A Culture of Failure

Four young men in Chicago were charged with first degree murder in the beating and killing another teenager after a dispute last week. The foursome, Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, Eric Carson, 16, and Eugene Bailey, 18, along with as many as three other suspects, used splintered railroad ties to beat the victim over his head then kicked and punched him when he tried to get back up. At least part of the beating was captured on a cell phone video clip.

Derrion Albert was a sophomore honors student at Christian Fenger Academy High School. His death is the one of dozens of school-aged killings in the past three years in Chicago and the surrounding neighborhoods. Despite a handgun ban inside the city limits and the comparative difficulty in obtaining firearms in Illinois, most of the killings have been shootings within blocks of the school grounds.

At this point it becomes clear that the problem isn’t the guns themselves. This young man was beaten to death, not shot. Seven other teens whose anger and lack of compassion for other living souls was so great that they literally pummeled the life out of him didn’t need guns. They used wooden boards and their own fists.

At least one parent has got it right:

At a Monday vigil at the school, some community members said the solution lies with parents.

“It is our problem. We have to take control of our children,” said Dawn Allen, who attended the vigil where a group of residents tried to force their way into the school before being turned back by police.

The problem does lie with the parents. Too often we blame the instruments of violence and not the violent actors themselves. Instead of holding them accountable for their actions, parents who make excuses for their misbehaving progeny enable those children to grow into bullies and later into criminals. That the age for severe criminal activity seems to be getting younger with each passing year is all the more disturbing.

Filed under: crime, education, beating, chicago, Christian Fenger Academy, Derrion Albert, Eric Carson, Eugene Bailey, Eugene Riley, murder, Silvonus Shannon

No Excuse

Roman Polanksi, director of Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown was arrested in Zurich over the weekend. Polanksi escaped police custody following a psychiatric evaluation in 1977 after pleading guilty to drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13 year old girl. The actual charge was “unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.”

The international community is aghast:

The Swiss media has rounded on the authorities.

“Switzerland let a guest walk into a nasty trap. We should be ashamed,” said tabloid newspaper, Blick.

Daily paper Le Temps said Switzerland had “shocked film buffs and friends of the arts with its kindly and efficient co-operation with US justice. It has angered Poland and France”.

Other responses have been anger over the age of the crime, 32 years ago. Some say that Polanski has suffered enough, due to the loss of his mother at the Auschwitz concentration camp and the death of his wife, Sharon Tate, at the hands of the Manson family. Others claim he is only the subject of interest because of his fame; any other child rapist would simply be forgotten by now.

These “people” making excuses for Polanski make me sick.

Filed under: crime, entertainment, arrest, france, Roman Polanski, Samantha Geimer, switzerland, zurich

A Word on Praise

Let’s take a trip in the way-back machine.

It’s 1981.  Ronald Wilson Reagan is President. The Conservative Revolution has just begun. Millions of Americans have awakened to the idea that government is not the solution to their problems, but rather government is the problem.

Teachers, in an effort to spread this message, have their kids chant a poem:

Mmm, mmm, mmm
Ronald Wilson Reagan
He said we all must lend a hand
To make this Country strong again

Filed under: education, Government, politics, Government, indoctrination, obama, praise, ronald wilson reagan, schools

On the Wrong Side

The United Nations, the United States, the European Union and the Organization of American States have all  denounced the ousting of Manuel Zelaya as President of Honduras three months ago.  Zelaya has asked his supporters to descend upon the nation’s capital of Tegucigalpa in protest.  This would be all well-and-good, except for one important detail:

It wasn’t a coup.

A little background:

Zelaya was the elected President of Honduras.  Per the Constitution, he is limited to one term.

Zelaya attempted to have the Constitution amended so that he could serve another term.  The nation’s legislature refused.

Zelaya called for a non-binding referendum on a constitutional amendment.  The legislature refused.

Undeterred, Zelaya had ballots printed in Venezuela, shipped to Honduras, and ordered the military to hold the referendum.  The military refused.  A court battle between Zelaya and his own Attorney General ensued and Honduras’ Supreme Court ordered the referrendum stopped.

Still undeterred, Zelaya had his followers go to the mliitary base to take the ballots and distribute them.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting: Honduras’ Constitution specifically states that anyone who even suggests that a President should serve more than one term is guilty of treason.

Filed under: Government, liberty, politics, constitution, coup, EU, honduras, OAS, obama, UN, zelaya

Unathorized Indoctrination

You knew I was going to comment on this eventually, didn’t you?

I am not one of those people who thinks that everything a teacher does needs the approval of parents before doing it. I think in many respects, parents are too involved with preventing teachers from doing their jobs and need to step back. This is especially the case with discipline, where too many parents keep teachers and administrators from properly punishing students.

Lots of teachers are great people whose only interest is inspiring young minds and encouraging them to reach for the stars, and I consider myself fortunate that the vast majority of mine growing up were just that. Most are little more than glorified babysitters, and I had several of these.

A few prove themselves to be true misanthropes:

Filed under: education, Government, politics, chant, cheer, Government, indoctrination, obama, public schools

Take the Hit

Author’s note: I use an extended metaphor relating politics to football throughout this post.

I’m not alone when I say that I love sports.  Whether it’s watching the Atlanta Braves or the Kansas City Royals, the Georgia Bulldogs or the Washington Redskins, the Detroit Redwings or the Philadelphia Flyers, I enjoy watching and sometimes playing sports, as do most Americans and people throughout the world.

Most sports are physical, where some form of contact between players is either a happenstance of the game or designed into the sport itself.  Take a look at football, where linemen push each other around attempting to either protect or sack the quarterback, and where tackling the ball carrier is a requirement.  In hockey hard hits, checking and the occasional shove are common.  Baseball sometimes requires a base runner to plow over a catcher.  In most sports, there is some manner of either striking, moving or standing in the path of another player.

The other day, I wrote about Barack Obama’s being upset with George Stephanopoulos’ use of a dictionary during an interview to define the word “tax.”  Since then, the analogy between politics and sports has been impossible for me to ignore.

Probably the most important position in football is Quarterback.  I’m a defense-minded fan and like to argue that linebackers make or break a team, but the reality is that without a quarterback to lead and to hand-off, toss, pass and occasionally even run the ball, the team cannot score points to win.  In the analogy between football and politics, the Democrats are currently on offense, that is, they are trying to push their agenda.  On the other hand the Republicans are on defense trying to stop the Democrats from “scoring,” or passing legislation.  Barack Obama is the quarterback, while Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and other Democrats are other offensive players. 

Filed under: Government, health care, media, politics, analogy, cap and trade, democrats, football, health care, metaphor, obama, politics, republicans, sports

The Real Cost of Agricultural Subsidies

By Matthew W. Quinn

Imagine you’re a cotton farmer in West Africa.  One day, the man who comes to buy your cotton to be exported does not show up.  You go to the marketplace and find there is nobody willing to buy your cotton.  In fact, there is cheaper cotton available from abroad.

You now cannot sell your crop, or at least you cannot sell it for very much.  You need to buy food and fertilizer, and your children need medicine and money to pay for schooling.  You’re in trouble now.

Are these the workings of the free market?  No.  The reason the foreign cotton was able to price the West African cotton out of the market is because it came from the United States and was heavily subsidized.

Cotton subsidies are one of the most notorious examples of government agricultural supports and it gives American cotton producers an unfair advantage over more efficient producers abroad. For example, in Burkina Faso, it costs one-third as much to produce cotton as it does in the United States.  According to the British aid agency Oxfam, the only clear advantage American cotton growers have over competitors in Africa is their ability to get government subsidies.

Filed under: economics, personal health, poverty, taxes, agriculture, Burkina Faso, conservative, corn, cotton, economics, farm, free trade, globalization, health, illegal immigration, Iowa, libertarian, Mexico, NAFTA, poverty, republican, responsibility, subsidies, taxes, Third World, united states

The Hidden Effects of the Public Option

Author’s note: For the purposes of this discussion, the term “health insurance” will refer to all health care plans.  True health insurance is nearly impossible to find.  Most people actually have “health maintenance.”  For expediency, the term “health insurance” will cover all health care plans.

One of the most important aspects of economics is the concept of incentive:  Give people an incentive to do something, and by and large they will do it.  Give them an incentive to not do something, and generally people will not do that thing.  This concept has ruled the interaction of creatures since the first multi-celled organisms began eating each other to survive:  The organisms that developed the sense to get away from the carnivore creatures survived, and the rest were consumed.  Incentives can be both positive and negative:  Positive incentives encourage us to do something.  The sweetness of an apple encourages us to eat it, while the oily, three-leafed appearance of some plants tells us to stay away!

This concept of incentive drives us in our everyday lives:  We avoid committing crimes for fear of punishment and work jobs for the incentive of salaries so that we can obtain the necessities and comforts of life.  We wait to shop until products are on sale or rebates are being offered.  Incentives drive the actions of individuals and, in aggregate, entire societies.

This concept of incentive is one of the important factors to consider when examining the health care “reform” proposals.  One of the most talked-about but least understood parts of these proposals is the requirement of employers to offer health insurance to their employees, or to pay a penalty to help fund the government-offered “public option” plan.  Let us examine the effect of this one aspect of the current health “reform” proposals.

Filed under: economics, health care, insurance, socialism, taxes, economics, incentive, insurance, penalty, public option

Clunked Out

Car dealers are facing the boomerage effect of the so-called Cash for Clunkers program.  Dealers are reporting showrooms empty of customers.  Chrysler/Fiat is reporting sales are down 19%.  Toyota is planning a $1 billion marketing campaign and adjustments in dealer pricing to try to lure more people back to stores and help dealers close deals.

Despite hugely improved sales in July and August, September sales are set to be among the lowest in 28 years, tying an industry record low on statistics kept since 1976.

The problem is exactly what so many predicted would happen:  Hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise have waited and bought new cars over the next several months instead bought them in July and August, cashing in on the government-sponsored incentive.  Now that those incentives are gone, there are fewer consumers looking to buy cars.  Instead of a natural progression of steady but low sales, the market experienced a brisk rise in sales and will now face lower sales over the coming months.

Filed under: economics, Government, wealth, CARS, cash for clunkers, congress, wealth redistribution

Science? What Science?

Professor Mojib Latif of the Liebniz Institute is a leading climate researcher. He is one of the major authors of the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Five Year Reports that declared global warming to be definitely caused by man and that this is a serious threat to the planet.

Last week, Latif changed his tune:

Latif is one of the leading climate modellers in the world. He is the recipient of several international climate-study prizes and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has contributed significantly to the IPCC’s last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing the planet to warm dangerously.

Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN’s World Climate Conference–an annual gathering of the so-called “scientific consensus” on man-made climate change –Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering “one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.”

This is major news, but no one is reporting it. So far, the vast majority of articles are from outside the U.S.

Filed under: environment, Government, politics, wealth, agw, climate change, environment, science