It is clear that those on the left say “no”. When I participated in Baptistlife.com the more “liberal” (read – left leaning) members often mocked the more “conservative (read – classical liberal) members saying “do you send back your Social Security check? your tax credit? your Medicare benefit? then how can you criticize a system from which you choose to benefit?”

It sounds like a good argument. But it isn’t. William Voegeli addresses some of the problems with this common “critics of the safety net depend on it” line in his article “Magic Accounting” at National Review Online.

An American who warns an elected official to keep the government’s hands off a social-insurance program doesn’t misunderstand our welfare state but has grasped its central argument exactly as it has been presented. Social insurance, we have been told (and told and told), is a mechanism through which we insure ourselves against financial vulnerabilities. The benefits are ours because we paid for them in advance.

Although as Voegeli points out, this isn’t entirely true – but it’s how these programs were sold to the American people. What troubles me more however is the cynicism – once again the goal is not to explain why these are good programs that should not be reformed but simply to silence those who would dare suggest reform.

The facts on the ground, as they have been arranged there and then interpreted by liberals, would place the welfare state in a politically unassailable position. First, make sure that every American stands to receive benefits from at least one and preferably several social-welfare programs. Second, stipulate that the only people with the moral standing to criticize the welfare state are those in line for no benefits whatsoever from it. These premises combine to reduce the ranks of opponents liberals deign to recognize to survivalists living off the grid.

Precisely. It is interesting how often arguments from the social-political left ultimately boil down to “shut up”.

Meanwhile George Will has something to say about the bipartisan consensus on federally subsidized college loans.

Taxpayers, most of whom are not college graduates (the unemployment rate for high school graduates with no college education: 7.9 percent), will pay $6 billion a year to make it slightly easier for some fortunate students to acquire college degrees (the unemployment rate for college graduates: 4 percent).

I hesitate to question George Will but some of his numbers don’t sound right. Nevertheless he makes good points about whether continuing to take from the less educated and give to the more educated is good policy.

I checked domain names and ichasesquirrels is available in just about every domain. Chasingsquirrels is available as .co or .net. For a blog I think .net is more appropriate. Why ChasingSquirrels rather than IChaseSquirrels? It seems many blog titles are more “third person” than “first person” constructions. Heck take “Opinionated Catholic” or “Targuman” as examples.

And yes I can and will explain I Chase Squirrels / Chasing Squirrels.

How about “I Chase Squirrels”?

And yes I can explain where that comes from.

"Finish her!"

Something interesting happened at The Chronicle of Higher Education this week. Naomi Schaefer Riley posted something that upset enough people who protested strongly enough that she was fired.

Schaefer Riley commented on an article in The Chronicle about black studies departments that focused on a group of graduate students and their dissertations. In a nutshell Schaefer Riley thought the dissertations  ”a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap” and questioned the academic legitimacy(?) of black studies programs.

Ah the outrage. At first the editor of The Chronicle defended the piece by Schaefer Riley – its existence not its content – as an opportunity for debate. Several thousand academics signed a petition demanding Schaefer Riley be fired. The editor changed her tune and gave in to the mob. The four main charges were (1) her article was racist (2) she had not read – in their entirety – the dissertations in question (3) she does not have a PhD (4) how dare she pick on scholars too young to defend themselves.

To be frank – and I say this with all due respect – Schaefer Riley blew it. I do not know enough about the field to evaluate her points. But to me it seems she was trying to draw too much of a conclusion based on not enough evidence. Charges #3 and #4 have some merit. She does a great job reporting on higher education but until you’ve been through a doctoral program and had to produce a dissertation – let someone else take that on. But it is even more clear to me that the reaction was completely out of proportion to the perceived offense. I had to misfortune to read the response from three of the Northwestern graduate students whose dissertations were mentioned by Schaefer Riley. It is not a reasoned defense or dispassionate rebuttal. It is a vicious attack full of grotesque misrepresentations that only manages to leave the reader wondering if Schaefer Riley was right despite the flaws in her article.

The response plus many of the comments left by readers plus the capitulation by the editor of The Chronicle all illustrate that with regard to public discourse in this nation we are in a very bad place. Many of them boil down to “shut up white girl!”

• One can read the article by Schaefer Riley here.
• Here is the unfortunate response by the Northwestern graduate students.
• Here is the article explaining the decision to fire Schaefer Riley.
• Here is Schaefer Riley’s response to her critics.

Obviously there have been some reactions to all this in the blogosphere. Some are better than others.

• I especially appreciate what Nick Gillespie of Reason has to say.
• Wall Street Journal has an editorial plus commentary by James Taranto and now an opinion piece by Schaefer Riley.
• And finally – in order to demonstrate the hypocritical insincerity of those who were so distressed by Schaefer Riley’s article – some trenchant comments by Within the Black Community in “Black Progressive-Fundamentalist Academia – The Feeder System For The Black Racial Services Machine”. The title says it all.

H/T Legal Insurrection and Instapundit.

I also commend “America and the Value of ‘Earned Success’” by Arthur Brooks at Wall Street Journal Online.

Learned helplessness was what my wife and I observed then, and still do today, in social-democratic Spain. The recession, rigid labor markets, and excessive welfare spending have pushed unemployment to 24.4%, with youth joblessness over 50%. Nearly half of adults under 35 live with their parents. Unable to earn their success, Spaniards fight to keep unearned government benefits.

Meanwhile, their collective happiness—already relatively low—has withered. According to the nonprofit World Values Survey, 20% of Spaniards said they were “very happy” about their lives in 1981. This fell to 14% by 2007, even before the economic downturn.

That trajectory should be a cautionary tale to Americans who are watching the U.S. government careen toward a system that is every bit as socially democratic as Spain’s.

Government spending as a percentage of GDP in America is about 36%—roughly the same as in Spain. The Congressional Budget Office tells us it will reach 50% by 2038. The Tax Foundation reports that almost 70% of Americans take more out of the tax system than they pay into it. Meanwhile, politicians foment social division on the basis of income inequality, instead of attempting to improve mobility and opportunity through education reform, pro-growth policies, and an entrepreneur-friendly economy.

There may or may not be a connection between his description of “learned helplessness” and the first item in this post.

H/T Greg Mankiw

Juxtapose some of Rajan’s comments about excessive(?) CEO compensation with a dose of reality again H/T Greg Mankiw:

I am torn between my support for free market economics – let people make what they can, earn what they can, keep as much as they can – with what I think is an appropriate concern about whether CEOs and other executives should be making so many more times what an average worker in their business makes. But when did that spike occur? Who was president? When did that spike drop? Who was president?

And when did CEO compensation start increasing again? Who was president?

Do not tell me Democrats “care” about the poor and middle class and that Republicans only “care” about the rich. That is a self-serving lie. Which granted many might sincerely believe. But match rhetoric and sentiment with actions and reality.

James Taranto in his latest piece at the Wall Street Journal again confirms that is becoming increasingly clear. That a significant factor motivating people to take certain social-political stands is the need to feel superior to others. I think the argument can be made this factor is more predominant on the social-political left. But to be frank “conservatives” are just as capable of falling prey to this mindset.

Taranto takes on a recent article at the New York Times by Sabrina Tavernise about how “race is still a factor four years later” in the presidential election. When I first read the piece I thought “oh for crying out loud another lame ‘anyone who disagrees with President Obama is racist’ piece”. And maybe it is. But if one reads it carefully it is more complicated than that. In any case Taranto compares the New York Times article to the current kerfuffle surrounding Elizabeth Warren and her status as a “minority” because she is – maybe? probably? certainly? – 1/32 Cherokee Native American.

That’s what affirmative action actually affirms: the goodness of the “good people”–the kind of people who read a story like Tavernise’s and pat themselves on the back for being more enlightened than those bigoted whites from Appalachia. White guilt these days is primarily directed outward. It is a means by which privileged whites assert their superiority over unprivileged ones.

I am on record as being open to some forms of “affirmative action”. That if I have two candidates and one of them comes from a disadvantaged background then the disadvantaged background should count as an extra qualification. Where it gets messy is how exactly do we define “disadvantaged background”? and whether hiring the less qualified candidate counts as a form on unlawful discrimination. It might.

But getting back to the point – that “white guilt is a means by which privileged whites assert their superiority”. Human beings need a sense of value and worth. And where do they go and what do they do to find this? Some choose the path of “I thank thee Lord that I am not like that {redneck Southern home-schooled racist Hee-Haw utopian over there}”. The best path is very simple. “Lord have mercy on me”. But don’t feel good about it.

Regional bigotry.

I am a proud child of Massachusetts. Spent most of my life in the northeast. Grew up in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut – as well as Great Britain. Perhaps because of my background I have become increasingly aware of what I call regional bigotry. Which is the curious habit of (a) northerners especially (a2) northeasterners even more especially (a3) urban northeasterners to look down upon (b) southern states. There is a related and similar pattern of (c) southerners who live in urban settings to look down upon (d) other southerners who do not.

I find it quite offensive and have little patience for it.

Came across some great examples of it when following a link to an article about “Best/Worst States for Business”. According to this article which states are the best for business? Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Utah, and Arizona.

Notice a pattern? Most of them – most which is itself significant – are in the south/southeast.

Which states are worst for business? Hawaii, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, California.

Notice a pattern? Most of them – most – are in the north.

Obviously both ends of the political spectrum – which is nonsense because the spectrum has two if not three axes but you get the idea – try to use this list to make political points. The most obvious being states that have lower taxes, are “right to work”, and have lower costs of government (which includes the cost of state workers and their retirement benefits) are doing better right now economically. And “blue” states with high taxes, more regulation, and more expensive state governments (including high state retirement debt) are losing people and businesses.

A couple people try to offer what appear to be somewhat intelligent rejoinders. The primary one being that sure these ten states attract businesses, but these are lower wage jobs with less benefits because these states have less skilled and less educated citizens. Whether that is true is debatable. At the very least it seems to concede the larger point that states with lower taxes that don’t force people to join unions and pay union dues are doing better economically. You can complain about what kind of jobs with what kinds of benefits for what kinds of people all you like. But the fact remains that about half of all jobs created in the United States during the last few years have been not in California or New York but in Texas.

Now why is that?

Walter Russell Mead has written several essays over the past year examining the collapse of the “blue” social model. Even Rhode Island is beginning to acknowledge reality. The “blue” social model is simply not sustainable. What cannot continue forever won’t. It’s all very well for critics of the “Best/Worst States for Business” list to complain about which approach is best. But theory has a bad habit of losing to reality. It sure would be nice for everyone to have PhDs, super high paying jobs, with complete health care coverage, and retire after 20-30 years in the state government with pensions that each year are worth more than what I have had to save on my own so far.

Oh yes – regional bigotry.

We can debate those who appear to offer cogent arguments. Why – or rather whether – “red” states tend to receive and use more federal funds than “blue” states. But what is more revealing is those who articulate sneering condescension toward states that are “best” for business. Some examples:

“The top 10 is not surprising – States where it’s easy to exploit workers and avoid paying taxes to schools and healthcare. Eight of the ten are former slave states; ironic.”

Got that?

“What’s odd is that the jobs are mostly minimum-wage, lacking benefits and focused on illegal aliens. Where should these people go for healthcare if their employers won’t provide it? And should their children become home-schooled evangelical zombies? Your Hee-Haw utopia frightens me.”

So much regional bigotry in one comment.

So if a state is doing well economically, seeing job growth, people and businesses moving here – it’s because most jobs are minimum-wage, with no benefits, given to illegal aliens {wth?!? I thought “illegal aliens” was now a verboten expression} no healthcare, the people are less skilled, less educated, home-schooled, evangelical zombies, living in a Hee-Haw utopia?

Glad you feel so good about yourself up there in wherever – California, Illinois, New York? How’s business by the way? Too bad arrogant pride doesn’t pay the bills or balance the budget.

Such comments – “yeah but you inbred redneck morons in your filthy backwards southern former slave state” – are revealing. I am convinced that a lot of “red-blue, liberal-conservative, Republican-Democrat” discussions are really about the desperate need to feel good about oneself. How? By establishing your superiority over others. We care! We are better educated! We aren’t a former slave state! {Given how difficult it is to change history one wonders what a former slave state is supposed to do about that and whether it makes the slightest bit of difference in the present.} We are better people!

“We are better than you.”

I am convinced that attitude is what drives more than half of all social-political debates and decision making. The need to believe “I am good!” by proving we are better than others. And I rather doubt that only the social-political left suffers from this.

I have avoided saying anything about the so-called Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman case. Because quite frankly we shouldn’t be talking about it. At least not the way the American mass media have done. And do they not continue to demonstrate what their agenda really is? Do they not continue to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are willing to crush truth and spread lies in order to advance this agenda?

There have been a slew of violent assaults against people simply because of the color of their skin. Which normally we describe as “racism” right? John Hinderaker at Powerline reminds us of this in his trenchant post “If You Don’t Look Like Obama’s Son, No One Cares”. Hinderaker also quotes Jim Treacher who puts down the humor for a moment to call out the demagogues:

Hey, that’s what he {Mathew Owens in Alabama} gets for having a similar skin color to someone we’ve all been instructed to hate.

Well done, Spike Lee. Nice job, NBC. Keep up the good work, ABC. And to everyone else who’s been using a shooting in Florida to foment hate and divide people by the color of their skin, kudos. Don’t let this attack, and similar attacks across America, bother you. If you had a conscience, we never would’ve heard of you in the first place.

Lest we forget this is part of a much larger pattern. Not to mention it lets us ignore the suffering of too many Americans who live in some of our cities.

One can drown in the sea of deceit and despair that seems to be the new normal. Which is why this video is so refreshing. I had until now found Mitt Romney uninspiring. Boy has he gotten his act together lately.

But I should at least list some of the interesting posts/articles I read each day.

Of course nearly everything by James Taranto at Wall Street Journal is worth reading including today’s “We Can’t Wait”. Which includes this reminder of why the left’s rhetoric and pseudo-reasoning are often self-contradictory:

Which is another reason “We can’t wait” is a dumb slogan. It reinforces what may be Obama’s worst quality: his impatience with America and with its constitutional system of checks and balances. Again, hard-core lefties share the urgency for, as Obama put it in 2008, “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” But if that constituency were big enough to win him re-election, we’d have been fundamentally transformed ages ago.

Remember. If you say “it’s all their fault” when they are in power and “it’s still all their fault” when you are in power – what you are basically saying is that no matter who is in charge you can’t make a difference.

I’m exhausted and that’s all I have for now.

News item = Baton Rouge and Baker pass the CATS (Capital Area Transit System) tax.

Baton Rouge has a public bus system. It is not very good – according to many who use it or try to. One of the main complaints is that it is not very convenient or reliable. You can waste a lot of time waiting for the bus to arrive to take you there. And then again to take you back. Because there are not enough buses or routes and those routes are not always very convenient and the buses do not always arrive when you expect.

I have lived here for 13 years and I have no idea how to use a bus to get somewhere.

I have parishioners who do not have cars. This is so for different reasons. Visiting scholars who are here for less than 6 months cannot get a driver’s license. Many students and scholars don’t make enough to afford a car. Some of my parishioners are basically refugee families with a single adult trying to support several people on a minimum wage job. If you want to take a bus to get to the Mall of Louisiana or your job at the hospital you almost have to add an hour before and after.

So CATS asked for more money to improve the system. I admit not being keen on having to cough up another $120 per year just to improve the public bus system. I haven’t had a pay increase in a few years and like nearly all Americans my expenses go up every year. The anti-CATS tax crowd in Baton Rouge had some legitimate concerns. Is it worth it? And we can continue to ask good questions about whether the money is being spent and managed effectively. Just because public expense is for a “good cause” doesn’t mean we have to support it uncritically right? And governments have a bad habit of spending other people’s money very badly.

(I have been trying to get certain members of my family to drop certain unnamed $10/expenses to save money. This is like adding another Netflix like service or data plan to our annual budget. Argh.)

I am a classical liberal – as opposed to a modern statist liberal – and believe in maximum liberty which usually means minimum government. However I make an exception for public transportation. The reason is very simple. Do we want people to be dependent on the government? or work and support themselves and their families? Surely the latter. Okay. But what if a family in very poor circumstances can’t afford a reliable car? How can they get and keep that job so they can support themselves? I have seen people – members of this church – who have gone from “barely making it” to “not making it” (once even homeless – although that situation was a little more complicated) because of car issues. One major repair bill and it’s adios mi auto! Even “conservatives” that is classical liberals should be supportive – not uncritically – of robust public transportation systems.

Good public transportation can improve quality of life in a city for everyone – not just the lower socio-economic class. The family in which I grew up was upper-middle class – and yet when we lived in England we jolly well used the trains all the time.

So as much as I’d rather not see another annual expense added to the family budget – and to cover a single item – overall I am glad for CATS.