, Republicans have ended up on the wrong end of some kind of us v. them notion regarding race that is totally unjustified, but apparently has some currency of perception. This issue may have to become the top priority, because it is by far the best way to change the electoral math. I don’t have the answer here, but it is time for a Manhattan Project for Republicans on breaking down the racial barriers in a durable fashion.

Finally (and related to the third point), I have also concluded that George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” has been the recipient of too much vitriol. In this race, Mitt Romney did not have a rhetorical or programmatic shield to protect him from the usual charge of Republican unconcern for the plight of ordinary Americans (and minority Americans). George W. Bush’s campaign was able to argue effectively for the role of civil society in addressing the problems of those who fall behind. In Britain, David Cameron argued from similar premises with his Big Society (as opposed to Big Government) and became prime minister. Back in Bush’s first term, I can recall NPR liberals complaining about the compelling nature of the conservative social-science arguments on the ability of marriage and family to blunt social pathologies, increase economic mobility, and break cycles of poverty. I didn’t hear many of those arguments this time around. I think it is time to revisit them.

Machiavelli and Single Women

I recently participated in a postmortem type of forum on the election at my university.  As one of the other speakers talked about how masterfully the Obama campaign mobilized various constituencies, including single women, I experienced a flash of insight.  

Imagine that you are the Obama White House.  You know that you need to maximize your base to win the election.  Single women are solidly in your camp,  but they don’t vote.  How do you get them going?  Answer:  find a way to make contraception a presidential campaign issue when it never has been before.  (Remember how mystified Mitt Romney was when George Stephanopoulos raised the matter in one of the primary debates?)

 

The way to make contraception an issue is to pick a fight with the Catholic church.  You will only upset the Catholics who are seriously devout and they don’t vote for you anyway.  That is exactly what the administration did and VOILA!  It appears that single women bought into the idea of a war on women and the need to “vote with your ladyparts” as the Obama campaign famously suggested.

 

Somewhere, Machiavelli is peering through the mists of time thinking, “Wow, those guys are devious.”

 

The administration can have their win.  I just hope the courts undo the damage inflicted on religious liberty and the future of religious institutions in public life.